Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 14: Scooby Gang From Ikea

My God, it’s a miracle: we’re actually releasing a new podcast on our regularly-scheduled Sunday! Sure, we had to tape it on Saturday to get it done, and during a time when we were forced by circumstance to remain sober while we did it, but what the hell; it’s a small price to pay for being able to rant about comics and pop culture on a predictable schedule.

In this week’s episode, we discuss:

• Television! Particularly, the announcements this week that Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was renewed (and whether or not that is a good thing), and the announcements that various networks have picked up season orders of Agent Carter, Gotham, iZombie, Constantine, and Flash, and which shows we think might be good or horrible, depending on their direction
• Moon Knight #3, written by Warren Ellis with art by Declan Shalvey
• Miles Morales, The Ultimate Spider-Man #1, written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by David Marquez, and
• Why you should never allow a kitten into a recording studio when you are, you know, recording.

And, a few notes (and please let us know in the comments if we mentioned something obscure and forgot to include it here):

• The “Maurissa” whose name we were trying to remember was Maurissa Tancharoen, one of the showrunners for Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
• When we talk about Beacon Hill and Dorchester, you might not know that Beacon Hill is a Boston neighborhood populated almost exclusively by people who use the word “summer” as a verb, and Dorchester is a place where you go to witness or participate in a knife fight (it is the home neighborhood of Mark Wahlberg, so you know almost nothing good has come from there)

Finally, the nitty gritty pseudo-legalese:

• This show may contains spoilers, and it may spoil something with no warning whatsoever (although we make an effort to chuck a “spoiler alert!” in now and again)
• This show was recorded live to tape and is unedited, so there may be more “ums”, pregnant pauses, and vile, ill-advised humor than you are used to from your everyday comics / pop culture podcast
• This show includes the use of explicit and profane language, and is most decidedly not safe for work. Unless you have the kind of job that requires you to know what a “Tunguska Reacharound” is, in which case, listen away and feel free to tell your pimp that we think you deserve a larger cut of the take.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:08:18 — 62.6MB)

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Enjoy the show, suckers!

I Am Akira: Akira Project Releases Live Action Trailer

I went to my first comic book convention in 1990, when I was 19 years old. It in no way resembled the comic book conventions I currently attend; it was in a small function room on the second floor of a hotel in Boston’s Chinatown, and was packed with nothing but dealers from local comic stores, with big plywood backboards of rare and old comics that my college student ass wouldn’t be able to afford until he hit 40 years old (and by then, inflation would mean that I still wouldn’t be able to afford them).

There was one exception: there was, as there is at every comic convention in the free world, a table covered in bootleg videos. At the time they were all on hand-Sharpied VHS cassettes, but they had some cool shit. Like Die Hard 2, a couple of days before the movie even opened in theaters (the purchase of which got me so much high school girl tail that summer)…

And Akira, which at the time, I’d never heard of. It wasn’t released in my southeastern Massachusetts town, and it wasn’t really available on commercial video cassette at the time. The dude running the bootleg table was showing the movie on a TV in the background, and I’d never seen animation like that before.

I wound up buying the flick purely based on what I saw on that 19-inch TV screen, and fell in love with the movie. I am not what you’d call a big anime fan, but I have the original DVD special edition of Akira that came out in the early 2000s, in the aluminum clamshell case. I have the MacFarlane Toys Kaneda action figure and his motorcycle displayed on my living room book shelf. I have all six volumes of the Dark Horse Comics English reprint of the original manga (and a bunch of issues of the Epic Comics color reprint of the same series from the late 80s). And I have a print of the original movie poster framed and hanging in the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Studio.

These are all reasons why I, like many people, have been ambivalent at best and angry at worst about the repeating reports that studios are working on a live action adaptation of Akira. Particularly when those rumors included the casting of Keanu Reeves. Why? I will allow you to insert your own “Tetsu – whoa!” joke here, because I am a classy man.

When that version of the movie went down, no tears were shed here, and we hoped that no one would take on the task of a live action Akira movie again. However, while the studio project has been in turnaround, some people running something called The Akira Project raised some crowdfunding cash to put together a live action Akira trailer. Which they have completed. And for which I had no hope.

Until I saw it. And. Holy. Shit.

Your Mother

Our content management system is advising us that we are well behind on regular site maintenance, and it is doing it at a hell of a time: Mothers’ Day is this Sunday, which, despite the number of people who call us “motherless pig dogs,” still requires us to pay tribute to the women who, had they the ability to see 43 years into their future in 1971, probably still wouldn’t have aborted us. Probably.

This means that, if we are going to record a new podcast episode tomorrow, we need to perform these maintenance actions and upgrades tonight and tomorrow morning, so we have time and a stable platform upon which to record, and to give us time to stuff our mothers full of enough steak to forget that they wanted to talk about our siblings and their wills.

So please bear with us while we perform regular maintenance. We will return to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

Love’s Labour Lost: No Badge Resale For San Diego Comic-Con 2014

We’ve written more than once about the Herculean, if not Sisyphean, effort it takes to attend San Diego Comic-Con these days. The Hercules metaphor is probably more accurate, since between pre-registration, registration, hotel registration and assorted travel and vacation time booking, the steps you need to complete to make it to the show approach Twelve Labours. However, for many people the Sisyphus analogy is more apropos, because when it comes to Comic-Con, if you make a single misstep, the rock will roll right back down over you.

With that said, there has always been one final chance for all comers to attend Comic-Con: the final badge resale. For the past few years, what has happened is that, once the first cancellation deadline for hotel rooms passed (which happened on April 30th this year) and the convention badge refund date has gone by, the nice folks who run the convention sell the returned badges to desperate people who haven’t been able to navigate the process fully successfully.

So that’s nice, isn’t it? No matter what happens leading up to the final date, everyone gets one last bite at the apple to attend the biggest pop culture convention of the year. So that final badge resale should be happening any day now, right?

Yeah, not this year.

Wounded In Action

I fully intended to review the first issue of Original Sin by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato today – a story about one of the most cosmic of Marvel’s characters being killed by being shot in the face like a common corner dope dealer, drawn by an artist known for going almost photorealistic, is too absurd to not be at least kinda fun – but once again, it was one of those days.

The day started before six a.m., when I was gently roused from sleep by Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office Mascot Parker The Kitten (see above left), who said, “good morning!’ by slapping me awake with paws that really need to have their claws trimmed.

From there, I embarked on a frantic early morning cleanup to clear the decks for the house cleaning service – it sounds counter-intuitive, but if you don’t pick up, the maids will clean around the empty beer bottles, which would mean that we would have paid a hundred clams for a stranger to scrub a single square inch near the coffee table.

Then there was a good hour trying to distract the cat from the maids’ vacuum cleaner by gently massaging the tips of his claws with my hands, wrists and face. Then off to the day job, where I tried to convince a SQL database that I was its master by attacking it with my hands, wrist and face. Then, since my co-Editor Amanda is working late again, it was home to amuse the cat in a surprisingly familiar fashion (I’m in constant, terrible pain!) and by that time, well, things had gone sideways on me.

But there was a brief window in there where there was a trip to the local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to stop accosting the paying clientele with woeful tales of pussies and gashes, And that means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

And this was one of those weeks at the comic store where it looks like it’s gonna be a light week when you look at your pulls, but once you do a lap of the shelves, you discover you’ve grabbed about five pounds of comics. We’ve got Original Sin #1, Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man #1 (marking the fourth reboot of that title since 2000, and the second since this Web site started in 2011), a new issue of Miracleman (now polybagged due to adult content, marking a depressing step backwards since the book was originally published by Eclipse in the 80s), a new Moon Knight written by Warren Ellis, and a bunch of other cool stuff!

But you know how it is: before we can talk about any of them, we need time to disinfect these damn wounds, and then we need time to read them. So until that time…

…see you tomorr-OW! Dammit, Parker!

Ill Communication: DC Comics Looking For Readers To Take Survey

So didja ever wish you could make your opinions about what’s happening at a major comic book publisher known without having to go to the onerous lengths of writing a strongly worded letter, tazing Dan DiDio at a comic convention, or starting and maintaining a comics Web site for nearly three years?

Well, here’s your chance. DC Comics is asking readers to complete a survey (the first one we’ve heard about since just after the New 52 reboot in 2011) addressing, among other things, whether they like to read stories about smart heroes versus superpowered heroes, well-known characters versus more obscure characters, and who your favorite superhero is.

Of course, they will also ask you whether you like to buy reproductions of superhero costumes, and if you like buying ancillary merchandise related to particular superheroes. So clearly the comics aren’t the only research priority for this survey.

But with that said, I am going to recommend that you complete it anyway. Because if you do, you will be eligible for some freebies and discounts, including a free comics digital download, a digital skin for the Infinite Crisis video game, or most enticing (if you are the type to be interested in the superhero merchandise questions of the survey): a 10% off coupon code for purchases at the DC Entertainment shopping site that’s good until the end of the year.

Further, if we do this survey right, we will soon be able to buy an official Wild Dog replica jock strap. Which will mean that I will have won an under bet that I placed in my high school lunch room in 1988.

So help DC, help comics, help yourself… and help me make Paul from Drama Club have to wear a dress at Boston’s First Night New Year’s Eve festival while shouting, “I am the night! I am upside down! I am suppurating with herpes! I am… Bat Wang!”

Take the survey. Make your – and Paul’s – voice heard.

Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 13: The Fist Of Rhino

Yes, we know, it’s been a couple of weeks since our last podcast, but we have a good excuse: we were drunk we were busy catching up on the latest in pop culture and comics after a weekend pretending we were still young reintroducing ourselves to classic video games!

So we are tan, rested and ready to talk about the biggest comics and geek events of the past week! Including:

• A discussion of a weekend spent playing video games at the American Classic Arcade Museum at the Funspot Arcade in Laconia, NH
• A talk about the highs (Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man) and lows (Jamie Foxx as Electro) of The Amazing Spider-Man 2
• A dissection of the upcoming death of Wolverine, why it feels empty and corporate, why most recent comic book death stories feel the same, and a few comic book death stories that break that mold (and why)
• A review of Jason Aaron’s and Jason Latour’s Southern Bastards, how it feels like a modern High Noon, and how it plays into (and stymies) views of the South from a couple of inveterate yankees
• Quick discussion of DC’s Futures End Free Comic Book Day release, and Batman: Eternal #4

And, as usual, here are the disclaimers:

• This episode was recorded live to tape, which means that there may be more dead air, ill-advised language, and “ummmms” than you are used to in your standard comics / pop culture podcast
• This show uses explicit and profane language, and is not safe for work. If you have the choice between listening to this show on speakers and being reprimanded for faking a disability for wearing an earplug to listen to this show? Take the write-up. Sure, your hearing-impaired co-workers will give you the stinkeye tomorrow, but at least you’ll still be employed to see it.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:12:48 — 66.7MB)

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Enjoy the show, suckers!

Nothing From Nothing Means…: Star Wars Day Video From J. J. Abrams And Lawence Kasdan, And Star Wars: Rebels Trailers

So it is Star Wars Day because of a vagary of pronunciation (if Ben Kenobi had talked about the august of heaven, we’d be doing parking lot lightsaber duels in much more humid temperatures), which is something that would generally mean less than nothing beyond an excuse to fire up the Blu-Rays of the original trilogy while drinking White Russians with blue food coloring dripped into them.

But this is the first Star Wars Day in a decade where there’s a Star Wars movie actually in production, which means that today of all days, there is an expectation that we will hear something from the people producing that movie about the movie in question. And, true to expectations, a video was posted to YouTube by Star Wars: Episode VII director J. J. Abrams and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan. And thanks to that video, we have learned something important!

That thing being that Abrams and Kasdan are aware of Star Wars Day, and that they understand that they should acknowledge it to the fans, left they face shock and damage!

Hey, Kids! Comics! Witnessing Free Comic Book Day

Despite being inveterate comic books geeks here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives, I don’t think we’ve ever actually gone to a comic book store on Free Comic Book Day. We missed the first one, on May 4, 2002, because we had spent the night before driving around Boston looking for a theater that was showing Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man movie that wasn’t sold out before finally catching a late show in Cambridge and then closing out our local bar, drinking and babbling excitedly at how Raimi really captured the visual style of the character. The only way were were gonna make it to a comic store the day after that would be if they were also selling the chick drinks I would have needed to stop the screeching pain in my head without making me throw up.

Besides, there wasn’t a hell of a lot on that first Free Comic Book Day to bring me into the store. There was a reprint of Ultimate Spider-Man #1, a reprint of an issue of Greg Rucka’s Queen And Country, a copy of Justice League Adventures and a couple of other books… but I already had most of those comics. Let’s face reality: Free Comic Book Day hasn’t, historically, been an event for people like me. The point of the event has always been to use the publicity surrounding the release of whatever superhero flick that, by 2002, was inevitably gonna come out in May, to draw new readers into the art form that inspired those movies. And that art form had made me its bitch 27 years before some poor Hollywood costumer had to puzzle out how to hide Tobey Maguire’s junk in those spandex pants.

Further, and this is not meant as a slam, but my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to remember that attempts to leave the store with freebies will be followed with pepper spray, is not known for holding any kind of event. I love the place, which has a huge selection of new books and back issues as well as a ton of pop culture paraphernalia, but in the 13 years I have been a regular customer there, there has never been a creator signing. Or a reading. Or a panel discussion. Or a gaming night. There was one sale, once, but that was when a lost lease led to a move down the block, and the owner didn’t feel like hauling all his shit to the new address. And even though I remind him that that sale led to my finally buying the entire original First Comics run of American Flagg! and my Glenn Fabry-inspired John Constantine statue, I doubt there will be a recurrence any time soon.

So I’ve never seen much point in heading to the comic store on Free Comic Book Day, since it happens on a Saturday (and I’d always had that week’s new comics on Wednesday) and I didn’t anticipate much of anything going on there. But today, Amanda and I were out for lunch at a new restaurant down the street from the comic store, so we decided to swing in to see what was happening and maybe grab one of two of the free books, and…

Holy shit.

X-Men: Days Of Future Past – The Final Promo Push

Hi, all. The Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office took itself out to see The Amazing Spider-Man 2 last night. We will discuss it on an upcoming podcast soon but, the quick review? Pretty good…if you ignore a whole bunch of stuff.

Meantime, the next Marvel character based movie to hit the big screen, X-Men: Days Of Future Hype Past, has dropped three character-centric promos in advance of its debut in theaters on May 23. We’ll put the first one up front and center because it features Peter “The Dink” Dinklage, continuing to find himself in a situation where he needs the protection of a sell sword. Hopefully, Sentinels will have to do.

Check out the other two, and a bonus credit footage clip from last night’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, after the jump.