Today is new comic day, and I’m going to actually post some comics-related content in celebration of the event.

Age of the Sentry #6 comes out today, which is going to put an endcap on the best representation of the character that Marvel’s published since the original Paul Jenkins/Jae Lee event (The Sentry and the same team’s Inhumans are two series that really got me invested back into the Marvel U after years of only reading X-stuff).  If you don’t like The Sentry because he’s a basketcase who throws people into the sun and rips womens’ heads off, I’d strongly suggest giving this book a look.

Occasional reader of The Axe Jim McCann has his New Avengers: The Reunion #1 on stands today and as someone who likes Jim a lot and loves Hawkeye and Mockingbird, I am incredibly excited.  The 9 page preview over at IGN promises some good stuff from this mini.  The Clint/Bucky confrontation alone is maybe worth buying the book for.

So, now that Pride and Prejudice is apparently public domain, we’re seeing some exciting projects come about: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which I’ve already pre-ordered, and the space-alien horror flick Pride and Predator.  The movie, it’s going to be horrid, because there’s no way that it’s going to be the actual Predator.  Which got me thinking about what would be even better.

Are you ready?

ALIENS VS. PREDATOR VS. PRIDE VS. PREJUDICE

Wow, it’s been awhile, yeah?  And it’s not that the horror well has been dry, either, just that I haven’t been writing about them.  So, let’s do a rapid fire thing to get caught up, shall we?

The Unborn: “Nazis always make a movie better,” a friend of mine told me recently.  When she said that, I immediately threw this movie in her face.  A concentration camp ghost story with deep roots in Jewish mythology certainly sounds cool.  It doesn’t hurt that Odette Yustman is absolutely gorgeous, either.  Except that Yustman, while beautiful, is less lifelike on screen than the lowest common denominator of Jessica Biel and Diane Kruger, and David Goyer directing David Goyer’s script has never worked as well as it should have.  Goyer, like George Lucas, works best when there are people around to tell him his ideas are bad.  The Unborn should have been better than it was, but was maddeningly forgettable.

My Bloody Valentine In 3D: YES.  I don’t go in for gimmick movies a lot, and I certainly have remake reservations a lot of the time, but the sheer reveling that this movie does in its gimmicky remakery makes me love it a bit.  It will probably play much differently when I watch it at home without the pickaxe (or naked girls, or shotguns, or human jaws) coming through the screen at me, but this is one of those ‘they got it right’ movies for me in the sense that it’s a great thrill ride with lots of blood.

Friday The 13th: The first 20 minutes of this movie are fucking gold.  Fried gold, in fact, to abuse the Internet vernacular.  And then it stops being good very abruptly.  The latter part of the film has no panache, and malicious redneck fast-running Jason is a bit unforgivable to the purist in me.  Yes, ladies, I know that Jared Padalecki is pretty.  I know, Veronica Mars fans, that Dick Casablancas gets speared through the head. But neither of those things is enough to make the movie click.

The Uninvited: A completely lackluster Korean horror remake.  Don’t bother.

A Haunting In Connecticutt: When was the last time one of these ‘based on a true story’ things was actually good?  Was it the original Amityville?  Probably.

Me: Wait, did that ad seriously try to use Tool Academy to promote Watchmen?

Also Me: I’m afraid it did.  You really shouldn’t go and see this movie, Jeff.

Me: Wait a second.  If the Doctor Manhattan condoms didn’t make me swear off the movie -

Also Me: And the Nite-Owl brand coffee.

Me: I don’t mind the Nite-Owl brand coffee. It’s a movie prop, and the design of it doesn’t suck.  And I’ve always liked the scene in the comics that it calls back to.

Also Me: Whatever.  What about all the toys?  Don’t you think Alan Moore is spinning in his grave?

Me: A) Alan Moore isn’t dead.

Also Me: That doesn’t mean he isn’t in a grave right now.

Me: You know, I never thought about it like that.  B) At first, I was kind of telling myself that the toys were enjoyably ironic.  But really, like this Tool Academy spot and the condoms et al, the toys seem in aggregate to be the result of a scattershot attempt to market something that the marketers don’t really get.

Also Me: Zack Snyder keeps saying that he gets Watchmen.

Me: But he never says what he gets about it, does he?  Early on in college, I played that game with Ulysses all the time to make girls think I was insightful.  And it worked, so good on Snyder, maybe.

Also Me: I really don’t think you should see this movie.  You’re going to regret it.

Me: I don’t know….

TO BE CONTINUED

I spent a decent amount of time at the unofficial Zuda booth over the weekend, and can’t stress enough that High Moon and Nite Owls are worthy of your comics-reading attention (though many of you already know that, I’m thinking).  However, I also got to talk with Bob Francis, who just pitched a comic called Flight Captain Hurricane to Zuda, and that’s what I really want to pimp today.

I saw way more of what Bob and his crew are putting together than I strictly should have, and it’s goddamn impressive.  It’s impeccably researched and has some straight-up beautiful artwork (the first full-page panel, for instance).

Hurricane is in Zuda’s hands right now, and I think it’s got the potential to do well on the Zuda platform.   I feel hackneyed or cliched when I say that “so and so creator is really just a nice guy,” but that’s definitely true of Bob.  He has a very infectious level of enthusiasm for what he’s doing.  He believes in the Zuda platform pretty strongly, and I really hope it works for him.

Still decompressing from the New York con.  For those of you who may be wondering I did not, as I told Ragnell I would a few months ago, stand up in the DC Nation panel and ask Dan Didio if he knew how the Internet worked.

He still doesn’t, by the way.  The DC_Nation Twitter didn’t do a damn thing for the entirety of the con - which, well, would have been a great way to announce all of those new Batman titles or the Giffen/?? Doom Patrol book, don’t you think?  Lots of retweets, lots of potential links.  Lots of buzz.  Because I didn’t hit a lot of panels, I heard all of my con news second hand and, even in real life, it would have been much more convenient for the big announcements to be aggregated somewhere.  If we can have EA’s giant photo wall or the Twitter wall at AdTech, this is something we can surely do.  In fact, the next con broadsides that Alert Nerd puts out will probably do something like this.  Not that that’s DC’s fault.  That’s on Reed and all of the big publishers, actually.

I have some hope for DC, though.  They’ve apparently brought social media microceleb Chris Brogan in to consult the Distinguished Competition on how to retool its online presence.  Chris is a good guy and also a comic geek, so I think that this meeting of the minds can bear some powerful fruit.  I don’t expect DC to just start aping Marvel (okay, I kind of do - there’s a track record there), but they’re experiencing a lot of bad weather online right now, and it’s totally within their power to right it. They just need to be willing to.  It’s not going to win their lost market share back immediately, but raising their profile should be at the top of their marketing gameplan right now.  As comics start to really go digital, it’s going to become more and more of a necessity.

If I’m gonna be honest, I’m a total net-hermit.  I have a core of real-life friends and an ever-expanding group of online acquaintances that I talk to.  One of the neat things about cons is getting to meet the latter group face to face, and those kind of meet ups are what really makes me excited about the comic con circuit every year.

Because meeting other fans and creators in person and just talking to them about the art form is good for creativity.  Going back and looking at the early talk between Matt and I on what would eventually become the currently artist-less book that we want to self-publish (or, at the urging of a few Zuda creators, possibly submit to Zuda), we play off of each other incredibly well, and even get into that kind of “I’m finishing your sentences” vibe, but I get the feeling that we’d be kicking even more ass if we could occasionally lock ourselves in a house with some pizzas and a case of beer for a day or two and just brainstorm and write and talk.  Hitting NYCC this year was like that, and I walked away from it with Ideas that I can’t wait to get on paper.  In fact, if my voice recorder’s batteries weren’t dead, I’d have been dictating my whole drive home.

I love it when this happens, and kind of wonder why I’m not also working on something with some of my local gang, like Rich, Cory or Perry.  Something else for me to think about in ‘09.

On the artist front, nothing promising happened at the con, but I got a really awesome pep talk from Dan McDaid (of Jersey Gods fame) that put the energy back in me.

Sorry for the rambly-ness, by the way.  I want to get back into frequent posts, maybe even one a day.  So yeah.

This weekend, I’ll be in New York City at Comic Con, Twittering like crazy.  I’ll be hanging out with my fellow Alert Nerd Sarah and 3/4s of the Fantastic Fangirls rhombus - Caroline,  Jennifer and Anika  (Honestly, I feel like Bosley). I’ll also be trolling around the BOOM! Studios, Zuda, and Marvel booths rubbing elbows with the rich and powerful.

If you see me schlepping around, say hey.

Keanu Reeves and Joseph Lawrence in a buddy action comedy.

Reeves is the hard-boiled mentor, Lawrence the brash young upstart.

Plot? Doesn’t matter.

Title: Whoa.

Think about it for five minutes.

Now voice your assent in the comments.

I have this niece.  I may have mentioned her before.

At around a year old, she started giving people hi-fives.  As a doting uncle, I thought that this was, in fact, awesome, but I wanted to expand her education (read: teach her a new trick).  So I tried to get her to emulate the notorious Obama fist bump with me.

No dice.

However, last Wednesday, when Amazing Spider-Man #583 was released, Alana toddled up to me and, instead of waving or blowing a kiss or hi-fiving me, she giggled and extended her fist toward me.  I punched it, and she thought it was the most awesome thing.  So did I.

Now, I understand why Erik Larsen is so angry with me.  He did, after all, invent fist bumps.  And nieces.  Both in the pages of Savage Dragon.  I’ve infringed on his intellectual property, and that’s not right.  So, Mr. Larsen, I’ve prepared the following statement: “My bad. It won’t happen again.”

Now let’s stop all the grousing and move on.