Opinion, My Universe, February

It has been a while since my last opinion piece/non-review post so I decided it is time.

BEFORE WATCHMEN

The hottest topic going around right now is the new

Before Watchmen Prequels that are being released starting this summer. It should not be a surprise that Watchmen creator/character "re-vamper" and self proclaimed Wizard, Alan Moore is very upset by the whole thing. He states "Moby Dick did not need a prequel", which makes sense, sort of... But 10 years ago, he had planned on doing a prequel to the epic Graphic Novel. Another thing to consider is that these characters, for the most part, are not Mr. Moore's creation in the first place.

Of course the Internet is jumping to one side or the other. Some say it is a bastardization of the greatest comic ever written, some say that they are excited to see the stories that we all get to sink our teeth into, but one thing is universal.....99% of people will be buying it. That sounds like really good business. DC is doing everything right ATM. The books that will be getting released are, Rorschach(4 issues),

Minutemen(6 issues), Comedian(6 issues), Dr. Manhattan(6 issues), Nite Owl (4 issues), Ozymandias(6 issues), Silk Spectre(4 issues). These will all be coming out on a weekly basis. That leads for a nice, long run.

I am excited about this event and I think it will be great for the Comic community in general. Polarizing events usually are.

TV.

Next week will be the comic store TV show that I wish I had gotten off of my ass and made about 2 years ago. It is called Comic Book Men. It is a reality show that will be centered around the comic store, Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash that is owned by famous fanboy, Kevin Smith. If you are reading this, I will assume that he needs no introduction.

I have been listening to a lot of his Smodcast group of podcasts while leading up to it. Without viewing it, I think it does seem like a solid show. It will air on AMC after the Walking Dead on Sundays.

My hope for it is that it does not perpetuate all of the negative stereotypes we see dealing with comic stores and the "geeks" that frequent them. I am hoping that the show pints it all in a new, and honest, light.

PODCASTS.

As I have written about before, I am a huge fan of the Podcast Medium. They can be great, or

absolute shit. I love that you can hear people fail so completely....but at least they can try, and on some occasions, get a lot better.

On my current list of Podcasts that I download at least once a week, Bagged and Boarded(hit or miss but a lot more good than bad), I sell Comics(from the Smodcast network and recorded at Kevin Smiths comic store), iFanboy, The Incompetent Comic Cabal Cast( new to me, really good, lots of arguing), Keith and the Girl(the one I have been listening to the longest and my absolute favorite), NPR, Culturetopia,Comic Geek Speak, Comic Vine, The Death of Comics, The Podcast of OA(all Green Lantern Podcast and web site), Raging Bullets(all DC Podcast), Smodcast(Kevin Smiths main Podcast with Scott Mosier)

There is a million topics out there and there will be a podcast out there for you if you look

MOVIES

There are a lot of movies coming out that I want to see but I will go into the 2 that are coming out this month.

Ghost Rider 2, the Spirit of Vengeance. What is the the matter with Marvel? They replaced Johnny Blaze with a chick that no one cares about, then they quietly cancel the Ghost Rider series, all less then a month before the release of a major movie. With that kind of highly intelligent editorial decisions, I just can't understand how the top 30 books sold are ALL

DC(did you sense my sarcasm?). Seriously, Wolverine is getting outsold by Aquaman.

I am really looking forward to seeing this move, even though the first one sucked rocks. It

looks really good.

The other movie coming out at the end of this month is Justice League Doom. It is a straight to DVD release. DC does know how to do these animated movies right.