Cuppacafe

OK, if you haven't read Garfield Minus Garfield, you owe it to yourself to do so now (go ahead, we'll wait...). Back? Cool for those of you who didn't make the jump, Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing the character of Garfield the cat from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of Garfield's "owner," Jon Arbuckle. The comic takes us all on a journey deep into the (obviously disturbed) mind of an isolated young everyman as he constantly fights a losing battle against the abject loneliness and dark depression of his own life adrift in a quiet American suburb.

Here are a couple of early examples:

If you liked them, perhaps you should go buy the book (go ahead, it even has the blessing of Garfield creator, Jim Davis, who wrote the forward).

Anyway, we bring this up, because now if you've enjoyed the online strips, or even purchased the book, you can also enjoy the video! No, seriously!

Yeah, yeah, we know that this is just the raw footage from the film without benefit of the animated Garfield digitally painted in, but still, it is kind of funny, and does evoke the feeling of the Dan Walsh, created parody.

The Perfessor

In the annals of comicbook lore, there is only one Dynamic Duo, but when you elevate the level of the field of play you get the Brave and the Bold. Such a massive team-up has long played well in the halls of DC comics. Superman and Batman, Batman and Superman. The light and the dark. The Ying and the Yang. Superman is the ultimate Boy Scout, and Batman a dark and brooding creature of the night.

Longtime Batman writer and editor Denny O'Neil once described Superman's bright and sunny Metropolis as New York City above 14^th St., and Batman's dark and deadly Gotham City as New York below 14^th St. Still, both of these heroes were generally cast as unlikely friends, and occasional foe-men.

Well, that is (perhaps) coming to a head, as this past week both of their debut comics went on sale at separate auctions for dueling prices. First, Action #1 (the first appearance of Superman) hit the big-time by landing a million-dollar purchase price, to be followed a couple of days later by the sale of Detective Comics #27 (the first appeaarance of Batman) for — yup, you got it, just over a million bucks ($1,075,500).

And you thought there was a recession on, eh?

Gentleman, start your (funnybook) engines

The Perfessor

Courtesy of xkcd.

The Perfessor

I just got a FedEx package from Marvel, containing not only the last several issues of The Official Index to the Marvel Universe (#s 10–12) as well as dust jackets to the last three Marvel hardcover compilations to which I wrote the cover copy.

These three books are; Timestorm 2009/2099, House Of M: Spider-Man, Fantastic Four & X-Men, House Of M: Wolverine, Iron Man & Hulk

As I’ve indicated I have been contributing to this on-going series (#13 is the most recent one out, and which is pictured here.)

I know that I have yet another House of M compilation for which I have written cover copy as well as issue #14 to the Index, only those books apparently not quite ready as of yet.

Given that this is a new year, I can only hope that I’ll have more work on both of these projects as the year progresses. I’m currently lobbying to get more Marvel work, and (again hopefully) more of that will be coming through as well.

Seriously, how cool is that?

The Perfessor

So you think that the buzz surrounding the release of the super-large easy-reader iTouch iPad made tech-heads hyperventilate, then you haven’t seen anything yet.

Asustek, the Taiwanese manufacturer that essentially invented the netbook category, is trying to dream bigger than that.

Using the Waveface banner, Asustek has been playing around with some more radical design ideas, including a sophisticated wrist-top computer, a laptop that folds like a newspaper and a TV that works with gesture commands. (Behold the jargon-filled demo video.)

The watch-like device, the Waveface Ultra, is made out of a bendable display that can connect to the Internet, make phone calls and do a fair amount of data-crunching. In short, it’s a bracelet that acts like a smartphone.

Asus is hardly the first company to kick around the idea of bendable displays or wristwatch computers (remember Microsoft’s ill-fated Spot watch?). But its ideas are interesting because of what they portend for displays. All three products hinge on a lightweight, flexible display material with built-in computing smarts.

Much of the cutting-edge display work takes place in Taiwan, and PC makers like Acer and Asustek have the most direct insight into what the display companies have cooking. AU Optronics, for example, is one of the world’s largest LCD panel makers and was once known as Acer Display Technology before a merger.

Personally, what I find the coolest part of all of this tech is the “wrist TV” from Asustek because, quite frankly, I saw this little item probably 30 or 40 years ago (and no, not on something as forward-looking as Star Trek, but on something far more mundane). I first saw this little item in Chester Gould’s very cool comic strip, none other than Dick Tracy.

Yep, it was that futuristic flatfoot from the past who taught us about wrist radios (which became wrist TVs), antigrav devices, the Moon Maid, and all sorts of other clever devices. You can’t imagine how thrilled I am to learn that my present has finally caught up to his past.

The Perfessor

As the title of this blog so clearly indicates, we love coffee, so when a wicked-cool coffee-related product comes out, we like to talk about them. So, needless to say, you can imagine how excited we were when we discovered that Shannon Wheeler’s iconic comicbook Too Much Coffee Man was (and still is) one of my all-time favorite comics. So when I got an e-mail this morning from Boom Studios that they are about to release a Too Much Coffee Man Animated mug, we could hardly contain ourselves.

Interestingly enough, this discovery was followed up by an all-to-brief online chat with Mr. Wheeler himself, who told me that Boom was about to launch a new line of books that will kick off with a compilation of Wheeler’s cartoons that were submitted (but rejected) by The New Yorker.

The new imprint (named Boom! Town), will publish and market selective reissues of out-of-print works and merchandising, including the collection of Wheeler’s cartoons that didn’t make it into the The New Yorker. Wheeler’s book, I Thought You Would be Funnier, will be among the first wave of releases under the new imprint.

Too Much Coffee Man fans can also thrill to the announcement that it looks like Wheeler will also be writing and illustrating a new eight-page TMCM story for the relaunch of the Dark Horse Presents.

Seriously, how cool is that?

The Perfessor

While I’m sure that many of you have already seen this trailer, I couldn’t resist posting it here:

Which, as it turns out, is much better than the trailers I made with my Iron Monger and Hulk Burger King toys...

(scroll down towards the bottom of the post and you see the three or four vids I did.)

The Perfessor

You remember the Hitler video with Michael Jackson from several months back? Yeah, I thought as much, Well, I know that it has been redone a number of times, but I just saw a version that pitted Marvel against DC. OK, now I realize that the specifics of this video and the story behind it will probably be lost on you, but trust me when I tell you when I tell you that its hilarious.

The Perfessor

That’s right, I managed to score a web-load of Spidey-related gifts for Christmas. Some of you might think this is very lame or even geeky, and perhaps it is both, but I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Oh yeah, everything was wrapped in Spidey Christmas paper, and I even got the extra Spidey paper as an additional gift!

How cool is that? If you want to see all of the wicked-cool Spidey gifts I got, you can jump here.

The Perfessor

You see, the thing about john, is that he won’t let us forget him. I just received this comic mag that carried one of the eulogies that I wrote about him.

As of this writing, John’s legacy (the T.H.N.D.E.R. Agents) are safely in the hands of his heirs, and are being prepped for a new licensing deal courtesy of BatFilms (the folks who gave us all of the Batman films of the past several years), as well as DC Comics.

I’m looking forward to the next incarnation of these beloved, Iconic characters.

The Perfessor

Hey, this time I didn’t say that so much as I’m quoting another reviewer who said that. Yep, that’s right, Meyer is the subject of a quickie comicbook biography from Blue Waters Comics. Meyer’s bio appears as part of an ongoing series of celebrity female bios Female Force. Other featured women include Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama, and Caroline Kennedy.

Well, according to the reviewer over at Comic Alliance, the Meyer bio is, well, nothing short of atrocious. Why, you may ask, well, according to the reviewer:

When you're doing a biography of Stephenie Meyer, you're going to run into a problem right off the bat, namely the fact that Stephanie Meyer is really f--king boring.

Yeah, this is apparently so true.

Really, we're not even trying to dis Meyer here, but the fact of the matter is that she just hasn't done a whole lot. She never sailed down the Mississippi like Mark Twain, she never married a complete lunatic like F. Scott Fitzgerald did, heck, she never even did a ton of coke and got run over by a van like Stephen King. We can sum up her entire life in twenty words. Watch:

"Stephenie Meyer grew up in the Southwest, got married, had kids, wrote some books about vampires and got rich. Batman."

We threw "Batman" in there to make it more exciting.

The review goes on, but, well, you can read it for yourself.

Me? I’m going to read anything else and hope that in her next film she doesn’t deconstruct Zombies as well.

The Perfessor

Ah, yes, there is something to be said for the good old days. This from today’s comic strip, courtesy of Hi & Lois.

Not for nothing, I’m betting that the kids just don’t get it.

The Perfessor

Yeah, yeah, you may see this as, well “who cares” but, well it is my blog so I’ll post what I want so there.

The latest edition of The Official Index to the Marvel Universe #12 has hit the comic shops today, and yep, as you probably already guessed, I’m still contributing to it.

Thanks for playing our game.

The Perfessor

Yep, that’s right I just got word that my latest published work is up online on the web.

The work is a web comic entitles Girl Skout Warz, and it is about, well young girls in uniform, the end of the world as we know it, and brain-eating zombies, so it could very well be the hottest web comic ever.

Here are the first two strips.

I am currently awaiting the lettering to be finished on the next three, after-which they will be posted as well. Now that these two are up, I’m actually going to have to write some more I suppose.

Let me Know what you folks think.

The Perfessor

Yep, I have another short piece in print. This one appears in Only in Whispers #2 (Free Lunch Comics) which is an anthology comic dealing with maters of a — shall we say — mystical nature. My contribution (a prose true ghost story) recounts an event that happened to me when I was a teenager. (so it happened recently).

Anyway, Steve Kanaras, the publisher of Free Lunch, and and writer on Whispers, was collecting true encounters with the supernatural and invited me to contribute this story.

The next issue of Whispers (due out next year) contains a short story of mine, towards which I’m really looking to see in print. Anyway, in the meantime, I have this piece out and, well, I’m telling you fine folks about it.

Oh yeah, before I forget, there are some other rather fine stories (both illustrated fiction, and true prose) that you will be able to find in Whispers, so I’m recommending it (and not just because my story is in it.

The Perfessor