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Special guest star Greg Elwell and I discuss this week’s great crop of new issues, including Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ “Criminal” No. 1, RASL, Gravel, and Mark Millar’s new book whose title I am unsure if I am allowed to post.  

Matt: My favorite first issue of the week, despite the fact that I liked several of them, was “Criminal,” Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, sort of a relaunch of the Criminal brand from Icon.  …

Greg: I have the entire first volume, it’s great. One of the things I’m glad to see is back is the back matter.  Brubaker has gotten friends who really appreciate crime noir dramas and old movies, and has them writing about those movies in the back. … This is a great resource.  It’s an appreciation of these movies.  If you enjoy this book, and you really should, then the movies that they recommend are going to be great.

About Millar and John Romita Jr’s “Kick A–”:

Greg: To say that this is not in the 616 universe would be an understatement.

Matt: And also a nerdy thing to say.

Greg: The closest I can tell, this is basically happening in our universe. It’s a story about a kid who becomes a superhero.  But like if I became a superhero.  Which, well, in my case, I’d be a dumpy, middle-aged guy putting on a spandex outfit, where he’s a younger, lithe kid.  But, very realistic, but still funny, and the dialogue reads really true.

– Matt Price

George Lang, Brandy McDonnell and Matt Price talk about this weekend’s movies in the entertainment podcast at NewsOK.com. 

Brandy on “Semi-Pro”: 

“It’s a say whatever you wanna say, raunch as much as you wanna raunch kind of thing.”

From Friday’s The Oklahoman:

From Staff Reports

Two Oklahoma stores are among the more than 80 nationwide taking part in a midnight release for the latest comic book from Stephen King: “Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: The Long Road Home” No. 1.

To celebrate the launch of the new comic book series featuring material only hinted at in King’s original novel series, the stores will be open at midnight Tuesday (effectively 12:01 a.m. Wednesday) so fans can get their hands on the debut issue.

Atomic Comics, 6006 S Western, and Speeding Bullet Comics, 614 N Porter in Norman, are the two Oklahoma comic-book stores that will have early copies of “The Long Road Home.”

“The Long Road Home” follows last year’s groundbreaking comic book series, “Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: Gunslinger Born,” which was King’s first extended foray into the world of comics. “Gunslinger Born” was both critically acclaimed and one of Marvel Comics’ biggest selling titles of 2007.

The “Gunslinger Born” creative team (writers Robin Furth and Peter David, and artists Jae Lee and Richard Isanove) are back for “The Long Road Home.” King is supervising the comic, ensuring the story fits his vision of the series.

The Dark Tower novels, and now comics, followed Roland Deschain, the Gunslinger, as he sought the Dark Tower in a dark fantasy world.

Artist Lee, who won comics’ highest award, the Eisner, for his work on “The Inhumans,” has been a popular choice to visualize King’s world.

The original “Gunslinger Born” series is available in a hardcover collection.

—-

Full disclosure note: Nerdage writer/editor Matt Price is an owner of Speeding Bullet Comics in Norman.

From Friday’s The Oklahoman: 

By Matthew Price

Acting Assistant Entertainment Editor

THE NEXT LEVEL

“Mega Brain Boost” is a brain-training game along the lines of the popular “Brain Age.” The game has 15 different minigames aimed at building the gamer’s concentration, judgment and memory.   The goal of “Mega Brain Boost” is to stimulate the right side of the brain, and after each minigame, the game will report how developed the right side of the gamer’s brain is (up to 100 percent).   The idea is these games train your brain via the Shichida Method – the theory of right-brain development promoted by Makoto Shichida of the Shichida Educational Institute.

There’s a training mode as well as a multiplayer mode for each of the 15 minigames. 

Ten of the 15 minigames were previously released by Majesco under the titles “Brain Boost Gamma Wave” (memory) and “Brain Boost Beta Wave” (concentration).

The graphics and sound are both sub par – there’s only one tune in “Mega Brain Boost,” and you’ll hear it through each and every minigame.  The graphics are largely a black-and-white affair that wouldn’t have taxed the Commodore 64.  There are some occasional splashes of color, but a graphics masterpiece this isn’t.

As you proceed through the game, the professor character running the show will spout off some poorly-translated phrases of encouragement.  Generally, you’ll look up to read “Well, well, you must give it a try!!!” and miss whatever you were supposed to be looking at on the bottom screen.   Even the games that do seem to be helpful as far as brain-testing don’t end up being that much fun.

In addition, “Mega Brain Boost” doesn’t chart your progress day to day like “Brain Age,” lessening the replay value even further. 

“Mega Brain Boost” doesn’t come close to living up to the more innovative brain-training games for the Nintendo DS including “Big Brain Academy” or “Brain Age.”   However, at just $19.99, it may be acceptable for a few of those who enjoy this type of game and have played through the better ones. The game is rated E for everyone.

From Friday’s The Oklahoman:

By Matthew Price

Acting Assistant Entertainment Editor

WORD BALLOONS

The celebrity superheroes of “Noble Causes” get a new status quo in issue No. 32 of the Image Comics superhero series, scheduled to ship in March. 

Writer Jay Faerber moves his family of superhero characters five years in the future with issue No. 32.

“Everyone will have to learn who the family is all over again, to some degree,” Faerber said. “Some characters from the previous issues are in the book, but their circumstances have changed. Plus, there are new characters, a new locale, even a new tone. Issue No. 32 is essentially a new No. 1, but we wanted to keep our numbering consistent so we didn’t go down the re-numbering route.”

“Noble Causes” is about the Noble family, world-famous superhero celebrities.

“The original tag line I used to sell the series to Image all those years ago was: ‘The Kennedy family, with super-powers,’” Faerber said. “And that still applies today — the Nobles are larger-than-life and generally want to do good, but they’ve got a lot of skeletons in their closets. … The book strikes a balance between world-saving action and more character-driven subplots and dramatics. The focus of the book, however, is always on the characters and how they relate to one another.”

Several of those characters and relationships will have changed over the five-year gap.

“The biggest and most noticeable change is going to be the cast,” Faerber said. “We’ve gotten rid of a handful of characters, and introduced some new family members as well. And the older characters have all been redesigned — some more drastically than others.

“Doc, the patriarch of the family, has remarried during the five-year gap, so his wife is a new character, and she brings with her two of her own children. So we’ve kind of got a super-hero Brady Bunch, with a mixed family of heroes.”

Turkish artist Yildiray Cinar pencils and inks “Noble Causes.”

“Yildiray is really changing the entire look of the book. He’s going for a more old-school approach,” Faerber said. “For example, in the past, I shied away from using sound effects, but Yildiray really lobbied hard for them, so we’re bringing them back. He and (colorist) Ryan (Vera) have also come up with a different sort of color palette for the book, as well.”

Faerber said he hopes the five-year jump in the title will provide a good jumping-on point for new readers.

“The biggest challenge of working on a long-running independent series is finding ways to make it easy for potential new readers to read your book,” Faerber said. “Unlike Marvel and DC, I can’t entice new readers by bringing in a new writer, because I’m the writer, and I’m not going anywhere! So this five-year jump is hopefully a way that can bring in new readers.”

Faerber said there are many rewards from working on “Noble Causes,” including working with many talented artists and ultimately, owning his own work.

“Just looking at the collected editions sitting on my bookshelf is the biggest reward — having such a body of work that I wrote, which I own, is pretty cool.”

Let me join Blog at Newsarama and The Superman Homepage as wishing Superman a happy birthday… sort of.  From the Superman Homepage Article:

The idea that Superman’s birthday is February 29 initially began as a lark. DC editors explained tongue in cheek in comic book letter columns that Superman remained eternally youthful because he was born on Leap Day, February 29, which occurs only once every four years.

The in-story birthdate has jumped around, and has varied depending on if you’re talking about the date he was born on Krypton (which would have a whole different calendar, anyway) or the date he arrived on Earth.

– Matt Price

Cake and photo by Annette Price 

MySpace Trailer Park has the new “Iron Man” trailer, also available in HD.

It’s a fast, professional trailer that makes this seem like a go-to summer movie.  Robert Downey Jr. is very entertaining in the brief trailer, and the action looks good as well.  While you’re at myspace, you can friend the Iron Man movie as well.

– Matt Price

Newsarama talks to David Boreanaz, Kyle MacLachlan, Brooke Shields and Jeremy Sisto about their roles in the animated “Justice League: The New Frontier.”

Executive producer Bruce Timm talks about the rationale in choosing MacLachlan for Superman:

“Kyle MacLachlan is the perfect example – he sounds exactly like what you’d think a ‘50s era Superman would sound like,” said executive producer Bruce Timm. “He’s very righteous and good, but still very natural. We didn’t want the sound of Superman in 2008, and Kyle gave such a great, stylized performance in capturing that mid-50s feel.”

MacLachlan had long been in the running for the George Reeves role in the film that ended up being ”Hollywoodland,” and I thought he brought a perfect 1950s Superman inflection to this role.

Scroll down at Supermantv.net to see a MacLachlan as George Reeves, as compared to Ben Affleck as Reeves and Reeves himself.  MacLachlan looks the part, and I say that as someone who thought Affleck nailed the role in the finished film.  

– Matt Price

The Beat points out this hilarious mockup of Golden Age and 1950s predecessors for several of the most popular Vertigo titles.  Funny stuff, probably funnier the more comic-book nerdy you are.   (Yes, I thought it was really, really funny.)

– Matt Price

A fuller review to come, but let me just say, if you’re on the fence about the Justice League: New Frontier DVD movie, go ahead and pick it up.  It’s a great adaptation of the comic, and one of the best animated comic-book adaptations ever made.  

– Matt Price