Who watches the Watchmen?

  HI. I haven't blogged in a long time, what with school starting and all that. But I'd like to give my comic update, or in this case.. a MOVIE UPDATE.
  So I've read the comic Watchmen agessss ago and it's always been one of my favorite. It's about superheroes emerging in the 1940s-ish, and how they helped to win the Vietnam war and how everyone in America is going crazy with terror at the idea of nuclear war against the Soviet Union. It was published by DC comics, and although I guess it contains some 'mature content', I'd recommend it to anyone.
  I hate horror movies. Or any movies, really, with any blood. I almost died while watching Prometheus (AN ALIEN BABY? REALLY? It's more creepy than Breaking Dawn), and so I steered clear of the Watchmen movies since it was created in 2009. And then yesterday, I was looking for something to do (Because, yknow, it's not like my homework is due TOMORROW or anything...), and I came across Watchmen on some torrent site. And I watched it.
  And it was awesome.
  Like really awesome.
  It was created to be the exact same as the comics, word for word and everything, and I'm glad. You change ANYTHING Alan Moore wrote and it just seems wrong. The actors were brilliant (I feel like I overuse the word awesome), especially The Comedian, acted by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. In every movie, such as Grey's Anatomy or P.S. I love you, he comes across as the really sweet guy, with cute dimples and a heart-melting grin (Literally, like I think I need new coronary arteries). But in Watchmen, with his giant cigar and black mask, his grin turns evil and he's the perfect, twisted 'villan' ever.
  Watchmen is one of the best movies I've watched in a long time, and it sure beats The Dark Knight Rises which disappointed me greatly. AND EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH IT.
  A picture of my desktop wallpaper to show you how stalker-ish I am:

The Zork Phase

Right now I'm in that dreaded phase where I've just finished one comic series, and I've got nothing to do but wait until the next comes. And so I've spent the whole of this morning, and a bit of yesterday, playing Zork. It's addictive, and I love games that have alternate destinies depending on the actions that you do. My friends sort of gape at me when I explain to them it's an interactive fiction computer game from 1982. But really, think of it instead as a really old novel in which you can decide the fate of your own character (although the point of the game is to survive, so I guess that kind of limits your alternate destinies a little).
It's no World of Warcraft, but I'm in that low point of life where I've played a fantastic game for so long, it's become a little boring. And so Zork does well to help me through this depressing transition until I find a better, more permanent game to play. Any suggestions?
The next comic series I'm about to read is a good ol' Marvel called Avenger's Academy. It's nice to be back to the familiar boomboompowpow comics.

The Unwritten is WRITTEN

  So I spent a bit of last night reading Vertigo comics The Unwritten by Mike Carey and Peter Gross, before I got distracted by 2012 Olympics and watched that (Men's trampoline. Seriously? That's an actual sport? Might as well put Billiard Ball as an Olympic sport too). But I spent the entire morning today, reading every book in the series that was available and I loved it; probably not as much as I love World War Hulk ('cause that's just a classic) but still, it reaches the near top of my favorite comic book series list.
  The basic plot that this series centers around are three young adults and a flying cat, and they travel through popular classic novels such as Mobey Dick and Frankenstein by using a magic door handle.
  Right, ok.
  You have to read the actual comics to understand that the plot is not as lame as I make it sound. Trust me, because The Unwritten is not a children's book at all. Firstly, The Unwritten is VERY violent and dark; like people get chopped up by sickles, decapitated by thin wires, and little children get slaughtered by falling bricks. And secondly, the amount of swearing in The Unwritten surprises even me. Like Marvel for instance, Uncanny X-Factor is a dark comic series where people rip the skin off each others faces (literally), and yet when it comes to swearing, you only see a couple of rude words that are always blocked over by symbols like @#*$&%. The Unwritten meanwhile, is FILLED with the word fuck, and I mean like everywhere. This is not a complaint since I actually prefer having swear words than not, because I know if I were about to be sat upon by a massive leviathan, I would swear my ass off.
  So yeah, as you can see, not suitable for children....and neither is this review.

The Unwritten #19 Book cover - the one where he gets swallowed by the Leviathan that swallowed Pinocchio

  Ok but my favorite scenes from The Unwritten are those that involve Mr.Bun. Mr.Bun is a rabbit who lives in the woods, and whom seems to be the only one to realize that 'you're [they're] not even real animals. If you [they] were real, Wilfred Weasel would eat Mrs. fucking Matilda mouse without even spitting out the bones'. So, in other words, Mr. Bun is the only one able to think pragmatic human thoughts, while the rest of the animals live the life of Pooh and Piglet in the Hundred Acre Woods. Mr. Bun is an amusing character (I can't quite call him a hilarous character in such a dark story), and as you might've guessed, he swears excessively. The story goes on to show that Mr. Bun tries to kill Miss. Liza (an actual fleshy human), who is responsible for composing this whole imaginary Hundred Acre Wood from a children story. He fails though, and Miss. Liza throws him down a cellar door, where he meets hundreds of other animals just like him (with human feelings) who have been climbing a so called 'stairway to heaven' (heehee Led Zeppelin) for years now, but they never seem to reach the top. It gets seriously depressing from there, and if you want to read The Unwritten I'll stop now so I don't spoil it for you.
  I actually have no idea how Mr. Bun relates to the whole of the story with the three young adults and magic doorknob (Yeah. It'll never stop sounding any lamer), but I guess they'll reveal that in the comic books to come.

(My favorite character Mr.Bun! Swearing his little ass off)

  So The Unwritten, DEFINITELY a book you want to read. The art isn't fantastic, but it suits the purpose and general mood of the book (like I couldn't imagine the artist of X-Factor drawing this). OH and forgot to mention but The Unwritten does have some love in it (I can't call it romance since nothing romantic ever happens. Unless sex is romantic?).
  Well, I need to go and watch Spider-man with friends now (see! I'm not a total social pariah), since it takes ages for an English movie to come on cinemas in China. So bye! but I'll leave you with my favorite quote by Mr Bun:

[An inspirational speech he made to the other animals, while they were walking the stairway to heaven] You've just got to get out of this fucking subbasement, from Hades and into the real world! Booze! Hookers! Opposable thumbs! Who's with me!

  And also a picture of the unfinished Ghost Rider oil painting that Joe's currently drawing:

Wait, DC can write comics??

  Well, Joe's out with his 'guy gang' and they have this sort of no girls allowed thing, so here I am, blogging to imaginary people on a Friday afternoon. How sad do I feel? Very. So far this morning, to quench my boredom, I've tried reading Neil Gaiman books, playing World of Warcraft, and attempting to aid Joe with his oil painting of Ghost Rider. But obviously, none of that helped and I'm left with the same amount of boredom, and a painting that resembles more of a soft, worm-eaten peach, than it does a skull (shh don't tell Joe) (Because, yes, the best place to announce that is on a blog with which I share with Joe)
  And now I've resorted to having bracketed conversations with myself on blogger.
  Awesome.
  Well, as I'm here, I may as well give a comic update. I'm about to start reading a Vertigo comic by DC comics called The Unwritten. And this, actually, is the first proper DC comic I have ever read. Shame on me, as a comic book fan, I know. DC never actually seemed that appealing to me, especially Superman. I mean, he is practically one of the most boring (and yet most powerful), superheroes ever created. Seriously. He has practically every power human kind can think of: flight, super strength, super speed, super hearing, super sight, x-ray vision, the red heat eye beam thing, and so much more. It's just not right to have one guy so much more powerful than the rest.

Superman the movie!! I love Brandon Routh

  But anyway, The Unwritten is a comic book different to most of the comic books I actually read (The powpow, KABOOM, blood and gut types). The Unwritten focuses more of the life of one guy called Tom Taylor instead of a whole team. It's still an ongoing series, and it has crazy plots that involve fantasy creatures such as the whale that ate pinocchio's dad and the mansion in which Frankenstein was created. So it's like an ordinary novel, but drawn! How cool?? I'll start reading the comic series in an hour or two when it arrives and I'll give a review on that, because I know you so desperately want me to.
  Yeah, you're welcome.

(A page of The Unwritten. The art is a little different than I'm used to)
  Now that I've seen DC can actually create some readable content, I've searched up a few more of Vertigo comics and discovered Doom Patrol. Doom Patrol, I guess, does fall in to the BloodnGuts (that would an awesome name for an actual genre of comics) section, but it's still very different from popular Marvel comics such as X-Factor, or Secret Avengers (The Secret Avengers? Must check). Doom Patrol is made up of super-powered misfits who are alienated from the rest of the world and called freaks. So, sort of like the mutants who formed the X-men in the Marvel world. They have crazy adventures with super villains such as The Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man (what?) and a brain. This series was actually created back in 1963 so volume 1-3 are drawn in simplistic block colors and most of the writing contains way more exclamation marks than I can bear. But for the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man, I must soldier on. Doom Patrol was actually cancelled at around volume 4, where Arnold Drake made the most dramatic ending by killing every single member (sorry if you were going to read it and I just spoiled it for you, but hey, Wikipedia didn't give me any heads up either). They do somehow resurrect again though, as superheroes always do, and Doom Patrol is relaunched and cancelled around a million more times.
  But hey, a quote I found on Wiki by Drake:
...I’ve become more and more convinced that [Stan Lee] knowingly stole The X-Men from The Doom Patrol. When I first brought the idea into [DC editor] Murray Boltinoff’s office, it would’ve been easy for someone to walk over and hear that [I was] working on a story about a bunch of reluctant superheroes who are led by a man in a wheelchair.
  Yes Drake, because DAMN IT every comic book writer wants a paralyzed guy as their team leader. Jeez, I think this guy is just jealous because Doom Patrol (sort of) failed and X-men has spawned so many more popular teams such as X-Factor (woohoo!) and X-Force.
  Wow, ok, I wrote so much more than I expected but comic books deserve article long rants. Now I must go read The Unwritten and next post will be the review. Woohoo more waffling rants. And I have a great urge to say: till next time folks.

Ghost Rider

Hi non-existant readers, this is Bob again as Joe can't lift his ass of the couch for one minute to talk to figments of our imagination (no offense non-existant audience). But anyway, this post will actually be about comics and art as promised, and I'll be talking about GHOST RIDER!

(Front cover of Ghost Rider #1)

Doesn't he look amazing?

So the main plot of the story is basically this guy called Johnny Blaze sells his soul to the devil in order to save his dad who's about to die of cancer, but just as he's in the middle of trying to summon the devil, his girlfriend walks in and stop the whole thing by chanting out some stuff and she saves Johnny's life, somewhat. However the other half of his soul makes him GHOST RIDER. And yes, I do have to capitalize his name every time he's mentioned). This is sort of the prologue, while the comic series is actually about how the devil has escaped from the underworld but his soul has been shattered into six hundred and sixty six parts that take upon a body of their own. And obviously, being the devil, death and destruction follow him wherever he goes, and Ghost Rider is the only thing strong enough to stop him.

I am terrible at story summaries and if you actually read the comic it is just SO MUCH more intense and awesome than how I say it. It is written by Daniel Way and BUY IT or download it off a torrent or something, because it's so worth it.

Yay, first comic review done. Now I must go join Joe as we battle a cave full of Monstrous bats, while eating cheese puffs.

And here, a picture of Ghost Rider sailing through the air in front of a improbably massive moon, with his Ghost Rider bike which he has just summoned.

Hi

So this is my first actual post that is not an introduction. I'm actually typing this on an iPad and I think that's pretty awesome; being able to post a blog whenever you want, wherever. Plus you can also take pictures super quick!
I just took a picture of my bedroom wall In like two seconds.
Anyway, while Joe is laughing silently over in that corner there at my total lack of skill in technology, I'm watching the London olympics where China is kicking ass. WOOHOO.

Joe's First Post

Hi I'm Joe. This is my first time blogging, ever. It was Bob's idea and he's forced me to write an introduction although he KNOWS I'm terrible at those; plus, I feel like I'm talking to a wall.
Anyway, Hi I'm Joe and I'll be posting mostly art related stuff or some random pictures of strangers who I find have interesting fashion.
Yeah.
Well, welcome to our blog and if you follow we follow back.