Partially Obvious

so remember when I said that I was super psyched about Blackest night 1. Well that was really good, and we’re up to #3 now and it is still super great.

If you don’t read comics…well I think you’re silly.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOD! I’m extremely pleased with this story so far. for those of you here for LEGO related posts…I’m afraid I’m going to be geeking out in the direction of comics a bunch for the next few months.

I did get the rest of the new agents sets, and that’s wicked exciting. Built the Venater and new Y-wing too last weekend. ah what a great 2nd half of the year!

Alright, so I’m totally excited that Blackest Night is finally here.  For those of you that don’t know Blackest Night is the story that the Green Lantern Books have been building up to for the last few years (that includes about 6 months of prelude and 2 prologue books and we’re finally there).  The first issue of the Blackest Night limited series comes out tomorrow. 

The main theme is that when all the lights of the emotional spectrum are harnessed (red – rage, orange – avarice, yellow – fear, green – willpower, blue – hope, indigo – compassion, and violet – love), which the Green lanterns have been trying to keep from happening for billions of years (but happened all of the sudden just recently), then they will all go to war – the war of light. 

Out of the war of light comes something not very happy which is the blackest night, which involves the rise of the black lantern corps who are powered by death.  So this means zombie lanterns!  wooooooooooohooooo!  All the characters they’ve killed over the course of the last 80 years are fair game to come back and terrorize our heroes.

Why is this so important to me?  between the Blackest Night limited series, Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Blackest Night: Superman, Blackest Night: Batman, Blackest Night Titans, Blackest Night Tales of the Corps, Blackest Night: JSA, and other unnannounced titles, there’s going to be a green lantern book EVERY SINGLE WEEK.  I never saw myself as a Green Lantern fan until suddenly I was.  Funny how life works.

Anyways, that dovetails into my next subject which is my recent game obsession called Plants vs. Zombies.  Its a cute little game from Pop Cap games that involves defending your house from hordes of brain starved zombies with nothing by the super powered plants you seem to be cultivating in your basement.  Its way fun, but addicting.

There’s a few things in this world that I get all giddy and weird about in terms of wishing I had such superfluous amounts of cash that it never mattered how much I spent on silly things.  One of those things is this:

It may seem silly, but the new stories they’re doing in Green Lantern are right up my alley for wacky-cool-fun-sci-fi-adventure-my-wife-makes-fun-of-me-because-she-just-doesn’t-get-it-ness.

Having a display case for all of the different rings which follow along the different colors of the emotional spectrum all in preperation for the upcoming story line ‘Blackest Night’ may seem silly, but I can’t think of a better ornament for our coffee table. 

The only thing stopping me from indulging in this frivilous use of my hard earned (yes I actually do work) monies would be the $250 price tag.  my sense of reason snaps back into place upon seeing that. 

I’ve always been a collecter which as most of you who read this know, is the downfall of any well thought out budget.  I’ve been able to hold myself in check for a long time simply out of necessity, but every once in a while an action figure will sneak into my house uninvited, or I’ll suddenly be buying two or three more comic titles than I was the month before. 

All in all I think its healthy to have a hobby.  I’ve always said that its the only way to be easy to shop for.  There’s always people in everyone’s life who when they have a birthday you’re at a total loss.  Then there’s people like my sister, who like Disney and Giraffe’s.  If I find a mickey mouse themed giraffe montage, I know I have the perfect gift and that my sister will be happy with it. 

Then there’s the other people who don’t want anything (which is a lie, everytime and you know it) and give you no clear direction.  Some might think its just more of a challenge, but it makes me feel better about having a hobby (or 8).  Buy me anything with Star Wars, Green Lantern, LEGO, or Warcraft related and you’re safe with me.

I headed to the New York Comic Con this weekend with my buddies Mark and Pete are both Master Model Builders for the LEGO Group (though Pete is currently working as a graphic designer, I still count him).  We headed towards New York at about 6am friday morning (ugh).  We always drive down to New Haven, CT and take the train from there to Grand Central Station. 

We were all wired by the time we got on the train so Pete and I just talked the whole time and Mark wondered how we could possibly talk so much.  We got to Grand Central and took the subway to times square.  We bummed around Toys R Us for a little bit and then made our way to Midtown Comics. 

It was really busy since it was the day of the Con.  Most likely people trying to grab anything they may have forgotten or that they needed to get autographed.  I bought a couple of Green Lantern action figures and Mark got a sketchbook.  We then went to Red Lobster because…well it was right there and we were hungry.

After lunch we grabbed a cab to the Javitz Center where we got into the “line of death” for entry into the Con.  Basically they put everyone into a convention hall and make the line wrap around the whole place.  and take you right back out the entrance to that hall to move towards the hall everyone wants to be in.  Its kind of cramped, but it sure beat being outside (super cold on friday). 

I headed over to the Video Game area when I got there and got introduced to some snazzy people from Sony Online Entertainment (via a connection of mine).  They walked me through their upcoming game D.C. Universe online, which I happen to be pretty excited about. 

After that I walked over to the artist alley where I’d be spending the next few hours getting books signed.  I scored a great Power Girl print from Amanda Conner who is one of my favorite artists. 

Its on my wall over my computer now (sorry for the glare on the photo, its behind glass).  My wife’s not as big a Power Girl fan as I am…I don’t understand why.

Anyways, this whole process went on for a few more hours and we eventually went back to Connecticut.  We stopped at Friendly’s which has become our tradition.  We even had the same waitress as last year. 

The funniest thing that night was the group of 9 year old girls across the way from us who were just being loud and silly to the point of annoying.  I just kept pointing at them and telling Pete (who he and his wife are expecting a little girl in May) that, “this, this is your life from now on.”  He then responded that he was not planning on letting his daughter have friends and that would solve the whole issue.  It would wouldn’t it.

Here’s more pics from that day.  Hope everyone else had a fun weekend.

I had a long comic book discussion with Shawn and Mark when we had a free moment at BrickCon this year (up in Seattle if anyone ever reads this) and they were just singing the praises of Robert Kirkman’s Invincible (Image Comics). I had become somewhat enamorred with the DC Universe so I wasn’t just rushing to look at anything else, but Mark bought me the first trade (I should be indifferent more often, I get a lot of free stuff that way) and I loved it.

I’ve since almost caught up with the trades to where I can get to buying issues every week (#58 comes out this week). Some people only read trades and some people rip stuff off the internet but I love love love actually going to the store every wednesday and buying my stack of books.

There’s just something fun about the whole collecting process for me. Anyways, back on topic. the book itself just seems to be fresh in spite of the fact that it draws heavily in a lot of places from the common comic book archetypes. Kirkman has fun with the process while still allowing his stories to take themselves seriously.