Interesting Bits IX or Beware Zombies in Austin

Well, since my knee went catty-wompus on me tonight I'm up and in pain. Thought I'd give it a whorl of trying to kick this out before I had too many thing stacked up.

Beware! Zombies Ahead!

An industrious hacker had a bit of fun in Austin Monday. They apparently reprogrammed construction signs near the University of Texas to read, "Caution! Zombies Ahead!” and “Nazi Zombies! Run!!!” Our Keep Austin Weird slogan never fails to live up to the hype. Don't believe me? Check it out.


Comics

Well, DC Comics Final Crisis came to a conclusion on Wednesday. I know, I know I kept complaining that it didn't make much sense, but since then I've reread: ALL of Jack Kirby's Fourth World stuff, Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers, Batman RIP and the entire Final Crisis miniseries. Well, now it all comes together for me. With only close to 150 comics before you read it, I am completely sure it will make perfect sense to you too. Either that or you could read Grant Morrison's exit interview with Blog@Newsarama. Where Morrison explains how Kirby's Fourth World was ripped off to make Star Wars and most especially that movie of movies He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. I shit you not.


In other "scratching your head and saying WTF?" news. DC Comics also released the wrong picture to Previews ordering catalog. (The catalog comes out with "Previews" of what's going to be on the stands or in stores in three months time.) Thereby really fucking up their big summer cross-over Green Lantern:Blackest Night. Now the picture they were supposed to release should have been this:
For those of you not in the know, other Lanterns are now in the Universe. Red (Rage), (forthcoming) Orange, Yellow (Fear), Blue (Hope) Violet (Love) and also forthcoming Black (Death). Now, Black had yet to be unveiled. It had been leaked that the Black Lanterns were all going to be reanimated zombies (wow that is TWO Zombie things), but no one knew that identity of the first Black Lantern. Well, check out the picture that was actually published in Previews this month:
That's correct folks. Earth-2's Superman (Basically the archetype for all the heroes in the DC Universe. The one that came out in 1938) who died saving the Universe (all 52 of 'em) is going to be reanimated to be the first evil Black Lantern for Blackest Night. Sometimes I really think that the editors at DC just Twitter all day and don't really pay attention that much. The fanboys/girls at The Green Lantern Corps Forum were nonplussed to say the least.

While on the subject of GL. How big of a geek are you? Big enough to fashion a wooden replica of Hal Jordan's ring? You can if you go here.

News of the Weird

In a Belgian Creche (Daycare) an ass clown believing himself to be The Joker from The Dark Knight movie stabbed 21 infants and 6 daycare workers. Thankfully nine children escaped unharmed, well physically. "Belgian television said that witnesses described the attacker as looking like The Joker from the Batman films." The police also stated that when caught, Mr. Kim "Crazier Than a Shit House Rat" de Gelder would only answer them with Heath Ledger's lines from the movie. Please read The Telegraph and The Copycat Effect Blog for further details.

And yet again in the I Shit You Not category, a British man apparently killed his wife over her changing her Facebook status from married to single. Whole story at Breitbart.com.

Darwin completely forgot that some people's gene pool is shallow and full of piss.

Apology/Interesting Bits VIII

Dear Blog,

I'm writing to tell you how sorry I am for ignoring you since the 24^th of December. Things have been rather hectic on all fronts and it came down to what could I stop doing and keep my sanity. Unfortunately my darlin', that was you. I am back now though, and I'm glad you made it through New Year's without me. I'll try to do better.

Interesting Bits VIII

I hope that everyone had a great New Year's and still hasn't broken their resolutions. Would you believe the real reason I haven't written anything is because nothing interesting has happened since 12/24? No, didn't think so. Anyways, here we go....

Watchman Front

Several interesting developments on the status of Watchman. Apparently it will be released on March 6^th as planned. Here's what Blog@Newsarama had to say. That's all fine and dandy and I'm glad I'm going to be able to see Watchman on the planned release date. However, I still agree with this guy over at Cracked.com who posted this before the settlement was released: Watchman Fan Cordially Invites Fox to Eat Several Dicks. Also, on Watchman front was this nice behind the scenes that Empire mag put out with the Minutemen, the precursor group to the Watchman in the comics, and Carla Gugino continues to look stunning in.


Ricardo Montalban

Yes, it was sad that he died on the 14^th of January, but I did find this interesting at Boing Boing: How Many AAAAA's in Khaaaaaaaan? These are Google results depending on how many A's you wish to place in your search of Ricardo Montalban's most famous role.








Comics

Two comics of note were released on Wednesday, Final Crisis #6 and Amazing Spider-Man #583. Stop reading now if you don't want any SPOILERS! We all good now....good.

Final Crisis #6 came out in DC Comics latest attempt to alienate all fans. I don't even know where to start with the bad things about this book. First off, this book made little to no sense without Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #3, Superman Beyond #2 and Final Crisis: Revelations #5. Have those books shipped yet? Nope. Plus, we all know how we got royally screwed in Batman: RIP when Dan (Wife? I Don't See Anybody's Wife Here) DiDio told us that RIP didn't actually end in Batman #681 like we were told, but in FC #6. Somewhere between Batman being blown to lil Bat-Chunks at the end of 681 Batman had the time to sneak off, find a new costume, get his God Killin' Gun with it's own God Killin' Bullett and smoke Darkseid. Check out what Topless Robot had to say about this. To make things a perfect clusterfuck, there were 3 pencillers on the issue. JG Jones, Carlos Pacheco and Doug Mahnke. 3 great tastes that do not taste great together, but we did get a great version of "Superman's Dead Body Pose" from Mahnke.
If you want to make sense of this series, I'd suggest going here: Rokk's Comic Book Revolution from Rokk Krinn (one of my favourite funny book reviewers on the interwebs) and here from Douglas Wolk (who sent me a terribly nice email offering to explain the parts that didn't make sense to me) Final Crisis Annotations Special thanks to Laura for the Final Crisis Annotations blog.

And then there was Amazing Spider-Man #583. Spider-Man at the Obama swearing in ceremony. This is only an add on to the book that's just 5 pages long. Has that stopped people from going nuts trying to get a copy? Nope. Marvel has already announced a 3^rd print going to press. On my last check of Ebay bids for a 1^st print there was one for $125 with 4 bids on it (Update! This book went for $210.55). At least this one is signed by Zeb Wells and Todd Nauck. $125 for a comic that came out on Wednesday for $3.99...Americans are so cool about what they spend their money on. We wonder why the rest of the world hates our guts...Oh yeah, and Erik Larsen is accusing Marvel of plagiarizing him with this story. Over at IO9


How To

Two very cool how to's caught my eye. Over at Boing Boing gadgets there was: How To a Tailfin Retro Media Centre and Make: TV website has a step by step to Make Your Old VCR Into a Cat Feeder:


Politics

Here's a montage of David Letterman's Great Moments in Presidential Speeches:

I will of course continue my countdown clock on the right until Tuesday (or whenever I remember to take it down), but I just keep repeating to myself, "January 20^th the end of an error." Thank you, Dubya and please don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Because

I can't leave you with his face as the last thing you see when reading this, something lovely and something funny. First up I give you Kitty Lea from Nuts Magazine doing Topless Wii video:


and something funny from Durex Condems with the funniest ad I've seen so far this year:

you can also check out "out takes" on the designers website.

On a personal note I wanted to thank everyone who reads this. The comments mean a lot to me.

Cheers!