Football Madness

I'm as big a pro football fan as anyone. I'm in front of the TV every week for the Giants' games and at least have the TV on for many other games. I may not actually sit and watch every NFL game but I have an interest. The games make good background noise if nothing else. I've played fantasy football every year since the late Eighties. That was before the age of computers when my league had to figure out who won and lost our games by looking up the stats in newspapers. Pencil and paper, baby.

At the end of April is the NFL draft. That's where all the NFL teams get together and choose which college players they can hire. The draft is televised every year now. As entertainment it's pretty much a non event but still a few football starved friends and I get together every year. We hang out and watch the draft. It's a good chance to get together because you don't have to pay too much attention to the actual draft. Social events don't need something that demands your attention interrupting them.

Now, for the first time, the NFL has come up with even more of a non event to watch. The NFL scouting combine. To be fair it is such a non event that it's only on the fledgling NFL network which my cable system doesn't even offer. I can't see it. At least the NFL draft is on ESPN. But still it's only the first year the combine is televised so it may grow into an even bigger non event.

The NFL scouting combine is where college football players and NFL scouts get together in one place (Indianapolis) so the potential draftees can get measured, weighed, and race to see how fast they are. I haven't seen it but I can safely say that I think the entertainment value is zero. But still people want to see it. Only the hardcore need apply.

The funny thing is that a lot of the top guys coming out of college don't even participate in the NFL combines. That's because there is another day, NFL Pro day, where college athletes work out for NFL scouts. I guess the top guys don't want to be seen with the rabble. I have no idea if NFL Pro day will be televised. I think it is not centralized like the combine so it would be harder to shoot. The scouts show up at individual colleges for Pro Day.

I don't watch any other sports besides pro football with any regularity. Sure I'll catch a baseball, basketball, hockey, or soccer game every now and then but I have no favorite team in those sports and don't care much who wins or losses. So in the football off season I only flip by ESPN for shorts bursts. But in those short burst I've managed to catch some NFL combine news. Yes, ESPN has reporters there keeping an eye on who can run a 4.3 forty.That's a forty yard dash in 4.3 seconds and the difference between being drafted in the first round and getting millions of dollars and not being drafted at all.

These reporters can make whole segments out of nothing. Opinions based on opinions based on opinions about who the surprises and busts will be. Who will move up in the draft because of these work outs? Who will move down? Opinions and speculation from talking heads is running rampant this week. Opinions on who has "character" and who doesn't. It's easy to tell who doesn't have character. They're the ones getting arrested. Dead giveaway.

So if you have the NFL network you can tune into the new ultimate football non event. At lest until they invent another one. I think they should televise the GM meetings where they decide to cut veteran players for salary cap reasons. That would be exciting non event TV.

Comics I bought: February 22, 2007

Back to my regularly scheduled comics day this week. I picked up three comics.

Rex Mundi 4

Local 8

True Story Swear To God 3

Plus I got StormWatch Post Human Division 4 last week.

One more thing I got this week is "Mighty Skullboy Army Vol. 1". It's the trade paperback edition from Dark Horse Comics. It's done by my buddy Jacob Chabot and it's a collection of his mini comics that he's been doing for a few years. Some of the funniest stuff you'll read.

Skullboy is a grade school kid who has a skull for a head and runs an evil corporation dedicated to talking over the world. His actual army consists of Unit One (Mr. Awesome as he calls himself) and Unit Two. Unit One is a pint sized robot with a built in arsenal. Unit Two is an allegedly super smart monkey. I say allegedly because he spends most of his time acting like a monkey, not following orders, and doing his own thing. Plus he doesn't talk.

Skullboy juggles school and his evil corporation while fending off other evil competitors and a mysterious dog. Well drawn and well written check out Skullboy if you want a good laugh.

Week Ten of my reviews of recent DC Comics.

Shadowpact 6-7 - This is a team book written by Bill Willingham about a bunch of DC's magical characters. None of their big name magical characters are in it. In fact the only one I recognized was Blue Devil. I remember buying some Blue Devil comics way back in '84. DC's Earth is at a nexus/crossroads of some kind and lots of magical dimensions want to conquer it. You've seen it before. Still it's an okay book. Two different artists do each issue. It seems that's standard for DC's C level books these days (though this book is better than a lot of their A level ones). Both artists are pretty good and the colorist does a good job. The story line doesn't quite hold together as tightly as I'd prefer but it's okay. All in all this book made me want to like it. Check it out if are into some super hero magical stories.

Teen Titans 39-40, 42 - This is really two reviews. The first two issues are basic super hero stuff. There is a mystery going on and the Teen Titans are trying to figure it out. Nothing too exciting but solid. The art is pleasant enough (Tony Daniel & Kevin Conrad) and the writing (Geoff Johns) is fairly snappy so I have no real complaints. Check it out if you want a Teen Titans fix.
Issue 42 is where things go bad. Of course being DC it is drawn by a different artist (Peter Sneibierg). I liked the art so that's not my complaint. It's the writing. The story is the origin of Kid Devil and it drones on and on in a nearly endless first person narrative. There are so many word balloons and captions I thought Roy Thomas wrote it. Nope, still Geoff Johns. If all those word balloons and captions had something interesting to say I wouldn't be complaining. But they don't. Truly dull stuff. Stick with issues 39-40.

Here I Go Putting Things in Order Again

It's the eternal question of those who have a collection of any kind. What kind of order do you put things in? That's the difference between a collection and an accumulation. There's order to a collection and you can find things. People who have accumulations don't even know what they have or don't have.

Almost all of my comics are on book shelves. I love shelves because you can get to what's on them easily. Most collectors use boxes made for storing comics to house their collections. I find this too cumbersome and it makes getting to the comics quite hard. Boxes pile upon boxes and getting to a comic in the bottom box means moving those on top. A lot of effort has to be expended. I build shelves everywhere I can. I have lots of them but I can always use more. I advise everyone to learn how to build shelves and book cases. It's not hard.

As the guy who invented the Dewey Decimal system could tell you: when it comes to organizing books doing it just alphabetically doesn't work. New comics are being made (and bought) every week and my collection is constantly expanding. Thus when the finite room of a particular shelf has run out, but there are still new comics to add, the the whole collection has to be shuffled around. That's if you do things alphabetically.

I solved this problem years ago by putting inactive comic book series (ones that I no longer purchased new issues of) on certain shelves by themselves. This meant that I no longer had to move these ones around. Ever. I was also free to group them alphabetically or by subject or publisher. This approach also includes a computer data base of my comics and their location. But that's not hard. Computers are real good for that stuff. So if I want to find where the hell my "Omega the Unknowns" are I just enter it and bookcase three shelf four is what I am told. That makes things easy to locate.

Most of my book cases are filled with inactive series. Only three shelves on one bookcase held active series (in alphabetical order). Much less to rearrange as new issues are purchased. That system had held up for years until this week.

The problem was that those three shelves which accounted for my active collections are big. I'd guess there are about 1300 comics in total on those three shelves. That's a lot of comics and since I haven't changed my system much in half a decade there were a lot of small inactive series on the shelf. Mini-series, cancelled series, and series I only bought a few issues of. It became impossible to browse those three shelves easily or with any satisfaction.

Browsing a collection is one of the joys of collecting. That's why it's important to have some order. Seeing one thing naturally leads you to want to see another that's some how connected to it. The connection my be emotional, logical, or it may have something to do with buying both things at the same time. Who knows? But if picking up one thing makes you want to see a second thing than that second thing better be easy to find. Or you will soon find yourself frustrated and disinterested. This was my situation with those three shelves.

One of the fun things about comic books is going back and rereading them. This wasn't happening with those three shelves. So I rearranged them for easiest browsing. Here is the system I came up with.

First I had to weed out the crap. If you follow my "Comics I Bought This Week" posts then you will notice that my tastes are not very mainstream and I am always looking for a new series to try. As a consequence I had about a hundred first, second and maybe third issues stuck on my three shelves. Comics I didn't like and never bought again. Still I shelved them because no comic collector wants to throw out comics. I pulled them off and maybe I'll put them on Ebay at 99¢ for all of them. I still don't want to throw them out. But I might.

A little aside: 99.99% of all comic books are worthless. I know the newspapers like to print articles every now and then on how comics, like the first Superman or Batman, are really expensive but those are the rare exception. I have a lot of comics but none are worth any real money. Hardly any are worth the three dollars an issue I pay for them off the stands. You find this out quickly on Ebay. Most comics are like new cars. They depreciate the moment you drive them off the lot. An eclectic collection like mine would probably only be bought by some comic dealer who buys by the pound. Yes, that's how many worthless comics there are out there. Unless you can show a dealer specific things to interest him it's not worth his time to go through a eight or ten thousand book collection. They just weigh it and give you X dollars a pound. X isn't a high number by the way. And now back to our subject at hand.

Second I needed to create "browsing sections" that made sense to me. I made a "by artist" section. This is a section of stuff that doesn't read well but has nice art. Some series that I only have a few issues of and they don't fit in anywhere. For example: George Perez's "Crimson Plague" only lasted two or three issues and ended in the middle of the story so there is no reason to ever go back and read it but the art is nice. If I want to browse some Perez art there it is in the "by artist" section. Same with thirty other artists.

The next section is the "complete mini-series" section. Each of these is a stand alone compact single story made up of about four to eight issues. When I want a small story I can check out this section.

Then comes the "complete series" section. These are whole runs of small series usually no more than twenty issues or so. The make up a larger canvas than a mini series and are good for when I want to dive into more ambitious concepts.

Lastly comes the "incomplete series" section. These are made up of short series that I am missing an issue or two of. Or maybe a series that was cancelled before it's time. The section of broken dreams. Browse here at your own risk.

Of course I still have my "active series" section. It's only three quarters of a shelf long now but at least I can see them at a glance. I did do one thing to make browsing easier. I got some card stock paper and made some dividers that stick out beyond the comics with the name of the comic book series on it. Now I can browse the dividers and know what's there. They are in alphabetical order of course.

Now if only I had a system for all of my trade paperbacks and hardcovers.

Comics I didn't buy February 15, 2007

So I haven't hit the comic shop yet this week. I won't make it there until Saturday but I thought I'd post my reviews of recent purchases anyway.

Last week I got a comic called "Books with Pictures". It was an autobiographical tale of a girl who works in a comic shop. The art and lettering were strictly amateur hour but that's okay in a slice of life book like this. It won't light the world on fire but I find it interesting when someone wants to share their story with the world so much that they take the time and energy to make a comic about it. If you like that sort of thing too then look this book up.

I also want to complain about the first really bad issue of Jonah Hex so far in this run. The previous three issues had the "origin" of Jonah Hex. Not very interesting because he has the typical revenge origin we've all seen a thousand times before but at least the art was nice. So what do we get in the new issue? Number 16 gives us another origin story of a female version of Jonah Hex. What's her origin? The same typical revenge origin. And the art isn't even as good. Sigh... I don't want to have to give up on this book but I think I will. It's drifted away from it's tightly plotted done in one stories to cliched nonsense. Oh well.

Week Nine of my reviews of recent DC Comics.

Hawkgirl 57, 59 - The Walt Simonson written story is interesting. It has to do with some Rann (Adam Strange's planet) vs.Thanagar (Hawkgirl's planet) war stuff. I know nothing of the Rann Thanagar war but a quick two paragraph recap gave me what I needed to know. But the art is a letdown. Issue 57 is by Joe Bennet and 59 by Renato Arlem. Both are good illustrators but not good storytellers. The script even has to describe some of the scenes that the artist is supposed to set but he doesn't do well. Renato's art appears like it was printed straight from the pencils and looks unfinished in places. The side of the pencil shading over large areas instead of solid blacks left me cold. I found it distracting. Check it out only for the writing.

Justice League of America 4-5 - Anyone who reads my reviews knows how much I hate bad first person narrative. It's been the comic book writer's crutch for two decades now. JLA 4 has seven, that's right, seven different first person narratives going on. All with different font and caption colors. I dare you to try and follow the story. Plus Batman (the super scientist JLA Batman of course), Superman, and Wonder Woman are away from the rest of the team otherwise the story would be over in two pages. But don't worry, Green Lantern is with the rest of the team. Except GL is ineffectual as some guy (the brother of Mr. Miracle) is running right at GL but is moving "too fast" for GL to put a cage around him. What? He's right in front of him! Just punch him. At the end of both issues we also get full page shots of the JLA looking like bad asses ready to kick some tail but they never do. Stay away from this mess.

Sandman Mystery Theatre: Sleep of Reason 1-2: This book is very hard to review because it's ruined by the coloring. It is hard to tell what is going in in almost all the panels because it is drawn in a thin, grey, sketchy line with almost no distinction between foreground, middle ground, and background. This could have been overcome by good coloring but instead we get monochrome coloring with lots of grey to muddle things up. It is nearly impossible to follow the storytelling. The art is such a mess I don't even care what the book is about. Stay away.

To Yu-Gi-Oh! Or Not To Yu-Gi-Oh!

No pro football until September! I'll have to distract myself with video games.

There is a new Yu-Gi-Oh! game out for the Nintendo DS (Spirit Caller). I might get it but I'm not sure. I have other Yu-Gi-Oh! games and the card battle genre is one that I enjoy. The genre started with Magic: The Gathering and involves picking out 40-60 cards from a vast library of different cards (1400 in the new Yu-Gi-Oh! game) and then building a deck out of them to "fight" other people and their decks. The strategy comes from deciding what tact you want to take and trying to figure out just which cards to put in your deck to stay on the winning course. Fun stuff.

The problem with these card battle video games is that collecting the virtual cards is always part of the game. That makes for a very big drawback. You are basically crippled at the beginning of the game. Your choices are few, your deck is weak, and the games you play are usually uninteresting. It takes a lot of slogging through the mire to get enough cards to build a deck that is interesting to use. I've played a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh! and I'm not a beginner's deck guy anymore. But that's where a new game always starts. With a beginner's deck.

These days I find a similar problem in a lot of different genres of video games. In most racing games you used to pick a good car and race. Now you have to pick a crappy car, race, win some races, and then upgrade your car until it's finally okay. Only then do you get to race with a good car. The game starts out crappy by design. How crazy is that? But it's the norm now. People even expect it.

Games used to be wide open but now you have to unlock things. Instead of giving a player a lot of choices right from the start you have to "earn" them. It even gives players a sense of satisfaction as they earn special items. Not me though. Don't give me a watered down game that only gets good later on. I won't stick around for later on.

I don't mind power ups and new weapons in shooters. If the game is well done and the base weapons are good then the new weapons just add spice. You can always go back to the base weapons and have fun. The games I don't like are the ones in which once you upgrade your weapon you never go back because the original was crappy to begin with.

I've quit playing a lot of games only to have someone tell me, "Well it gets good later". I want it good now. Not later. I paid for the game and I want my choices in front of me from the beginning. I don't want to unlock hidden character, powers, and costumes. If the game is good I'll play it. If it's not then the promise of a "reward" of secret game play isn't going to keep me from turning it off. Put your best foot forward.

A game series that I have always enjoyed is SSX snowboarding. It's exciting and fast paced with great sound and visuals. As a racing game it's top notch. I just don't like using the crappy snowboards at the beginning. I never bought SSX On Tour (the last one) because I didn't want to start at the beginning again. I've had it with games that withhold the good stuff from me.

That's why I'm undecided if I want the new YU-Gi-Oh! game. I know it'll be good. But only after playing for enough hours to get interesting cards. The last Yu-Gi-Oh! game I bought sat around for six months before I felt like starting it. I played the hell out of it eventually but good from the go it is not. Like so many other games.

Comics I Bought: February 8, 2007

Another week and another trip to the comic shop. I picked up four comics this week. Three of my regulars and one new one.

The Lone Ranger 4

Astro City: The Dark Age Book Two Issue Two

Jonah Hex 16

Books with Picture (there isn't a number that I can find). This looks like a small press book. Not even a publishers name on it. It's black and white and looks like it's a slice of life story. I'll let you know how it is.

I didn't read any comics last week. Maybe because I read so many the week before (all of Sleeper and StormWatch Team Achilles plus others). So there are no new reviews until next week. There, there—don't cry.

Driven to Distraction

Bad drivers. Who doesn't hate bad drivers? I wonder if any of them actually know they are bad drivers? I've heard people accused of being bad drivers but I've rarely heard a person declare themselves a bad driver. Maybe it's one of those things that people have to tell you over and over before you believe it.

Here is my latest bad driver story. I was cruising up Route 17 last Friday night in some heavy traffic. The speed limit on that part of 17 is 65 mph and things were moving well. The right lane was going about 60-65 and the left lane 65-70. I'm usually a right lane driver because I don't need to be in a hurry but that night I was in the left.

Keep in mind that there is a line of cars in front of me stretching out as far as I can see and a wall off cars to the right of me. I'm moving at the speed of traffic. Then this big old SUV pull up right behind me. I'm wishing I could pull right to get this ass off my ass but I can't. After about a minute of tailgating this SUV starts flashing it's brights at me. "Jerk" I think and look to see if I can pull right. There is a car immediately beside me. I mean door to door. What exactly did this SUV want me to do? Idiot driver.

So the SUV swooped into the right lane and then back into the left lane in front of me. And he stayed there. Like I said there was a line of cars in front of me stretching to the horizon. In both lanes. There was no place for this jerk to go. He stayed one car ahead of me for miles. Why was it so important for him to get ahead of me? I don't get it.

Now repeat that same story two more times (minus the flashing headlights only the first jerk did that). Once with a big ol' pickup truck and once with a big ol' white van. It's always a white van isn't it? Then I finally made my way over to the right lane. It was a little slower but no tailgating.

There was one small measure of satisfaction. After passing me the pick up made it's way into the right lane to disappear off an exit leaving the white van to tailgate the original SUV so badly that the SUV pulled into the right lane. At least he got a taste of his own medicine. Everyone's got a bad driver story. I'm lucky this was a mild one.

And since I am posting this post Super Bowl my friend John insists I point out that his SB prediction of a Colts winning 27-17 was off by only two points. What an Edgar Cayce he is. If only John would point us in the direction of Atlantis.

Comics I bought this week: February 1, 2007

Finally a week where some of my regular comics come out. I got four new ones this week:

Usagi Jojimbo 100. It looks like a jam issue with a whole bunch of cartoonists paying tribute to Usagi.

Ex Machina 26

Strangers in Paradise 87. It looks like someone messed up the computer file on the cover of this one. There are jpeg artifacts all over the place. I'm guessing someone accidentally printed the low res file. Oops.

Walking Dead 34

Last week I also sat down and read a whole bunch of comics in a row. I haven't done that in years but it sure was fun. I read Sleeper Season 1 issues 1-12, Sleeper Season 2 issues 1-12, and StormWatch Team Achilles issues 1-23 (and the script of 24 which is posted on the internet). It was over the weekend so I didn't actually read them all in one sitting but close to it. All three series are recommended.

Week Eight of my reviews of recent DC Comics.

Justice Society of America (2007) 1-2 - Super hero comics move so slowly these days that it is hard for a first issue to grab me. This one falls into that category. It's not bad but the first issue is like every other first issue of a team book. They introduced and gather up the new members of the team. Ho hum. The second issue gets things rolling a little more but not until the end when some villains show up and we get a glimpse of what the plot might be. Stay away unless you like slow pacing and character introductions.

The Midnighter 2-3 - Y'know what? I'm better off without the first issue. The story doesn't seem to miss it. Midnighter was captured by a bad guy (that's what must have happened in the first issue) and forced to go back in time and try to kill Hitler. I haven't read a comic with Midnighter in it since the first volume of The Authority and later StormWatch: Team Achilles. I have read that DC has had some problems with Midnighter and Apollo since they are gay, over the top violent versions of Batman and Superman. I also read that DC forced Wildstorm to tone them down. Boy, have they. This is written by Mr. Over the Top himself, Garth Ennis, but even in the midst of the trenches of WWI Midnighter isn't killing anyone. He seems quite the generic super hero here. Solid art but a pretty pedestrian story all around. Being it's a time travel story it will probably not make much sense in the end (as is the case with most time travel stories) but so far it's holding together. Check it out only if you have faith that Ennis and Sprouse can turn it into something interesting.

Omac 5-7 - I can barely review this book. It made almost no impact on me. There's nothing new here. Maybe if I read the multi part Omac crossover story that happened a while ago I might care but I doubt it. On the positive side I had no problem following the story not having read all the other Omac stuff. Once again it's not a horribly crafted book. The people that made it have some talent I just found it derivative and dull.