Podcast of the Day : Episode 286: The July Previews Catalog & Bendis Trojan Horse!?!

Podcast of the Day : Episode 286: The July Previews Catalog & Bendis Trojan Horse!?!

http://comicsalternative.com/episode-286-the-july-previews-catalog/

Great podcast, around the 30 to 40 minute mark you’ll find a nice bit on how everything  thoughtful is somewhat political. Give a listen.

It is a nice overview of items you can find in this Month’s Previews.

Previews for those uninitiated is a prE-ordering system for comic books. Especially with the outrageous cover prices Marvel and now DC are charging (I’m telling you, Brian Bendis was a Trojan horse for Marvel 🙂 , jumping ship to eff up DC’s lower, and more successful $2.99 pricing structure. I was picking up a good # of DC $2.99 books, but suddenly Bendis defects to DC, after defending Marvel’s awful business practices and price points for years, and now DC’s books (with a couple welcome holdouts) have shifted to the higher; and in my view, too expensive, Marvel price point of $3.99 minimum).

Pre-Ordering comics allows you to save (depending on the service you use) between 30% and 50% off cover price.

A sizable savings off the no-discount you would receive if you wait to  get the books off-the racks at your local retailer, when they come out.

The deadline to order upcoming comics at a sizeable discount, this month is 25 july. So in a few days at the time of this writing.

Thankfully there are several online retailers that allow you to preorder your comics and have them mailed to you. I’ve tried them all, Milehigh, Westfield, DCBS, to name a few, and while not the cheapest, the one I find to be the best, with the best packing, best customer service, and best quality of service and ease of use… is MY COMIC SHOP.

Order them here:

https://www.mycomicshop.com/subscriptionservice/previews?AffID=200301P01

Come back in a little bit and I’ll have up my list of must buys! I will give you a hint, fire marvel and dc (the movies are much better than the books anyhow. case in point, in the comics they moronically feel the need to both ride off the coattails of the movie version of nick fury, and diminish him at the same time, Black nick fury as white nick fury’s son??? that is just stupid.

what moronic writer came up with that lame, and more than a bit wasp centric idea?

Oh nick spencer. 

yeah, why am i not surprised. 🙂

I KID because i love! Unlike the moronic anti social justice warrior crowD, [basically any idiot who thinkS he is so witty for having a new short hand derogatory label, ‘SJW’, to try and diminish something that scares them, and they don’t quite understand. if they weren’t attacking sjw, they would be burning crosses no doubt. :). if you are subscribed to these clickbait morons on youtube or etc, stop being part of the problem and unsubscribe from them.

] i do not give an eff about cap being a hydra agent for two minutes. i just didm’t buy them.but it enforces a precedent of spencer perhaps not having the greatest ideas. 🙂

here’s an idea. marvel has a multiverse. why can’t the sam jackson nick fury, be his own man. from that splendid multiverse, where he is called nick fury and he is black, and his dad was black, and his mom was black, and his grand parents were black, like the sam jackson nick fury would have to be with a complexion that dark. 🙂

and that should be a great and fine thing! we have some mixed, melting pot families. that’s fine. but we have a lot that are not, and that should be fine too!

why does he have to be a junior to the wwii version of nick fury. it is worse than being blindly bigoted, which a lot of supposedly liberal people are… it is just stupid.

that is why the movies are better than the comics, they have better writers, and other creative people. and don’t get me started on tom king’s batman. talk about the emperor not having any clothes.

tom king is a fantastic writer. his ‘vision’ is i think, without argument, a masterpiece. However there is a repetition to king’s writing, and having the suicidal, deranged, falling apart protagonist that worked so well for the vision, as his goto archetype for every subsequent story is a failing.

it worked less well for the omega men, jury is out on on mister miracle, and it absolutely does not fit with batman. i am suicide? as the definition of batman? it is  the absolute oposite of everything it would take to endure, which is the definition of batman that rings the truest.

I took the trouble of getting and reading the five volumes of his batman run from the library, it is not good. i think he has one voice for all his male protaginists, and it is a voice that doesn’t fit his batman run. that said, when he gets away from his ‘not working’ longer storyline, and sticks to self contained stories, that’s when you see the genius of tom king.

HIS BATMAN ANNUAL 2 is case in point. forget trying to weave this long form story, and delivering issue after issue that underwhelms, give me a 100 stand alone stories of the quality of batman annual 2.

unfortunately he took the wrong thing from the success of that annual. he thought it was about milking that one storyline for a hundred issues, the strength of that issue is it was complete onto itself. king is trying to do doug moench, when he should be trying to do frank robbins. self contained over long form

 

How is that for an aside?! :))

so all that to say fire the over-priced, variant and gimmick saturated marvel and dc comics , and get periodical comics from people who respect their readers and just want to tell good stories in the periodical format. marvel and dc, do have fantastic creators, but they are being sabotaged by $4 to $8 ‘high way robbery’ price points. i absolutely want to read coates’ captain america and black panther, priests’ deathstroke, same for many other books. i refuse to pay their price gouging amounts. rather do what i do, wait for them to be collected and either read it for free from the library or buy it at a discount at your local bookstore or online store.

marvel and dc, are pridefully ignorant, a catching disease as our political landscape shows too well. such ignorance can not be reasoned with, it must be actively chastised the only way the pridefully ignorant understand, in dollars and cents.

stop buying them in periodical form. job done.

and instead buy periodicals from companies that are still excited by that format and price point. buy from the new marvel and the new dc for the 21st century.

 

I’m talking of the Canadian company CHAPTER HOUSE, AND THE AMERICAN COMPANY ALTERNA. AT LESS THAN HALF THE PRICE OF MARVEL AND DC, I BUY EVERYTHING THESE GUYS PUT OUT. THESE GUYS MAY JUST BE THE NEW, AND GOOD, MARVEL AND DC. 🙂

 

***********

Favorite Amazon Purchases of 2015! 1 of 3!

//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=herotime-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B00MHLIGCY&asins=B00MHLIGCY&linkId=LMYZFFPFJZF6LY5S&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true

//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=herotime-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=1906653232&asins=1906653232&linkId=LKHIMVLLIS6SAWPN&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true

//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=herotime-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B012HQ1R0G&asins=B012HQ1R0G&linkId=SPYMSDVZ4CTGZZGX&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true

//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=herotime-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B005MKERVQ&asins=B005MKERVQ&linkId=RWK5RW5FYSVCAWJ6&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true

The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears [Blu-ray]

//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=herotime-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B0073PZ6O0&asins=B0073PZ6O0&linkId=2NTR3EZTJGB2TQU7&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true

//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=herotime-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B000LQB20K&asins=B000LQB20K&linkId=KIIAE6UZP4FRAPJM&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true

//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=herotime-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=0785185720&asins=0785185720&linkId=4GGTAF5UHFBPDQ2W&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true

//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=herotime-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B00VQO19CM&asins=B00VQO19CM&linkId=YFHMJ4UAAURSC4KD&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true

ON-DEMAND Viewing Guide: The best and worst Roku

If you have a Roku Box and are looking to explore the world of ON-DEMAND viewing, the challenge is always to find quality free channels, with good content and no ads or limited and unobtrusive ads.

That is always a fluid hunt, as channel offerings vary from month to month, and in some cases week to week.

So without further ado my list of best and worst of Roku Channels this October.

If you have a Roku I do recommend supplementing free channels with at least one provider such as AMAZON PRIME or NETFLIX just because the Roku Free Channels, by themselves, you will find hard-pressed to fill your TV watching needs. However pair the free channels with AMAZON PRIME or NETFLIX and you can safely kiss your cable bill goodbye.

So what are, the free channels that are worth your time?

Well I’ll start with the disappointing, CRACKLE. When I first started using Roku this channel was great, however in a scant month their ad usage has become so excessive (you get ads before movies, you get ads if you fast forward or rewind, you get ads every 15 minutes, and you are unable to fast forward ads) and so annoying and obtrusive that it is not worth the frustration of dealing with.

So CRACKLE from a channel that was initially one of the best, has become absolutely one of the worst. (Their XBOX ads are so annoying as to be an assault) . Avoid this channel and I recommend everyone unsubscribe from it, and as their numbers drop it should spur the Sony owned CRACKLE to do the right thing and reduce the # of ads, and stop having ads any more often than once every 30 minutes, and remove the automatic ads should you fast-forward or rewind, because that’s just idiotic.

So yeah CRACKLE gets our Worst Channel mention, they should be ashamed of themselves. Okay that negative over now onto the good stuff.

Today’s channel worth your time is:

THRESHOLD+ – Has a good if not great selection of B movies, with a heavy dose of classic Horror and scifi movies. From the alien movies of the 50s to the low budget exploitation films of the 80s. The quality of the video ranges from good to mediocre, since much of this seems to be sourced from public domain or TV prints so no HD quality here. However it makes up for this in the lack of ads. Some notable films available for viewing on this channel are:

BOOGEYMAN (2005) – Not getting the IMDB derision and hate for this film as I find it stylishly and inventively directed, and better acted than most films of the genre. A film of poetical horror, which perhaps is too subtle for the blood and gore crowd. However if you are a fan of atmospheric slow burn films like the recent WOMAN IN BLACK, you may find this film a worthwhile watch.

And thanks to THRESHOLD+ you can view it for free and decide for yourself.

And other notable films available on THRESHOLD+ are:

MESSIAH OF EVIL
I MONSTER
SCARECROWS (1988)
THE BELL OF HELL (1973)
ASYLUM
THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF
SHE
4D MAN
X: THE UNKNOWN

More recommended on-demand channels next installment!

FCC, Obama, Chief Privacy Officer, Twitter and Online Sales Tax?!!!

Okay so we’re going to talk tech for just a second.

With President Obama appointing a twitter lawyer to the newly created position of Chief Privacy Officer of the United States (A Twitter Lawyer setting a nation’s privacy policy, is that an effing joke?!!) and the FCC head post being handed over to a blood sucking lobbyist for the telecom industry, and with the senate and house poised to tax Americans and small businesses now for online transactions (purchases, sales, revenue, regardless of state. So much for no taxation without representation); technology is, more than ever before, being used up and down to widen the divide between rich and poor, slave and free.

Technology is being used to break the back of the working classes world wide, all to feed the endless maw and greed of corporations who owe no allegiance to country, to community, to quality of life. Mega-Corporations who themselves want to pay no taxes AND get the government to tax the poor and middle classes and give them your money.

WTF?!!!

That is not just greed my friends, that is in ways true and deep… evil.

So yeah, Tech is the topic of the moment.

Stay Tuned for more….

AVOID scumbag editors and fly by night publications that start with Q!!

“He took a cigarette from his platinum case and smiled grimly at his unwavering hands. They wouldn’t shake even in hell! But he was shaking inwardly, not in personal fear, but with dread of the horror that impended for the city’s millions.”
—THE CITY DESTROYER by Norvell W. Page

I want to take 2 seconds to rant here.

I did some work recently for an online publication. A once well known property beginning with a Q and ending with R, but their site looked, quite frankly, stagnant. But I was told by the editor that they were looking to revamp and relaunch. For whatever reason I had my doubts, but after a few email exchanges I allowed myself to be swayed that this was something professional. I did the work, he received and published the work, only compensation requested was comp copies. And needless to say after telling me I would be receiving them, they have never been received.

What bothers me so much, is not the comp copies, it’s the lying to me about the comp copies. It’s me investing my time to help your magazine, because I believe in the concept, and then being pretty much taken advantage of.

I should have followed my first instinct that just screamed at me there was something scammy and shady about the whole deal, and the guy who was presenting the deal.

Well now I know.

And I will not forget, what an Editor’s word is worth. 🙂