Our House Progress

These were taken today!

Happy Halloween!!

Travis Barker is UH-mazing

So we went to the Blink-182 show last night and it was amazing and I'll post more on it later, but you must see this video. This was the finale/encore and it showed just how awesome Travis Barker is. Anyways, watch this: (I think it cut off the edge on some browsers, so if so, here's the link to youtube: Travis Barker clip)

(I didn't get the whole thing cause I had limited memory, but this almost seems like a complete clip, and it's taped by me as best I could, enjoy)

Some New Pics of the House

Here's a picture of Amanda and Me in our happenstance matching outfits this past Sunday. Followed by various pictures of the progress of our house. Enjoy!

God Loves, Man Kills (An X-Men Story)

This is one of those books that I think everyone should read. X-Men has been a series that has often addressed the question of prejudice and hate towards minorities (in the case of the X-Men, the minority is the mutant). This was a graphic novel published solely as such; it was never a serial X-Men story and was published as one complete story without trying to be placed into the X-Men continuity. At the same time that it's a stand alone story it also ties what came before it together into one idea while having a big influence on where the X-Men storylines would go to in the future. That being said, you don't have to know the stories that came before this and you don't need to read anything after reading this to get more of the story; it is its own story that someone unfamiliar with the X-Men could pickup and read. It was originally published in 1982 and the issues it addresses and questions it raises are still relevant today.

The story follows the beginning of a genocide of mutants, lead by a fanatical religious leader William Stryker. Stryker is leading a fanatic group of people who kill, without sympathy, anyone who is a mutant because they are not human. After we see a brutal killing in the opening panels, Magneto, leader of a mutant resistance group in the regular comic series, decides it is best to join forces with his nemesis, Charles Xavier and the X-Men, in order to stop the burgeoning holocaust. After Stryker kidnaps two of the X-Men and Xavier for nefarious reasons, the rest of the team follows Magento to stop his bandwagon's momentum in its tracks by any means necessary.

The graphic novel by itself is powerful without the amazing story by Chris Claremont and superb art of Brent Anderson that seems to be the forerunner to an art style of comic-artist Alex Ross. The one series of images that could easily shake anyone is the picture of Xavier being crucified on the roof of one of the World Trade Center towers by his own students, or the murder and lynching of two young children for being mutants.

If anything you will recognize some of the elements of the story as it was the source material used by Bryan Singer for his movie X2.

This graphic novel is not only a read, but a 100% buy and treasure it often type book. It will surely be read again by me.

Ryan Reynolds

Ok, so Ryan Reynolds has got some great movie deals going right now...

in 2011

Ryan Reynolds will have the lead role in both of the following:

-The Green Lantern as Hal Jordan, aka The Green Lantern (by DC Comics)

AND in the same year he will be...

-Deadpool (by Marvel Comics)

Both movies are slated for release in 2011, GL is already in Pre-production and Deadpool has been announced. It's just funny to me that he will be playing two major characters in each of the big comic-book universes so I had to share.

Comic-Con, the aftermath (or, how to pay for next years tickets or collectibles)

Well as anyone who read my Comic-Con posts knows or has talked to me, Amanda and I got a lot of free stuff at Comic-Con and had a blast. But as time passed and I read the various free comic-books that I got I decided to see how much some o

f this stuff was worth and found that I had a couple pretty valuable items. So of course I did what any sensible person would: I listed them on ebay right away.

So upon doing so I had a grand ol' time for seven days as I watched people bid up my free comics. Here are the results:

Invincible Iron Man #1 Movie Cast Variant signed by author Matt Fraction

ratio 1:100 (this means that for every 100 normal covers printed there was only one of these printed)

Winning bid: $49.99

Deadpool: Merc With a Mouth #1 Sketch Variant (exclusive to Comic-Con)

Winning bid: $45.50

Uncanny X-Men #510 Campbell Sketch Variant (exclusive to Comic-Con)

Winning Bid: $76.25

Amanda and I got these all throughout our time at Comic-Con this year and we had a blast!! This was just a nice little added bonus at the end. We got other variant covers as well but these were the only ones worth anything significant and therefore the only ones that I sold.

Other thing I forgot:

The very first night of Comic-Con I searched out and found Todd Lockwood, the artist that has done all the new cover art for all the new Drizzt novels. He is an awesome fantasy artist and I stumbled upon his booth last year after I had spent all my money. So this year I made it a point to go to him first thing and get the artwork that I wanted and get it signed. So that was really cool.

Here is one of the paintings I got. It's from a Drizzt book called The Orc King.

Here's another sample (below) of one of the covers he did for a recent Drizzt book called The Pirate King (the second one in the series). And the other painting I got is one called The Ghost King and is the third in this series of books (it's a trilogy).