Dynamite Entertainment's Pulp Fiesta, take two!

 The pulp universe currently being published by Dynamite Entertainment has been nothing short of fantastic and if you're not reading these books than from one comic book fan to another, shame on you. Ever since Dynamite began publishing classic pulp characters starting with Zorro back in 2008 they've kept a small focus on the medium but now they've dove in head first with amazing books such as The Spider, The Shadow, Green Hornet, Flash Gordon, Lord of the Jungle, and a super crossover event called “Masks”. These books have all thrilled their readers on many levels and Dynamite is planning on expanding the line with other classic heroes such as The Black Bat as well as some other possible surprises like Mark Waid taking on The Green Hornet and some Year One style stories based on The Shadow. Obviously there is a market for these pulp comics despite the pulp downfall of the 50's and I'm glad that Dynamite recognizes this and is doing their best to help revitalize these classic characters for a wider audience than they've been getting since their popularity demised back before many of this blogs readers were born (maybe even your parents).

This particular blog post is not really meant to be a long and deep account about Dynamite's foray into the pulp market, I've already covered that with a previous blog earlier this year, but instead I wanted to talk about some of the things that Dynamite is trying to do to keep the momentum for these pulp characters going and why you should invest in this line of books. First off the biggest and most important thing is the unification of these characters in Masks, an 8 issue limited-series that features characters such as Green Hornet, The Shadow, The Spider, Zorro, and The Black Bat meeting up for the first time in what could be seen as a Justice League style tale. On top of classic pulp characters we will also see characters from Dynamite's Project Superpowers line of books making appearances to help with the grand scale of this event. This title is wonderfully written by Chris Roberson and the first issue was fully painted by Alex Ross, if you love these characters and ever wanted to know what it would be like if they were all working together than this book is an absolute must buy for you. The first issue was so popular that it cracked the top 25 in the Diamond top 300 ordered comics for the month of November taking the 25^th slot, that alone tells you that the market for pulp heroes is alive and healthy as long as you advertise your product. If that isn't enough for you, this book is the launching point for the 1930's pulp hero The Black Bat, a character that Batman was heavily modeled after. So much, in fact, that the owners of The Black Bat at the time took Batman's creators to court due to the similarities between both characters costumes thanks to Batman having his gloves modified to look more like Black Bat's. The acclaim for this series has been nothing short of amazing, almost every major comic review website has rated this book over a 9/10 and some have given the title a perfect 10 rating. That and the fan response has been tremendous with high sales, positive praise, and high orders for the second issue.

The Spider and The Shadow are two books that have really gained the mainstream attention for pulp characters in the modern era and have been insanely successful because of it. The Shadow remains one of Dynamite's top selling books every month and one of the most popular independent comics on store shelves while The Spider has garnered praise for it's deep story and amazing artwork. In order to make these characters relevant for today's audiences Dynamite has enlisted in talented writers such as Garth Ennis, Victor Gischler, and David Liss as well as amazing artists like Colton Worley, Jack Herbert, and Aaron Campbell to lead the creative process. Some changes have been made to these classic characters to kind of take them out of the 30's and into the 2000's with The Spider being given an amazing new costume to wear and The Shadow being given enhanced powers or persuasion thanks to a red stone ring that he wears, to some this may be a drastic change but mostly everyone has been in favor of the changes and it hasn't hindered the experience one bit. Sure, some fans have noted that some of these changes may have been a bit radical to the long-term fan, but what they fail to see is that Dynamite is presenting these heroes to a whole new generation, many of the fans who read these characters back in the 30's-50's are now either dead or are way to old to get out and buy one of these books and that it's the general comic book fans that will keep these titles alive. If you've ever been a fan of pulp characters or have ever been curious about these classic characters than these two ongoing books are sure to excite you, give them a shot and let me know what you think!

With Mark Waid jumping on board with The Green Hornet in 2013 he'll be relaunching the series which will star the original Green Hornet, if you've been reading the current Green Hornet book by Dynamite than you know that these stories have been based on Britt Reid's son and not on Britt Reid himself. The Green Hornet we will be getting is the Hornet that we were presented with in Matt Wagner's amazing Year One tale that Dynamite published some years back, that's a good thing in this reader's opinion. We've also seen a couple different series from Dynamite starring other pulp heroes, books such as Lord of the Jungle, Flash Gordon: Zeitgeist, The Last Phantom, Zorro, and even Warlord of Mars have graced store shelves and with DC loosing the rights to a group of classic pulp characters I could see Dynamite expanding this line heavily over the next two years. I truly believe that it is something they should consider doing as having an identity would be a good thing for the company, right now they just kind of do a mix-n-match of many different titles spanning many different mediums and becoming known as the “pulp company” wouldn't be such a bad thing. I guess time will tell what Dynamite has in store for it's little “pulp-verse” but I'll tell you this: If Dynamite decides to expand the line and bring in other classic characters from the pulp era, I know both myself and many other readers will be more than happy to pour their hard earned cash into whatever it is they're selling. Quote me on that.

As always I want to take the time to thank those who took the time to read my blog, it's much appreciated. Also, you can always check me out at www.twitter.com/manga4life as well as TZ and CBR, feel free to say “hi”.

Take care,

Manga4life

©2012 Cozy Cabin Publishing LLC

Crossgen Comics - Taking a look back at the best time I ever had as a comic book collector.

As a comic book collector, once in a while something so special to you comes along that you hold it so close to your heart that when it comes to an end you actually feel devastated and feel like giving up the hobby as a whole. That happened the day I found out that Crossgen Comics was going bankrupt and closing up it's operation. I was Crossgen super-fan #1 and I credit the company with making me care about comic books again after about a year and a half of not really giving a hoot. Sadly, after X-Men went down the tubes in the late 90's and DC canceled one of my favorite comic book series ever (Sovereign Seven) I was left with little to purchase every month and relied on buying comic books such as Amazing Spider-Man, Captain American, and JLA, which were all books I somewhat liked but wasn't truly enjoying due to the ramification of the loss of my absolute favorite series. I still dabbled in Hitman via DC Comics and was enjoying that quite a bit, and I focused on getting other books like Crimson and Battle Chasers by Image's Cliffhanger imprint (despite their lateness), but my “love” for the industry was dimming and something had to be done otherwise I was about to give up completely.

For months I had been reading in Wizard Magazine that Marvel was planning to unleash a line of comics that were going to re-imagine the Marvel Universe. The line would become known as their “Ultimate” line and I finally had something to look forward to once those books saw release, but they were still months and months away. While visiting one of my local comic book stores I came across 4 books that were clumped together in a small corner of the store and they all had a #1 on the cover, I picked them up and flipped through them and decided that I would give 3 out of 4 titles a shot. The 3 books I picked up were Scion #1, Sigil #1, and Mystic #1, I decided against Meridian #1 because it looked to be the weakest of the bunch and I didn't have the extra cash to pick it up (though I did get it later on). The logo on the front of all 4 books was similar to a ying/yang and later I found out that all of these characters had this image branded to them and it would become a mark for “sigil-bearers” within the Crossgen Universe. Well, when I got home to read these comics I read Mystic first and really enjoyed the amazing art that this book features as well as the main character which struck me by surprise as I've never really read many comics at that time that featured a strong female lead other than a couple team books. I read Scion next and instantly fell in love with the “King Arthur” style tale and all the characters involved, especially the main hero Ethan and his nemesis Bron. I knew this book would be something special but what I didn't know is that it would become my absolute favorite series throughout the next couple of years being rivaled only by Ultimate Spider-Man and a team book by Crossgen called Crux. I finally got around to reading Sigil after that and while I felt it was a good book I didn't really like the artwork and I felt the book was a little to “sci-fi” for my liking, but I would continue on with the series until it's end. Actually, about 10-12 issues into the series the book got a new writer and artist and eventually became one of my favorite books by the publisher, it just took them a little while and I'm glad I stuck with them as Sam Rey and Tchulsarud battled throughout the universe in epic battles.

Some months after the #1's hit the stands Crossgen announced that more titles were coming and that the initial 4 titles released have been highly successful. It wasn't long until The First (a team book with cosmic beings who watched over the entire universe) hit the stands, followed by Ruse, Sojourn, and Crux. Crux went on to become my 2^nd favorite title that Crossgen ever published and as the series went on a felt connected to this book much like I did with Sovereign Seven, my favorite comic book series that was canceled in 1998. Crux told the story of a team of Atlantians who went into a hibernation status and woke up in a future world that had been shattered to it's core. The lineup was fresh, the stories were fun, and the book featured countless supporting characters (Danik, Aristophanes, Thraxis) that helped the book to tell fantastic stories, which had just led me to a revelation of sorts. The revelation being that many of Crossgen's books featured supporting characters that were either as cool, or even cooler than the main characters in their respective books. A few characters that come to mind aside from the ones I had mentioned earlier would be Exeter (Scion), Garath (Sojourn), and Roiya (Sigil), all of which have really made their mark on me at one point and have been a key reason as to why I purchased these books. Well, soon after the second wave of titles came there was a slew of books in the third wave, and it seemed as if Crossgen was just getting started. Comics within the third wave included Brath, Route 666, Way of the Rat, Negation, Chimera, Solus, Mark of Charon, and others, but the only ones I personally cared about out of this bunch was Brath, Negation, and the Mark of Charon (which was a mini-series).

Soon after the third wave of books hit it was announced that there was going to be a line of comics that didn't connect to the “Sigil-verse” and that there was going to be a whole bunch of new and exciting things going on with Crossgen. The line of comics would become known as “Code 6” and Crossgen published a slew of books based upon existing properties such as Masters of the Universe, and Escape from New York. Some of the other things Crossgen began doing was publishing comics online through a strategy called COW (Comic on the Web), and publishing 5x7 digest format trade paperback's they called “Compendia” with a mix-match of titles within their line for a low price. I personally didn't care for any of these ventures and aside from Masters of the Universe I basically ignored Code 6 comics all together and never purchased any of their digests. Crossgen was one of (if not the first) comic book publishers to put their titles up on the web for digital viewing and they were pretty innovative with the Compendia line of digests, but sometimes being too innovative can come back and bite you in the ass and that's kind of what happened here with Crossgen. Things looked to be on the up-swing as they began releasing normal sized trade paperback's which were being stocked by Barnes & Noble as well as Borders, but once the retailer began carrying more and more Marvel and DC TPB's they started sending back their Crossgen product to the publisher for a refund. This hurt Crossgen and eventually they began to sink into debt with their creators which saw many up and leave the company before it's closure.

Despite the turmoil going on behind the scenes I was highly enjoying all the titles I was reading by Crossgen and for a solid 3 years they were without a doubt my favorite publisher on the stands. My friend Kenny (Stelfo64) bought into the company as I did and started buying titles like Sigil, Scion, Sojourn, and Crux, he found a comic book store near him where he was actually able to find the “Primer” sample comic and the “Crossgenerations” book by the publisher which was sent out before the #1's hit the stands and he was able to pick them up for me to help complete my collection. One time I remember fondly was when Kenny and myself walked into one of our local comic shops I took a swipe right for the new release rack and spent about a minute browsing around and when I turned around he had a stack of about 20+ copies of Sigil in his hands. He had started reading Sigil a year or so before and fell behind and this was his way of catching up. On top of that we hit up several other comic book stores that day and he ended up buying a slew of other Crossgen titles, investing heavily into the publisher and having fun being a comic book fan in the process. Isn't that what it's all about?

After the collapse of Crossgen I went through a bit of a down time similar to what happened when DC canceled Sovereign Seven. I was buying random titles like Batman, Superman, JSA, Amazing Spider-Man, and a couple of other random titles but I wasn't feeling them nearly as much as I did the Crossgen books and eventually I sold off my entire comic book collection which consisted of 9 long boxes and 2 magazine sized boxes full of comics (which I regret doing). About a year later I decided that I was going to get back into comics but it was going to strictly be through trade paperback's and that would be it, but eventually I went back to floppies and spent thousands to get back a solid amount of what I once had as well as tons and tons of comics that I've discovered over the past several years. I now have 7 long boxes full of comic books and it's growing rapidly as well as over 500 TPB's spread across 2 massive bookshelves, but imagine how many comics I'd have if Crossgen never bit the dust and was still publishing today. It's funny how I bonded with the company the way that I did, it was exciting to me and it really felt like home and that I was a part of something special. To this day I still see Crossgen fans bring the company up on random forums, and when I do I stop and smile while I remember the great times I had buying, reading, and collecting Crossgen titles. It was truly one of the biggest highlights I've had (or will ever have) as a comic book collector and I will always cherish those memories until the day I die.

As always I want to take the time to thank those who took the time to read my blog, it's much appreciated. Also, you can always check me out at www.twitter.com/manga4life as well as TZ and CBR, feel free to say “hi”.

Take care,

Manga4life

©2012 Cozy Cabin Publishing LLC

Multiplayer Gaming by Stelfo64!

(NOTE: Today we have a treat, it's a guest blog by Stelfo64 covering his thoughts on multiplayer video gaming! While I personally prefer playing campaign modes first before even touching the online mode, it seems as if gamers these days are beginning to do more and more online gaming. Stelfo64 plays games online a lot, as do I, though I think beating the campaign mode is more important than just buying a game to play online. But either which way, here is his post, enjoy!)

Stelfo64's back for some more mayhem! Well it has been a while since I have written anything for the Thought Corner and Manga4life has been getting on my back trying to get me to write something else so here we go!

Wherever you may stand on multiplayer online gaming it is impossible to deny that it has dominated the way most people game over the past decade. Gone are the days where you buy a game pop it in the old console and save the princess all by your lonesome. We now can join up with people across the globe and take down 8 other players in team death match or perform a hadoken on some 9 year girl in the United Kingdom who then counters with a 15 hit ultra-combo. Few can deny that multiplayer gaming can be fun as all hell but why is it dominating the video game market and my time so much. More and more people buy games just for the multiplayer, me included. I own the last three Call of Duty games and I have only completed a small portion of the campaign modes and yet I have put in at least 7 days worth of multiplayer gaming on all three of them. When did this happen…not too long ago I would have ridiculed anyone that bought a game and didn’t complete the campaign mode. Don’t get me wrong I still love a great campaign and there are a few titles like the Uncharted series where I just strictly play the campaign and not the multiplayer but it seems that those games are becoming the exception and not the norm for me. So I started to ask myself why I am sometimes obsessed with multiplayer mode and barely give the campaign mode the time it deserves and I have come up with a few answers. First off developers are now putting just as much if not more time into the multiplayer modes as they are the campaign modes and it’s hard to argue with their logic.

First and third person shooters tend to sell almost solely on how good the multiplayer plays and not the campaign mode. That doesn’t mean the campaign can be crap but it doesn’t have to be great to sell the game.  

With the additional attention the multiplayer gets from developers we can now enjoy a high quality gaming experience that is often superior or at least as good as the campaign. The second thing I came up with is that games are too easy these days. Yeah I know there are almost always hard difficulty modes but it used to be that most games were just one difficulty and in the 8 bit era especially that difficulty could be best described as break my controller hard. These days aside from playing on ultra-hard difficulty in the campaign mode the real challenge is in the multiplayer where you are competing against the best gamers on the planet (9 year old girls) who will gladly shove a frag down your throat for daring to challenge them. It is also a measuring stick for how good you truly are (or aren’t), just about everyone can beat a campaign on normal but can everyone maintain a lifetime 2:1 kill to death ratio…I think not. The third thing I came up with is the time factor. As we gamers get older there are more and more things that take up our time so it’s hard to just sit down and dedicate say 2 hours to any game on any given day. We need to get our gaming fix but we don’t have the time so multiplayer fits perfectly in the older gamer’s schedule. Sure you could take that say 30 minutes you have that day to spare and put it towards the campaign mode but that barely puts a dent into most campaigns. Hopping online and getting in 3 team death matches is just much more satisfying to me. 


The last thing I came up with is gaming with friends is so much easier. We can all pop in our game hop online and play with friends and family we have on the other side of the country! Back in the day everyone would have to be in the same house and would have to wait their turn if there were more than 2-4 people playing at a time. As you grow older hanging out with friends in person is just something that you don’t have as much time for. Online gaming allows you to catch up with friends and then take out troop 9 (take that Marines….wait… troop 9 are a bunch or girl scouts…) all in a matter of minutes. I am not saying that I am right and you are wrong if you feel differently but for me multiplayer just fits better than most campaign modes because of all of the things I mentioned. I want to get my gaming fix in with a quality game in a short amount of time while playing with people who are not only friends but offer a challenge. That doesn’t mean I do not enjoy games without robust online modes and it doesn’t mean I won’t be completing game campaign modes in the near future it’s just that online gaming fits my and a lot of other gamers lifestyle better.

 

As always I want to take the time to thank those who took the time to read my blog, it's much appreciated. Also, you can always check me out at www.twitter.com/manga4life as well as TZ and CBR, feel free to say “hi”.

Take care,

Manga4life

©2012 Cozy Cabin Publishing LLC

DC's New 52, a look back at a year of rumors and reality.

Well, it's been almost one year since DC Comics decided to completely revamp their line of comics and release everything starting back with a brand new #1 on the cover so I figured it was time to post something on The Thought Corner about what has become the DC Comics “New 52”.

When this was officially announced by DC Comics last Summer there seemed to be a mix of emotions among the comic book community. Many were irate with DC that the universe they've been reading for decades was going to be changed and set back to an earlier time, while others (me included) applauded DC for making this move to clean up the past and reshape the future. For me, this was what I've wanted DC Comics to do ever since 2004 or so when they started to adopt the monthly mega-even crossover style of doing business that Marvel had begun doing. You know what I'm talking about here, month in and month out of universe spanning mega-crossovers spanning the entire line of books, sometimes multiple events going on at the same time causing readers to scramble and get lost in the shuffle. It makes me sick. Having one mega event every few years makes more sense and make the ramifications of such events much more rememberable and meaningful in my opinion, and because of this kind of marketing I've all but shunned Marvel Comics and will probably never do business with them again. DC was getting a similar treatment from me and aside from purchasing Batman every month and keeping up with Superman, I was all but done with them as well. But then I heard about the reboot/relaunch of the DCU (now the DCnU) and I heard Jim Lee do a radio interview where he said they would only do universe spanning events when they felt the stories called for it. I starting thinking to myself that maybe this would be worth checking out and maybe it would be a great introductory into DC aside from the 2 books I was semi keeping up with and the slew of DC books I was buying in the 80's and 90's.

I decided to be a part of this huge reboot/relaunch and for the last Wednesday of August 2011 all the way until week 4 of September my local comic book shop held early opening events for the event and drew hundreds and hundreds of fans to the store. Sales were going through the roof for the “New 52” and for the most part the core books within the DCnU have maintained the high sales figures almost a year later. New fans and old fans alike were scrambling into comic book stores to pick up all the new titles DC was launching and suddenly for the first time in a long time DC Comics was the #1 publisher in the industry. That lasted until recently when Marvel began their Avengers vs X-men storyline, another mega-event spanning a majority of their titles (Yaawwwwwwn). Sadly, idiotic Marvel fans were duped into stores to pick up these issues and Marvel, for the time being anyway, had recaptured it's spot as the #1 publisher in comic books. Still, DC manages to hold 7/10 of the top 10 spots and for a number of months held all 10 positions in the Diamond charts with their New 52 books, that's no small feat and many of their comics have garnered a larger reader base than they did pre-reboot thanks to all the attention the relaunch received by the media.

As for my own experiences with the New 52, I'd have to say that it's been mostly positive and the first month of release I managed to grab a whopping 20 #1's of various titles released. I liked about 16 of them quite a bit and stuck with as many as I could until I had to begin picking and choosing which books I'd follow due to financial reasons and the fact that I heavily support independent comic book publishers such as Atlas (not anymore), Dynamite Entertainment, BOOM Studios (not anymore), and now Valiant Comics. So, I started out with 20 #1's within the DCnU, I liked about 16 of them and stuck with those books until the #6 issues came out and the cut down the list to 11 where it stands today. Before the relaunch/reboot I was only buying 2 monthly DC books (Batman, Superman), and even at that it was only when I thought of doing so or had the extra cash to spend on them. So, I'd say that since I'm now buying 9 more total monthly books than before that DC has done a wonderful job in keeping my interest in this line, and remember that 5 of those books I trimmed down were strictly for financial reasons and not because I didn't find them entertaining. As of right now I'm currently reading Superman, Action Comics, Batman, Detective Comics, Justice League, Legion of Super-Heroes, Legion Lost, The Ravagers, Green Lantern, The Savage Hawkman, and Aquaman. I wanted to keep up with The Flash, Blue Beetle, Batman: The Dark Knight, and Teen Titans but unfortunately the wallet can only produce so much money, especially when I'm still buying a good amount of indy books being produced today.

I'll tell you one thing that surprises me about the whole relaunch/reboot is that I'm reading DC books that I NEVER would have thought I'd be reading in a million years. If you would have told me that I'd be avidly enjoying Aquaman, Legion of Super-Heroes, Legion Lost, The Ravagers, Teen Titans, or Blue Beetle, I would have called you nuts. But no, these books have all turned out to be tremendous and really fun monthly reads for me. I'm especially loving Legion of Super-Heroes and it's diverse cast of regulars who really have been drawing me in with their personal lives as well as the stories of them saving the world and whatnot, it's been absolutely fantastic. And of course books such as Batman, Detective Comics, Superman, Green Lantern, Action Comics, and Hawkman have all delivered with amazing art and wonderful tales of these classic heroes in their younger years. I've gone into EVERY DCnU book as if it's never seen print previous to the release of the New 52 and it's worked out wonderfully. I'm basically picturing that these heroes and villains are brand new to the market and that DC is basically a brand new publisher, sounds odd I know but let me tell you this: It's been years since I've felt this way about mainstream comic book characters and I have the New 52 and my own imagination to thank for it.

I've been asked by many people over the course of the past year if I thought the relaunch/reboot by DC was a good idea and I still stand by the answer I gave on many web forums the day it was officially announced. My answer is yes. DC has managed to shake up the comic book industry, get more books in more hands, clean up some continuity hiccups, and make some extra money while getting as many heads to turn their way as possible and I think the industry really needed it. Now it looks as if Marvel Comics may be doing something similar in the upcoming months in a way to steal some of DC's thunder and really ensure their place at the top of the perch, but as of this writing it's not completely known what may be in store for their books and if it's going to be just a handful of books or their entire line (thought I'm sure they'll all be $3.99). Regardless, it just shows that Marvel is afraid of DC and their new found readership and will do anything it takes to steal back it's fans by copying them and retooling their own universe, which I find quite sad and it makes me hate Marvel all that much more. DC's characters just grip me more than Marvel's do anyway so I prefer to stick close to what feels like “home” when it comes to comic books if you catch my drift.

So the long/short of it all is that if you've still yet to give any of the New 52 books a try yet than I suggest you use the upcoming 1 year anniversary to do so, I promise that you wont be disappointed and I really do think that most of the characters that have been rebooted have really shined quite a bit now that they're free of older continuity. Check out the #0 issues that will be hitting shelves soon which serve as origin stories for the New 52 books and will more than likely made a good lead in to the #1's that were launched last Fall. When you're done, let me know what you thought!

As always I want to take the time to thank those who took the time to read my blog, it's much appreciated. Also, you can always check me out at www.twitter.com/manga4life as well as TZ and CBR, feel free to say “hi”.

Take care,

Manga4life

©2012 Cozy Cabin Publishing LLC

Manga4life's "Guin Saga" anime review!

It's been a while since I've sat down and written a review for an anime series, so I figured that today would be as good a day as any to write a review for a series that really grabbed me from the first episode and carried me on the edge of my seat to the very end. That anime would be Guin Saga, which was an absolute delight!

First off let me just say that I love stories such as this, you know.... palaces, swords, armies, medieval times with arrows, armor, long journeys and.....well, you get the idea. It has a feel to it that would appeal to the Lord of the Ring's fan in you. If you've ever been into the realm of fantasy than you should be right at home with Guin Saga, a story that puts you right in the middle of a fantasy world filled with dastardly villains and heroic saviors who find themselves engaged into a deadly battle to kill a pair of white haired twins (Rinda & Remus) and to conquer the land in which they become heir to. It sounds like a typical medieval story until you get to know the main character Guin, who wakes up out of a deep sleep with a leopard mask fuzed to his head and absolutely no idea who he is or what he's doing. He decided to take the two kids under his arm and protect them from their captors and they decide to travel to another city to find shelter. Instead they end up fighting in epic battles along the way and make friends with a tribe of monkey-like creatures and a few other people along their journey, and everyone assembles to take on the massive army hellbent on finding and killing the twins. One of the people Guin befriends named Ishtivan, was one of my favorite characters in this entire show. His story was very entertaining and the result of his battles within this series were really fun, he could have used a sub-series all his own. The action in this series is really quite awesome and a lot of the fight scenes are really complex and interesting, this isn't just another hack and slash anime where people are just fighting for no reason whatsoever. One fight in this show has Guin becoming the ruler of a small group of barbarian's, while another has a guy trying to prove himself to the woman he loves, Lady Amnelas, so that he could impress her and get a higher rank within her army. Whenever there is high stakes involved in a battle it always makes it more interesting, or at least I think so anyway.

One thing that really made Guin Saga stand out was the remarkable music, without the strong music many of the epic scenes would have not had the effect that they did. Everything from the awesome opening theme to the sweet ending theme and everything in between was just perfect, I loved how most episodes would end with a cliffhanger that would have this one amazing track playing that just pumped you up for the next episode. When the music in an anime is spot on than you know you're in for a treat. The animation side of things was fine, I wouldn't say this was one of the most beautiful anime's I've ever seen but it certainly wasn't bad or anything like that. It just had your standard run of the mill animation and it worked for what they were trying to do, you won't be raving about it when it's all said and done but you won't be shaking your head either. I'd say it's as good as any major anime production out there. All in all the overall production on Guin Saga is pretty darn good and shows no major faults, it's certainly a series that's story driven and very character based and I highly recommend it to people who really love fantasy style storytelling. Along with Tears to Tiara, I'd say that Guin Saga is one of the better fantasy anime's of the past several years, everything from the music to the storyline was pure genius and some of the characters will just reach out and grab you without letting you go. My only complaint is that it's only a 24 episode series and not a long running anime like a Naruto or One Piece. At the end of the day if your only major complaint is that the anime you're reviewing is shorter than you would have liked than I guess you don't really have much to complain about to begin with, so I guess it's time for some ratings....

Art/Animation – 8.0

Music and Sound Effects – 9.5

Story and Writing – 9.5

Fun – 9.0

Overall – 9.0

As always I want to take the time to thank those who took the time to read my blog, it's much appreciated. Also, you can always check me out at www.twitter.com/manga4life as well as TZ and CBR, feel free to say “hi”.

Take care,
Manga4life

©2012 Cozy Cabin Publishing LLC

Toonami Faithful: A Call to Arms!

Well Toonami faithful, we did it! We got Deadman Wonderland and Casshern Sins to the top of the Twitter trend chart on 5/26/12 when Toonami took over the airwaves, and we also managed to get FMA and Cowboy Bebop trending as well. Great job! Now the next part of support needs to be put into place. Make sure to e-mail Cartoon Network and Adult Swim with your thoughts on what you saw when Toonami returned to television and get vocal on Facebook and Twitter about the programming you want on the block. Even Steve Blum (TOM) said that the block needs all the support it can get and as many viewers as humanly possible to bring us “a better cartoon show”, so it's up to us as a unit to make sure we do what we can to help out by spreading the good word. Let people know Toonami's back, spam the social media, send off e-mails and hashtags like your life depended on it, and most importantly: Watch Toonami. If we band together and remain vocal than who knows what kinds of things we'll be treated to, the power of voice is a mighty one and so far we know we're being heard, we just got to turn that voice into a scream and keep it rolling.

Luckily for us we've already been treated to two new shows with Deaman Wonderland and Casshern Sins, both of which are getting amazing praise from the Toonami faithful. We've been enjoying TOM bumpers, Toonami-esq music, nice “coming up” cards, classic idents, and even a video game review for an XboX 360 game called “I Am Alive”. And that's just on the first night! Imagine what could be coming down the road if we support the block the best we can and try to boost it's ratings as high as they can go, that's what Toonami really needs. Ratings = advertising, and advertising = money for Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and ultimately......Toonami. It's amazing what we were all able to accomplish using the power of the internet and the power of word of mouth, once in a while huge victories come out of passion and we've all used our passion to ensure that Toonami was given life once again. Keep up the good work everyone, we've done a bang up job so far and it can only get better from here.

Stay gold.

Bang.

©2012 Cozy Cabin Publishing LLC

Dynamite Entertainment's Pulp Harvest.

Before the day's of Spider-Man, The Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, The X-Men, The Avengers, and even Superman, there was a day when heroes appeared in a thick paperback form known as “pulp” comics. Pulp was actually the style of paper in which these books were printed on, but somehow the name seemed to have followed these characters as if it was a style of hero. For instance, Superman and Spider-Man are known as “superheroes” while characters such as The Spider and The Shadow are known as “pulp heroes”. Even though a “pulp hero” is someone who starred in graphic novel format printed on pulp paper back in the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's, people associate the word “pulp” as a brand of hero, which is just hilarious. Anyway.....I'm rambling, my apologies.

Today I wanted to discuss some pulp heroes who are making a comeback thanks to a comic book publisher known as Dynamite Entertainment, a company who has licensed a number of these classic heroes of yesterday and brought them back out of obscurity for comic book fans of today to enjoy. Characters such as The Shadow, The Spider, The Green Hornet, Tarzan, Zorro, Flash Gordon, and more are enjoying success in the comic book market thanks to Dynamite, who's really put a push on getting these classic characters in the hands of readers in a day and age where many have forgotten who they even were. Sure, some other companies have come along throughout the years and have published comics based on some of these characters but their readership was so small that the average comic book reader had no idea that these characters were even being published. With Dynamite, these characters have been promoted throughout the comic book industry and many fans who have never purchased a comic book before are buying these books because they happen to be fans of these properties thanks to other media such as radio, television, and the silver screen.

I personally wanted to bring some awareness to some of these books because I actually read them and find them to be much more entertaining than anything Marvel Comics is currently printing, and most of DC and Image. Books such as The Spider and The Shadow feature a main hero who isn't all about “Trust, Justice, and the American way”, they'd just assume shoot you in the face for your crimes on the public than see you locked away for the rest of your life. It's almost refreshing to see because that's how I feel when I see on the news that a little girl was hurt by some sick monster, or that some whack job killed 10 people because of some silly reason. I'd love to just pick up a revolver and shoot them in the face rather than see them alive and well inside of a cell. It's violent, I know, but it's in our nature to want to see someone who deserved it to suffer. Instead of actually going out and doing something like that I can open up a copy of The Spider and watch the hero kill someone because they took their crime too far, it's nice really. And then you have books like The Green Hornet which features a more traditional style superhero within a pulp environment. The book is fun, witty, entertaining, well written, and drawn beautifully, anyone can pick this title up and enjoy it's rich story while feeling like their enjoying a story with a nice mixture of pulp and superhero. Hey, there I go lumping “pulp” into a category of hero.......well, sue me.

It isn't like these books are short on top tier talent either, many huge industry players have either worked on these books or are currently working on them as I write this. Guys like Garth Ennis, Kevin Smith, Alex Ross, novelist David Liss, John Cassaday, Jae Lee, Jonathan Lau, and many more are working hard to make these books the very best they possibly can be, so give them a peek and tell me what you think. Look. How many more of you are going to get duped into spending all kinds of money on Marvel titles just so you can complete yet another massive universe spanning event? Seriously, stop it. It's getting downright silly and embarrassing. Try sinking your teeth into one of these great titles by Dynamite Entertainment and start actually enjoying your comics again for a change, after reading some of this top line stuff you'll end up thanking me.

Trust me.

As always I want to take the time to thank those who took the time to read my blog, it's much appreciated and you can always check me out at www.twitter.com/manga4life as well as TZ and CBR.

Take care,
Manga4life

©2012 Cozy Cabin Publishing LLC