KF Review: number 2, yay for rhyming!

Well that was embarrassing. Almost published this without actually typing anything! On that note welcome to day two of the KF Review. Today has been a pretty slow day, no exams until monday so I had a nice lie in and chillout before doing the audacious task of reading todays comic. 

But first! I present my top 3 things of the day that have peaked my interest!

Number One! Generalissimo Stan Lee

Being a comics fan I have always enjoyed Stan Lee's gargantuan contributions to the comics industry, providing  entertainments to the kid version of me, and slightly maturer version of me (Adult?). As well as other people of different ages  with delights such as Spider-Man (my personal favourite) and Hulk, but obviously the list goes on and on.... and on, (and on). Not only does he create comics , he also stars in his adaptations of his star creations in his oh so random cameos, as subtle nod to the people who have background knowledge of his work. 

Stan Lee always reminded me as a Grandfather figure, or that one Crazy Uncle we all have. He even refers to himself as “your beloved generalissimo” which always give me a smile whenever I read it, but today this legendary figure has gained my interest (more so than usual), due to his involvement of the “Amazing-Spider Man” video game. He has gone one step further of starring in his movies or providing a voice, he has his own character! That is playable! If “O_o” is your expression, then you are not the only one. Come on he looks so life-like, and even has his own missions to play, who knows what missions these will be, but they must be of critical importance if Stan is taking his precious time to complete them.

Stan-Lee, Stan-Lee, Does whatever Stan-Lee WANTS!

After viewing this picture, I could only imagine Stan Lee, in one of those techno “Ping-pong” suits (I’m sure there is a technical term), doing movements and what not. Today I truly believe that the beloved generalissimo has earned his well-known nickname more so than ever. And that name is obviously

Stan “THE MAN” Lee.

 You can find this story and more at http://therealstanlee.com/blog/post/-amazing-spider-man-video-game-featuring-animated-stan-lee

Number 2! Girls With Slingshots (GWS)

Obviously not real slingshots…. This daily webcomic created by Danielle Corsetto, follows the life of Hazel a ‘semi-failed but always trying to get back into business’ Journalist throughout her daily hijinks, most of which involve alcohol, and sex. Hazel is accompanied by  a range of unique characters, including Jamie the curvy “romance detective”, and Clarice, a professional Librarian and Dominatrix. Among many others. Oh, and of course it has a Talking Cactus, cause why wouldn’t it?

 I only found this web comic a few years ago (it came out in 2004), but that hasn’t stopped me from reading every page to date, and each daily strip since then. I honestly can’t remember when I started; it’s just part of my morning routine, alongside my tea and brekkie. It’s just natural. I enjoy GWS, as it involves story-lines which are quite unique, but also believable to a certain extent which are always enjoyable, and has obviously kept me going back for more. The humour can only be described as mature, as it’s based on adult relationships, you’ll get a few penis jokes here and there, but give it a go and see what you think.

http://www.girlswithslingshots.com/

Number 3: The Big Bang Theory (BBT)

Imagine this: Five years ago, BBT first graced our screens, introducing audiences (and me, I was 15… I feel old) to a bunch of quirky geeks who have now became beloved characters to a wide vary of audiences, not just the geeks. Yesterday (10^th of May) the series fifth season  came to a close, ending its reign over my personal entertainment untill next year. I’m sure many people are aware of the Big Bang Theory, but I just wanted to mention it, as I adore it, It’s the best thing I watch on TV (seriously it is). It has great comedy, great characters, great plots every episode, I can’t think of an dull episode.

This last section was a bit small so look at this!:

N'awww, content and more belongs to  http://badassdigest.com/2012/05/05/mother-of-disney-dragons/   

Comic Review Time! Forgetless Issues 1-5

Today I read Forgetless: The Complete Collection, published by Image Comics, and created by Nick Spencer, Mark Forbes and Jorge Cohelo.

Image from  http://www.imagecomics.com/comics/74/Forgetless-TP-MR-   

Its hard to explain this book without giving much away. Basically It is a non-linear narrative, but there are two stories (A and B), which are unrelated until the end of the book. The main location is a party called “Forgetless”, because I suppose you don’t forget it? Anyway bad names aside, it is a high class party held once every year where everybody wants to go to.

Book A follows the exploits of two struggling models who have decided to become Hit girls/women to pay the rent, cause you know: the economy sucks. Story A follows Sonia on her first gig (hit?), who is accompanied by veteran-ish struggling model turned killer Sara, who is also her roommate. Their target? A hipster called Derrick who did something quite naughty (trying not to give spoilers). Also a Koala appears with his own story, yes this really happens.

Story B follows 3 friends whose dream is to make to forget less, but seeing as it’s the last ever one, they have to make it. Regardless that they are underage, and that’s about it. This was the first of some problems I had with this book, as I couldn’t understand the use of the second story accept to put some social commentary in there, about teenagers I suppose? But seeing as I felt the book was filled with social commentary anyway, it wasn’t exactly needed (in my opinion). Also each story uses a different artist and drawing style, Story A with its darker colours, and almost cell-shaded feel to it. Whereas Story B had a vintage comic visage, again this bothered me due to lack of consistency. But I think the creators were demonstrating the different perspectives. Because even Derrick with his one-shot “back story” had different art.

As I just mentioned  about social commentary. This book seemed to be more about social commentary than actual plot or character development. It explores present day life, by involving copies of Twitter, called Tweetie, where the models document everything and Tweet, even though they are not alone. I also found this interesting as sometimes the comments were vague like “perfecto” which only made sense to the prior scene. Which to me questioned how honest people are on twitter, are people more ambiguous then they seem?

Celebrity status appears to have a big influence on this book, specifically Youtube, where views are equal to fame, which is how young Hipster Derrick ends up in the crosshairs of two hit women, his exploits with his youtube show “Im gonna F*** it” lands him in this trouble. This could be metaphor for sex is trouble, or just demonstrations of people going to extreme lengths to be acknowledged by strangers on the internet.

The celebrity factor is mentioned again, but this time on a actual celebrity in the book, in other words what happens when you are famous, after withstanding all the hardships of becoming a celebrity, they even refer to it as “surviving” in a sort of social darwinsism type way. As obviously only a certain few can gain the true status of celebrity, there will always be dog-eat-dog mentality in all aspects of life. So the fame is gained, what happens next? Which to me rings true to many celebrities, they waste it away, they do stupid things, they do not appreciate what they have. And to quote the book “Piss in the whore’s mouth”.  This is what our Koala character does, (a man dressed as koala), he wastes it away donning the sex, drugs and rock n roll lifestyle. The character unfortunately becomes sex obsessed, simply because its too easy to get it when your famous, as that’s all the partners care about. So Koala-man becomes involved in a large amount of lewd and perverted sex acts, which will be stuck in my brain a few days.  His reasons behind taking part in such anonymous acts is that its because it just becomes about the sex, and he helps peoples fantasies, it does remind of Psychodynamic theories “Sex is only good when you become ashamed”, repressed desires and what not, and the “fantasies” shown in these pages look like they should be hidden away to most people.

Finally the celebrity status is brought up again, this time through Image and deserving, Koala man’s exploits catch up with him as he is hella’ famous in the book, which would lead to his destruction of his career,  which is actually adverted because of an event within the book, which effectively changed his image, ultimately burying his previous exploits allowing him to retain his fame. But from this and previous scenes, it questions whether this celebrity deserves his status, which then caused me to think about other celebrities, why do these people deserve all the fame and the money that most of us will never earn in a lifetime. They haven’t done anything worthwhile, for example the Kardashians. Sister Kim makes a video that was meant to be leaked of her taking on a male member in her mouth and special place, after this she gets a tv show with many many spin-offs, photo shoots, stockpiling a lot of money, even though they already had quite abit of money due to Father Kardashian being a defence lawyer of the OJ Simpson murder trial, questioning why do they deserve this and not someone else who would probably appreciate it?

Anyway the book ended and I was left entertained by the strange ending, which I found pretty damn clever because it was completely unexpected, and somehow the story even managed to retain the “and they lived happily ever after” archetype. Worth a read I say!

However I will never, ever, ever look at spaghetti the same way....

KF's Thoughts On Page: Adaptations

http://liberaldead.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/The-Walking-Dead-Cast-Photo.jpg

After watching televisions such as "The Walking Dead", and films "Avengers Assemble" or "Wanted". I got to thinking about there original content, and how the on-screen adaptations can sometimes look nothing like what happens in the book or Books. Its ok in films like Avengers or Captain America or Batman, because there are so many issues it would be impossible to recreate a story as there is so much choice, so they take the concept of these characters and place them into a film, sometimes with their own take such as the differences between Tim Burtons Batman and Christopher Nolans Batman Begins. Although I suppose with the Avengers, the comic roots involved Thor,Captain America and Iron Man assembling to take down a rampaging Hulk, but meh I can live with that, as every marvel character seems to a Avenger nowadays.

However! Such films as Wanted and Red go completely against the original content, apart from their names. The names! Red is a prime example, it even added more characters, and a bogus story-line. If you ever read RED you will be confused by the film. Wanted is similar this way, it keeps the names and the whole fraternity of assassins, but removes everything else! Wanted is a super-villain comic book, not a film about some examples of assassins in peak physical condition who kill "One to save a thousand". In wanted they kill cause they feel like it, they are EVIL. They do not try to save the world, they basically destroyed it. Honestly it feels like the creators were approached and were told "oh we want to make a movies, here is some money", and they go "thanks, see ya" and have absolutely nothing to do with the creation of the film. Take the money and run by the looks of it. Which is why we are left with Wanted,Red and Watchmen with their strangeness.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/98/Wanted_film_poster.jpg/220px-Wanted_film_poster.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/be/Wanted.jpg/392px-Wanted.jpg

Even Walking Dead (AMC'S) seems to take on this framework. They realise there are a vast amount of characters with deep character development so you feel SAD when they die in the books. But nope! They decide to kill off random characters who are important, remove some characters, add some random people (T-Bone or is T-Dog? and Daryl, I mean come on.... why?!) And even change crtical storylines, or remove them by killing of characters too early. For example, and there will be spoilers here. The standoff between Rick and Shane is Different in the book and tv shows. In the book Rick thinks everything is ok until Shane turns on him out of the blue, basically wanting to kill Rick for the "greater good", Rick however has no intention of killing Shane, he is basically his brother, he could not imagine such a thing. The conflict is resolved when Carl (Rick's Son) saves him by killing Shane. An emotional response was generated by this, a real one, it shown that the zombie plague had changed people to there very core, and that people would turn on each other. 

In AMC's Walking Dead. We know Shane is a dick, he did some bad evil things, his death was going to happen either way, he was a obvious danger to the group, he was overly-obsessed with Ricks wife and what not, eventually turning Shane to want to kill Rick. Rick KNEW this was going to happen, but didn't want to resolve the conflict in a duel type stand off, he convinced Shane that Rick wasn't going to shoot him. Which  then allowed Rick to stab him to death due to Shanes guard being dropped. Shane becomes zombified and is shot by Carl. Yes Carl develops from this, but it is nowhere as good as the original conflict in my opinion. 

I honestly think some companies are not capable of original thought, they purchase it, which is the next best thing, but then twist it in their image, which half the time comes out wrong. Watch the 2011 Fright Night, which is based on the 1980's Fright Night, Its literally not even based on the book it says in the credit "Based on the FILM Fright Night", which to me is like WHAT?! A Film based on a film... Filmception. God that was a bad joke, sorry.

No idea why this blog was so long today, too much free time I guess. Tomorrow I will be reviewing the latest Avengers Vs X-Men, issue, and the blog will probably not be as long. See ya Folks, until next time.