I Survived FCBD, And All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt

Holy Free Comics Batman!

FCBD was insane. And a whole lot of fun. Dorinda and I dragged our sorry carcasses home around 8pm and were in bed by 8:15pm.

Oh, before I forget, this interview that Brian and I did with Comics Bulletin is probably my favorite one yet. I thought Chris asked some great questions.

Anyway, FCBD. Saturday was my first trip to Jetpack Comics and man, what a cool place. Its got a really good “hole in the wall” vibe that I really liked. They also have the coolest store logo ever. It drizzled all morning and it was semi-freezing in the party tents outside, but it was still very busy.

As always it was good to see the guys from Double Midnight Comics. I got to try my first Bawls Rootbeer ever -it was delicious. Bawls comes in these thick brown bottles covered in strange bumps. I’m glad I wasn’t actively drinking from my bottle when Dorinda grabbed hers and exclaimed, “Oooh! It’s ribbed, for my pleasure!”

I swear you could have heard a pin drop after she said that.

By the time we got to Larry’s FCBD was winding down. He tried to call us and tell us not to bother, but we went anyway. I like the store, I like Larry, and I knew that friends of mine were still there. So we got to relax for a little while, enjoy a tasty bev, and eat some pizza.

As great as FCBD was, Friday was even better. Because Dorinda and I saw Iron Man. I cannot recommend this movie enough to you!

Normally I come down pretty hard on big action movies. But I do so for what I consider good reasons.

Finally, finally, finally. Someone remembered that the key to a great action movie is having a good story at its core. Someone should phone Michael Bay up and let him in on this little secret so I can stop throat-punching people when they tell me how much they like his movies. Even when my loved ones tell me they like his film I hate them a little, for having low standards, and being easily entertained. There is a subtle, but critical, difference between a movie like Iron Man and say, Transformers.

Transformers was a string of mind-blowing special effects sequences, with a shitty story wrapped loosely around them. It was like a 3hr movie trailer. Iron Man, on the other hand, is a great action story, that is complimented by some really good special effects. You dig?

For Marvel’s first solo-movie project I am really impressed. I thought that a decent job was done with the first 2 X-Men and Spider Man movies, but none of them were what I would call amazing. the 3rd installments of both those film lines were terrible to the N’th degree.

Iron Man, on the other hand was a really well crafted film that I would easily place on par with other such movies as Indiana Jones, Iron Giant, and the Rocketeer -good attention to detail, nice chemistry between the actors, exciting and violent without being graphic, and full of well spaced laughs.

All in all Marvel did a great job, and now I am actually looking forward to Captain America and Thor, (though Hulk still sucks a big one).

RD Jr. as Tony Stark was just perfect casting. No one understands an addict, quite like a fellow addict. Add to that his off the cuff style of acting and you’ve got a great Tony Stark.

Pepper Pots is very pretty. She has a nice bottom. And only twice did I feel like I could see Ms. P “acting”. For 99% of the movie she was very natural, and the tension between her and Tony was very well done. Especially at the end of the movie.

The random black guy who becomes War Machine -meh. Not bad, but not great. Obviously, if I can’t remember the character’s name 2 days later, something is wrong. He had some good lines, but most of the time he acted more like a nervous computer programmer worried about his next build, and less like an ace combat pilot assigned to work with Stark Industries.

Jeff Bridges. I really, really, really liked Jeff B. as the bad guy. It was so much more fun than some random terrorist group from Unspecifiedistan trying to blow up America. However, every time I saw Bridges with a drink in his hand (which was often) the ONLY THING I COULD THINK OF was Big Lebowski!! The DUDE. The Dude is trying to kill Iron Man. For some reason I found that really funny and I got some strange looks in the theater for laughing at inappropriate parts of the movie. “But Tony, those ICBMs -they totally pulled the room together. We gotta get them back. You wanna Caucasian?”

The SFX were super, but not over-done. Which is nice. The various fight scenes had my mouth hanging open.

And finally, I feel that I must applaud whoever decided to use that retarded old Ozzy Ozborn song. The song “Iron Man” was never really any good, but you might say it reached its height popularity in the mid-1980’s. Every time I heard it during the trailers I rolled my eyes, wished everyone would just cut their mullets, and move into the 21st Century. HOWEVER, when the credits rolled and that shit-tastic song started playing; it was magic. It totally worked.

BRAVO!

I did not get to sit through the credits because I saw the movie with 14 other people and they all hopped up and left. So I guess I’ll just have to see the movie twice. =)There is probably more to write, but I am exhausted from assembling a new drafting table today. It’s not for me though. It’s for the Widget. She really loves it, and that is cool. But putting furniture together is always something that leave me tired and full of frustration.

Also, my computer is dying. This has been happening for some time, but today the “w” and “s” keys sort of stopped working correctly. It feels like little tumors have formed beneath them, and I have to jab down hard into the mass of cellular death to get the letters to appear on my screen.

I really don’t need this right now. I don’t even know what sort of computer I should get next.