Comic Book Reviews: John Carter Gods of Mars, Green Lantern Corps & More

CONTRIBUTOR: Elisabeth Forsythe works her marketing magic at Things From Another World, an excellent online comic shop chock-full of comic books and graphic novels. You can find her half-baked musings on comics and more at The Blog From Another World.

Watch Video Reviews of This Week’s Comics!

It’s time for another edition of our weekly comic book reviews. This week we review John Carter: The Gods of Mars #1, Green Lantern Corps #7, the Star Wars Omnibus: The Other Sons of Tatooine TPB, and the 30 Days of Night Plush.

Check out the video, below. SPOILER ALERT! We try not to go into too much detail in our reviews, but occasionally a spoiler slips through!

Star Wars Omnibus: The Other Sons of Tatooine



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This content was originally blogged at Things From Another World. Opinions expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the PGC3 at large.

Comic Book Reviews: Fairest, Amazing Spider-Man, Flashpoint

CONTRIBUTOR: Elisabeth Forsythe works her marketing magic at Things From Another World, an excellent online comic shop chock-full of comic books and graphic novels. You can find her half-baked musings on comics and more at The Blog From Another World.

Watch Video Reviews of This Week’s Comics!

Hope you’re ready for another great edition of our weekly comic book reviews. This week we review Fairest #1, Amazing Spider-Man #681, the Flashpoint TPB, and the POP! V for Vendetta Vinyl Figure.

Check out the video, below. SPOILER ALERT! We try not to go into too much detail in our reviews, but there are some spoilers about Flashpoint in this video!

DC Comics Flashpoint

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This content was originally blogged at Things From Another World. Opinions expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the PGC3 at large.

A Public Service Announcement RE: Computer Repair “Hookup”

Tyler Bradford runs Old Town Computers, which has been selling and fixing PCs, Macs, desktops, laptops, servers, handhelds, and things that go beep for Portlanders since 2005. OTC offers in-shop and on-site service, as well as retail sales and special orders, all with zero computer dude ‘tude.

CLEVER GIRL

Courtesy of http://www.theoatmeal.com/comics/computers

Look, we get it. Hollywood has spent the past 20 years telling you that all we need is a fridge full of The Dew™ , a T1 connection to the NSA mainframe, a bad button-up paisley shirt, and possibly some rollerblades, and us “computer guys” are totally happy. In fact, we don’t even think of this as a job! We’re just surfin’ the digital wave! Hauling ass down the information superhighway! Jackin’ into THE MATRIX©, man! It’s understandable that you think that when your buddy/neighbor/son/daughter/etc is done with a full day of working on a Ruby-to-Scala migration/Exchange Server upgrade/painstaking sector-by-sector data recovery/hand-building 15 new workstations for a design firm/etc, that of course you would be more than happy to figure out why streaming Netflix keeps getting choppy (hint: it’s because Silverlight sucks).

But we are also nice guys and gals for the most part, and often the stereotype of Internet Badass/Meatspace Wussy holds true, so a lot of the time when you say “Hey, could you take a look at something real quick with my computer?” we go along. And some of us (who have probably not been doing this for quite as long) are generally happy to do so. But I would beseech you to consider the following:

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This content was originally blogged at Old Town Computers. Opinions expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the PGC3 at large.

Cold & Flu Season? Dishwash Your Keyboard.

Tyler Bradford runs Old Town Computers, which has been selling and fixing PCs, Macs, desktops, laptops, servers, handhelds, and things that go beep for Portlanders since 2005. OTC offers in-shop and on-site service, as well as retail sales and special orders, all with zero computer dude ‘tude.

No, like, SRSLY.

I’m sure that some of you have heard the little chestnut that your keyboard is dirtier than a toilet seat. You probabaly said “Ewww, gross!” Then you immediately went back to eating your onion bagel whilst Facebookin’. And when you were in rapt attention to the latest “Donwfall/Hitler is mad about something” parody video, you were just a bit slow on draw to get your hand over your mouth with that sneeze.

I will admit, it does sound like a Internet-factoid, possibly debunked on Snopes. I mean, a toilet seat? Come on, that’s just a bit hyperbolic. And you’d be right. Your keyboard isn’t as dirty as a toilet seat.

It’s as dirty as FIVE TOILET SEATS.

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This content was originally blogged at Old Town Computers. Opinions expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the PGC3 at large.

The New DC Comics Logo: No Sir, I Don’t Like It.

Contributor: Sarah Giffrow is the owner of Sarah Giffrow Creative, offering design, photography, and geekery for small and local Portland businesses. She also plays roller derby, knows kung fu, and has quite possibly been to more Star Trek conventions than you. 

Logo design for Portland small businesses is one of my great loves, so I feel disappointed when the big-fish companies don’t get it right. Case in point? The new DC Comics logo. DC Comics’ logo redesign has met with, well, mixed reviews, to put it mildly. DC Comics dropped their new brand identity on an unsuspecting audience recently, and there’s been an explosion of fan reactions ranging from Bad to Awful to Utterly Profane. There are reasons for that–some of them silly, but some of them good.

“I liked the old brand! Why did you have to change it?”

When large and established companies pursues a brand redesign, it’s very easy for their audience to rail against it. Companies like DC have used an established logo and brand identity for a number of years, and it’s had time to worm its way into the collective consciousness, and become familiar. When a new logo shows up and rears its head? That’s pretty scary.

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This content was originally blogged at Sarah Giffrow Creative. Opinions expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the PGC3 at large.

Interview with Brandon Seifert of Witch Doctor

CONTRIBUTOR: Lauren Hudgins is the editor of Describe the Ruckus, a blog on Portland events and culture, and a PSU creative writing MFA student.

Brandon Seifert writes the impressively successful horror medical drama, Witch Doctor, from Skybound Entertainment/Image Comics. He and artist Lukas Ketner will be at the Hollywood Things From Another World on December 14 (7-10pm) to sign copies of Witch Doctor Volume 1. Curiously, Brandon began his career in journalism.

What sort of journalism?
Mostly arts and culture stuff. I wrote for Willamette Week.

How did you land that job?
I wrote them and it’s like, “Hey, here’s my clips. Do you want an article about this band?” And they’re like, “Do you want to do a blog post?” “Sure.” “We like your blog post. Do you want to write for us more?” “Totally.”

It seems like it’s difficult to get writing jobs like that.
There’s a lot of competition for them. I talked to my editors about it much later. “I was really intimidated and I know you guys get a lot of people interested.” “Yeah, but most of them aren’t any good, so when we get clips from people who can actually write it stands out.”

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This content was originally blogged at Describe The Ruckus. Opinions expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the PGC3 at large.

Godzilla Kingdom Of Monsters Issue One Review

CONTRIBUTOR: Kyle hosts a bi-monthly podcast about giant rubber monster movies from Japan called the Kaijucast, and that’s pretty damned nerdy.

THIS IS A SPOLER INCLUSIVE REVIEW OF GODZILLA KINGDOM OF MONSTERS ISSUE #1

Review: Godzilla Kingdom Of Monsters Issue #1

Ooh, check out the tail on that one! I do my best to give a fair review of the first issue of IDW Pulbishing's Godzilla Kingdom Of Monsters.

If you have not read this issue, or do not want to find out what happens in this issue, do not read any further! (You have been warned…)

Synopsis: As two children are playing on the beach of a small island located off the coast of Japan, Godzilla rises from his slumber under the sand. The giant behemoth moves into the interior of the island, trashing the city in the process, causing massive destruction and hundreds of casualties. The Japanese Self Defense Force scrambles a squadron of fighter jets in a futile attempt to stop the beast. Of course, all this does is make the monster angry. Japan escalates its tactics and attempts to destroy Godzilla with a nuclear missile. As the smoke clears, the monster appears not only undamaged, but is now able to unleash a fiery blast from its mouth. Meanwhile, across the globe, the president of the United States is weary from his battle with his public image as an aide informs him of the unbelievable horror that is transpiring in Japan.

If you have heard episode #30 of the Kaijucast, you’ll know that I received my review copy of Godzilla Kingdom Of Monsters upon my return from Emerald City Comicon. The excitement of seeing the IDW address on the return label was a little intoxicating. All I had seen from the first issue had been small previews of bigger pages and a couple of inked pages (sans dialogue). It actually made getting through my work day pretty difficult, knowing that the comic was ready to engage my eyeballs as soon as I “clocked out” and made it home.

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This content was originally blogged at Kaijucast. Opinions expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the PGC3 at large.