Monday Miniatures: Snake Demon
Despite the fact that there are literally hundreds of small minis that came with this particular kickstarter, project there are a couple of minis that stand out. One of them is this week’s model. All of the snake models are particularly detailed, but scales aside, this model still qualifies as intricate. Everywhere you look are little details of jewelry and quirks of design.
If you really scrutinize the picture to the left you will see the skull just peaking out from beneath her tail for instance. If you peak below the fold though, you will see entirely different details.
Ubiquity
The other day I went to my bank and found the comic pictured to the right on the front table right as you walk in. A comic teaching children the value of saving money as several popular heroes team up to defeat a villain that seems to have an impulse buying problem; afterall to afford a variety of gadgets that large, you’d need to be the primary shareholder of Stark Industries or Wayne Enterprises.
Comics have a long history of being used to create age appropriate PSA’s, but this is the first time I have seen them at a financial institution. Super heroes have suffused modern culture.
Star Wars, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the Canonicity Debate
More galvanizing than the release of the final amazing Godzilla trailer! More shocking than a future-book-spoiling episode of Game of Thrones! Yes friends, the most shocking news of all this week was Disney’s declaration that the oft-debated canonicity of Star Wars’ expanded universe content was debatable no more. It’s official: henceforth, only the movie trilogies and the Clone Wars animated series will be considered canon. Many hardcore Wars fans see this as a threat to the fandom, but I am staunchly in Disney’s camp on this one.
As far as I’m concerned, Admiral Thrawn, the Sun Crusher, Mara Jade, and the death of Chewie can all go take a dive.
Monday Miniatures: Village Rioter
I know that people get excited by this post every week, but rarely do you guys feel the need to bring pitchforks and torches to show said excitement. Peek below the fold to find out what has everyone so riled up!
A Case for a Planet Hulk Movie
I’m a fan of the Incredible Hulk. He’s always been among my favorite heroes/anti-hero, all the way back to the Lou Ferrigno days (which were technically before my time, but those reruns were essential to making me a comic fan). I like the Hulk best in his later incarnations, where the bestial rage-monster shtick is replaced with a cunning, predatory intellect, making him capable of stringing multi-syllabic, “smash”-agnostic words together. This “smart” version of the Hulk elevates the big green guy out of the King Kong/force of nature space and into the realm of an actual, interactive character who reached peak awesome during the “Planet Hulk” event.
I think that would be epic on the big screen.
“What was will be. What is will be no more.”
He does not look happy with the state of TV today.
Astute readers will recognize today’s titular quote as a reference to Ghostbusters II. In context, Vigo, undead beauty pageant winner and the so-called scourge of Carpathia, was talking about a thousand years of darkness under his rule from beyond the grave. In a totally comprehensible and in no way forced parallel that makes perfect sense in my mind, I think Vigo was actually talking about television today.
Bear with me.
Monday Miniatures: Darkrasp
This week we delve into yet another evil sorcerer. If you’re noticing that we’ve been painting a lot of those the last couple months, it is because we have. There are a couple reasons why this is the case. One is because there were a lot in the vampire package, and another is because they are a lot of fun to paint. There isn’t anything deeper or more sinister than that, probably…
Heroes For All
The big comic news of the week was the announcement that Marvel’s Young Avengers won the 2014 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book. Young Avengers is an amazing book with a cool cast of characters, and while I think that it gets a little too 90210 at times, and not enough smash-boom-pow, all credit to Kieron Gillen and the rest of the Young Avengers creative team for making something worthy of recognition.
Digital Property Rights
This week, the Game of Thrones caused quite a stir, and for once it wasn’t just because of who did or did not die horribly (although he did, and it was.)
In the day following episode 2’s airing, 1.5 million people torrented the show. At one point, just shy of 200,000 people were participating in the torrent simultaneously, a new record. Though there are many reasons why people are torrenting this show, including the fact that it isn’t available to watch in every country, there is one contributing factor that is particularly near and dear to my heart.
Caffeineforge 
First Consumer Protection Lawsuit Involving Crowdfunding Filed in Washington State
In an unprecedented move, Washington State’s Attorney General has filed suit against Altius Management, the company behind the Asylum Playing Cards Kickstarter campaign, which purportedly collected over $25,000 backer dollars and delivered nothing… I’ve gotta say, between the Oculus’ landmark sale to Facebook and this latest development, 2014 is shaping up to be a red letter year in the history of crowdfunding.
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