chezkevin

March Photo a Day: Green

chezkevin is on break. Regular posts will continue on April. Until then, enjoy a ~~photo~~ comic scan a day, according to fatmumslim's photo prompts.

Scott Pilgrim is being green, by taking public transportation. From Bryan Lee O'Malley's excellent Scott Pilgrim saga.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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blogiversary recap + the next two weeks

Sharp readers will notice that I was supposed to announce the winner of the giveaway from last week's offering of Arkham Asylum. Nobody participated. I put a fair amount of effort into getting that post out there, but the results are less than ideal. I was originally planning on continuing these giveaways for the month, but I don't have the energy to promote all that again, yet. I'll try again later.

I had my last final this morning, and I had a big phone interview. Suffice to say, I'm a little exhausted, and I'm going to spend spring break next week, visiting my sister in New York. If you guys know of cool things in New York that I should do, do recommend them in the comments.

Over the next two weeks, this blog will be on a scheduled break and there will be empty space here in between. I hope to use the time to recharge my batteries and come back in April to talk more with you, the well-read chezkevinisto/ista, on those most comic of books, comic books. In the meantime, here's where else you can find me on the internet.

Photobucket: My username on this thing is airhikec001, and it's the main place I keep my scans for this blog. There's also a slideshow on the left bar of this blog, of my numerous uploads. I'm at 2,137 images, as of this writing, which occupies 2.5 GB of the 10 GB limit. I have several images on my Picasa Web Album from Google as well, but I prefer Photobucket, because it's easier to sift through every photo.

Quick readers will note that I post scans in the "pages" album, sometimes a week before actually blogging about them. This is a good way to tell the future, and see what I'm going to blog about! In fact, I have a page-worth of scans from Comic Book Comics and Mega Man that I'm not going to talk about until at least a week. Uploads on this site will be sparse going forward into the next two weeks.

Twitter: My username on this thing is chezkevintam. chezkevin was actually taken, which was a little disappointing.

I talk about my life, which is surprisingly about more than comic books. If you too have a twitter, let me know! Let's follow each other!

Swap.com: I've realized that I don't need several of the comic books in my possession, and, even worse, I don't care for some of them. So I've put them up on swap.com to try to trade them in for other items. ifanboy.com actually referred me to this website in one of their superior op-ed articles, and I'm hoping to get some good comic book mileage out of this. If you have a few comic books you don't care for, consider using this website.

I also have a mapmyrun.com, because I'm an occasional jogger, as well as a facebook. If you look hard enough, you can find the Kevin Tam that's me. I also keep a livejournal, which is an archive of my blogging experience from high school. So, in summary:

check me out on the internet.
tell me about cool things to do in NY.
See you in two weeks.

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chezkevin classics: Spidey and the Tentacle Monster

In celebration of chezkevin's 500th blogiversary, I'm re-presenting many posts ~~because I'm a lazy butt~~ that deserved more attention. Today is a post from December 15, 2009 and it's a good'un.

Another Mighty Marvel Masterpiece from Stan and Steve!

Spidey meets an all-new, all-horrible foe!

Greater than the Lizard's scales! More terrible than Doc Ock's shades!

Not even we know how to get outta this one, webheads!

Wouldja believe -- tentacle rape? Quick! Use your spidey-sense!

Hurl your body into the blazing fire!

From Amazing Spider-Man #37, by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

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Serials for 3-14: Ultimate Spider-Man and 2 more

Ultimate Comics All-New Spider-Man #7
by Brian Bendis and Chris Samnee
20 story pages, $3.99

This issue concludes Samnee's two-part run with the Ultimate Universe's all-new Spider-Man, but it doesn't feel all that "concluding." Bendis continues the story pattern of, "Miles tests his powers as Spider-Man, while other things happen in the background." It just so happens that it all looks so awfully nice, and that I don't have the willpower to cancel my subscription to Marvel Comics, that I keep reading this title.

There's a cute page at the end with a sticker that you peel, in order to find the redemption code for your digital copy. It's a much more waste-efficient strategy then stuffing every issue into a plastic bag so customers can't peek into the comic and take the code. I approve!

Now, we enter the portion where I gush about Spider-Man art:

I'm very fond of this panel. I love the way it uses the page space to show Spider-sense. Innovative!

Here's Miles, doing a fist pump after beating up Omega Red. Fist pump!

Lobster Johnson: The Burning Hand #1
by Mike Mignola and Tonzi Zonjic
22 story pages, #3.50

So I read this about 3 weeks ago, and I'm afraid I've just lost whatever opinion I ever had on it. It takes place in the 50s, so the fashion is legitimately fun to look at, but I didn't really understand what was the point of the comic: I was hoping to see Lobster Johnson brand somebody with that palm of his, but we only get to see it after the fact. There are 22 pages worth of story, but I don't feel that there was enough of a lead to hook me for the future issues. I'm afraid I have to pass on this miniseries.

I don't have any highlights to show you, but there was this one two-page spread that had a particularly awesome picture of a horse:

I love those horse-y legs. Human beings don't have inverted joints on their forearms, but horses do.

. . . what if we're the inverted ones?

Secret Avengers #24
by Rick Remender and Gabriel Hardman
20 story pages, $3.99

Here comes Venom, in Remender's second installment of the high-octane, spy-fi version of Marvel's Avengers! The cover's a bit of a mislead, because Venom doesn't really show up, and Flash (the current holder of the symbiote suit) Thompson's main role in the issue is to be pointed at by Hawkeye and be told that he can't join the cool kids club. It's actually an excellent panel:

Hardman knows how to take Remender's script and turn it into a visual story. The layouts have a high level of creativity, and so does the story. This time around the story's about Ant-Man's need to redeem himself, and it closes on an excellent note to bookend that story.

Secret Avengers doesn't get a lot of hype: it's not a loud comic book from a superstar creative team, but it's telling a worthy comic book story that could use a bit more attention. But -- you gotta keep it on the down-low okay? These Avengers are secret.

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chezkevin classics: Get Down America!

In celebration of chezkevin's 500th blogiversary, I'm diving into the archive to re-present some posts that deserved more attention. Today is a post from September 9, 2008, amidst Obama's campaign for the White House. I think it remains just as relevant today.

Forget about Obama!

Nuts to McCain!

Howard's where it's at; get down America!