Why I avoid Comic Shops

By Tyson Hinton

Wolverine and Psylocke from my Deviant Art account Zerochanges

        I used to me quite an avid collector of comics. I have 4 long boxes of comics which were almost all bought since the the turn of the century. Before that time I could not afford to by comics with all my other hobbies. Comics have always been expensive for me. When I first started collecting comics in the nineties comics as a kid many comics I purchased at Wal-Mart which came in little packs which had three or four comics bundled together. I always keyed into the Spider Man and X-Men comics. The Avengers and Fantastic Four characters didn't interest me much in those days though I was aware of them all as characters. The most prized of my comics was the round robin Spider-Man story which was drawn by the great Mark Bagley. I never got the first or last issues of that story but I read those issues so many times. Those comics are in horrible shape. I didn't have bags and boards back then. 

        Once I started to buy comics on a monthly basis was around the time of Chris Claremont and Salvador Larroca's X-Treme X-Men. I had subscriptions to many comics as well. I preferred to get my comics that way because even as a teenager I knew it was way cheaper than buying them at a comic shop. I grew up in a small town that just didn't have a comic shop in my area.  The closest shop was a store called Dragons Keep which was twenty miles from my home. I made to trip every two or three weeks and had quite the pull list. The owner of the store knew I liked variant covers and he would put those in my pull list without ever being asked. I happily bought all the variant covers for the books I enjoyed. A year after high school I moved across the country to New Jersey and New York where I lived for a couple years before moving back home to Utah. I soon had things set up like I did before I moved. Marvel had stopped their subscription service so everything was bought at the comic store though I was getting all the variants for the comics I collected. Soon after my return however the owner of Dragons Keep sold his business after 20 years. Things soon changed at Dragon's Keep. They moved the store across the street to a new building. The building was much more spacious than the old store. Things were cleaned up, new employees made things more organized than ever before, new shelving allowed for more diversity in product, new lighting made the building much brighter, and the new owner seemed passionate about comics. However the bad things that fanboys are known for soon affected the shop. Some new employees and customers were the epitome of the fan boy hygiene stereotypes. Rules that "The Keep" once had we're gone. In fact they began to keep body spray in the bathroom. 

I will at least point at the those holes in the wall in that picture are not the norm for their building. It is quite clean and spacious for the most part. I think they were remodeling when I took that picture. 

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

By Tyson Hinton

        I wrote this review almost a month ago but never published it. Since my views are still applicable and there are going to be people who have not seen the film I will share my thoughts and observations. There will be SPOILERS. 

12-18-2012

        Several weeks after the release of The Hobbit I've now had the opportunity to view the film in 3-D with 48 frames per second and also in the 24 FPS movie standard and thought I would share a few thoughts on the film. I won't be writing in any amount of depth on the overall plot but there may contain some *spoilers* though I don't feel I should be worried about spoiling the story for an nearly 80 year old book. 

        I saw The Hobbit for the first time in 3-D 48 FPS the Monday following the release of the film. I'm sure that I will spend more time going over what I didn't like about the film, so don't get me wrong as I thoroughly enjoyed the film.  The framing device for the film, using the original cast of Ian Holme and Elijah Woods of played Bilbo and Frodo respectively in The Lord of The Rings was a great way t back story and depth to some characters simply by them being present. The audience knows what is going to happen with Bilbo and his eventual fate far across the sea in the west with the elves. 

        The Hobbit was originally intended to be a two part movie but sometime during filming it was decided to split the movie into three films and many saw this as a money grab. I am not one who would be able to disagree with that point entirely. There a points of the film that seem to drag on a little longer than might be necessary. This was a common complaint I've heard from people when discussing The Lord of the Rings trilogy with people over the last ten years, especially the long ending of Return of the King. In the case of the LotR trilogy I've personally felt some of those scenes were necessary for exposition and the overall development of the plot. In the case of the dinner scene when the dwarves arrive at Bag End the scene dragged on without any real character development.

        There are some things that happen during the film may come as a surprise for many of have read the The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson uses some stories from the Silmarillion, the appendices at the end of Return of the King, and some unpublished stories to add to the original story of Thorin Oakenshield and his company of 14. Some characters that were mentioned in The Lord of the Rings novels and in the appendices such as Radagast the Brown and the Necromancer make an appearance as do the great Cate Blanchett as Galadriel and Christopher Lee as Saruman who I had no idea was in the film. While these stories feel more self contained than the rest of the plot I think that these scenes will add much more to the world than distract from it. Many still cite the scenes from the novels with Tom Bombadil and the 'Scouring of the Shire' as scenes that should have been filmed during the production of The Lord of the Rings. The decision to break this story into three parts will enable the film makers to not have to not shoot or cut as many scenes from the story and will enable the filmmakers to create scenes everyone we all want to see. So while these stories feel a little self contained and some might find them unnecessary I think we as fans will be very happy the scenes are there in 20 years. 

        The lack of character development is by far the biggest issue I have with the film. Now granted there wasn't much to go on from the source material for many of the characters and I do understand that most of the dwarves were never given a personality in book. By end of the film only a few of the characters stuck out in my mind as individuals. Outside of Thorin and Balin many of the dwarves do little but take up space in the background. Some of the dwarves get more moments to shine than others but these moments were few and far between. Most films have smaller casts of a few characters so they have ample screen time to become developed by the end of a film. The reason I bring this up is because of the film version The Fellowship of the Ring. By the end of Fellowship each on the nine members of the fellowship were developed enough as characters that each individual character had a distinct personality and motivations that were understandable to the audience. By the end of The Hobbit, and I've seen it twice now, I barely can remember any of the dwarves names so the chances of anyone being able to describe their personalities and motivations is remote. I hope that this is rectified in the future films and the likely extended cuts that The Lord of the Rings did so well.  
             The technical aspects of the film are simply amazing. The costumes and sets are just as good as anything that the Weta Workshop has created. The costumes and sets look and feel authentic and work to further create the cultures of Middle Earth in ways you don't see in other films. The CGI this time around is stupendous and lacks the rubbery quality that we see to often I films. The scene with Gollum are done so well I don't even think of him as a computer generated character but instead as an actor. Andy Serkis did just as good of a job as he ever has with his voice work and motion capture. I love the redesign of the worgs though I don't care for the look of the Goblin King and which the design of the goblins was more in line with the LotR trilogy.

        As for the two versions of the film I found that I enjoyed the 3-D version with the 48 FPS much more than the standard 24 FPS that I viewed last night (12-18). This is a big statement by myself as I don't normally like 3-D in films. The 3-D generally doesn't warrant the extra price of a ticket and is often barely more than a gimmick that makes objects appear to fly at the audience. I left the 3-D in The Hobbit was much more like the 3-D in Avatar.  It was less a gimmick though gimmicks are certainly present. The 3-D was used mostly in a way to add depth to the scenes. Combined with the high frame rate it made for a much more engrossing viewing experience. The frame rate gave a level of detail that I have never experience before in a film. During the tremendous battle scenes for example you could pick out a minor character in the background and see a high level of detail in the shot. The 24 FPS version while still a great movie did not have nearly the level of clarity of the 48 FPS version. Howard Shore's music score felt as if it was coming from the same world. All the songs were original as far as I can recall and there were some nice thematic nods to songs from the first trilogy. Bilbo's theme was reminiscent of Frodo's though it wasn't quite as memorable. Using Sarumans them slightly during his brief was a nice touch and the score is full of great moments like that. 

        Overall The Hobbit is a great film and should please fans of The Lord of Rings trilogy. The Hobbit is a much more lighthearted tale than its predecessor and doesn't have quite the level of epic-ness or urgency of the quest that the Fellowship undetook and runs a little long in parts but should satisfy anyone who is a long time fan of Tolkien or The Lord of the Rings nook or film trilogy and is a great jumping on point for newcomers to middle earth who are looking to experience The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings for the first time. 

Good Time to be a Geek

        I remember a time when those of us who can call ourselves fanboys and fangirls were ridiculed for our tastes. I find it funny that today its almost the cool the thing to do. Year after year it seems the biggest entertainment events world wide feature characters and bobbies that have been king among us for years. 

        Ten years ago I never would have dreamed that we would see an Avengers movie featuring Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America. There is no doubt that aside from the Hulk the average movie viewer had no clue who these characters were. Who would have thought Iron Man could become as popular as he has become. Notwithstanding starring an actor who had essentially ruined his career. Ten years ago only characters who were highly recognizable among average viewers such as Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, and the X-Men had any chance of being made into a movie. There have been a few exceptions such as Blade and love it or hate it Daredevil which was designed as a vehicle for Ben Affleck. 


        Who would have thought that Batman would recover in such a spectacular fashion as he did following the movie lowness that was Batman and Robin? The Christopher Nolan Batman films have not only been popular amongst the average moviegoer but have been 
critically praised by critics and even had an actor Heath Ledger receive a posthumous Oscar for best supporting actor. 


        Video games sales, economic recession aside, have been on the rise for best selling entertainment events. Every year it seems Call of Duty releases a new game that shatters not only video games sales, but movie sales, and the previous years CoD release. 
We have known for years why these characters and why video games are awesome. Thankfully there are still a few surprises for us. I'm sure I squealed when Thanos showed up in a cameo at the end of The Avengers. 


        Now many more characters have been or are going to be brought to the big screen. Not all to the same degree of success as Batman, Spider-Man, and the Avengers. Scott Pilgrim, Ghost Rider, Green Lantern, Kick Ass, Fantastic Four, Ant Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man, Thor, Toby McGuire Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield Spider-Man reboot, Eric Bana Hulk, Edward Norton Hulk, Mark Ruffalo Hulk, a Fantastic Four reboot, Daredevil reboot, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Hobbit, The Walking Dead, Resident Evil, Assassins Creed, Star Wars prequels, Star Wars the Clone Wars, The Punisher, Harry Potter, Superman, and many many others have come to the big screen or are going to be coming to be appearing on the big screen. There have been varying levels to the success to these films but one thing is obvious. There is interest in these characters and franchises and when they are handled well can be an amazing spectacle for fans and the average viewers alike but when done not so well can be quite cringe worthy. 


        There has also been some misfires with marketing and cross pollination of products. With all the success that comic book movies have had there has not been a renewed interest in comic books themselves. The market is still there. I know lots of people who have never bought a comic book but have book shelves full of manga. What possible steps can companies like Marvel and DC do to turn people on to the non movie side of the industry? I won't pretend to be a marketing genius. I have a background as an artist and graphic designer but can honestly say I don't have a background in marketing. I can say I find it puzzling that there are no offers in video game and DVD cases for a year or even multi year subscriptions to comic book titles. I recall when I was kid that every issue of any comic would have an ad that offered subscriptions to various comic book titles and often gave buyers deals for ordering more than one title. Digital distribution is a good step in the right direction which cuts out shipping, printing, and middleman costs. I've yet to see any promotions for buying comics digitally. Some companies have had done a better job of having issues released quickly in the digital format while others are still months behind.  Though we still are not seeing in promotion of these products and services.

        That being said something needs to change. I took a friend of mine to a local comic shop after we saw The Avengers last May. When we got there they were immediately drawn to the Iron Man and Avengers comics. It shouldn't come as surprise that after looking through the issue and liking what they saw they put the book back down and said "These are way to expensive." How can it be anything but unsurprising that the few people who go to check out comics because of their interest in the movies would likely not find value in a 32 pages comic for 5 dollars. 

Song of the Week- Dope Nose

It's that time for song of the week. Granted this is the first time but what better time to start? In Song of the Week I will share one song that I am digging this week. Whether that song is old, new, or whatever. It doesn't matter.

This weeks song is Dope Nose by Weezer off of their record Maladroit. That record is now almost ten years old. My how time flies. Enjoy Rivers Cuomo's fantastic beard.

Geek Roots

       

        I wont go to much into my fandom of Star Wars in this article but will save that for the future. Like most people my age I was a big fan of Ninja Turtles when I was a kid. My earliest Christmas memory is being handed a box by my parents that didn't look like a box shaped like any of the toy boxes I has seen in the stores. I remember not being excited to open the box. Once I did though to my surprise it was full of all the Ninja Turtles toys at the time. It had Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo, Shredder, Casey Jones, Bebop, and Rocksteady. I remember jumping up and down excitedly and seeing my parents smiling. Since I am the oldest  Child I just missed transformers but I soon moved onto the Marvel heroes courtesy of the great X-Men and Spider-Man cartoon series of the 90's. I also can't forget to mention a VHS tape my friend had that featured the pilot episode for the unmade X-Men series the Pryde of the X-Men which was the inspiration for the arcade classic X-Men game  

        These soon led into collecting Marvel action figures. We would always buy the at the now deduct KB Toy store which would often have deals for 3 figures for 9.99. These action figures ended up leading to the biggest money sink I've experienced in nerddom, card collecting. Back then most of the action figures in the Marvel toy lines came with a trading card from the card sets. There were a lot of card sets coming from Marvels (partnership) with Fleer Ultra. Our favorite though was Over Power card game. This game was fantastic as we soon unleashed out favorite heroes and villains in epic battles. This game had a lot of longevity amongst our group of friends and even featured sets with DC characters as well as the characters from a image comics.  We played and collected these cards for years even after they became defunct. A big factor in this was my friends father collected them with us. He would order a box of boosters from a supplier every once in awhile and then would sell us the packs for the cost he paid. This extended to whatever kind of cards we wanted him to order for us. 
Eventually the toy collecting died out amongst us and with the lack of new Marvel card sets being released and that cancellation I soon moved onto other things primarily video games and Magic the Gathering which I had played on occasion shortly after the original release of the game. We soon frequented the local tournament scene.  Magic while an enjoyable game in itself is very costly to play at tournaments. Essentially you are forced to keep buying new cards when old sets get cycled out of eligibility for Wizards of the Coast sanctioned tournaments. I kept this going for several years of spending hundreds of dollars on the new card set I soon grew weary of the cost to keep playing. 
The reason for stating that card collecting is more expensive than video games is for the simple reason that I almost always get more hours of enjoyment from a video games then I do from stack of cards of equivalent cost. Most cards remain unused and sit in boxes gathering dust. I'm sure I have spent more time playing Halo Combat Evolved than I did with fifty dollars of Magic cards. There were years especially in the late 2000's where I spent much more on games than cards but I feel I got a better value from the games. 
        

        Since 2006 I have played Blizzards World of Warcraft off and on. I started sometime before the release of the Burning Crusade. I played very little in BC.  Not really because of time issues though I was a college student at the time. I just did not enjoy that expansion much which I'm sure puts me in a very small minority in the WoW community. I thoroughly enjoyed Wrath of the Litch King and was I raided with the top 25 man guild on my server for much of that expansion. Cataclysm us where I turned to PVP for most of the expansion. My work and school schedule changed pretty drastically during that expansion and I missed hardcore raiding until halfway through the Firelands. I've played pretty hardcore since the relate of Mist of Pandaria which I will get into at a future time I'm sure. 

        For all the love I have for Marvel I didn't get into collecting comics until High School where I was able to but lots of comics for cheap through eBay. I soon had a pull list at my local comic store which was over 20 miles away. I collected comics for more than ten years and have lots of long boxes filled with comics. The last couple years however the price of comics have at least to me have become a detriment to their collectibility. I can no longer justify the cost. Most issues cost 4.99 or more. I continued to collect some comics that we're released by Top Cow Comics since the price stayed the same. I didn't so much stop buying the comics because I wasn't interested but more because I stopped going to the comic store. I have found some cost saving ways to enjoy comics. There are some websites that sell new comics for cheaper than a comic store will offer and leave the buyers with great deals such as DCBS . Now my favorite alternative to the in store comic book scene has become graphic novels which I generally purchase through amazon. Most graphic novels have 5-6 issues which would be 25-30 dollars plush tax if bought individually. These can be purchased in a graphic novel form for often half the price, contain no ads aside from other books being published by the same company, and often have extras like sketches and interviews included. 

        I'm sure I left some things out from my geek cred but there is only so much I feel I can mention before it all becomes a giant wall of text and at some point I will write about my experience with Star Wars and more video gaming.

Grammys Try for a Rebound

        With award season having arrived I find it quite enjoyable that many bands with musicians in them are being recognized. The pop scene has been more than overtly saturated by groups and singers that not only can't or won't write their own songs but are so overly produced in the studios that the performance given in a studio recovering can't even be approached by the artists.

         Now I'm not going to say that studio trickery has no place on a record album. The sound created on The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band would have been more than difficult to reproduce at that time in a concert setting but also shows their talent and ability as musicians and studio pioneers.  The current trend of 'fixing' things post recording is alarming especially with the advent of auto tune. 


        So some of this years are nominees break the trend of artists like Rihanna and Beyonce with longtime rockers The Black Crowes as well as  indie influenced groups Mumford and Sons, Goutye, and Fun. While I don't necessarily feel these are the best groups and are the most deserved. These bands not only write their own music but are talented musicians and singers as well. 

        I find it funny when some groups are nominated for best new artists. I saw Fun several years ago after the breakup of Fun singer Nate Ruess's previous group The Format who I saw perform with Fellow indie rockers Motion City Soundtrack and The All American Rejects. Fun's sound is derivative of The Format and much more pop influenced than The Format. I personally prefer The Format's sound but check it out for yourself. 

Thank George (Star Wars)

So I'm finally getting something up here. I started this picture the day after the announcement of Disney buying all of the Lucasfilm assets. Now I'm finally finished with it and I hope you like it. This picture is dedicated to my dog Jar Jar who was hit by a car on New Years Eve. Miss you buddy.

There are quite a few characters in this picture including Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Bossk, Lando Calrissian, Jar Jar, Ahsoka Tano, Obi Wan Kenobi, Emperor Palpatine, Wicket, R2-D2, C-3PO, Salacious Crumb, Boba Fett, Ig-88. Chewbacca, Admiral Thrawn, Jabba the Hutt, Bib Fortuna, Greedo, Darth Maul, Queen Padme Amidala, Anakin Skywalker, mini Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn, Nute Gunray, Grand Moff Tarkin, Yoda, General Grevious, a jawa, the death star, a battle droid, a tusken raider, the millenium falcon, an x-wing, darth maul's ship, Darth Tyrannus or Count Dooku, a stormtrooper, an AT-AT, Cad and a Naboo figher. Whooo. I think I got them all. 

If you wanna check out more of my art be sure to check out my deviant art account ZeroChanges.

Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoyed.