Two more pieces came in the mail today, so I’m blogging them!
They’re from Mark Buckingham’s run on Batman: Shadow of the Bat, specifically pages 16 and 18 of issue #78. It’s part of the “No Man’s Land” storyline, where the Mad Hatter goes through the remains of Gotham City to search for his hat collection. The cool part? They’re a series, page 16 and 17. They tell a short story!
I just purchased a nice new piece of comic art with the Mad Hatter for my walls. I do so much Mad Hatter blogging that I should make it a tag, but I don’t want to draw that much attention to the object of my obsession.
Here’s the piece:
It’s page 14 of Batman and the Outsiders #11, by Ryan Benjamin and Saleem Crawford. In order from top, Arkham Asylum, the Mad Hatter, Clayface, Mr. Freeze, and Mr. Zsasz. Some more pieces will be coming shortly.
Taking a break from Disney love, here is a cap that you can buy for only $10 on the streets of Brooklyn. Spidek-Man might be a big hero where you come from, hat, but around here he ain’t worth $10.
So you’re going to ask, where the hell has Ethan been, and why hasn’t he blogged lately? Well, there are two reasons for this.
One, I was on jury duty. The case ended in a conviction, but I was in there for a couple days. Yup, I sat on a jury. If you every have the opportunity to do this, DO IT. It is fun. You end up catching up on your reading and listening to your iPod a lot while the court takes recesses. I think we spent 2 hours in the courtroom and the rest of the time being escorted in and out by bailiffs. In the end the drug dealer was convicted so justice was served.
Two, I was in the hospital. The other day I had a pain in my gutty works and it got worse over time. My doctor thought it might be appendicitis, so instead of chancing it, I went to the emergency room where they gave me pain killers. Here is me on pain killers.
It wasn’t a bad experience, but it took a loooong time to get through and it left me dead tired for an entire day. Turns out it wasn’t appendicitis at all, but a very painful pulled muscle. If you get one of these, I’m sorry, because they really, really hurt. And hospital food ain’t grand.
Funny story though, as I was leaving the nurse told me that she wished I could have stayed. “All my patients are so old, it’s like a retirement home.” I told her that for her sake I wished I was staying, but for my own I was glad to be getting out.
Next week is another week though, and hopefully I’ll have a scanner soon so I can scan photos of the awesome Christian Archie comics I just got sent to me from Australia. That’s right, all of the Archie characters are Christians. And they all witness for Christ. It’s mind-blowing.
Until next time, hopefully I don’t get sick or have crime happen!
This morning, walking to work, I saw a chauffeur waiting for someone in front of the Hotel Pennsylvania. It’s one of those things where he gets a call, drives over, and stick the little sign in his window with the name of the fare on it.
This morning, according to the sign in his window, he was waiting for Al Coholic. Keep waiting, dude.
Ok, so Old Navy, a clothing store I don’t go into, is having a new campaign launched for their yoga pants. It’s called “Old Navy GOGA,” which is some combination of “yoga” and the word “go.” GOGA.
Apparently there’s a contest where you do a dance in the store and you can win a Wii or pants or something. Whatever, it makes them happy.
The catch is that GOGA has been used as an acronym repeatedly in the porn industry. It stands for “Girl on Girl Action”. So good job, Old Navy. You’re not making me think of yoga when I walk past your store on my way to work.
…I share my obsessive Mad Hatter collection with you. This is the newest acquisition, an original pencilled and inked page from Mark Buckingham’s Shadow of the Bat #79. Casual comic fans might know Buckingham as the penciller of the ultra-popular Fables series.
I bought the piece off of Anthony’s Collectibles, a website that is practically overflowing with amazing comic art for sale, most at very reasonable prices (mine cost only $65 and is worth much more than that to me). Take a look and jump into collecting original comic art!
If you’ve read my blog here on Wizarduniverse.com for a while, you’ll be familiar with my art collection. In short, I collect Mad Hatter things, mostly in regards to the Batman villain, but occasionally other items as well. Recently I just purchased a series of Batman trading cards from 1966, which I need to matte and frame. I have a massive framed painting from Disney of the Mad Tea Party. It’s kind of a big deal.
I also collect sketches of the Hatter from comic artists. The collection has now extended over one wall of my apartment and includes sketches from Sean Chen, Evan Dorkin, Patrick Gleason, and Rags Morales. And just yesterday I was able to add two sketches from my friend and comic illustrator Stephanie O’Donnell. She writes and draws numerous web comics and is a very, very busy bee.
This is the bigger version, with the Tom Petty tagline.
And here’s the smaller “sketch” version, which is depicted here at about 3x actual size. Both, of course, are framed.
It’s becoming a bit of an obsession, but whatever. We all need hobbies and at least I’m not going to the [shudder] gym.
Jon Golbe is one of the funniest people in New York. I ain’t lying, everything that comes out of his mouth (vocally) is dynamite. We were on an improv team for a little bit, Mice Cream, and I got to see how damn quick and smart he is firsthand.
Now, he’s an intern at Playboy.
They’ve made it into a web reality show where Jon’s absolutely killing in every scene he’s got. This is the episode where he gets a pedicure with a Playmate.
Jon Golbe is a funny, funny man. And all of the world needs to know this and hire him for more things (and yes, Jon, I did see you on Colbert last month). Enjoy the video, and HIRE HIM FOR MOVIES AND THINGS.
I love books. I love reading them curled up on the couch, I like cracking them open on the subway or at a restaurant, I’m overjoyed if I can find a place to kill a few hours with a book in the city. I buy a TON of books, which is very silly, because I can only read so many at a time and they tend to pile up (I have spending issues too, but we won’t talk about that). And why do I buy so many? Three things:
1) The Strand. It’s a used/new bookstore here in NY where everything’s a minimum of half price, usually less. And it’s 18 miles of books, you know, all stacked on top of each other on shelves. It’s right near where I get my comics and DVDs, so I tend to go once a week. Books are purchased.
2) Barnes & Noble. Being a member of Barnes & Noble has its perks, the most important being the coupons they send you in the mail. And since you don’t want to let that coupon expire, you buy books. Or at least I do. Up to 40% off a book is a good, good thing. I just bought The Onion’s atlas for cheap, one of the few books that’s so detailed it took an entire 20 minute train ride just to read one spread.
3) Bookmooch.com. This is a great idea, and I’m happy to be able to use it. What you do is you gather up all the books you’d either sell, give away, or throw out, and you list them on the site. Every book you list gives you 1/10 of a point. 10 books = 10 points. Then people searching through your site find the books they want, they ask you to ship them, and you get a point for that. With your points you can request books from other users. The only cost to you is shipping, which is between $1.50 – $5.00. It’s great, they have a lot of stuff you might be looking for.
The only downsides to Bookmooch are its recommendations. EVERYTHING I search for brings up “Related searches: Neil Gaiman.”
I don’t know how it works, but he pops up everywhere. Searching for a book on John Belushi? Maybe Neil Gaiman has something to say about that. Jesus? Maybe Neil Gaiman has a book on him. Everything’s coming up Gaiman! To illustrate this point, I’m going to do an experiment, right now as I write this. I’ll do a few random searches and see if Neil comes up. Results posted here:
Merlin: Yes New Jersey: Yes Beatles: Yes Alexander Pope: Yes hydroponics: No Mount Rushmore: Yes brown sugar: Yes hats: No Mad Hatter: Yes agriculture: Yes Christmas: Yes
Neil’s good, but he’s not that good. And the other catch is that people can put their books up in multiple categories and more often than not they list them in categories that have absolute diddly to do with the book. For example, “101 Facts About Puppies” and “3 Ninjas Kick Back” are listed as biographies, and “Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past” is humor. Somehow “A Bugs Life: Gift Book” is a classic.
But that all being well and good, they are great places for you to get books on the cheap. My shelves are overflowing with the bounty of many shopping trips and I suppose I’ll have to get around to reading them before too long. Hey, I got very few holiday plans…
