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All the vehicles in these films look like broken Transformer knock-offs.

Oddly enough, I ended up watchinga  chun of batman Begins with the Old man a few nights ago, and spent a lot of the movie wishing the Bat(Tank)mobile would transform into Ironhide.

Look at it from a certain angle, and it makes sense.

Just read the first collected edition of Marvel's 'Moon Knight', by Charlie Huston, with art by David Finch.

This shouldn't really be my kind iof book, but I actually enjoyed it a great deal. It's spoilt by some confusing colouring in places, and some overly busy art, but the writing really pushes it above those problems. It really is PROPER barking mental - but in that finely crafted, stays-on-the-rails way that stops it becoming a mess and keeps the story focused. Very clever stuff. Roll on volume 2!

Yeah. Breaks your heart when those critters go. Really sorry to hear that, Logan.

I'll probably be picking up the trade eventually- but my grud, the sheer amount of ads throughout both comics made me vow not to pick up any more. It was like some mental cable tv channel where they pump ads at you every five minutes.

Glad this was an issue for somebody else as well.

I actually picked up a copy of The Dark Knight #1 for my Dad, who's been a Batman freak ever since childhood. He's not into comics, mind.

He was... less than impressed. He didn't care for the book much anyway, but he was REALLY unimpressed at the peppering of adverts all through the book, which he said upset the reading experience for him a great deal.

It made me wonder - WHY can't more publishers embrace the sort of policy IDW have, where ads a re relegated to the back of the book, leaving the story to read as a nice, uninterrupted chunk?

I kinda get into a wrangle over page count. I mean, losing 2 pages per issue may not sound like much. But if you total that up over the course of, say, a five or six issue run as is typical for a trade collection... well, you can tell a whole story in the page that have been lost!

On the other hand, if the pages aren't there, they're not there. [shrug]

And OY do you have a point about the decompressed nature of some of those books! Remember the preview of Justice League that ran in the promotional brochure DC put out? That had me shaking my head. I've similarly been disappointed at the over-use of splash pages and double page spreads in the relaunched range that add little to NOTHING to the stories.

But, I do go on. 

That raises an interesting point for discussion (if anyone wants to bite)

The reduction in pages from 22 to 20 isn't sitting well with me. I'm noticing that a few of the books I've looked over seem to suffer from feeling a little too full. Birds of Prey, for example, could have done with some extra breathing room, I think. Likewise Blue Beetle's first issue.

And yet, bizarrely, a few of the other titles feel a little light. Go figure.

Ah. Probably not a good time for me to mention that I just read Animal man #3 and... it wasn't so hot. 

Again, interesting, because I read #1 and #2 of batwoman and utterly hated it. Confusing layouts, heavy-handed labouring of the point that 'OH! Batwoman is teh lesbian!' and, well, frankly, it's not my kind of story.

As for Birds of Prey - are we reading the same book?! I picked up #1 and found it shockingly bad. Action at the expense of plot, ADD inflected timeskips (there's two pages that throw a whole load of these at the reader) and... well... to be honest, I found the writing unremarkable and underwhelming.

(All internetspeak type snark is purely for comedy purposes. Not aimed at anyone. Read what you like folks - just be sure that you enjoy it! I'm not horrible, really... I'm nice!)

Batgirl I'm enjoying because of Gail Simone's writing. I see the book taking some stick here and there, but I can single out specific reasons why I'm enjoying it. She's filling the pages well, each issue feels quite full, her characters all have their own voice, her heroine is plucky and likeable, and the villain is interesting.

I can see why folks who enjoyed whatever material preceded this might feel short-changed, but I really think it's a decent book. I even subscribed, which is unheard of for me.

Decided I'll also pick up Blue Beetle regularly, as issue #2 was a marked improvement over #1, and shows signs of the story developing in an interesting direction. The LCS had shelf stock of Animal Man #3. I'll pick that up fpr the duration of this arc, as it's quite interesting. But I doubt I'll buy more after that.

Vzzbux, if I EVER meet you in the flesh, I am gonna buy you a whole CRATE of beer!

I've actually typed up a very succinct, matter of-fact-letter which lays out quite clearly why I am so appalled at his attitude, and I'll be posting it tomorrow, direct to his door.

I don't approve of tit-for-tat reprisals against people who have done wrong, but BLOODY HELL do I understand what brings out the urge! There is simply NO NEED for people to act like 24 Karat plated dicks in the way they do.

I fear for society sometimes, when I see how easily and how gleefully certain arseholes act towards people they have in theri own minds tried, convicted and condemned.

Sod this shit. I'm gonna concentrate on my comics now! 

I had to waste time out of my evening tonight to go and see one of my customers after he'd called to say he was unhappy with work I'd done for him.

Turns out, when I arrived, he wasn't unhappy with the WORK at all. He was unhappy that he'd had to wait for me to get to him.  And yes, fair does, I'm late getting to him. And his neighbour. A fact which they both pissed and moaned about at length.

But the thing is, you see, I'm late because my grandma has been in and out of hospital since April. We were told TWICE that we should prepare ourselves for the worst. It's been a time of unparalleled difficulty for my family. We have her back home now, and she's stable, but she needs a LOT of care. EVERYTHING else, including work, has had to take second place. Which I explained to the guy.

"Well I'm very sorry," he said "but that's not good enough. Consider the contract cancelled."

Now, not only is that stupid, but it's also deeply callous and offensive. And I told him so.

ALL of you boarders reading this: Don't be this guy. Ever. At any stage in your lives. 

I feel so angry at this guy's attitude that I want to go and fling a brick through his window.

What an asshole.

Interesting to hear people voicing negative opinions of Batgirl, as I think it's REALLY good. Bear in mind, its my first experience of the character, though. A lot of the fan-rage surrounding the new title means absolutely nothing to me.

Thanks for the input, fellas.

I work off a laptop, so adding extra internal drives isn't really an option for me. I'm hoping I can swing a completely new computer system in the fullness of time, though.

For now, I REALLY need to free up some of my hard drive space and find some reliable storage for all the comics files I have cluttering up my computer.

Yeah, I'm quietly gutted about Jimmy Saville. I still chuckle over his appearance on the Ricky Gervaise show.

Also, Emp... it strikes me that your avatar looks like an incredibly ill Geddy Lee.

This might be a good place for me to ask if anyone can recommend  a RELIABLE external hard drive. I'll be needing one soon, what with the amount of work I'm getting.

I'm thinking I need 1Tb drive. Anyone know waht's decent on the market right now?

I saw about 20 minutes of Batman And Robin last night withthe old man.

Oh dear.

I've never seen it before, and all I coudl think was 'Oh man... oh man... this is bad. Really bad.'

And yet... still oddly watchable, in a 'can't look away' fashion.