kindle fire

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Read AJ’s Review of ‘Smashed’ in the New Issue of ‘The Ann Arbor Review of Books’

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I am a terrible self-promoter and forgot to link to the first issue of The Ann Arbor Review of Books, wherein I wrote about this year’s Oscars telecast and red carpet coverage, but I won’t make the same mistake twice! The new issue of Ann Arbor is available right here for all Kindle-enabled devices (click here if you’re in the UK, or here if you’re in Canada). That’s $2.99 not only for my review of the film Smashed starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Aaron Paul, but also for takes on Zero Dark Thirty, Enlightened, upcoming Gobbledygeek guest Wesley Mead’s piece about the new They Might Be Giants album Nanobots, and more. Please support independent publishing and check it out!

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Listen to Episode 111, “Eleventy-One”

Gobbledygeek episode 111, “Eleventy-One,” is available for listening or download right here.

Bust out your robes and light your pipes; the boys take a look at Rankin/Bass’ 1977 animated adaptation of The Hobbit. Which also happens to be trippy as balls. They delight in the film’s weird charm and marvel at the fact that John freaking Huston voices Gandalf, among other hippie-esque things in a very hippie-esque film. Plus, Paul catches up on some comics, AJ is conflicted over the forthcoming Kindle Fire HD, and someone apparently remembered that we have a Formspring.

Next: an enlightening discussion of film criticism, I’m sure.

(Show notes for “Eleventy-One.”)

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Gobbledygeek Gift Guide 2011

On the new episode of Gobbledygeek, Paul and AJ told you about all the things you should buy this Christmas season, and now here’s a comprehensive guide! (Including a few items that weren’t even mentioned on the show.)

Note: Most links and prices are from Amazon.

BOOKS/COMICS

READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline
$14.33

Hands down one of the best science fiction books I’ve read in recent memory. It’s like my admittedly overdeveloped nostalgia gland were milked and distilled onto the page. This book is my geeky, pop-culture DNA printed in ink. ~ Paul

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Last Month’s Comics: ‘Uncanny X-Men’ Ends (Until the Next Issue), ‘Spaceman’ Lifts Off

Welcome to Last Month’s Comics, in which I discuss, uh, last month’s comics. I get my comics in bi-monthly shipments from Discount Comic Book Service, and as such, I can be a little behind. So here we are.

This column is later than usual, as I was a little preoccupied earlier this month, but for all those still madly wondering about what October 2011’s comics had to offer, here we go…

BEST #1

Spaceman #1
Writer: Brian Azzarello
Art: Eduardo Risso
Publisher: Vertigo

I’ve read only a fraction of Azzarello and Risso’s acclaimed 100 Bullets, which ran for ten years from 1999 to 2009, but one needs no familiarity with their past work to be immediately sucked in by the opening chapter of Spaceman, their new nine-issue mini-series from Vertigo. It takes place in a weird, sad future, just a few monsters and flying cars away from the one in Joss Whedon’s Fray. Our protagonist is Orson, a monkey-ish man genetically engineered to travel to Mars, a trip the human race never got to make. Orson and his low-class friends speak in bizarre, disjointed slang; “okee” is how they say okay, and they actually say “LOL LOL LOL” instead of laughing. In this first issue, Orson has ominous spaceman dreams and becomes involved in the kidnapping of the adopted child of reality TV stars. Eduardo Risso’s art is terrific, Brian Azzarello’s storytelling immediately compelling. Choice line, as Orson’s alarm chirps “New day, new day, new day” while he opens the door on a bleak, cloudless future: “Why, you lyin machine…it’s the same fuck old day it always is.” (Plus: $1!)

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