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Free Comic Day!
turkeywrap writes "Today is Free Comic Day! Go to your local comic store, pick up some free comics, and support the comic industry. Check and see if there are any special signings or events at a store near you." Ack! I'm in Warren at Penguicon this weekend, and nowhere near my precious comic store! I guess I'll have to pay for my comics ;)
After watching X2 last night (good movie), I'm feeling inspired to checkout the actual comics. Is there a bound edition with large parts of the series available or would I have to hunt and peck to find each individual comic book?
I just wrote this up real quickly since we got back from the movie just now. BTW, I don't care if you believe me or not. Just bookmark the post and come back in 13 days and see how right it is. I wanted to thank Warner Bros. for the sneak preview. Also, excuse the grammer/spelling/etc. errors. I wrote this in 5 minutes so i wouldn't forget everything. Ask me if you want anything filled in. =)
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Just went to Matrix Reloaded. Good movie.
It opens with Trinity attacking a yet unknown location. All of a sudden, she jumps off the building (this is shown is the trailer) and is being pursued by an Agent. She gets shot. Neo wakes up and realizes it was a dream. He gets out of bed (Trinity is with him) and goes into the other room. They try to talk but he says nothing. Cut to next scene of Morpheous and other captains talking inside the Matrix. Interestingly, we learn that Morpheous is not really a big shot leader but rather just another peon in the world of Zion. There is a knock at the door. It is Agent Smith with something for Neo. It is his ear piece since he is no longer a part of the matrix.
Fight scene ensues with Agents.
There is an arugment and the ship pulls into Zion. Machines are boring down we learn. Learn the general's woman used to be morpheous' woman who is a captain.
Morpheous speaks to people. Big party. Trinity and Neo have sex. Counselor talks to Neo.
Cut to scene of the glowing asian guy protecting the Oracle.
Oracle talks to Neo about choices and tells him about the Keymaker.
She leaves. Agents come. Agent Smith multiplies and a huge playground fight starts (shown in trailer). Agent smith is replicating himself somehow but putting his hand inside the person and taking them over. Neo then leaves.
They go to find the keymaker at the French-wannabe information seller who is also a Matrix programmer. See Monica Beluchi.
Find Keymaker through Monica's help. They find those weird white guys. The programmer says he has handled Previous "neos" and survived. Chase ensues. Freeway scene. Ducoti chase scene.
Back to zion for counsel meeting and they send two more ships.
Keymaker tells Neo about the special building with a bridge to "the source". The plan involves three teams. One to knock out power, one to infiltrate and the third for support. One of the power plant teams dies due to an attack from the octopus machines. Trinity was told earlier to not enter the matrix because the premenatition neo got at the beginning is of Trinity being killed. But the backup systems for the power plant came on. If they open the "backdoor" into the building, neo dies. She goes into the Matrix. We learn the scene is her attacking the power plant. She "ssh"'s in and shuts the grid down right as Neo and crew is making it into the building. The keymaker is shot by agent smiths! He dies as the door shuts. Neo enters the door to "the source". He meets an old gray bearded man named "the architect". We learn that he created 5 previous matrix's. They all had flaws. The oracle is called the "mother" and he calls himself "the father". Neo is called an anomaly who previous 5 people have come and gone. Basically here the nature of the matrix is described. The choice is given that neo can walk through one of 2 doors. Through one, he'll save trinity who is falling off the power plant and about to be shot or through the other door he can take 16 men and 7 women to repopulate Zion. Either way, Zion will be destroyed by the boring machines. "the architect" says that neo is different since he has learned to love trinity. Neo picks the door to save trinity. By the way, Neo can fly in the movie. So he flies like a bullet and barely catches the falling trinity but she is shot. He pulls the bullet out and restarts her heart. "they are now even" is what trinity says. They get out of the matrix and learn that the defenses of zion are not standing up well due to the treachery of one ship. Earlier in the movie, Agent Smith took over this person's body/m
This is a great way to bring in new readers into stores. I applaud it, even though I stopped collecting (on a regular monthly basis) years ago.
On the other hand, the web has plenty of free comics -- it'd be great to somehow find a way to tie in web comics to this event.
Free Bob!
The PC Weenies: 11 Years of Online Tech 'Too
Do any of these comic book stores sell manga? I don't go for American comics, but I love manga. Even my local Barnes and Noble devotes a shelf to them now, though at $10 they're twice as expensive as the original Japanese versions that I get at Mitsuwa.
I stopped supporting the Comic industry in the mid 90's, after they clearly abused consumers. Starting with Valliant (now dead) who printed outrageous amount of comics, hyped it, but kept most of it in warehouses until the price went up. Some comics could be 10 to 50$ after a few weeks/months, then suddenly appeared on the market in large quantities. Today most are available for a few cents. As a young kid I spent a fortunes on comics, not to collect them, but because I enjoyed reading them.
;)
Remember that "Death of Superman" hype? In less than a month it was going for 60$, then 100$ and some places went as high as 200$ BUT It was the most! printed! comic! ever! (6 million prints? or was it only 2?) but you could NOT find it anywhere for months. Every distributor, reseller and stores just kept stacks of hundreds in the back waiting for the hype and rarity to increase the price. You can get it for a dollar today.
I got angry at the comic industry when, in that period, I had a summer job in a comic book store. I went to the warehouse and saw 1$ comics every store in many towns where selling for 10-50$. Titles like Solar man of the atom, X-O Man of war, Superman (death), Batman (broken back), and many many more.
I consider them dishonest and on the limit of fraudulent. At a minimum, ethically very wrong. My (not so) hard earned cash goes to only a very few rare paperback reprints of the 'best'.
On a side note at least I could learn to better my English with all that reading!!!
Allow me to make some recommendations of comics to pick up alongside the freebies. if you do Free Comics Day. One should not discount this form of communication, as I find the storytelling to often be better than movies and tv.
-The latest issue of Shonen Jump. This is a manga compilation from Japan. It has the familiar (Dragonball Z, Yu-Gi-Oh, YuYu Hakusho) to the odd (Sandland, Shaman King, One Piece) and it's like 5 bucks for a small phone book of stuff. An incredible investment. Plus, it's a magazine so there's bunches of other stuff.
-Ultimate X-Men. It's like at issue 33, but it's a reset of the X-Men universe. Should be approachable by everyone. The current storyline is Return Of The King and involves Magneto, nice stuff.
-Fables. A new story started this month with the 'mundies' investigating all the fables that have fled to NYC. Bigby Wolf, Blue Beard, Snow White, The 3 Bears, they're all in the story and adapting to modern life. Great stuff.
-Astro City: Local Heroes. Very approachable, a series of one shots that talk about life in a super hero city. It's... The Steriotypical super hero city where they make up a normal part of daily life. It's explains superhero life better than Superman ever could.
-Transformers. They just started a new series with issue 1 this month. Dreamwave is doing a great job on the art, and well with the toys long dead they can make a story that isn't puddle deep. The War Within is another 6 issue series that you might be able to find and it goes back to the first civil war. Awesome design, with Prime, Megatron and Grimlock taking the spotlight. It goes unsaid to ignore Armada.
-Fray. For you Buffy fans in the house, Joss is writing the story of a Slayer in the future. Good stuff, it's 8 issues long with 7 out already, so you might take a look. The character is cool and really isn't like Buff or Faith.
-Girl Genius. Some of you magic players might recognize the art of Phil Foglio with this title. It's a steampunk setting, with mostly good and funny storytelling. Sparks have the ability to build great contraptions, and the main character is a fairly useless clutz without a Spark... So it seems. It regularly makes me LAHL.
-AgentX. This is Deadpool actually, still kicking... Well, for a couple more issues. Anyway, if you like 3 Stooges and violence, then read this. Definetly one of my favorites. Actually, it was even better with a previous artist that had a strong anime f flavor that hit the spot just so... But oh well.
-Queen and Country. British intelligence agent, a really serious tone. They handle shitty situations and make the world a better place. Makes for better storytelling than most movies, as it covers Tara's exploits.
And, if you so want to invest in something bigger:
The Authority: Relentless. A Trade Paperback of Warren Ellis' first 8 of 12 issues on The Authority. They're a super hero team, but in a much bigger way than the X-Men, JLA or such. They've changed what superhero teams can do by making it so much bigger. They save Earth, kill 'god' and stop interdimensional invasions. The dialogue is great and villains don't just mwahaha.
If you goto the store, you'll notice my lack of DC/Marvel titles. Yeah. Keep that in mind. They're alright, but they're mainstream. If you want something that will change your opinion about comics, they are most likely not it. Anyway, hopefully this should give some good leads as to see what comics can be more than just Supes and the X-Men.
http://www.somethingpositive.net Funny + bitter = comedy gold