Just a quick note to remind any readers who are attending Dragon*Con this weekend that OutlantaCon and the Brit Track are throwing a queer-targeted Rainbow Flag Party on Saturday night from 10pm to 12:30am. From the pocket guide it looks like that happens in the Sheraton but honestly I am not sure that I have quite worked out how to read this thing. I'll be wearing a nametag with my nom de plume and a black shirt. I know, I know, it's shockingly original con wear but sometimes one must simply pick a stereotype and lean into it. Feel free to come hang out at the party, say hi and get your groove on. I'll also have access to email all weekend.
Maybe after we can stalk Peter David togetherstalk cute nerds together compare notes on the Dragon*Con experience!
Hooray! We have winners for our American Vampire giveaway, courtesy of the amazing Scott Snyder! I corresponded with our winners yesterday to find out how they'd like to be identified and here they are:
The signed issue #5 of American Vampire goes to a Pink Kryptonite reader who is herself a writer of horror fiction: Carrie Clevenger of Texas, who noted that American Vampire got her permanently back into reading comics.
The signed American Vampire promotional poster featuring portraits of Pearl and Skinner Sweet goes to Pascal, a Pink Kryptonite reader from Germany.
The complete, autographed set of American Vampire issues #1 through #5 goes to Pink Kryptonite reader S. Thalmann from Michigan.
That is some sweet prize-related action, and many thanks to everyone who entered our drawing. It was great getting to swap an email or two with everyone who entered and talking about how much we all love American Vampire and especially the incredibly generous Scott Snyder. Thank you, Scott!
Reaction to the giveaway was great, so hopefully we will be able to line up something else like this with some of our other favorite books in the future. Thanks again!
Question: who else is going to Dragon*Con in Atlanta on Labor Day weekend? I lost the scarlet V of con attendance in June by going to Heroes Con and that inspired a friend to suggest we attend Dragon*Con for the first time. We've both thought about attending it before but we're both also a little intimidated by the complexity and sheer size of Dragon*Con. Peter David is on the guest list, though, and the potential of getting him to sign an X-Factor or my copies of the Legions of Fire books is way too exciting for me to let a little thing like shyness get in my way.
I bring this up here in hopes that there are members of the PK community with strategies for finding the good stuff. Right now, looking at their website and the fan tracks, it all seems a little overwhelming in terms of figuring out what to do and where to go. At Heroes Con, pretty much everything was in one big room. Dragon*Con is clearly a wholly different kind of animal.
I'm also mentioning it now in case there are PK readers who want to get together for a social hour over beverages on the Saturday of the convention. Surely somewhere at the convention, or nearby, there is someplace that won't be packed with tens of thousands of our fellow fanfolk... right? No? A bit of naïveté showing there? Probably so, but it's worth a shot.
Leave a comment or send me an email if you want to share a tip for navigating the cosplay sea. If you want in on a social hour, shoot me an email off the blog at klarion at pink kryptonite dot net.
Just a quick reminder that if you want in on the Great Pink Kryptonite American Vampire Giveaway then you should enter soon as I'm drawing the winners on Sunday afternoon. Haven't entered yet? That's easy: send me an email at klarion at pink kryptonite dot net. All you need to send me is a note that you're entering. We can work out mailing addresses and the like once you win. If you don't hear back from me within 24 hours that your entry was received, send it again.
Spoiler Alert! The full post contains some spoilery discussion of events in the film itself!
Rubber Justice suggested last week that we both see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World this weekend then produce a joint review of it. We've both read a portion of the Scott Pilgrim comic book but neither of us has read the whole thing. I thought this sounded like a grand idea and yesterday we hashed out our thoughts.
The short version? We both liked it and we both kind of didn't. It's interesting, because this book is obviously extremely popular but everyone I know has roughly the same set of heavily mixed reactions to it and that's before anyone gets into discussing the character of Wallace. The process of translating a comic into a film doesn't usually do anything to improve the iffy bits, either. All this added up to what I think are a really interesting range of responses to the film.
Read on for Rubber Justice's and Klarion's thoughts on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World!
I haven't gotten as far as reading #3 of this comic - released last week - but over the weekend I did read issues #1 and #2. As a huge fan of the cartoon a decade ago I was very excited to see the resumption, brief though it be, of Terry McGinnis' career as the Batman of the Future. Unfortunately, so far this comic seems to be more about Bruce Wayne's past than Terry's future. It's an entertaining book, yes, but it isn't exactly what I'd hoped it would be.
Read on for more thoughts (and send me an email at klarion at pink kryptonite dot net if you want in on the American Vampire giveaway)!
(Don't forget that if you want in on the random drawing for one of three sweet American Vampire giveaways, courtesy of Scott Snyder, you need to send me an email at klarion at pink kryptonite dot net!)
I was completely unaware this comic existed but my comics shop slipped it into my bag as it's a tie-in with The Return of Bruce Wayne. I've come to like the idea of the character of Booster Gold, though, and despite knowing next to nothing about Rip Hunter I figure that with a name like that he must have a drag queen sidekick around somewhere so I was an easy sale.
I turned out to enjoy this comic book for the most part. As soon as it stopped being explicitly about the hunt for Bruce Wayne, though, I couldn't care less.
I am a huge Grant Morrison fan and a huge fan of anything Batman-related so I have really enjoyed The Return of Bruce Wayne so far. I was particularly looking forward to this issue since it involves a crossover with DC's main supernatural dude, Jonah Hex.
It turned out to be kind of a dud issue, though. Somehow it never really came together for me and despite great art and a plot containing many elements that mesh well with my personal tastes I couldn't get it up to do anything more than shrug when I set it aside.
Just a quick reminder that if you're interested in one of the various goodie packages from American Vampire's Scott Snyder to readers of Pink Kryptonite, you need to send me an email at klarion at pink kryptonite dot net. In that entry you simply need to make it clear that you're entering this drawing; no other information is necessary at this time. I will reply to let you know your email was received; if you email me and receive no reply within 24 hours, email me again to be sure.
You've got until Sunday 29 August to get in on this sweet drawing, but why wait? You know you want this stuff!
The last few weeks have seen a bunch of issues of normally great or new but promising comics drop - Return of Bruce Wayne, Time Masters: Vanishing Point and Batman Beyond. Of all the comics in my neglected-due-to-work-obligations bag, however, the best by far is X-Factor #207.
I am something of a Peter David fanboy, and I love the cast of this book, but this issue is a step up from their usual excellent quality, with some really top-notch writing and a serious art upgrade - and most welcome hottie-on-hottie makeouts.
Read on for more thoughts on a fantastic issue of a fantastic book!
Folks, I have no idea how to even begin to describe this to you. Scott Snyder, reader and commenter here at Pink Kryptonite, co-author with Stephen Freakin' King on the fantastic American Vampire, newly-named writer of Detective Comics, has sent us - you! - some serious goodies. It is difficult for me to describe this without expletive because I am So! Excited! about this!
Rather than tease this out I'm just going to list what I have to give away:
One signed copy of the latest issue of American Vampire
One signed promotional poster for American Vampire that features portraits of both Skinner and Pearl. This is a poster that I have only seen on the wall of my comics shop. This poster is gorgeous. You have no idea how gorgeous this poster is. It's at home and I'm at work so I'm going to half-ass an estimate that it's maybe 18"x30" or something in that neighborhood. I don't think those are "Internet inches" but we'll see.
One complete set of signed issues of American Vampire. Yes, issues 1 through 5, all signed by Scott Snyder. A complete set. I am getting goosebumps just writing that.
(For purposes of full disclosure, yes, he sent a second signed poster that says "For Pink Kryptonite!" at the top, so yes, I am hell of* keeping that.)
When I opened the package I literally set everything down, paced back and forth in my kitchen and just said, over and over, "Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god." I couldn't believe it. It was all I could talk about this weekend and I am so stoked to give these away to you folks that I have struggled with how to do it. I considered having some entry mechanism like a trivia question, where all the right answers would go into a pool, but everything like that feels like it excludes people and I want all our readers to get a chance at this. So, here's how you enter:
Just send me an email at klarion at pink kryptonite dot net. Your email does not need to include anything other than a quick line identifying it as an entry in the Great Pink Kryptonite American Vampire Giveaway.
I'll post again about this every couple of days for the next two weeks and then at the end of that time I'll put all the messages in one folder, ask my boyfriend to pick a number between 1 & X, repeat twice, and those will be the winners. It's completely random and open to anyone. I suppose one has to love American Vampire to really enjoy winning, but that isn't exactly a high bar to get across.
Once I have the winners I'll contact them individually to get shipping information (so no, you do not need to include any sort of real-life identifying information in your initial email) and find out how they'd like to be identified as winners after the fact. I will throw in a little congratulatory note from us here at Pink Kryptonite and you, my lucky friends, will have a really special gift straight from one of our favorite writers. Everybody wins. Nice.
Last weekend my boyfriend hit a newly opened secondhand store nearby in search of buried treasure. While there he found an unexpected handful of extremely random comic books including one he knew I would love, 1994's Batman Annual #18. It's an enjoyably terrible book that amicably wedges itself - not unlike a clumsy puppy - between the two major Batman storylines of the moment: Batman & Robin and The Return of Bruce Wayne.
It does so by crossing a Batman-as-out-of-place-artifact story with that of a "third-party" Batman, a person whose own life experience mirrors Bruce Wayne's well enough that he also winds up a vigilante. There's a lot about it that's compelling but the completely over-the-top presentation and the story's thoughtless blotting out of a bit of queer history steal the show in the end.
Review: Avengers: The Children's Crusade #1
I literally clapped my hands together and said OhMyGodYesssss when the friendly staff member at my regular shop held this book out to hand it to me. Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung finally - finally - return to this title with a nine issue limited series. I will spare you paragraphs of pontification and cut to the chase: it's not just good, it's the best thing Marvel has going, period. Read on for the pontification and petty quibbles!...
