Random Crap

How I Blew Up My Blog
Or
Talking About a Plagiarizer Gets You a Lot of Hits

Late last month, I saw something on the Bleeding Cool web site that I thought the comic collecting public should know about. There was some guy named Rob Granito who was passing himself off as a legitimate comics artist and was a featured guest at Wizard World Toronto and Wizard World Anaheim (WWA). The first sentence of his bio on the WWA web site said this most recent work was Calvin and Hobbes. Now I know that the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes was ended by its writer and artist Bill Watterson the year I graduated high school (1995) and that was over 15 years ago. He also said that he did the covers for the run of Batman: Shadow of the Bat issues 12-25 as well as some work on Spider-Man. My fellow internet writers did their due diligence and not only contacted the companies that he was supposedly working for, but they also contacted Mr. Granito to see if all of this was on the up and up. Mr Granito said he did all the work for those companies on those books. As the writers heard back more and more from the companies and artists that did those covers and interior art and said he was ripping off people by blowing up original works and doing them on canvas and other mediums and passing off those as his own. Now that pissed me off! He was trying to pass himself off as a real comic artist when I am trying to learn to draw and make a name for myself in the comic book community. It would be like me copying and blowing up the pictures drawn by my fellow Collector Times contributor, Joe Singleton, and passing them off as my own at a convention. (Joe I would never do that, please don't hurt me!) So I put up a link to the article on the Bleeding Cool web site and my own commentary on this whole sad situation on my blog. I e-mailed the writer who had broken the story and sent him a link to my blog and from Thursday to Sunday morning I had something on the order of 8,800 views of my blog. I was happy with the bits and pieces that I would get before that and I had gotten up to140 before I posted the Rob Granito entry and now I have had all of those people looking at my blog and have gotten four followers out of it. What did I learn, sometimes you need to do something to get your name out there on the internet.

This is Cool

If you were a boy growing up in the 1980's, it was more than likely that you were introduced to the GI Joe Cartoon by a friend or family member. In the cartoon instead of having the usual M-16 rifles that shot bullets, they had the XMLR-3A laser rifle that shot blue (or was it red?) laser light projectiles for the GI Joe side. The laser rifle was introduced in the toy line by its addition to the package of the character Snow Job. The XLMR-3A laser rifle was the smaller, more portable cousin of the XLMR-1A laser rifle that was used by the GI Joe Flash that required a backpack to power it. The only drawback to the newer 3A model was that it was expensive to produce and only a few had been made before they moved on to other versions of the weapon. The company, Pit Viper Studios, is planning to make a 1:1 scale replica of the XLMR-3A laser rifle and sell it for about $250. Here's a link to the YoJoe.com Forums with some more information including a photograph of one of the prototypes. It will not have any fancy lights or television show realistic sounds, but will have things like mounting rails and sling mounts. Looks like those Colonial Marine cosplayer's will have something to give their M-41 Pulse Rifles a run for their money. It's also looking like GI Joe cartoon Costuming will be something that catches on with the introduction of this prop.

The Ongoing Saga of Batwoman

DC had scheduled the new Batwoman series to come out some time in April, and now with the release of the latest Previews and news from Diamond, it looks like Batwoman has been shelved again until some time in the autumn. There are issues with other Bat titles that are not Batman, Detective or Batman and Robin as well in that the creative teams are having a hard time getting them out in a timely manner. They say that the timelines that the editors gave them surprised the creators and that they had to change a few things. I think this is a classic case of over-extension. DC has so many Bat books that all of the creative teams that put them together are working on more than one or two and now the readers have to suffer for it because the titles are late or delayed until lord knows when (Batwoman). I hope that shops that have ordered the books are not going to be charged twice for ordering the same thing once in April and then again in the fall. Knowing Diamond, they will probably issue some sort of credit and/or hold the order money for when the book actually comes out. Like I said above, the creative staffs are being stretched thin and that there needs to be some new blood brought onto the scene. The perfect place to scout talent is at conventions like San Diego. A major company can set up an area near their normal booth and have editors and other big time artists look at potential hires portfolios and gauge their potential to jump in and take on a new book. Let's face it, not a lot of things are going to be put out on time if the big two only have certain creators on multiple books.

Fear Itself?

This month, the Prologue of Marvel's 2011 event of the year, Fear Itself will be published. The only thing that I'm fearing from this is that it will drive away readers. If you have been reading my articles on Collector Times.com you will know that I am no fan of event books. Back in the 1980's and 1990's I thought they were really cool. I don't know if that was because I was young and did not know any better, or something else but personally I'm getting tired of events that span 6-12 months before another one comes in and takes its place. DC's Blackest Night led to Brightest Day and it is going to be over in time for another event to start in its place. Personally I long for the simpler times when event books were sort of self-contained (like the original Secret Wars). This way you could read all of your normal books without having to read all the other books in the week to get the full sense of what is going on. Sure they are good for the bottom line for comics companies, but how long is it going to be before the comics buying community says "Enough is Enough!" and stop buying event books and all their spin offs? I think Marvel and DC need to take a good long hard look at what event books are doing to the readership of their books. I would personally take a year off between event books and use that year to build up hype and other advertising for the next event that is being set up throughout the books in the universe. I mean they should be using their books to hype up the new movies coming out based on their properties, Green Lantern, Thor and Captain America not having some crappy crossover event that is not going to get new readers on board when these movies come out.

Star Wars Toys

Not the Robin Williams movie either. I am here to talk about the latest Saga Legends figures that are due out for the Star Wars line from Hasbro. There's nothing special about them, most of them are army builders; Death Star Trooper, Storm Trooper, Destroyer Droid and a mis-named Spacetrooper. Here is a picture of the Spacetrooper:     Do you see something wrong with this picture? I do, the Spacetrooper is actually the Darktrooper that was released back in the late 1990's and then was supposed to be re-released in the ultra short ordered last build a droid set. The only two named figures are Mace Windu (the version that was in the 30th Anniversary four years ago) and then a Boba Fett (which looks like a re-deco of Jodo Kast). Which I will be getting to add to my growing collection of Bounty Hunters. Here's a look at him.     It's not a bad version of him but the clenched left hand is not that good a pose as it could be, but I'm not going to quibble about that. The only thing I don't like about these pictures are that they revealed all the points on the cards rather than keeping them covered up until you get the figure.

X-Men Schism. Really?

Below is some promotional art for the latest thing in the Marvel Mutant Books called X-Men Schism. It appears that from this little teaser that Wolverine and Cyclops are going to be at each other's throats during this mutant book special story. I have no idea what the little flaming mounds have to do with the whole sliced up visor of Cyclops and the gouges in the earth from Wolverine's claws, but I think this has been brewing for a long time. From what I have been able to glean from Wikipedia posts and the various comic book news sites I frequent, it seems that Marvel is taking to splitting up the X-Men teams again this time leading one team will be Wolverine while the other is going to be Cyclops.     Marvel is very excited to make 2011 the year of the mutant, but I think that we need to get away from the same plots time after time and try something fresh. I know what makes Wolverine and Scott tick, but I long for the olden days of Claremont and Byrne on the book because they would not have to pull this kind of crazy stuff to sell books, and it was more about the team and telling a good story rather than having Scott pine for the White Queen while she's banging Wolverine. I guess what I am trying to say is that comic book writers are getting lazy, especially in the X-Books, and that maybe event fatigue is finally setting in. Also, what is the deal with Cyclops and his thing for psychic women? From Jean Grey to Phoenix to the White Queen, all of them have been psychic. Does he like being mentally messed with? Does he like being mentally dominated? Just thought I would throw this out there. Have a good weekend and hopefully things will be streaming in from the Emerald City Comic Con over the weekend and I'll have news to report on Monday.

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