In 2008 The Umbrella Academy took the comic world by storm, winning an Eisner for best limited series and cementing the creative team of Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba as up and comers.  It was followed up by a second mini series and Dark Horse released both in deluxe oversized limited edition slipcased hardcovers.
For a relatively new product Dark Horse really went all out: 12.8×8.4″, hardcover, slipcase, limited print run.  Full stories plus extensive added material including creator afterwords, character designs: extra upon extra.  The oversized pages make the art …

Blast from the past: originally published December 30th 2002.
Christmas is almost upon us, so that means our loved ones have to buy us something. They’re looking for dropped hints, circled catalogue pages and the like. For gaming enthusiasts, this is a frightful situation. These best intentioned people will wonder into a computer shop and say “what game should I buy my son/boyfriend/nephew?” And how the salesman will love to dump some piece of crap, assuring the purchaser how every gamer wants this title. Lucky for us Microsoft has launched a major ad campaign this season …

This one caught me by surprise.  As I read more and more collected editions my library of Fantagraphics books grows with new releases and older material “discovered” online and at my local comic shop.  I was perusing their 2011 catalogue when I came across volume 2: it looked interesting but I needed to getKing Of The Flies Volume 1 Hallorave first.  Here’s the publisher’s blurb:

Set in a suburb that is both nowhere and everywhere, King of the Flies is a glorious bastard, combining the intricacy and subtlety of the best European graphic …

Blast from the past: originally published October 2000.
A game run that has been near and dear to my heart is the City Building series from Impressions. From Caesar II on I have been an avid fan of building a city, meeting the needs of the citizens and watching everything flourish.  Impressions’ unique concept of having the gamer place the buildings and then watching the people emerge and work the streets has kept me coming back each time. After Caesar 3, Pharaoh and Pharaoh: Cleopatra we see the latest work: Zeus, Master Of …

A new artist on an entire story arc of Spider-Man, in one hardcover package. Spider-Man: Big Time Premiere hardcover collects Amazing Spider-Man 648-651 by Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos.  Here’s the publisher’s blurb:

Big changes are happening for the Amazing Spider-Man: Bigger threats, bigger guest-stars, and a big opportunity that could turn Peter Parker’s life around! Which cast members are staying and who’s saying goodbye. Find out as we’re introduced to new characters and reintroduced to a number of Spidey villains as they make the triumphant return to the book! Plus: New developments …

I have the good fortune to take part in a Brother P-Touch blogging promotion.  I’ll be writing three posts over the next few months chronicling my experience with Brother and its labels.  To start if off they sent this product challenge kit:

It’s an interesting mix of products: a piece of plexiglass with a label affixed, sponge, scrub brush, powdered bleach, nail polish remover, and two extra labels.  If this was designed to test the labels then what’s important in a label?  I’d say two things: it stays on whatever you …

Blast from the past: originally published December 22nd 2000.

Lately there hasn’t been much time for game playing, but during those scant free minutes I managed to finish Rune. In case you haven’t heard of it, Rune is a third person hack ‘n slash about Ragnar, a Viking youth sent against the forces of evil to save the world from Ragnarok.  To aid on the journey All Father Odin appears with long monologues to move through the story.  Now that we have some background let’s get into the meat of the game.

Based …

After updating the theme of the compromised site, removing TimThumb completely and the site I look after still had issues.  I hadn’t noticed but other users were getting warnings in Chrome and being redirected to various affiliate sites.  The worst was that the site seemed to have been removed from Google so the hits dropped rapidly.
I spotted the redirect going to counter-wordpress.com and then did some internet searching, which brought me to a great thread about cleaning it up.  Using Sucuri SiteCheck I was directed to the source of …

Blast from the past: originally published April 18th 2002.

I’ve just finished the single player game of Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault ( MOHAA ) and all I can say is “wow”. Like most I’ve grown tired of the first person shooter single player game and sought out online action in Counter Strike and Day of Defeat. How many times can you move through levels killing everything in your path, meeting so-so AI ( artificial intelligence ) and flicking switches. After playing MOHAA it seems worth doing one more time.

Here’s the background story: it’s …

Blast from the past: originally published October 19th 2001.

I love the expansion pack. Take a game I’ve spent hours enjoying, add more to it and let me enjoy it for a more hours. Not much new to learn, just more of the same good times with more added. I had laboured for countless hours playing Sudden Strike, a RTS ( real time strategy ) title set in World War Two. For a full rundown check out my .
Let’s get right to it: what does Sudden Strike Forever bring to the table? The biggest items are …

As I read through my tech news a few weeks ago I took note of a TimThumb vulnerability that allowed bad people to do bad things to your website.  Recommended solution was to replace TimThumb.php with the latest version available online.  A lot of WordPress themes use TimThumb to auto resize images for front pages and the like.  Shortly thereafter I received an email from Elegant Themes advising to update all their themes to the latest version which now did not employ TimThumb, then make sure TimThumb.php and it’s cache …

Blast from the past: originally published March 9th 2001.

Quite a few games from Europe have caused a stir in North America, but none as much as Sudden Strike.  This real time strategy cleaned up the awards from the European gaming community last year and has finally hit our shores.
Sudden Strike wowed me from the get go for it’s straight forward gameplay and excellent graphics. I say this in the face of quite a few negative reviews I’ve read, all of which seem to miss the point of this title.
This is a …

Over Christmas I had a chance to read Superman: Secret Origin The Deluxe Edition hardcover.  I’ve been a long-term Gary Frank fan so I knew what to expect with the art, and Geoff Johns is a major powerhouse at DC so this couldn’t end up a disaster.  Here’s the publisher’s blurb:

Writer Geoff Johns and artist Gary Frank bring you a startling new look at the beginnings of Lex Luthor, The Legion of Super-Heroes, Lois Lane, Metallo, Jimmy Olsen, The Parasite and more of your favorite characters from the Superman family …

Blast from the past: originally published January 9th 2004.

Soul Calibur was the reason I bought a Dreamcast system. An amazing weapons based fighting game with smooth true three dimensional movement and action. It was an amazing title for it’s time, and a follow up has finally been released for all three gaming platforms. My primary choice is the X-Box, for it’s two standout features: Dolby Digital surround sound and HD TV support, in this case 720p. Let’s run through the laundry list of features: thirteen returning characters plus all new, including one unique character …

I saw this on YouTube: make a clay pot refrigeration container, called a Zeer Pot,  with sand and water.  It’s a very simple and effective technique that once constructed is good forever with the addition of water.

As well here’s a great case study how this is helping people in Sudan, along with a technical manual and brief.  They use a clay lid instead of a damp towel, which makes more sense for long term usage.

Like most comic enthusiasts  I saw the online campaign for Nemesis, a creator owned series by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven.  It’s four issues have finally been collected in a hardcover Premiere edition.  I generally like both creators so I was anxious to pick it up.  Here’s the publisher’s blurb:

CIVIL WAR? Nothing. KICK-ASS? A warmup. What if the smartest, toughest costumed bad ass in the world was totally evil? Meet Nemesis.
He’s systematically been destroying the lives of every police chief in Asia, and he’s now set his sights on Washington, …

As loyal Comic Book Daily readers can attest I greatly looked forward to Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition two volume slip cased set.  It had two things going for it: a long running series by it’s creator, gathering the first twelve hundred pages of stories in two deluxe oversized 7.25″ x 10.5″ hardcovers.  Here’s the publisher’s blurb:
For the first ten years of his career, the battling bunny was published by Fantagraphics Books. In honor of his 25th anniversary, Fantagraphics is releasing a deluxe slipcase set collecting the seven first Usagi …

Blast from the past: originally published June 18th 2003.
Traditionally I’ve played sports and fighting games on my console systems. The PC handled everything else with aplomb. Since the console market dominates I’m trying to dally in all the genres available. This led me to Microsoft’s Mech Assault. The latest in a long line of Mech Warrior titles, this is a third person shooter where you control a variety of Mechs in a variety of missions. In case you’re not familiar with the whole FASA universe, I’ll boil it down for you. It’s the future, and war …

I had an event at church this past weekend where I had to provide the main dish for sixty people.  I was looking to do this as cheaply as possible while still supplying a great meal.  A local store where I like to get deals had chicken thighs, backs attached, for $0.69 a pound so I picked up twenty pounds.
First step was to break the thighs down.  They were on sale and had backs attached so that meant two things: lots of skin and bone I didn’t want in my …

1996 was the tenth anniversary of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.  It’s hard to believe twenty-five years have passed since Miller brought his dark future to comics; I haven’t heard of DC doing anything to celebrate this year but in ’96 they had big plans.

There was a bunch of material offered but the highlight was a slipcase containing a new signed and numbered hardcover collecting Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, two mini prints of Dark Knight posters and three 48 page prestige format …