Awesome List: Stykman, Indiana Jones, and other adventurers

My Wizard World Chicago reports



I haven't linked yet to the reports of Wizard World Chicago I wrote for Newsarama, so here they are. There are ones for the Marvel/DC panel, the Wonder Woman panel, the Kids and Comics panel, and the Women in Comics panel.

The Miscellaneous Adventures of Stykman

I love Stykman. It's been a long time between issues, but in the most recent newsletter from aka Comics, creator/publisher Jonnie Allan explains that he had to drop Diamond as his distributor.

Truth be told, we allowed a certain distributor ... to in a sense dictate how we would continue to publish our books. In their "wisdom," they decided to no longer carry The Miscellaneous Adventures of STYKMAN™ in individual issue form, but rather distribute it solely in Trade Paper Back (TPB). In other words, if you wanted issues 4 and 5 you would have to purchase the TPB - Basically forcing fans and retailers alike who have already purchased issues 1-3 to buy them again. Although we begrudgingly played along for a little while, in the end we decided that was not the way we wanted to do things. All orders for our first TPB were cancelled by us and a departure from said distributor was made.

So what now? One thing is for sure, STYKMAN™ has not been thrown into the wood chipper, cast onto the firewood pile or gone the way of the dinosaur. In fact, the first licensed collectible is on its way from China and is now available for order. As for the comic series, our plans are to continue publishing STYKMAN™ in individual issue format collecting it in TPB once all issues have been produced and offered to our adoring fans like yourself. Our plans are to offer our title directly to you through our website and conventions, as well as alternative distribution methods.

More details are promised.

I'm mentioning this partly - like I said - because I love Stykman and I'm anxious for more comics about him. But I'm also mentioning it because - although I've always liked Jonnie Allan - I'm especially proud of him for making a bold move away from Diamond. Diamond's the only distributor in the country for a lot of comics stores, so Jonnie's automatically cutting out an enormous potential audience by making this decision. That he's doing it because he believes it's the right thing to do by his current readership is nothing short of stunning. I hope you'll check out the website and order the first three issues. You won't be sorry.

Why Cate Blanchett kind of sucked in Crystal Skull



As disappointed as I was in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the Castle Vardulon blog hated it more. Enough to run a 20 day "I Hate Indiana Jones" series. While I don't agree with all the posts there, I think he makes a really good point about why Cate Blanchett's character is pretty weak.

...Cate Blanchett's utter inability to have useful psychic abilities hurts the film more than a little. By this, I mean that if she'd actually been psychic, the film could have gotten rid of the useless 'Mac' character. Instead of a close friend betraying Indy to the Russians, the information they needed could have been plucked from Indy's head. Instead of using a radar setup to follow Indy to the Valley of the Crystal Skull, Cate could have just followed their psychic traces.

Bonekickers

This BBC show about a group of Indy-like archaeologists is too new to start wondering when it's coming to the States, but it sure looks interesting.

Coolest Spider-Man toy EVER.



Topless Robot has others too, but they're dead right about Number One.

Iron Man 2 will be Awesome.

Favreau's back.

And speaking of that...

It was only a matter of time before Warner Bros. and DC realized that they really need to get their act together. (Although - as Kevin points out in the link - it's not like they haven't had any success with their movies so far.)

Who said they don't make cool playsets anymore?



I'm tempted to start buying action figures again.

The Adventures of Gabriel Hunt



I've been waiting a long, long time for something like this. As Bookgasm describes it:

Hard Case Crime editor Charles Ardai has announced a new pulp series titled THE ADVENTURES OF GABRIEL HUNT. Debuting next May, the novels will be issued once a month in true serial fashion, ghostwritten by several Hard Case authors under the nom de plume of Hunt himself, the globetrotting adventurer, with painted covers by Glen Orbik. “These books are for anyone who grew up reading H. Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs or watching Harrison Ford wield his bullwhip at the movies,” said Ardai. “We’re talking classic adventure fiction, complete with horses, snakes, shovels, pickaxes, torches, traps, bottomless pits, barroom brawls, jungles, jewels, and just about everything else that’s ever made your heart beat faster.”

Nim's Island made me sad that there isn't a real series of Alex Rover books to read. This is so made for me.