Once Upon a Geek

Look what Serv and I found in Illinois…

How cool is that!  We drove 800+ miles on Monday ~ Minnesota to Tennessee.  Should be home Tuesday afternoon/evening.  More pictures later.

Serv (of The Unique Geek and NeedCoffee.com) and I are hitting the road!  We’re leaving today for Minnesota to move his things down to Florida.  We’ll be trapped together either moving furniture or driving a U-Haul truck for the next five days straight.  Wish us luck. Hopefully we’ll both survive.

You can see what happened the last time we tried to get along…

All kidding aside, I think this trip has the potential to be fun.  Serv and I were college roommates and share many of the same interests.  Having a chance to hang out for several days is going to be great.  It’s like a Pep Rally for Dragon*Con!

Finally! Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space role-playing game release has been officially announced.  Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd has been working on this for a LONG time.  It’s nice to see that they’ve finally been able to announce the month of release.  Watch for it coming in October to a den of geeks near you.

Okay, I just got permission from Cubicle-7 to reveal a long-held secret…

Myself and a handful of Unique Geek listserv members were playtesters for this new Doctor Who RPG!!!  Myself, Scott C (of NeedCoffee.com), Sterling (of New Bard’s Press), Kevin Powell, and Shawn Linton were all playtesters for this RPG. We did the playtesting back in the first quarter of 2008.

While we can’t talk about the game or the mechanics, I can say that I’m excited for this game to come out!

Sweet cover to the box set too! It’s a box set!  I love RPG box sets!!!

We’ve got a special treat today… I’m pleased to present today’s ONCE UPON A GEEK Special Correspondent, my nine year old step-son, The Rambunctious Rascal! Just a little background for you, my step-son is not actually named “Rascal” but we’ll be calling him that for blogging purposes.  He expressed an interest in writing a blog post for y’all.  You may have heard his Kid Who or Kid Trek episodes here on ONCE UPON A GEEK.  If so, you know he’s got an interesting perspective on the world of geekdom.  Today he takes his first step into the wide world of writing; he dictated and I typed.   Without further ado, I give you The Rambunctious Rascal…

Aquaman

Okay what’s the deal with Superman? Well he’s supposed to live forever, but c’mon people, let Aquaman have a chance.  I know that he has two bad powers, but Peter David could make him have more powers, like something good. Like heat vision.  See-through-walls.  Claws.  Or just a gun.

See if Superman had Aquaman powers, then he would be canceled more than Doctor Fate.

Speaking of comics.  What if Aquaman fought Superman?  And Aquaman could summon some sharks and get them to bite Superman while he chokes him with Kryptonite in his mouth.

So I think you get my point.  So thanks for wasting your valuable time.

I had plans for today, but I’m still reeling from the amazing Father’s Day gift I received.  Go back and look at yesterday’s post again.  It’s still the awesome!

So today will be nice and easy.  Check out this really cool Kid Devil/Red Devil (from Teen Titans) original sketch by artist Scott Redding.  He did a really nice job.  My thanks to Scott for giving me permission to reprint the drawing here.  You can visit Scott’s website by clicking here.

My wife and children surprised me with the single greatest Father’s Day gift any comic book geek could dream of.  My wife commissioned local artist, Billy Penn (Hot Shot & Mighty Girl, Savage Dragon), to do a comic book cover featuring me.  Behold the astonishing result…

Click the image for a larger version.  On the left is me as I currently am, on the right is me as I was 20 years ago, hence the title, “Shag of Two Eras”.  In the middle in mortal peril are my nine year old step-son and three year old daughter.

An amazing illustration!  My family presented me with an 11×17 framed print of the cover on Father’s Day morning.  I was totally stunned.  Even now, hours later, I can’t take my eyes off it.  What an incredibly thoughtful gift to give to a comic book geek like me.

In case you’re not familiar with the homage, check out the cover of Flash #123 below (September 1961).  This is one of the most important comic books in publishing history.

Just for reference, here are pictures of me nowadays and back in 1988.

I’ve known the artist, Billy Penn, for over 15 years.  He shopped at the comic book store I managed when he was in high school.  Now he’s a high school art teacher himself.  He’s incredibly skilled and has a few published works, including Platinum Studio’s Hot Shot and Mighty Girl original graphic novel, and a back-up story in Savage Dragon #130.  I’ve always been impressed with the way he draws faces.  They are so wonderfully expressive!

I’m amazed at Billy’s attention to detail in the commission he did for my wife!  He reproduced so many details from the Flash cover while making them specific to me. Some fun details that you might miss include: the shape of the comic logo, the ONCE UPON A GEEK circle in the top left, the date and the comics code authority seal, the body language of the Flashes and the two Shags, the skyline of my hometown in the background, all the goofy 80’s trappings legitimately worn by me back then, and the accuracy of my children’s eye color and clothing.

As I mentioned, I was completely surprised and stunned.  What an unbelievable gift!!!  Its comic books and my children… all rolled up into one.  My wife is an amazing woman.  This is a gift I’ll cherish forever.

A big THANK YOU to the readers of this blog!  I sincerely appreciate that you take time out of your day to read my ramblings.   I want to make it convenient for you to keep up with ONCE UPON A GEEK.  Therefore, I’ve recently added a couple more ways to get the posts.   Even if you already have a reliable way of getting ONCE UPON A GEEK content, by choosing to “Follow” the blog it helps show your support and spread the word. Your support is always appreciated.

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Identify yourself as a “Follower” on the site

On the ONCE UPON A GEEK site, look in the right-hand sidebar towards the bottom and you’ll see an option to “Follow” with Google Friend Connect.  You may use a pre-existing account from Google, Yahoo, AIM, or OpenID to “Follow”.  By choosing to “Follow”, it will list you amongst the followers of ONCE UPON A GEEK.  If you are a Google user, it will also allow you to read ONCE UPON A GEEK content in Blogger under “Blogs I’m Following”.  If you have previously chosen to “Follow” ONCE UPON A GEEK in Blogger (as I know some of you have), I ask that you please click “Follow” on the site.  For some reason, it won’t display people that have already chosen to follow.

I would recommend the “Follow” feature to anyone wishing to show their support of the site, or to anyone who keeps up with blogs through Blogger (a really handy way to keep up with several different blogs).

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I hope at least one of these ways provides you with a convenient way to get this content.  Thanks for reading and thank you for your support!

The DC Blog The Source has just announced that writer James Robinson and artist Mark Bagley will be the new ongoing creative team on the Justice League of America monthly book starting in October.  That’s freakin’ awesome!

You may have heard that writer Dwayne McDuffie was recently fired from Justice League of America.  Also, you may be aware that James Robinson is writing the upcoming mini-series, Justice League: Cry for Justice.  Well, these two dove-tailed quite nicely into each other.  I was sad to hear that McDuffie was off the book, but Robinson is definitely an acceptable trade. And Bagley is one of the best artists around!  If this is half as good as Robinson’s Starman, then it will be phenomenal!

Here is one of Bagley’s upcoming covers for JLA.  My only concern is… Where’s Firestorm!?!?!

Just last week, Marvel finally published Runaways Digest Volume 8.  This digest has been a long time in coming.  It reprints Runaways #25-30, written by Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly, Astonishing X-Men).

Runaways Digest Volume 7 was published in August 2007.  Seriously, nearly a two year wait between digests! The final issue in this collection (issue #30) was published a year ago.  Previous digests were released every six months.  So why did it take so long to reprint this into digest form?

Normally I wouldn’t have been so bothered by the wait, but in this case the wait was a result of Marvel squeezing every dime they could out of Joss Whedon’s name on this book.  Up until issue #25, Runaways had been written by Brian K. Vaughn.  Those early issues had been collected in several digests, which helped increase exposure in bookstores and with younger readers.   The series did moderately well.  Once Joss Whedon came on the book, Marvel capitalized on the opportunity.  Rather than simply continuing to print digest-sized books, Marvel published these full-size collections first:

• Runaways: Dead End Kids Premiere Hardcover published July 2008
• Runaways: Dead End Kids Premiere Hardcover published July 2008 - Direct Market Edition
• Runaways: Dead End Kids Softcover published in December 2008

Once they’d squeezed every drop of cash out of these full-size collections, they finally decided to print a digest version.  I know I’m griping, but it matters to me because I started with the digest-sized books.  I love that format!  Very compact and affordable!   Highly portable and only $9.99 for six collected issues.  It was hard to wait two years just to read this story.  From a business perspective, I can understand what Marvel was trying to accomplish.  However, it doesn’t mean as a reader that I’m happy about it.

Now that the Whedon issues are behind us, Marvel can return to printing the digest versions on a more regular basis.  Right, Joe?

Not geeky, not funny.  Just plain and simple… Learn CPR.  If you don’t know it, go learn it.  If you’ve learned it before, refresh your memory.

According to the American Heart Association:

• Almost 80 percent of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur at home and are witnessed by a family member
• Only 6.4 percent of sudden cardiac arrest victims survive because the vast majority of those witnessing the arrest are people who do not know how to perform CPR

Your whole life you’ve been told to learn CPR.  You’ve probably ignored it or put it off.  Quit stalling and go learn it.  You might just save the life of someone you care about.

If I must put it in geeky terms for you… Geeks don’t typically eat well or take great care of themselves.  I gotta think that makes us more likely to have a heart attack.  Imagine you’re hanging out with a geek-buddy when suddenly he drops to the ground and stops breathing.  What do you do?  Do you know CPR?  Are you going to stand there while your buddy dies simply because you were too lazy to learn CPR?  Now flip the situation around… imagine you’re the one who dropped to the ground and isn’t breathing.  You better hope your buddy got off his butt and learned CPR.  If you are a parent, imagine the person who isn’t breathing is your child.

Learn CPR.  Take a buddy with you if you can.  You can find classes in nearly every city, or learn the basics online.  You can even download applications for your iPhone about CPR.  If you have trouble finding a class, ask the local Fire Department, your doctor, or your Health Insurance provider.  You may have to pay money for the class, but it’s worth it to save the life of someone important to you.  Be a real-life superhero… Learn CPR.