Comic Con 2007 – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Filed Under BBT Magazine, Travel, John Zakour, Ramblings from my Brain | 1 Comment

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This year was my first year attending Comic Con, San Diego.   It was truly a semi-surreal, very tiring, but ultimately fun experience.   I actually went to network and sign some books (my own) but really got caught up in the glare of the Hollywood and TV stuff.   Now that I’ve had a bit of time to let the comings and goings there sink in I thought I’d share my experiences with you.  In order to make the piece easier to read (and because I’m a bit lazy) I’ve broken my thoughts about Comic Con in three parts: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.  (I didn’t say they were original parts.)

 

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Comics! With F. Andrew Taylor

Filed Under F. Andrew Taylor, Pestcards, Comics, webcomic | Leave a Comment

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Beginning in September, BBT will be the proud home of the ongoing webcomic ‘Waiting for the End of the World’ by noted Las Vegas comic artist and columnist F. Andrew Taylor.

Until then we’ll be running some examples of Andrew’s work in Pestcards-form so you can get a taste of his style and humor! Watch for more Pestcards through the summer every Tuesday and Thursday and the beginning of Waiting for the End of the World the first week in September!

 

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Powers of Nerdly Love - Activate!

Filed Under BBT Magazine, BBT, Fantasy, New England, Blogging, NY Comic Con, Boston, CBLDF, Kevin Smith, New York, Appletown, NY Comicon, Nerds, Comic Books, Fandom, Boom-Boom, Lucien Spelman, Descendum Pantorum, Arsgeek, being twelve, freegeekery, Greatest American Hero, Gamers dvd, Comics | 2 Comments

 

We have a chance here to make a dream come true for someone.

Our good friends at ArsGeek are trying to get a real life hero to meet some of his fantasy counterpart’s creators and we have it in our power to help.

Open your minds and pockets for just a few seconds and help this young man to lighten his load a little.

Here’s Ben with the story:

 

My name is Benjamin Gerber and I’m the owner and Editor in Chief for ArsGeek.com, a tech/life oriented web community with a focus on culture, art and new and emerging technology.

ArsGeek will be at the 2008 New York ComicCon and we’re working on getting one of our own heroes there with us.

Meet Jonathon Masuoka. Jonathon was born with spastic quadriplegia cerebral palsy. He’s spent his life in a wheelchair and although he has the mind of regular 15 year old, he’s unable to utilize his body and has difficulty speaking. Jonathon has a wonderful mind and personality trapped inside his body where he’s limited to some use of his left hand.

Jonathon has a true love for all things superhero. Comics, movies and video games, they have all given him joy and strength and he would like nothing more than to meet the people behind his passion. We’re going to do the best we can to see this dream come true.

He’s enriched his life through the idea of superheroes - people who can literally do anything. His love for superheroes and all that they stand for has helped him through some very rough times, for instance by taking on their persona’s before and after many of his surgeries.

Our goal is to acquire the necessary resources to get Jonathon and his mother Dawn, who is an editor at ArsGeek, from Oregon to New York to attend the convention with us and make his dream of meeting the creators of his fantasies come true.

We are hoping you can help us out in this regard. Either with direct sponsorship, or simply spreading the news of our campaign to get Jonathon to ComicCon NY. There are several ways you can help Jonathon.

  • Direct sponsorship of the trip (cash).

  • Indirect sponsorship (helping to spread the news of our campaign).

  • Lending your name to the campaign.

  • Arranging for in-kind services to help Jonathon – hotel rooms, admission, travel, etc.

Any support you can lend to this campaign would be most appreciated. Of course, any support would be publicized on the ArsGeek.com website if you desire.

ArsGeek currently receives over 240,000 unique viewers a month and we are steadily increasing our numbers. Our current Google page rank is 5 and we’ve been featured on BoingBoing.net, LifeHacker, have been on Digg and Reddit’s front page many times and are increasingly becoming relevant to those interested in new technology and geek culture.

You can read more about Jonathon and our campaign at http://www.arsgeek.com and reach us at comiccon@arsgeek.com.

We hope to hear from you soon about our campaign to get Jonathon to ComiCon NY!

Thanks for your time,

Benjamin Gerber

Owner, Editor in Chief

Arsgeek.com

 

Do yourself and Jonathon a favor, and use your powers of nerdly love to make his heart full.

- Lucien

 

 

 

Dead Heist (2006)

Filed Under BBT Magazine, Zombies, Soylent Screen, Jef Taylor, big daddy kane | 3 Comments

 

Wherein some gangstas leave the ‘hood, only to find that the sticks are full of bloodthirsty dead suburbanites.

Movie Reviews with BBT Critic Jef Taylor

Four young men living the thug life plan one big heist to escape the street, or at least make life a little easier.  They choose a small town bank to hit, but there’s one big problem.  Wouldn’t you know it? The town is in the path of the zombie invasion.

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Review: The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

Filed Under BBT Magazine, Fantasy, Reviews, the blade itself, joe abercrombie, pyr, lucienspelman, novels | 2 Comments

 

The Blade Itself

By Joe Abercrombie

432 pp ISBN: 978-1-59102-594-8
September 2007 by Pyr
Cover Illustration: © Laura Brett

 
 

 

Do you like your fantasy to taste a little bitter?

Do want an author who tweaks the nipples of the oh-so-revered Fantasy Formula?

Desperately in need of some genre fiction with character driven plot, plenty of violence, and strong anti-hero protagonists, but tired of waiting for George R. R. Martin to finish his epic Game of Thrones series?

Then step this way I got somethin’ for ya -

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie is a fantasy novel full of enough ironic and slightly self-deprecating humor and Scorcese-esque violence to make the average hipper than thou non-fantasy reader want to learn more about the genre (my favorite kind to convert), yet filled with enough touchstones to make your average Tolkien weaned fantasy reader quite happy indeed.

Oh, sure, you have your Barbarian and your Wizard, your Swashbuckler and your Torturer – SCRREEEECH –

Torturer?

Ah, you see? I thought you’d like this.

Just one of the great characters in a rogues gallery of fantasy archetypes with a twist,  Inquisitor Glokta is one of the finest examples of a sympathetically drawn antagonist I have seen in a very long time, in a book of any genre, and some of his inner dialogue is absolutely quote-worthy. I can’t wait for my next drunken D&D game.

An “Inquisitor” for a corrupt union and a former hero, now unbearably crippled, Glokta becomes gradually aware of just how deep the corruption is in the government he represents, as he tries to root “the truth” from treasonous citizens. He is a truly unforgettable character, and like the rest of this book, just a bit off.

The first in the series, The Blade Itself isn’t much more than character & plot development for a larger three-part storyline as a whole, and is in fact a set up for the two books that follow - Before They Are Hanged, & Argument Of Kings. Not to say the first book is slow - in fact there’s plenty to get excited about - if the rest of the series is as much fun as the first bit, Pyr can gladly have my $10.

Come for Glokta, Stay for the rest!

This book is highly recommended by BBT Magazine!

Joe Abercrombie is a man to watch.

Here’s a bit more about the plot from the book Description:

 

Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he’s on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian - leaving nothing behind him but bad songs, dead friends, and a lot of happy enemies.

Nobleman, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, Captain Jezal dan Luthar has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.

Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates everyone: cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government, if he can stay alive long enough to follow it.

Enter the wizard, Bayaz. A bald old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he’s about to make the lives of Logen, Jezal, and Glotka a whole lot more difficult.

Murderous conspiracies rise to the surface, old scores are ready to be settled, and the line between hero and villain is sharp enough to draw blood. Unpredictable, compelling, wickedly funny, and packed with unforgettable characters, The Blade Itself is noir fantasy with a real cutting edge.

 

 - Lucien Spelman

 

A Note From Beneath the Diapers by Lucien Spelman

Filed Under BBT Magazine, BBT, Joe Hill, Boom-Boom, Descendum Pantorum, Robots, F. Andrew Taylor, god in the machine, henning ludvigsen, heart shaped box | 6 Comments

By Lucien Spelman

 

Just a quick note to let our readers know where we are, and then back to poopy-time with my new baby boy Editor-In-Chief:

  • Pete Tzinski is putting the finishing touches on Issue #3, including our great sit-down interview with Joe Hill in which we talk about his love for small press, comic books, Brian K Vaughn, his new novel Heart Shaped Box, and in which we DO NOT talk about his father, YouKnowWho.
  • Speaking of Pete Tzinski, he has an awsome new online serial called God In The Machine which we here at BBT heartily endorse, and there’s an equaly cool interview of him by Angela over at SciFiChick.com
  • Cover design is finished and is again by the incredible fantasy realism artist Henning Ludvigsen
  • Our webstaff is putting together our webcomic page in anticipation of our new ongoing webcomic Waiting for the End of the World by noted Las Vegas comic artist and columnist F. Andrew Taylor. Check it out in September!

- Love in a manly way,

    Lucien

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