DiD you finish Messiah CompleX and moved onto Xforce yet?

Glad to see you are picking up Unknown Soldier. One of the most relevant and heart wrenching books I’ve ever read.

Thanks! I really appreciate the support.

Hey man, what did you think of Jericho S3 #1? I thought the story was solid, wish the art was a little better. I thought this was such a cool TV series, and I’m confident the writers are playing it out well.

Thanks, He’s so Happy!!! I tend to change my icon a lot.

Hey glad to see your back man! I know you must still be in shock after going from no comics to back in the thick of it. Make sure you check out the Return of the King Daredevil arc man…it’s KILLER!!!

Also for any DD collector try and pick up the Marko Djurdjevic cover for DD #500. The issue is incredible and I was reading that the cover is Marko’s send off for his 25+ issue run with Brubaker and Lark (check out the words on the blood stained club playing card). The words are hard to make out on here but it says “fin de siecle” which means end of an era, that’s just awesome!!

Picked up that copy of Cry For Justice #2 for you on my way home tonight. I’ll add it to your next shipment.

Was Blackest Night #1 amazing, or what!? Can’t wait for the rest of this series.

The only ancillary FC title I read was “Legion of 3 Worlds” which was excellent. Otherwise I just stuck with the main story. I do that, preferring to read the main story and not many of the off-shoots. The only exception is this summers “Blackest Night”, which finds me getting the Blackest Night Batman, and possibly Tales of the Corps.

Hey, you should read Final Crisis in its entirety. I hated it when I read it as single issues, but recently I went back and read it over a couple days, and really enjoyed it.

Thanks, bro. I’m here for awhile. I like the service and my LCS closed their doors last year,

Hey b, I just flipped a couple switches behind the scenes, those two comics will go out in your next shipment.

I probably didn’t recognize you! I get a lot of creepers trying to add me from cons and such. Add me again, but include a message saying who you are. Now that I’m expecting it, I’ll read it and be less paranoid! Promise! :)

Thanks b. I was wondering why it didn’t show up. Thanks for the welcome!

Thanks! I’ll try!

Hey man,

I’m running ubuntu/linux mint on my laptop right now, and so far both have been great! I’m slowly getting comfortable with fedora as well. The art team really did a great job bumping up the visuals on the latest release of it and the easy-to-use encryption features are nice.

How about you? Any distros you’ve been leaning toward or are you trying out the Windows 7 beta?

I’ve been messing around with windows 7 and the windows management and new taskbar are killer! The uac feature and limited file transfer speeds have also been greatly improved. Overall, I think its going to be great and I can’t wait for the rc for it!

I guess Fedora also just put up a new final edition of their distro. Plan on checking it out? I hear it incorporates the new version of OpenOffice right off the bat!

Hey man, having you been sticking with any linux distro as of late?
I’m using linux 8.10 right now ant its been great. I definitely plan on checking out the new Linux Mint distro when its finalized.

Hey man, I saw an article saying that DC was canceling Detective Comics, Nightwing, Birds of Prey, and Robin in the wake of the changes made in the Batman book.

I was just wondering what your thoughts were on that. Do you think this is a good move for the Batman books? Are you excited for the end of RIP? Do you think these changes will be permanent?

Glad you’re enjoying them. Zorro is great, but I’m wondering why they’re changing artists for the second arc. As for Brothers in Arms – too bad it’s only four issues. I hope they’ll do more in the future.

Keep holding on, there is another Clairmont out there to save the title. Thanks for the comment. I thought I was alone here.

Yeah, it’s tough to catch up. I got a lot of help from the guys on iFanboy and other forums. I started with Year One and went from there. For Superman I started with The Man of Steel, which is incredible. As tough as it is, it’s a lot of fun.

I finally put my programming blog back up! haha. http://codehallow.com

Congrats on the new IT job. Let’s hear it for geek salaries that fund geek habits!

I haven’t sent off a resume in about a month. I am a horrible slacker. But I’m moving next week, so I’ll just find a job when I get there, and eat lots of ramen in the meantime. :)

Thank you for the warm welcome. I am really enjoying being a part of HI…I sit home and draw most of the time and rarely get a chance to talk comics in an environment like this. I am loving it :)

Thanks a bunch for “year one” suggestion. It got the whole “departure” section from Campbell’s monomyth down PAT! The middle section (forget the name, I just closed the book) is the section that DC repeats over and over, and the last section is the part that will probably never actually come. So I’ve got it mostly outlined out, at least on the Batman side.

Northlanders is pretty good so far. Even though there are a couple issues of boring back story.
A lot of swoard fights and bloodletting. I’m curious how long the series will run for, the issue in September is about a new protagonist.

Hey Brian, you should definitely read the first 6 issues of Northlanders before you read issue 7.
There is a lot of back story you will be missing out on. Issue 7 would just seem like random characters fighting.

“I’m having trouble playing the videos in Ubuntu 8.04. Am I missing something? Thanks for any help.”

Yes, you are, I just played it on 8.04. I used Opera, but FF always has better driver support.
It’s not flash, so check out embedded mplayer or embedded vlc support. At least, I THINK it’s an embedded video.

Hey Brian, I usually pick up a Punisher One-Shot when they come out. They are always a nice addition to my collection. What are you getting for august?

I like to go one fantasy at a time. Once that one is fulfilled.. we’ll move on to the next. :P

I agree completely. For my first venture into war comics I don’t think I could’ve made a better choice. I also enjoyed Man with No Name, even though I’m not really a big western fan. Lone Ranger was actually the first western comic I’ve read. As with Brothers in Arms, I don’t think I could have made a better choice. If I didn’t like the Lone Ranger so much, I probably wouldn’t have even tried Man with No Name.

Lone Ranger & Tonto #1 is a special one-shot story that is supposed to take place in the near future of the regular series. Whether that near future is a few months or a few years is unclear, but it’s some time after the Ranger and Tonto have started to establish themselves. It wouldn’t hurt to read it now, it’s pretty self-contained. I enjoyed it for the most part, although the art was not up to the standard set by the regular series.

gah, goofed the link in the previous blurb and can’t delete it now. Here’s the link

hey Brian, as heavily into Batman as you are, I’m sure you’ll want to get this shirt of “How Batman Really Began”http://www.threadless.com/product/1078/The_Beginning?streetteam=QcFrogMan

Even better, they’re letting them go for only $10. :) I bought one myself.

Pretty good, if slow…I’m through Animal Man and have Doom Patrol 1, but I’m waiting on Doom Patrol 2 and maybe even 3 before I go onward…I hate getting really into a series in trade and not having the next volume or two on hand, y’know? I should file a quick update on my blog…thanks for the reminder.

I hope you enjoy both of them. I thought Man With No Name was pretty good, but Brothers in Arms blew me away.

hey Brian, won’t wait until I’m finished with it because it may take some time. See, I got the book sitting next to my computer and every once in a while (read mayb once or twice a week) I grab it, go sit in the comfy chair and read an issue or two… Anyway, The first pocketbook is a bit weird cause it’s got a finite three issues arc that was SiP Volume 1, then it sort of restarts and we see a bit more of Katchoo’s background being exposed which will lead to a much more expanded storyline than what the first three issues have gone through. I’ve read five issues of it so far and like it very much. Moore is very good at characterisation and storytelling. It’s definitely no superheros stuff, nor any very involved criminal stuff, but it’s quite good at what it is, sort of slice of life kind of thing.

Both.

Your blog is uncommentable.

Oh… Except that’s not the latest iteration of the design. The final one has three columns and shows my open source projects and etc. :)

Wow, someone clicked through?! What happened was this… I started writing my own blog software (a la wordpress… but my own). I got 80% of the way done and decided I didn’t want to do the next 20%. So I dropped it. Then I started designing… I came up with 4 designs. I finally settled on one last week… and it’s completely done. I just haven’t finished writing a new post yet. hahaha. You can, however, see the new design at http://beta.codehallow.com.

Not a stupid question. I haven’t closed down my box at the LCS. I will have to keep driving there to get DW Magazine (an import) no matter what.

Don’t boycott the Middleman! It’s going to be way good.

Sorry to clutter your blurb section, but I also just read this interview where one of the Dark Horse guys says that Dark Times and Rebellion will be on hiatus after their “Vector” stories to make room for tie-ins with the new Clone Wars movie/TV series.

Brian,
Thanks for the info. I did some research on the Vector crossover. I found this site which shows all the books in the “Vector” crossover. Looks like if I start with KOTOR in May I’ll miss the Vector story line, If I start with Legacy, the Vector story line will catch up to me in Sept. – Dec. Is that your understanding of the crossover?

Hey -b., Can you give me you opinion on the ongoing Star Wars titles you’re subscribed to? I subscribed to Legacy, but I was thinking about going with KOTOR instead. I don’t really want to subscribe to an enormous amount of titles, so I wanted to limit myself to 1 Star Wars title for now. What’s your favorite? And which is your favorite between Legacy and KOTOR? Thanks, Andy

Hey Brian. I totally plan to write up mini biased reviews on them. Just tough to find the time! Look out for it though. :)

Uhh… not this? Hey, I’m all for sexualization of characters in comics as long as you do it to the men, too. Last issue of Uncanny had Wolverine in is boxers and it twas nice. :)

No, I didn’t get any prints. I just had some expenses pop up (extra dress, forgot to pay for my hotel) for International Order of Rainbow for Girls, so I’m broke for a bit. Wanna buy some for me? HA. Yeah, I have no shame.

Thanks! I’m mostly looking for tech jobs now, since that’s where all my experience lies, anyway. Now, if only someone would put out the call for Russian-speaking Jr. DBAs, I’d be set…

I do highly recommend Dynamite’s Lone Ranger. I would suggest starting with the origin arc (#1-6, or the first trade). That is probably the best way to see if you can accept the updated Ranger. #12 won’t be out until August, so you have some time to get caught up.

That would be a hideous tattoo. Almost as bad as that guy with the Zune tattoo. His being worse cause the Zune sucks.

:) Thanks. It’s actually just a drawing a really good friend/artist did of me.

Hey man, my birthday was coming up, and I was considering spoiling myself and picking up a DC absolute edition.

I haven’t read Kingdom Come, but the art looks fantastic, is it worth the 52 bucks for the absolute edition in your opinion?

I was considering either getting Absolute Kingdom Come, the two ultimates hardcovers, the justice hardcovers, or Absolute The new frontier.

If ya have any input on these books, hit me back, and do you know what’s up with these absolute editions, it’s hard to find a copy of the new frontier especially.

hehe, I’d also never blurbed you, before now that is. :)

Glad you get some use from the blog posts. I don’t go to CBR much, despite what it looks like, but I do recieve all their RSS feeds through Google reader. That way, if the title of a post looks spoilerish, I simply “star” it and comes back after I’ve read the issue…

Also, not sure you’re going to go back to the Iron Man thread before going to see the movie, but here’s an advice in case you didn’t know about it: make sure you stay through the credits, yeah, all the way through the 7-8 minutes of them. As a comics addict, you’ll be glad you did… I won’t say more ;)

I’m definitely going to try Spike After the Fall. I only got into Angel (the show and the comic) for Spike’s character, so I may even abandon Angel entirely to read it.

hehe amen. I really recommend that you get the first two digests, the original run. They’re great.

Sorry. :( But he’s the Liefeld of writers! And he’s ruining some of my favorite comics. Terry Moore, save us!

Actually, Andrew just told me that he put it all in two boxes rather than using envelopes, should get there soon!

Well, I just took a peak at your profile and it looks like we’re shipping you 7 (!!!!!) envelopes today. So, I guess you’ll be getting caught up!

I don’t know. I haven’t read either yet. Ask one of the know-it-alls, because I added it because of them. I would be greatly saddened because I think both of those first issues are sold out.

Indeed! I’m running Firefox 3 at work and home now for one reason… Memory usage. Firefox 2 ate memory like uh… Will Smith in Men in Black? Firefox 3 is much more stable.

How’d the Ubuntu transition turn out?! I switched my MacBook over to 8.04 this past weekend. It went extremely poorly. Nothing like rebooting to find your 17" 1680×1050 screen running at 640×480. Ubuntu upgrades seem to be flawed… Reinstalling from scratch, however, went perfectly.

I’ve only taken one. I have two more today, including the hardest one. Stupid Brit Lit. I have to take the second half of this class this summer. I miss reading things with pictures. :( There was a comic in my brit lit textbook… AND WE SKIPPED IT!

Hey, I’m normally a vista/xp user for my laptop and desktop, but I was considering trying out ubuntu or kubuntu, any suggestions? I’m totally new to linux, but I think I’m pretty good with computers (networking administration major).

Any suggestions would be great!

I have not! I’m still running 7.10. Looking forward to it.

Haha at the same time… I’m reading so much for class that there is a pile of comics that I have not read. An easy way to see how back logged it is is to count the DW mags (monthly) which there are three of. Ouch! Just two more weeks of school.

Love the new quiz…thanks!

Hey, I’ve been reading Thor and so far its been great. The first two issues are rather slow but from three and out the book has been really really fantastic. It’s great the bond and trust between Blake and Thor, and I think it really makes the run unique.

Anyway, post a review and put up what you thought of it so far. I haven’t really heard anyone knock jms since the one more day debacle, but his books, Thor and The Twelve, have really been some of the best stuff on the shelves.

Welcome back, dude.

Thats one serious bummer man. I’ve been in that position before, as have most people. Hope you get out of it soon.

What sort of work do you do?

They need to stop worrying about how their desktop looks and worry about their website. Like 50% of that is hideous ads!

Oh dear god. If you’re using Kubuntu, then THAT’s your problem right there. Seconding Tyler, Ubuntu does ship with a PDF reader.

Sure. One note first though, you shouldn’t need any PDF reader from Adobe. Ubuntu ships with one… I think its called Evince. I don’t remember exactly… but just double clicking on a PDF should open it.

Or wait, you said Konqueror. Are you using Kubuntu then? (Ubuntu with KDE, rather than Gnome)

If Daynah hasn’t, I have, and I’d be happy to help if you need it. Parallels is sweet.

And I have dualbooted my own vista, so I know its own stupidities. hopeAdaintyrose.net

So, sad Batman, collectorz works in Wine on linux like buttar! Like Buttar I tell ya! Well the demo at least. Also, I do you comix to read the stolen ones. If you want to keep comicbase, you can always dualboot. Tell me if you wanna try again and I’ll get online, or you can even call me, and we’ll put the petal to the metal.

For what its worth: Its often a good idea to stick with what Ubuntu dishes out in the repositories.

The stuff that is in the repositories, you can be almost certain will work on your system. Its also dead simple to install and uninstall. And you can be fairly sure you’re not getting bamboozled into installing some sort of malware.

Yo B—Sorry to hear about your comics and computer troubles! I may be able to help you out…drop me a line at matt at alertnerd dot com when you get a chance. As for Casanova, I actually stopped reading after issue 1—I could not get into it—and picked up again with (I think) issue 8. So from personal experience, I’d say it’s definitely possible to pick up there without any problems.

You can get the Beta of Opera in a .deb (just open and press install) on their website. I don’t recommend it though, it’s buggy. But in general, yes. Synaptic will have the most current, stable version, which is NOT the most recent. Also, there are deadlines to subwit things to synaptic and some of the unorganized projects (Deluge) has a history of turning things in late and then whining about how the rules shouldn’t apply to them.

Yeah, ubu doesn’t come with build-essential. What did you need to compile from source anyway? You should be able to install stuff with a click of your MOUSE, sans terminal, with Synaptic under Administrator.

Also, Tyler, I can’t wait (well, I know I have to, but you know what I mean) for you collection management / selling software!

If you need to keep windows around for any reason, OpenSuse 10.3 made a dual-boot setup really easy. Create two partitions, put Windows in first, and OpeSuse puts itself in the other and uses it’s boot loader to let you pick which to boot into.

So, a couple things regarding your Linux attempt. First of all, trust me, I know how this goes… I switched from Windows to Linux like… 7 times before finally staying with it.

So which distro did you go with? I really highly recommend Ubuntu 7.10. Its been absolutely bulletproof for me… and even installed without a hitch on my MacBook Pro.

I guess the only other thing that I’ve noted is that, if you switch… you really can’t use your old applications. I mean, you can use them in a pinch, but for the most part, if the switch is going to be succesful, you’ll need to find new equivalents. (And when we release our online comic book collection software, you’ll be halfway there, right right? :D)

I would really love some pictures of your new storage setup. I have an irrational love for pictures of other people’s comics and storage/display solutions. Also, I can only hope that a Polish Christmas involves a visit to a Polish buffet restaurant, which is an AWESOME way to spend a Sunday evening.

Hah! When I was writing the business plan for HeavyInk, I wanted to know what sort of storage solutions were out there, and what density we’d get…and I found that same 2005 post, and actually spec-ed out HON file cabinets in at least one version of the biz plan.

We later decided to just go with large tables covered with open-topped long whites for our short-term storage, because that lets us keep everything at waist level for good ergonomics. Longer term, we condense unsold inventory into other long whites, and store them on restaurant style shelving purchased from Costco.

I was pointed out to by a coworker that certain higher ups might not like that I have a Phoenix marking on me. I’m too lazy to replace it at the moment. I’ll think of something else that I thought was witty but everyone pokes fun of, promise!

First, you should never have to reburn a disk without first being sure it burned wrong. Instead of hitting “install” there should be a “check disk for errors” or something.

Second… I’ve never had that. So all I can suggest is go to ubuntuforums.org and post there. There’s bound to be people who have either have that problew or know how to fix it. All of the support for Ubuntu is on that one web page (or on the IRC chat for live support).

Two possible work around may be to A install the alternate install (a less pretty install CD) or B install an older version and then upgrade. But I’d post first and see if someone has and an answer for you.

Good luck! :)

“the dreaded “polish christmas”"

I’m curious what this means.

Wow. Congratulations, I’m hoping I get something similar before our holiday break or I might be forced to go to the dreaded “polish christmas”

DEAR LORD.

Sir, I salute you.

yes, sorry. I never count the extra material.

i personally am not goign to touch house of m: avengers, because I know bendis isn’t writing it.

I really, really loved the first 12 issues or so of Green Lantern Corps..I like the Sinestro stuff fine but the early arcs were just great sci-fi action with awesome art and lots of Guy Gardner, who always cracks me up.

And let us know what you think of the Cap Omnibus…that is one hell of a run of comics right there.

Sixty titles?! Nice man!

Me, I always wait for the trade on miniseries. Except the big event ones, but I’m a sucker for those.

awesome, you’re really gonna dig ’em, man.

because it’s the sh*t!
but seriously, it’s not necessary but just adds that much more. read it before or after, as long as you get around to it, chronologically it’s the event right before it, the catalyst if you will, but no, there’s no reason you HAVE to read it first.

Also, be sure to read volume 2 as it kicks all kinds of ass and after that, House of M…

if you haven’t yet, just trust me, it is the AWESOME.

Wasn’t Morrison’s Batman weir? Highly readable…but MAN!

Countdown’s pretty lame, IMHO…but the Sinestro Corps War is kicking ass in addition to taking names. Just my take.

Yeah, the Bat books have been pretty sweet lately. There were some iffy fill-ins on both titles, but Morrison’s stuff is at worst, intriguing and at best, freakin’ awesome. You might want to track down Son of the Demon, the graphic novel that introduces the Talia/Batman relationship; it’s pretty good, although I think parts of it aren’t in continuity anymore.

Hi Brian—Be careful because user Castewar and I have been discussing a few spoilers over at his profile page…good call re: the spoiler text Tyler. Often this is incorporated on boards with just invisible text that you can turn on and off with a spoiler tag.

Hm. You bring up an interesting point regarding spoilers. Perhaps we should add a way for people to put spoilers in their posts, blogs, and blurbs… but have it hidden by default with a “Warning! Spoiler! Click to read” kind of thing. Thanks for the idea. :)