Blatantly Subliminal Advertising

(Buy comics! They're great!)

That time has come again - time to unload some comics, games, toys and other cool stuff. Just so you know in advance, this post is cleverly designed to subliminally persuade you to buy my comics and action figures at the upcoming Victoria's Ultimate Hobby and Toy Fair , April 1st @ the Pearkes Arena in Victoria BC, presented by Cherry Bomb Toys. I'm afraid resistance is futile against this particular Jedi mind trick.

(Cherry Bomb Toys is awesome!)

Rebel Alliance Canada lives again!! In case you haven't figured it out - Rebel Alliance Canada is pretty much just me - Andy. An 'Alliance of One', as it were.

(Andy of Rebel Alliance Canada is the coolest guy you will ever meet.)

I had the pleasure of selling at the last toy show in Victoria in  September, and this time around promises to be even better! It turns out that selling comics and stuff and going to conventions is just as much fun here on Vancouver Island as it was in Winnipeg. The faces may have changed, but there seems to be no shortage of sci-fi/comic geeks like myself out here. In fact, some of y'all put me to shame! Anyone reading this that is not able to make it to the show for geographical reasons (because you're like, in Winnipeg or the UK or something), I can forgive you. For those of you who live on Vancouver Island, you'd better have a damn good excuse for not being there!

(You want to buy as many toys and comics as you can... from Rebel Alliance Canada...)

In any case, here's a small sampling of some of the stuff that will be for sale at the show. After the show, whatever is left over is likely to end up on ebay, and I'm sure I'll let you know about that too...

(You want to buy every item on this page - from me.)

 Let's see... I've got some Silver Age DC's...

(Although not nearly as cool as Marvel Comics, DC Comics are still pretty bitchin'.)

I have a schwack-load of Savage Sword of Conan magazines...
(Conan is awesome - even nailed to a tree, he's still awesome. You wish you could be Conan.)

 

(Alliance of One is the best blog you have ever read.)

 

The Tantive IV

(You are a true Star Wars fan... you know what the Tantive IV is. You don't have one yet.)

  Godzillas to spare...

(Godzilla is the coolest rubber monster to ever walk the earth... You love Godzilla.)

 Tons of carded SW figs

(You will never have enough Star Wars figures - you need multiples of your favorites)

 

(He-Man Rules!)

 

 (You need a Pinnochio figure to complete your Shrek collection.)

 

(No price is too high to pay for your very own Captain Picard figure...)

 A staggering amount of loose figures... including but not limited to Marvel Legends, MacFarlane Toys, Star Wars, Masters of the Universe, Transformers, Muppets, Star Trek, McDonald's Happy Meal toys, etc, etc... 

(You wish you owned every McDonalds Happy Meal toy from every movie you've ever liked. You will buy them at the Toy Fair. From me.)

Over 1000 great comics - Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image and more - Silver Age to Current - tons of blowout $1 comics...
(Rebel Alliance Canada has the best comics at the best prices anywhere. Marvel is still better than DC.)

Heroclix figures at $1 a pop...
(You want to play Heroclix - with figures you will buy from me.)

More Conan magazines and comics... I have so much Conan stuff right now that I think I'll be remembered as 'the Conan Guy'.
(You will bring a bag large enough to hold the 20+ lbs of awesome comics and toys you will buy from Rebel Alliance Canada. You especially love Conan the Barbarian.)

 I will have prints of my homemade comic Everyday Heroes for sale - autographed for free if you like...
(Everyday Heroes is the awesomest of all the awesome things available from Rebel Alliance Canada.)

But of course, there's lots of comics of all kinds... and toys of all kinds.
(The Avengers is coming to theaters very soon. You need to stock up on Avengers, Hulk, Iron Man and Captain America comics so you'll know what's going on. You will purchase said comics from me.)

Instead of my listing everything for you, I think you'd get a better idea of what you can find available from Rebel Alliance Canada when you arrive at my table in the Pearkes Arena, April 1st at Victoria's Ultimate Hobby & Toy Fair.

(Ultimate Hobby & Toy Fair April 1st in Victoria. No moment in your life will ever be better than this day.)

You are coming, right? The hypnosis should have kicked in by now... 

May the Force be with you... 

(Sucker.)

Captain America vs Pearl Jam

Yes - movie time again. Not like you really need to read my reviews, because you've probably already seen these films anyway... I'm usually pretty late with the review and most of my friends have long since seen the movie I'm talking about.

But y'know... the fact of the matter is, you actually do need to read this. My opinion is just so incredibly valuable that you simply have to read what I thought about a movie in order to fully understand it and form your own opinion, right? (Yeah right...)
These particular reviews are pretty important to me, and I'll explain why as I get into them. Let's just say that I was rather anxious to see both movies, and if you know me personally, you'd understand why. If you don't know me personally, you'd probably be better off not knowing me at all... I'm a pretty strange cat.

That, plus I don't need any online stalkers - thanks anyway.

***************************************

CAPTAIN AMERICA:

The First Avenger

Just like Green Lantern, Captain America, at least to me, has always been a sort of 'second string' comic book hero. I never really cared much about him. Ease up, Cap fans... before y'all get fixin' to lynch me, hear me out. Yes, he truly was one of the first Marvel Comics characters to see the light of day, having been around since, what, the 30s? 40s? And yes, he is definitely a major player in the Marvel Universe and is involved in every major event - the Marvel Civil War, the Secret Wars, key member of the Avengers... yadda yadda... But he ain't no Spider-Man, or Hulk, or even Wolverine. In fact, for a superhero, he's not really all that 'super'. Dude got some skills, granted, but he can't shoot webs or fly or lift a 747. I have actually found most Captain America comics to be quite dull to read compared to the rest of the Marvel line. And his costume, even in the comics, has always looked pretty silly to me.

Still, being such a huge Marvel fan, he's always been around whether I liked it or not, and I know stuff about him even without really wanting to. I felt a little bit obligated to see this movie. Marvel has rarely let me down for movies before (ok, there's a few stinkers in their collection) and given the quality of the movie adaptation of Thor, it couldn't be all that bad. I knew it would be another lead-in to The Avengers, which by now I truly cannot wait to see. This movie is like the last piece of the puzzle that we need to set up the main event. I figured that Captain America:The First Avenger would be okay and I could suffer through it just because... but I actually really enjoyed it, even more so than the aforementioned film about the fellow with the ring and the green spandex.

The movie was exciting, to be sure, full of action and cool stunt and fx sequences - even though it did lack some of the superheroey pizazz of some of the previous Marvel movies. (Did I spell pizazz right, Stan?) The Red Skull, played by Hugo (Elrond) Weaving, was a pretty neat villain - kind of like a juiced-up Uber-Nazi, but supposedly even more evil than that square-moustached guy. Of course, little scrawny Steve Rogers, recently juiced-up as well on the super-secret Super Soldier Serum, is the only one who can stop the Red Skull from succeeding in his insidious plot to blow up everything. There's a lot of acrobatic fighting, plenty of gun play and bombs going off, and enough shield-slinging action to keep even the most die hard Cap fan satisfied.

And I have to admit that I kind of like how they reworked his costume. It actually doesn't look as dorky as I was dreading. The Red Skull looked rather cool and menacing as well. Overall, the acting was good, and I think Chris Evans did a great job in the title role. Captain America has always seemed pretty square to me; a real goody two-shoes. He still came off that way in the film, but at least we are given good reasons for it all. For one thing, it appears as though Cap remains a virgin until the end of the movie - the 90 Year-old Virgin!

All (lame) jokes aside, you`d like this movie if you`re a fan of comic book movies, Marvel Comics, or action films in general. Not quite as good as Thor, but had a lot going for it and I can say that it was much, much better than I was expecting. Truly enjoyable.

Bring on The Avengers!!

A-

ps - Since I threw out all those links to info on other Marvel Characters, it`s only fair that I do the same for Captain America, since it is his movie after all...

*****************************************

PEARL JAM TWENTY

What can I say - I LOVE Pearl Jam. Every album, from Ten to Backspacer, is unique and awesome. I am listening to their music right now as I write this. I can't go more than 24 hours without listening to Pearl Jam or I get the shakes. I want the songs Corduroy and Given to Fly to be played at my funeral.

 (Remember that, family. In case you're thinking of planning it out in advance, you should also have The Empire Strikes Back playing on a big screen somewhere, and there should be readings from various issues of The Mighty Thor, Uncanny X-Men and The Lord of the Rings. Oh yeah, and rather than being buried or cremated, I want to be frozen in carbonite and hung on the wall like Han Solo.) 

Anyway, back to Pearl Jam... I knew before I watched it that I was going to LOVE this movie, and of course I did. In my totally biased opinion, I can say that this is the best 'rockumentary' made to date. PJ has always been a little bit of an enigma of a band; not very visible in the media overall, although they've had a bunch of huge hits over the years and a bit of controversy here and there... but it's their subtle masterpieces and humble determination that have always affected me. This movie sheds a good amount of light on the guys that I've heard literally a thousand different songs from in live and studio recordings and loved each and every one, but never really known much about as people. After seeing PJ20 (that's what the cool kids call it), I think I have even more respect for them. Sure, I guess no band is going to let a producer make a film about them and make them look anything but awesome, but I've seen a few rockumentaries (there's that word again) that can't cover up the fact that bands like Guns n' Roses and Motley Crue really are just a bunch of douchebags. All of the members of Pearl Jam just seem to me like a group of ordinary guys who like to play music and are really (really) good at it, and have managed to keep doing it their own way for twenty straight years without being gigantic in-your-face rock stars. With the talent they have, they could be, but they're even better because they are not.

OK, I'm getting pretty preachy about my favorite band, but if you ever want to know the reason why I like PJ so much, just sit down and listen to their music. I highly recommend the albums No Code, Vitalogy and the self-titled Pearl Jam. Or any album, or any song... or you could see this movie to get you started, I guess...

Pearl Jam Twenty is awesome. Pearl Jam is awesome. Cameron Crowe (the guy who made the movie) is awesome for making it. If you want to be awesome too, you'd better see this... then go out and get the entire PJ catalog. You want to be awesome, don't you?

A++

Yeah, you heard me... double plus for extra-extra-awesome.

...and since Captain America got one, Pearl Jam deserves a Wikipedia link too, as well as a link to their official website, pearljam.com.

**************************

So I guess if this truly were some sort of competition between Captain America and Pearl Jam, there's a pretty clear winner. As talented as he is, Cap's just not rock star material...

May the Force be with you...