Comic reviews - week of 23/04/2014

Reviews ahead for this lovely lot:

 

Spoilers ahead for Larfleeze, Secret Origins 0, Batman/Superman, Justice League United 0, Red Lanterns 30 and Supergirl 30.

Comic reviews for week of 16/04/2014

No spoilers in this review - it's short and sweet.

Ultimate Comics Spidey 200

I wasn’t fussed about this.  Too much blathering about Peter and not enough character moments or story.

Harley Quinn 5

Fun, but not outstanding.

X-Men

The start of a new arc that I am not feeling the love for.

Batman and Aquaman 29

This was good.  The art was spectacular and it had enough Arthur in it to push Bats out of the limelight, so I was happy.

Batman and Wonder Woman 30

Also pretty good. The art wasn’t so great but it’s always a pleasure to see Batman and Wondy together.

Wonder Woman 30

The Amazons are back but Hippolyta isn’t.  This didn’t have the thrill of last month’s issue but was solid enough.

I think I’m losing enthusiasm for some of my pull list because I know I’m going to have to cancel them soon.  We won’t have enough money for me to keep buying comics and we certainly don’t have the space.  Because I know I’m going to spend a few years out of the loop I don’t want to read monthly instalments, I want to get lost in big story arcs and hundreds of issues at a time.

For example, I’m reading Secret Invasion and all associated tie–ins (about 100 issues) at the moment.  I read Civil War and House of M recently as I’m trying to get a handle on the Marvel universe.  I’m not going to the dark side, I still prefer the DC universe, but I’m enjoying what I’m reading.  The most enjoyable issues so far are Secret Invasion itself,  New Avengers, Front Line, Runaways & Young Avengers and the Spidey tie-in.  Guardians of the Galaxy, the group that Black Bolt belongs to and Deadpool are not as bad as I thought they’d be, but I am not finding myself moved enough to really care about the characters.  I am very much enjoying the chaos of the secret invasion.

But back to my pull list.  I am currently getting:

Forever Evil, Supergirl (and the Red Lanterns with Kara in) Wonder Woman, Adventures of Superman, Larfleeze, Batman/Superman, Smallville (although I haven’t read it in, I get it on comixology so can catch up at any time), Hawkeye, X-Men, Danger Club, Princeless, Revival.

Of these, I’m going to cancel Larfleeze, X-Men and Revival immediately.  Forever Evil has just one issue to go so I may as well get that.  Hawkeye I will cancel after the June issue as that’s the ASL issue.  I don’t know what’s happening with Princeless or Danger Club but I expect to cancel those from the end of May.  Smallville I will continue to get as and when on comixology.  Wonder Woman I will stop getting once Azzarello and Chiang have left.

That leaves me with Supergirl, Red Lanterns, Adventures of Superman and Batman/Superman.  The latter two of which I love, the former two I buy out of a sense of misguided loyalty.  I have to decide whether to keep these on my pull list, cancel the whole pull list and just pop in to buy issues as time and money allows, or whether to go fully digital.  I’m very sad about having to reduce my reading, but money and the baby take precedence.  My problem is I really don’t have a clue how life will change once the baby arrives, other than being very busy and sleep deprived.  That's not really any sort of idea though, is it?

Stop Spring Hunting on Malta

You may have seen articles in the news about how Malta has a big hunting problem - in the Springtime they shoot the migrating birds. All the migrating birds, including those that are critically endangered. Species like the Turtle Dove are protected in the UK (and across Europe) but the Maltese hunting lobby is pretty powerful and shoots them anyway.  UK turtle dove numbers have dropped by something like 93% since the 1970s, partly due to the shooting, partly due to UK habitat loss (see here: http://operationturtledove.org/).

You can read an RSPB blog here about the shooting:  http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/ourwork/b/martinharper/archive/2014/04/24/migrants-on-my-mind-3.aspx

Birdlife Malta (similar to the RSPB but more focus on birds), have started an indiegogo campaign to raise funds to equip their volunteers with recording equipment (videos etc to show the damage) and campaign for a referendum to ban the Spring hunting season.

They need €50,000 to start. Chris Packham just tweeted that 58 thousand people have looked at the funding page. If everyone gave €1 they would reach their goalhttp://tinyurl.com/kb6vlzn 

Please have a look at it and consider donating something, however small. You can use your paypal account to donate.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/stop-spring-hunting-on-malta

New Radio Bamf/ebay sale

Another Radio Bamf episode is up, where we talk about Bryan Singer , Days of Future Past,  Dick Grayson morphing into Tom Cruise, Teen Titans going away and coming back, DC’s upcoming events, Bombshell posters (SO GORGEOUS! http://io9.com/show-your-love-for-dc-comics-heroines-with-these-dreamy-1560615092), Eisners and comixology.   We talk Secret Invasion, Superior Spider-man and terrible Guy Gardner influenced porn moustaches, Thor and Batman.  Listen to it here: http://waabamf.podomatic.com/entry/2014-04-23T06_25_22-07_00

And I’m selling about 200 comics on ebay to make space for the baby.  I’m happy to post worldwide, please take a look and drop me a line if you’ve got any questions.  My shopfront is here:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/furry_little_mushroom/m.html?item=281316518008&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l4064

Easter/Ostara/Spring Equinox

I didn't mange to get a post up for Ostara in March, chiefly because life got really hectic, then I was away for 2 weeks, and am only just now getting time to breathe.

So Happy Ostara and Happy Easter everybody!  In the UK we have a long bank holiday weekend - 4 days off! - and I am spending it seeing friends, catching up chores and hopefully cooking some good meals.  I would normally make it a point to eat eggs at this time of year, but as I'm only allowed well done eggs - basically hard boiled - I am losing my enthusiasm for them.  On the other hand, since the boyfriend described me as being all boobs and belly last week, I am feeling particularly fecund!

I hope everyone has a great weekend. Here is a picture of this year's Easter Tree:

We will eat the chocolate bunnies on Sunday.  I feel like there's a lot I haven't done with respect to celebrating the festivals over the last year.  This makes me sad, as I think it's important to take time out to consider and ruminate on spiritual stuff.  I must rectify this.

Comic reviews

I'm a little behind.  Well, I'm about 3 weeks behind I think.  This will be a rapid run through.

Spoilers ahead for Hawkeye 17, Revival 18, She-Hulk 2, Sex Criminals 5, Harley Quinn 4, X-Men 12, Hawkeye 18, Supergirl 29, Red Lanterns 29, Larfleeze 9, Wonder Woman 29, Adventures of Superman 11, Forever Evil: Rogues Rebellion 6.

How to make an Aquaman

At last... I am finding the time to write up the making of my Aquaman costume!

I fricking adore this outfit. I decided last year that I wanted to have a proper, comic accurate costume for LSCC 2014, and I that the thing I wanted was this version of Aquaman:

The only I was undecided on was whether to keep the hook or go with the waterbearer version of the character (essentially a watery blue hand).

I thought long and hard about how I could make the costume myself.  I could buy black leggings and sew green fishscale material onto the sides. I could buy a silver crop top and modify it to make the armour.  I could make the hook out of something.  I thought about how to modify the armour so it covered my left breast.  I bought a knitted yellow beard just for the costume.

After spending a few months dithering and talking to other, better, costumers, I decided it would be far easier to commission someone to make it for me.  So I had a look around facebook's cosplay groups and found a company called Too Many Heroes who were taking commissions: (https://www.facebook.com/toomanyheroes and https://twitter.com/toomanyheroes).  I emailed them and got a quote, and decided it was a really good price and that they would make a good, comic accurate outfit that I would never be able to replicate myself.

We arranged the commission and I felt really happy about it, and then I fell pregnant and realised that I'd be about 6 months gone at time of the con and would therefore be a completely different shape when it rolled round.  A quick email later and Too Many heroes were more than happy to continue with the commission and to make the leggings maternity wear.  Woo hoo!

I sent my measurements in January (the con was mid March), we discussed the specific design I wanted and the types of material to be used and in February (about 3 weeks before the con) I went and picked up the suit.  It fit pretty well, a few minor adjustments had to be made, which were done there and then, and I went away very happy with a new costume.

I had no idea how Too Many Heroes were going to make the costume - if I knew how to do it I'd make it myself!  - so when I saw it I was pleasantly surprised.  First, the armour part.

It's padded and attaches at the front with velcro.  I hadn't even thought about how it would do up.  Naively, I assumed I'd be able to pull it over my head, but as it's padded and needed to be tight that wouldn't work.  When I tried it on it was rather tight across my chest - the hazards of enlarging breasts when you're pregnant - but otherwise fit very well.  I was a bit concerned it might ping open during the day of the con.

We had a chat about how to deal with this and I decided that a new (flattening) bra combined with a modified crop top would probably solve the problem.  So I bought a grey crop top from ebay and set about hacking it up to fit under the armour and cover my bra.  I ended up with this, which worked perfectly:

I tried it on under the armour, drew around the bits I wanted to cut out and went to work with the scissors.  The advantage of this is I got to keep my cleavage on show (hoorah!).

If you look at the reference pic at the top of this post you'll see that the arm part of the armour is in pieces.  This was also replicated for my costume:

You can sort of see it.  Photography - not my strong point.

Now for the leggings.  The fish scale pattern was drawn on with a pen:

Again, I would never have thought to do this, but it worked really well.

The fins are padded (and probably my favourite part of the whole thing, fins!)

The A for Aquaman was hand stitched on when I was there for the fitting:

This left me with working out whether to wear a wig, how to do the hand and to have a think about any accessories I might want.

I had bought a yellow wig in prep for the con but felt ridiculous in it.  It's OK, it's probably pretty good for a wig, but I just felt awful in it.  As I mentioned in previous posts I was already feeling self conscious about not being slim/toned/tanned/make-up'd/pretty enough to be in costume and I just didn't want to wear anything that might make me feel more awkward.  Here's the wig:

It's more gold than that picture shows.  My boyfriend tried it on and looked a bit like a dodgy Rod Stewart, which didn't endear me to it (the wig, not the boyfriend).  As you can see in the picture I also bought a hook hand off Amazon to use.  Specifically, this one:

It didn't look so mottled when it arrived. I had some primer left over from when I made my Jay Garrick costume a couple of years ago so just needed to buy some gold spray paint.  It didn't go well. It went like this:

AWFUL.  So I didn't take it with me.  And yes, I am aware that Aquaman has a harpoon, not a hook, but I couldn't find a harpoon anywhere and didn't have time to make one.  So instead I went with some a blue glove I found on ebay:

It's not perfect, but it did the job well enough.  Incidentally, both the glove and the beard were really hot to wear.  I wasn't prepared for that.

For accessories, I considered making a headband with a shell on it, but wasn't convinced that would sit well on my hair.  So I made earrings:

I bought 10 scallop shells from ebay, a friend gave me the earring wires and showed me how to bend them round the shells.  They are gorgeous and I will wear them again and again.  I do need to varnish them thought so they don't deteriorate.

For footwear, when I first started planning this costume I thought I'd just wear socks.  Around about February time I realised that socks don't provide much grip and I really, really didn't want to risk falling over.  So I went for sandals instead.  They are comfortable, they support my feet and it strikes me that Aquaman would not be averse to wearing sandals.

The end result was this:

Ah, the pasty skin of a British woman in Spring time!  It's also interesting to me how my belly curves out at the bottom - pregnancy is bizarre.

For comparison, this is how it fitted the day after I bought it (about 3 weeks before the con):

You can see the difference in my bump.  To my mind, the fact that it still fitted and was comfortable when I was much bigger is a testament to Too Many Heroes costuming skills.

I will definitely wear this costume again, but next time I shall try to be more tanned, and I won't be pregnant so I'll have to have the maternity panel taken in.  I'll probably aim to have a six pack too, but I have my doubts as to whether that will happen or not.  If you are looking for a commission I can definitely recommend Too Many Heroes.  They did a fabulous job, were really flexible and really creative.

Costs for everything were:
Commissioned costume- £55
Knitted yellow beard - £4.99 plus postage (If you want your own, I suspect it was this one)
Grey crop top - £4.49 and free postage
Blue gloves -£5.95 plus postage
Shells for earrings - £1.99 plus postage
Hook (not used) - £1.88 plus postage
Gold spray paint (used on hook) - £4.99 ish, I think
Wig (not used) - £7.49 plus postage
Wig cap and hair grips (not used) - about a fiver for both items.

Sandals: Already owned

See my other posts on the con here (the other costumes) and here (the day's activities with just a couple of costumes).

Supercut of all of Game of Thrones sex scenes

Watch it here: http://vimeo.com/66703817

Now, I'm re-reading the books at the moment (I'm a third of the way through Storm of Swords) and haven't seen any of the tellybox series, so I have a couple of questions.

• Why is there significantly more boobs and naked lady bum on show than male chests, bums and stiff bits?
• It appeared that one scene had Dany fucking her handmaid, with the handmaid on top.  As far as I can recall, this doesn't happen in the book. The handmaid goes down on Dany, but that's not rubbing muff bits together or using a strap on.
• Am I seeing man-on-man sex in there?  Again, there is no explicit man-on-man sex in the books.  Male homosexuality is referred to, but we don't see (read) any men fucking other men.

Methinks they have tried to make the tellybox series more salacious than the books. Sacre bleu.

New Radio Bamf shows!

Apologies for being slack with the posting lately.  I've just been dead busy.  I've got a few ideas for posts but just haven't had the time to write them up!

I do want to link to the last few Radio Bamf podcasts though.

Episode 47: http://waabamf.podomatic.com/entry/2014-03-25T09_43_29-07_00
Teeny tiny bite size Bamf, talking about Spider-man, Avengers Arena and Daredevil.

Episode 46: http://waabamf.podomatic.com/entry/2014-03-25T09_43_29-07_00

Covering DC's bombshell variants, the TV Flash costume (so ugly), LSCC, Peter David's Aquaman, Hawkeye and some other stuff I can't remember because I have a terrible memory.

Episode 45: http://waabamf.podomatic.com/entry/2014-03-06T06_47_30-08_00

Bert and Fee vs ninjas! 

Enjoy :)

Super Sexy Saturday - Aquaman and Dolphin get it on

From Aquaman vol 3, issue 11.

Aquaman goes myffic

Regular readers will know that I'm partial to mythic stuff, and when I read this panel it struck me how lovely it was.  I really like the mix of elements in the, well, I guess we should call her an elemental.

From Aquaman volume 3, issue 7.  Here are the credits:

LSCC 2014: Cosplay

As promised, here are all the cosplay photos I got:

 

 

 

 

And then there was me.

No wonder no one wanted to take my picture. Sigh.  I'll never be one of the cool kids.

Here are links to other people's photo albums:

401 Photography - on facebook.
Holloh - on flickr.
Poisoned Pirate - on Sta.sh.
A Mystique - on twitter.

LSCC 2014 report

I went to London Super Comic Con yesterday and had a fine old time.  LSCC is great to attend - it's really well organised and it's got a really nice feel to it.  Unlike MCM, it's completely focused on comics - no games, no anime, no films, just comics.  Both cons are held at the Excel Centre in London yet MCM felt like a massive, soulless warehouse and LSCC feels friendly.

This likely to be my last con for a quite a long while, as a fresh baby is going to put a dampener on our social life for a while.  So I wanted to make this count.  So I dressed up as this Aquaman:

On me, this translates into this:

(I didn't get any full length shots at the con so I took these photos Sunday morning at home).

With this glove:

Why Aquaman? Because I adore the character.
Why this costume?  Because I genuinely love it.  I think it's a really cool version and I thought I could get it comic-accurate.
Why the blue glove? Because the hook I spray painted gold turned out bloody awful so I decided the glove would do for the waterbearer version.
Why no appropriate wig?  Because the wig made me feel stupid....

Hmm, I'm not quite the same as the comic version am I!  Sod it, I love the costume and I'm really pleased I wore it.  I wish I could be less self deprecating but I feel the need to get in jibes at myself before anyone else does.  It's taking me quite a lot of courage to post these photos.

I didn't make the leggings or top - I commissioned it from Too Many Heroes (facebook link) and I think they did a fine job.  Anyway, I'll do a post on the costume and the process for putting it together (including costs) soon.

I arrived at the con venue, changed into the outfit and felt terrified.  It's really quite revealing you know?  Also, I was convinced I looked fat rather than months pregnant.  Looking at photos, I can tell I'm quite clearly pregnant but I didn't have that at the time. I felt so self-conscious.  But perhaps I'll write more about that in another post.  Once I put on the knitted beard I started feeling less stupid, probably because I felt it was more obvious that I was having fun with it and not taking myself too seriously.

The queue went down really quickly (LSCC is super well organised) and I headed to Peter David's table, where I saw another Aquaman, who looked far more in character and faer better turned out than I was.  So we gave each other a smile and later on a friend took this photo of us:

I had earlier seen a Mera who was graceful and elegant and dressed in a lovely flowing green gown.  Clearly I felt far too ungainly, short and inelegant to ask for a photo with her, which I am not regretting. Arrgghhh.

Anyway, at Peter David's table.  He recognised me from when I told him on twitter I would be the 6 months pregnant Aquaman, and his wife took a couple of photos of me. :D  I did apologise for looking a bit foolish, but he brushed that off and seemed to liked the costume.  He said he'd seen lots of Aquamen over the years, but never a pregnant one, so I've got that going for me.  He signed my comics.

These are all the books I got signed that day.  The Green Arrow book is signed by Mike Grell, not Peter David!

I got to tell David these books all mean a lot to me and I was especially pleased with the Supergirl and Young Justice sign language issues he did.  He was really friendly and I'm glad I saw him in-costume.  He had his daughter with him as they were selling copies of a book they'd co written, I really should have bought it.

After this I met some friends, one of whom was dressed as incognito Black Widow, and we saw this really cool pair:

Then I queued to see Gary Frank and he also signed my Supergirl trade.  He liked my beard.  I expressed my disappointment that I couldn't grow a real beard.  Most people seemed to think my fake beard was the best thing I was wearing.  It was pretty cool, but also damn hot.  I hadn't quite realised that all wool is hot.

Then I went to the science of superheros panel but despite being in the third row, had trouble hearing the presentation.  It can get really damn echoey in these places!  So I tweeted this photo of myself and then left.

I'm really not helping my concerns over looking fat as opposed to pregnant am I?!

Then I met my friends again and we went for lunch.  I got a green thai veg curry from the noodle bar in the Excel centre - it looked ranked but tasted fine.

Once back into the hall we went and met Andy Clift, the guy behind Bertie Bear (whom we interviewed on Radio Bamf here).  I got into a discussion with him and another guy about DC's movies - specifically, Man of Steel and Green Lantern and whether they were any good or not.  Opinions varied!  I bought this print from him which will go in the nursery:

The more I looked at it the more I liked it so I bought it.  I'm really pleased with it.

We also visited the Art Heroes table and I caught up with Daniel Clifford again.  I last saw him at Thought Bubble, he's a lovely guy, doing really really good comics work.  I've written reviews of two of his creations over at New readers...start here!.  Halcyon and Tenderfoot is an all ages comic and Sugar Glider is for teens and adults.  Both are excellent and far, far better than most of the crap that comes out of the big 2.

I went into the Jonathan Ross/Ian Churchill panel and it was great fun.  Ross is really hyper - he talked nine to the dozen and barely stopped for breath.  They had good things to say though - talking about their new comic The revenge, comics they like now, comics they've loved in the past and superhero films.  I left halfway through because I experiences a sudden urge to use the toilet (thank you baby).

Last person I visited was Mike Grell.  I asked him to sign my Longbow Hunters trade and we had a little chat, mostly about my beard.  Told you everyone liked the beard.  I told him how much I valued his GA work, as well as saying (again) how sad I am I can't grow  real beard.  He said I carried the beard well.  t was fun, with the beard, I feel like I've made quite a few people smile.

After I left Grell I went to a massage are and paid £10 for a 10 minute back, neck, head massage.  It was well worth it and really loosened me up.  My right side has been a mess lately - it's rock solid. Ugh.  Anyway, the masseuse was great.

Throughout the day I also bought some comics:

The top left one and the Avengers one were in the goody bag you got as you arrived.  I'm certain I own one of the Resurrection Man comics already, but I couldn't remember which, so I bought both.  They were only 50p each.

I nearly bought this Billy Tucci print:

The reason I didn't buy it was partly due to the price (it was only £20 but I was down to my last 20 quid by this point) but also to concern over whether the boyfriend would like it or not.  As I guessed, he doesn't like it (he finds the Japanese wave theme overplayed) so it's a good thing I didn't get it.

I drooled over these Canvas Warriors shoes:

These are all hand painted and the lady on the stall assured me that the paint won't rub off, crack, or otherwise be ruined.  The paint if guarenteed for the lifetime of the shoe.  When they start at £130 for an adult pair and £70 for a baby's pair, you want the design to last.

I bought this Pocky-alike snack:

I met @FacetiousBeard, a twitter friend.  He was fun!

It was a really good day.  I took quite a lot of costume photos and I'll post those shortly.