The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Ed Catto: Geek Culture Grows … and Grows!

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You don’t have to explain what a comic convention is to most people anymore. They know that these conventions are a celebration of geek culture, that they are places to sell comics and collectibles, and that a lot of people attend these things. Some people might know that the San Diego Comic-Con is the grand-daddy of them all, and generally considered to be biggest and the best.

But that standing is rapidly changing. Recently, New York Comic Con published some astonishing attendance numbers. As it has been each year, this was another record-breaking year as they counted 167,000 attendees. That’s a lot of people.

nycc10crowd-3627869Geek Culture business analyst and author Rob Salkowitz sees different strengths for each. “NYCC strikes me as a great way for brands to reach influential audiences in the New York area (including a lot of media and publishing elites), whereas SDCC is still the only truly global fan event in North America.”

So while every major convention might have a distinct flavor or purpose, I feel the strong attendee and revenue growth across the board seems to speak to both the rise of Geek Culture and changing consumer habits.

Remember just a few years ago when Target was a “cool” place to shop? Everyone even pronounced the name as “Tar-jay” with a half-jokey attitude. Since then, big box retailers like Target and Wal-Mart (for the first time in ages) find themselves struggling and falling short of expectations. So many Americans feel that if you just have to “buy something,” it’s easier to just order it online and have it delivered.

mk-ci051_target_g_20131121200203-6145911But if there’s an experience involved, it’s a different story. If you need an expert to help you plan your bridal registry, for example, you definitely want to go to visit a retailer. Or if you want to meet a favorite author, you’ll visit a bookstore for an autographing event. And if you want to celebrate your fan passion, you probably want to visit your comic shop every Wednesday or attend one of the country’s many comic conventions.

That’s where you can see you’re part of something big and exciting. There’s so much to see and learn about – it’s not only about acquiring stuff. Now it’s about acquiring stuff and experiences.

And with the rising tide of Geek Culture and comic cons, everyone seems to have a vision of how they should all work.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to read Alisha Grauso make her case in The Wrap (a news portal that covers entertainment news with a generous dollop of Hollywood insider insights) that movie studios should focus their efforts on promoting at New York Comic Con. For the industry, it’s been “understood” that Hollywood likes to participate in San Diego Comic-Con because it’s fun and it’s an easy economical trip. In her article, Ms. Grauso pointes to several important economic reasons to consider shifting Hollywood’s marketing focus away from thw San Diego Comic-Con and to the New York Comic Con.

I’ll admit it, in my role as a marketing guy we were recently suggesting to a client that they focus their efforts on other conventions rather than San Diego. And this choice makes sense for that particular client, and it also makes sense for more and more brands.
“Fan events… are big business,” said Lance Fensterman, senior global VP of ReedPOP. “It is where brands and media companies can connect directly with fans… passionate, passionate fans. These guys are rabid consumers of content, they have heavy social media presence, and they’re savvy. These are people that marketers want to reach. With that in mind, an important part of our job is to ensure this is done the right way and isn’t too overwhelming or distracting to the fan experience.”

The reality of the situation is that there are now so many venues for marketers to choose from. And that’s great for fans and great for brands.

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John Ostrander: The Spectre – What Was I Thinking?

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Halloween was yesterday (if you’re reading this on Sunday); a time of ghosts and ghouls and little children strong arming adults for candy under the threat of “tricks.” Oh, also when the Great Pumpkin rises from a really sincere pumpkin patch to bring toys and presents to good little children all around the world. Or so I have been told.

And, of course, it’s time for ghost stories and horror stories and tales of things that go bump in the night and I’ve told a few of those myself, notably Wasteland. My most successful foray into the genre, though, probably was the run I did on The Spectre with Tom Mandrake for DC Comics back in the 1990s.

The Spectre was an interesting amalgam of both supernatural and superhero. Created in 1940 by Superman creator Jerry Siegel and artist Bernard Baily, the central character was hardnosed plainclothes detective Jim Corrigan who falls afoul of mobsters and is murdered. He’s sealed into a cement filled oil drum and dumped in the river. His soul, however, is unable to rest and an entity called “The Voice” sends him back as a vengeance-seeking ghost, a.k.a. The Spectre.

As the Spectre, Corrigan has unimaginable powers and abilities. And therein lay the problem. The only being more powerful than the Spectre would be God and only on days when God had been eating his Wheaties. How do you mount a credible threat to someone like that? If there is no risk, there’s no suspense and no story. The bad guy does bad things and the Spectre shows up and dispatches him, usually in a grisly fashion.

The Spectre never lasted long in his own series, although there were several attempts. The common wisdom was that you had to reduce the Spectre’s power to make a story. The problem with that was, in so doing, you lost some of the spectacular visuals that made the Spectre what he was. Why bother?

Tom Mandrake and I had been partners for a while, working on GrimJack and then on The Fury of Firestorm. The latter series was ending and we were looking for something new to do together. Both of us were long time fans of the Ghostly Guardian (as the Spectre was known) and campaigned to get to play with him. DC was leery; a recent attempt at doing a Spectre ongoing had been cancelled only a relatively short time before.

“Give him to us,” Tom and I told DC; “We know how to make him work.”

Editor and friend Dan Raspler took up our cause and got DC to agree based on our past track record together and how we pitched our concept for the relaunch.

It wasn’t the Spectre that we changed so much as it was his human counterpart, Jim Corrigan. Different versions of the story resurrected Corrigan and even set him at odds sometimes with the Spectre persona, which had taken up residence in Corrigan’s body. I felt that Corrigan himself had become something of a wimp. So, first of all, Tom and I declared that Corrigan was dead and had been dead since the 1940s. That was his tragedy. Sometimes, he fooled himself into thinking he was alive but he was, in fact, dead.

Second, Corrigan had been a plainclothes police detective back in the 40s. He was hard-boiled. Go back and watch the police movies from back then; hell, go read the early Dick Tracy strips. Hard, tough, and not afraid to use violence and even death to achieve justice. This, we felt, was why he was given the power of the Spectre and informed how that power was used. The Spectre may have had the power of a god but he had the perspective of a mortal man, a very flawed mortal man.

We decided that “The Voice” was short for The Voice of God and the Spectre himself became the Wrath of God. In a way, he was an aspect of God, specifically of Jehovah – and a very Old Testament Jehovah at that. The Spectre had been the Angel of Death that had culled the first born of Egypt. At one point, the Spectre entity rebelled against mercy and so it was decreed it that it had to be united with a human soul in order to walk the Earth, the theory being that the human could temper the Wrath of God. However, when you had a human as liable to rage and outrage as Jim Corrigan, that wasn’t always true.

This enabled us to keep the spectacular visuals and outrageous stunts, the iconography that gave readers a reason to come to the Spectre in the first place and still allow us to construct stories. The Spectre wasn’t vulnerable but Corrigan was.

Corrigan was also weary; since the 1940s he had tried to eradicate evil and the world had only gotten darker. He was very near despair and facing an existential crisis. That also gave us a platform for our stories; we asked questions on the nature of punishment, despair, and redemption. We posed ethical and theological questions. I was less interested in giving answers to those questions, which I felt the readers could and should provide for themselves.

This is all very cerebral. I know. What really made the book sing was Tom’s artwork. This is the character that Tom Mandrake was born to draw and over and over again I looked for situations that played to his myriad strengths. Hey, as they said in The Producers, “When you got it, flaunt it, baby, flaunt it!”

What added to the run were the covers; each issue had a different artist and each artist presented their own interpretation of the character, often telling their own story in one image. Likewise, the letter page (helmed by Peter Tomasi who started as the assistant editor on the book and later became the book’s editor) also delved into the topics raised by the story, creating an interesting discussion between Pete and the reader. All in all, it was quite a package.

We went on for five years and we learned that our run was nearing an end. We were given a year’s notice and permission to wind up the story our way. This is really rare. Corrigan had grown during the run of issues we did and, in our last issue, he gave up being the Spectre to go on to his final reward. That’s also unusual. With that ending, we were able to tie up our entire series and make it all one story. It completed what Tom and I were doing in a way that one rarely gets to do.

Tom and I are playing with the horror genre again as we work on Kros: Hallowed Ground. We’re both very excited by it; this is the first time we’ve played with the horror genre together since The Spectre. Expectations may be high; The Spectre was one of the high-water marks in both our careers. We feel confident but not cocky. The Spectre was very much of its time and where we were in our careers but I think it also stands up today. Two TPBs have been issued from DC gathering some of the early issues; I hope they go on to collect the others as well.

All false modesty aside, I think it’s worth it.

Marc Alan Fishman: #DarkSideMatters

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By the time you read this, there will only be 46 days, 5 hours, 29 minutes, and 7 seconds until Star Wars: The Force, Black to the Future debuts. OK, I’m not even sure if that time calculation is right. I mean, who knows when you actually read my article, right? The point should not be missed though: the hype train is in full force for the next installment in Mickey Mouse’s epic empire. And boy howdy, could I give two poops less about it all.

Forgive me, Star Wars fans. The force is so very, very weak with me. My generation didn’t grow up with Star Wars, unless we had older brothers or sisters. Return of the Jedi debuted when I was two. And by the time I was old enough to even absorb any of the original trilogy, video rental was still only a rare occasion in my household, although Voltron was the singular entity that was a must. When Lucas re-released A New Hope and its brethren, I was deep within the heart of my own adolescence; so I eventually came to understand and appreciate the fandom. I won’t lie: I bought myself a lightsaber. I owned more than a few of the franchise video games, X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter being the crown jewel. I even spent a summer enjoying the collectible card game. But all of this was at an arm’s length.

When Phantom Menace debuted, I recall the insanity that swept the nation. Star Wars permeated every available licensing opportunity in every retail establishment as far as the eye could see. And then the movie actually came out. I remember the apologists extremely well. Sure, look past the overused CGI. Ignore the banal plot circling around trade negotiations. Pay no attention to Jar Jar Binks, Watoo, or any of the other obvious stereotypes that apparently caused no undue stress for the focus groups. But we all knew it. As good as the original movies were, the next generation of Star Wars felt hollow. When they made A New Hope, you could feel the … well… hope. By the time we’d reached Jedi, Star Wars was more machine than man. The prequels never had a chance.

Time heals all wounds … and J.J. Abrams heals all franchises. At least enough to please Disney and Lucas to pass the reigns over to him. And well they should. I happened to catch his Star Trek on basic cable the other night (I’d seen it in theater, but not since), and truly it held up. Not that any previous Trek movies were ever Star Wars in terms of mass appeal and profit, but the concept remains the same: Abrams is handed the keys to the castle, and is left to accentuate what we love, and maybe shine it up a little bit. But mark my words, we’ll be one misplaced lens flare away from instant satire.

But that isn’t why I’m ranting today.

Amidst the ramp up for The Force Awakens a few tidbits have permeated my news feed. Amongst them was the odd rise of a few bad apples calling to #BoycottStarWarsVII, via a Twitter campaign. Their argument: the new lead, John Boyega, is black. No, I couldn’t believe it either. I mean, sure, boycott Star Wars because Phantom really was that bad. Boycott it because the Hateful Eight will be coming out close to it and Tarantino has never steered us wrong.

To have a few trolls even insinuate that the placement of a black actor, or female in the lead of a major franchise was reason to save one’s shekels is laughable to me. So much so, that upon seeing it being mentioned on my news feed made me initially believe it to be the brainchild of a viral marketing campaign. Want to fight social injustice? See Star Wars. Tell me it’s not brilliant. But alas… there truly are still openly racist idiots throwing stones at an impenetrable fortress, in hopes of toppling a giant they can’t even comprehend. I’d like to think the franchise got it’s fill of minstrel tap dancing after Episode III ran final credits.

Far more disturbing to me than a few errant racists with Twitter accounts are the baby boomers with Facebook. I’ve seen more than a handful of reposts already calling for the “Spoiler Free” sharing of elation for one week after the film debuts. Because people aren’t capable of just avoiding Facebook until they see the movie. Or just as scary, the celebration of Star Wars Day at K-Mart (or Toys R Us, or Target, I think), wherein fans waited in line for hours for the opportunity to buy some toys. Or frightening me down to my core… the news that Fandango and AMC crashed like the Titanic over people preordering their tickets to opening night. That night well over a month and half away. I couldn’t even get a show time next week for Trumbo without consternation. Egads.

Look. I get it. Star Wars is to many of us, the literal gateway to our eventual geekdom. It’s what lay-people and nerdlingers can unite in mutual love for. The gentle hum of a lightsaber brings men to their knees, and boys to their feet. And to know that Han, Chewie, Luke, and Leia will once again be in our lives? Well the only thing that could make that better is if a soccer ball was a droid. Wait. It is?! Great googly-moogly, kiddos…

How can we just sit here and wait? Oh yeah! Patiently. At the end of the day, it’s only a movie. Even if it turns out to be as amazing as we’ll all hope (note: it won’t be, but it’ll be great), Episode VII will always miss the crucial ingredient that A New Hope had a long time ago. In a galaxy far away, The Force Awakens won’t have the magic of being something we haven’t seen before.

 

REVIEW: Terminator Genesys

terminator-genesys-cover-e1445723173785-2671516There was a wonderful science fiction romance in James Cameron’s original 1984 film The Terminator. It had a touch of everything: time travel, killer androids, romance, and hints of a technology gone haywire. It was shot on a modest budget with a familiar but not star cast, anchored by the hulking presence of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Ever since, though, the sequels have tended to eschew the original themes in favor of retreading immortal lines of dialogue, action pieces, and the eternal struggle between man and machine. With the exception of the first sequel, which introduced the world to the joys of CGI, they have been a middling mess. Even Fox’s The Sarah Connor Chronicles had more to do with a terminator trying to kill Sarah and/or John Connor than the large themes of man versus technology.

sarah-connor-9445900Therefore, it was refreshing to get back to basics in this summer’s Terminator Genesys.  The property is now in the hands of Paramount Pictures that wanted to refresh and reinvigorate the franchise. The reboot, out Tuesday on disc from Paramount Home Entertainment, does not ignore what came before it, but does also carve out a reality of its own. Right there is one of the more confounding aspects of the premise, since it starts in a parallel timeline merely paying lip service to the prime timeline (a similar conceit occurred in 2009’s Star Trek, also from Paramount). By presupposing you know the core elements, it defeats the fresh start aspect, keeping new audiences from falling in love with the T-800, Sarah, John, and Kyle Reese.

terminator-genesys-8804495The script from Patrick Lussier (Dracula 2000) and Laeta Kalogridis (Birds of Prey, Bionic Woman) requires a flow chart to determine which characters and elements belong to which timeline. We have a final showdown with Skynet in 2029, which has the human resistance accessing their time travel device. John Connor (Jason Clarke) sends his best friend Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to 1984 in order to protect Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) from the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) he knows will be sent to kill her. However, Reese arrives to see a T-1000 (Lee Byung-hun) on the attack and the Sarah he meets already knows her future. And more, she’s protected by an aging T-800 she calls “Pops”.

The timelines are altered the moment Reese is sent back in time and he crosses paths with his younger self who passes on the message, “Genesys is Skynet”. He knows what he needs to do but it immediately puts him at odds with Sarah, who hates feeling trapped by fate, reminded regularly by Pops that she is destined to mate with Kyle in order to produce John. He convinces her to come with him to 2017 to prevent Genesys, the killer app that will totally connect everyone and every device (I guess Linux, iOS and Windows) in one massive network. It would also give rise to the artificial intelligence that becomes Skynet (and takes shapes as Matthew Smith) and will determine humanity must be eradicated.

Then things blow up a lot.

arnold_schwarzenegger_terminator_genisys-wide-1940x1212-e1445723257368-3644848By the exhausting conclusion, people and things are put into place establishing a new status quo, a timeline not beholden to anything that came before. As a reboot, it’s fine. As a movie, it lacks some of the needed warmth and reason to exist. The post-credit scene hinting at a sequel was entirely superfluous and given the dismal box office, Paramount’s sequel plans are on indefinite hold. Producer Dana Goldberg admitted last month that they are taking time to find out what didn’t work for audiences so they can retool and try again. They’d better hurry since Arnold is already 67.

Emilia Clarke makes for a marvelous Daenerys on Game of Thrones but frequently lacks the steeliness we expect from Sarah, as previously depicted by Linda Hamilton and Lena Heady. On the other hand, she brings a warmth and humanity to Sarah not seen since the first film. Her chemistry with Schwarzenegger is strong, allowing us to enjoy his performance, which can border on self-mockery.

terminator-genesys-1-2414350Courtney and Jason Clarke are far too earnest and saddled with stiff dialogue, robbing them of chances to be real people rather than archetypes.

Still, the scene stealer throughout the film is J.K. Simmons as a cop who witnessed the events in 1984 and is the only one to believe Sarah and Kyle in 2017.

Visually, Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World) does a nice job with the sets, special effects, and action sequences. He’s less successful with people which is odd considering he cut his teeth on the character-heavy series Homicide, Oz, The Sopranos, and even Thrones.

The movie looks terrific on screen with a nice high definition transfer.  The Dolby Atmos sound track is even better so the hoe viewing experience is a strong one.

There are various versions to pick from including the standard Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD combo which was reviewed. The Blu-ray comes with just three bonus features: Family Dynamics, a look at the casting process as the crew extolls their various virtues; Infiltration and Termination, which explores the location shooting in San Francisco and New Orleans; and Upgrades: VFX of Terminator Genesis. No deleted scenes, commentary, or even gag reel.

Martha Thomases: Thanks For The Mammories

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The doctor was over an hour late for my mammogram appointment this morning. The only magazines in the office were about decorating and polo, and my phone was being wonky, so I had a lot of time to think.

As you might expect, I thought about breasts. A lot.

Too much.

Specifically, I wondered why, despite our culture’s obsession with breasts, especially among the adolescent man-children who make so many of our commercially artistic decisions, no one (to my knowledge) had ever considered what a super-powered breast might be like.

Even without fictional help, breasts have a lot of power. As mammals, we use them to feed our young. Our patriarchal culture judges a woman’s value (in part) by the firmness, size and perkiness of her tits. While some people (including a fair number of women) think this gives women power, I have never perceived it this way. Instead, in my experience, men think the mere fact that I have them means they can remark on how much they do or do not like them.

I don’t know a single woman who hasn’t had a stranger say something about her breasts. While there may be some women who make similarly unrequested comments to men, I’ve never heard about any and must suppose it to be a much less common phenomenon. Telling me what he thinks about my body parts is one way that a man can tell me that he thinks I exist for his appraisal and approval.

What if my breasts could actually be a source of physical or metaphysical power? What if the more than 30-years exposure to radiation charged them up to affect me the same way that radioactive spider affected Peter Parker?

Would they shoot out webbing like Spider-Man does from his hands, but from the nipples instead? Would the webbing be edible, like Twizzlers?

Or would they shoot out death-rays?

Perhaps they would be malleable like Mr. Fantastic’s body, able to change shape and size to rope in criminals, or cushion a fall.

They might turn rock hard, like The Thing, and make my rib-cage impenetrable, so that no one can shoot me in the heart.

Or perhaps they could jiggle at super-speed, creating veritable earthquakes to knock my antagonists off their feet or allowing me to vibrate through walls.

Or they might grow massively in size and strength, like the Hulk, when I get angry, allowing me to use them to smash any cat-caller who gets in my face.

Alas, none of this happened to me.

I did get a clean bill of health, which is a good thing. I urge you to do the same.

The Point Radio: Sean Bean Survives!

Sean Bean is alive and well and heading into a second season of the TNT action series LEGENDS (new episodes premiere on Monday). Sean, along with new show runner Ken Biller, talks about the big changes that start out this new season and how it is a great place for new fans to jump in. Plus Dave Kindig knows BITCHIN RIDES. His car lovers’ series is into season two on Velocity and he talks about why so many of us are fascinated with four wheel toys.

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Tweeks: Supergirl Review

Supergirl premiered on CBS Monday night setting a Fall series record of 14 million viewers. It was an undeniable teen hit with both boys and girls. And of course we watched it too.

But as critical fans of all things being superhero-y while female, did we enjoy it? Duh. But was her costume Tweeks Approved too? How does this show stack up against Agent Carter? Considering the middle school pressure to blend in would we keep their superhero powers a secret? Watch our review to find out the answers.

Dennis O’Neil: What Is Star Wars?

heinlein_waldomagicinc-6000405We ended last week’s dissertation by asking if superhero stories are science fiction. You remember? Good. I cherish your acuity. And, acute citizen that you are, you have already broadened the question to include pulp stories and entertainments like the Star Wars franchise.

Let’s focus on that, for surely we are all familiar with it. The Star Wars saga has spaceships, ray guns, bizarre aliens and even a girl who is clad in a harem costume for no other reason, apparently, than that she’s awfully cute: all stuff that used to be staples of science fiction, especially the pulpy kind. But I don’t recall those words – science fiction – being used to describe anything Star Warsian. And the stories themselves contain no references to real world (universe) science or extrapolation from current reality. In fact, the storytellers go out of their way to deny any such connections: the first movie begins with the words “Long, long ago in a galaxy far away…” In other words, dear moviegoer, you can hunker back in your seat and forget about measuring what’s happening on the screen against what’s possible. Dammit, just enjoy!

But here a conundrum puts us in mud. If something looks like science fiction and acts like science fiction, don’t those qualities, in fact, make it science fiction? You’re asking me? (Perhaps I should have tried harder not to doze during those eight a.m. philosophy classes, though I don’t know if Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysics would contribute much to our discourse.) As noted above, a conundrum, and one with no ready solution.

We know that civilization would be well-nigh impossible without classification, codification, grouping the chores that absorbed Linneaus and Aristotle and their ilk. We have to know what things are and we have to have names for them if we want to talk about them, which we do. Let us unequivocally approve of calling things names and giving those names precise meanings. None of which tells us what Star Wars is.

I’m hardly the first to address this problem. A few decades ago, around 1940, well before Star Wars, someone coined the term “science fantasy” for Robert Heinlein’s novel Magic Inc. Maybe that’s as close as we can come, right now. As the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction tells us, “science fantasy” has never been clearly defined. So maybe we’re stuck with it.

But...bleech! Generally I feel kindly toward oxymorons and that’s what I believe this is, but something about it irritates me. It’s clunky, right? Can’t we do better by Star Wars? Find a new classification? Or… hmmmm maybe we’re in the process of evolving past our need to classify. And wouldn’t that be interesting, and significant, and just possibly scary?

Maybe they’ve already done it, those inhabitants of a long ago in a galaxy far away.

REVIEW: James Bond Limited Edition Blu-ray Steelbooks

steelbook-blu-ray-james-bond-casino-royaleJames Bond endures, with the 24th film, Spectre, scheduled to open November 6. The sinister organization has plagued 007 from the earliest films but have yet to rear their hoary heads in the current incarnation with Daniel Craig as Bond.

For those who are new to MI-6 and international espionage, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM) and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment want you to come up to speed. To that end, they have released seven of the films in special edition Blu-rays, DVDs and collectible box-sets.

The Limited Edition Blu-ray Steelbooks spotlight the six films featuring the SPECTRE organization (From Russia With Love, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, For Your Eyes Only) and the three recent features (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall) each featuring packaging inspired by the films’ iconic opening title sequences.

steelbook-james-bond-collection-e1445724046972-3845363For those who own these in some other high definition incarnation, you won’t need these. They contain the same special features although they do come with Digital HD codes.

The Steelbooks are solid, durable and visually attractive. Each one is distinctive just like their title sequences, carrying on the Maurice Binder tradition.

So, how do the films hold up? Sean Connery set the tone all others have attempted to match with varying degrees of success. The Cold War tensions infuse Russia along with some thrilling, authentic action sequences. A real sense of spectacle can be found on Thunderball, given all the aquatic Deering-do. Ernst Stavro Blofeld, played by a variety of actors, menaces Bond time and again but the worst may well be in On Her Majesty’s Secret service, the once-reviled George Lazenby vehicle. It is far better than its rep and packs an emotional wallop.

Roger Moore’s more erudite and comical Bond shows up in For Your Eyes Only and is among the best of his outings.

It is currently up to Craig to carry on the tradition and despite looking nothing like Ian Fleming’s prose descriptions, he brings the right danger and gravitas to the role as the franchise received an overdue freshening. The rebirth cycle took three films with Spectre tidying up loose ends.

If you don’t want the entire 23 films (and some are clearly lesser offerings), the Steelbooks are not a bad sampler to have.

If you missed Bond 50, there is also The Ultimate James Bond Collection features all 23 films together in one Blu-ray box-set, which includes a 24th space for Spectre. This one also offers “Everything or Nothing”, a 90-minute documentary on the untold story of 007 and a pocket-sized James Bond 50 Years of Movie Posters book including the best posters from Dr. No through to SPECTRE.  This collection will is exclusively available at Amazon.com.

Molly Jackson: Time for Treats!

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It’s a fun week in NYC, with everyone getting into the Halloween spirit. At my day job, I was chatting with some of my co-workers about the upcoming festivities. They were talking about taking their kids trick-or-treating. Since this is city living, they were talking about the trick-or-treating event at their local mall.

Growing up in the suburbs, I always had tons of houses to hit up for candy. Going out on Halloween wasn’t a special event, it was serious business. I wasn’t really in it for my costume, it was all about the trick-or-treating. Getting all that candy require planning and dedication. I loved every minute of it. Because, free candy. If it were socially acceptable for a 32 year-old, I would still go trick-or-treating today.

However, different locations mean something different for Halloween. City kids go to events either at stores or a building that sets hours. It all seems so weird to me. As you can probably tell, I have such fond memories of demanding candy from strangers. That sounds wrong but that is exactly what trick-or-treating is: politely demanding candy from strangers.

I did make it a point to let them know about Halloween Comic Fest. This is the fall’s answer to Free Comic Book Day, where stores hand out some free, Halloween-inspired comics to kids of all ages. This event is usually a smaller affair than FCBD but still just as fun. Plus this year is extra-special because it actually lands on Halloween. The majority of the books are usually all-ages, which makes it an even better event for all those trick-or-treating city kids going to stores.

Trick-or-treating has evolved and adapted to fit the needs of every community, so it is interesting to learn about how it has changed. Still, I miss my days of walking for miles and obtaining a gold mine of candy. At least I have Discount Candy Day (a.k.a. Nov. 1st) to look forward to!

Until next week! Enjoy your tricks, treats, and forthcoming cavities.

 

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