Big Comic News

One comics site referred to the New York Daily News coverage of it as "the biggest comics spoiler EVER" (which is a bit over the top) but something rather large does indeed happen at the end of this week's DC Universe # 0, which I just finished reading.

For the spoiler-averse among you, do not roll your cursor over the words between here one of my all-time favourite characters - Barry "Flash" Allen - apparently returns to life, and the DCU, just in time for Final Crisis and here. I will, however, say that my interest in the upcoming Final Crisis series just went up a notch. That doesn't mean that DC can't still screw the pooch on this, but at least now they've succeeded in getting my attention!

In Happier News...

I just downloaded the Resistance 2 teaser trailer on my PS/3 and it's got a pretty nice visual to it! At the end it declares that "The invasion begins Friday, June 13." At first I took that to mean that the game itself was due out in only a month and a half, but it sounds like it's a full gameplay trailer that debuts on that date, with the game launch still another several months later still ("the fall"). Even the very brief teaser that I now have, though, is enough to keep me interested and salivating. (You can see the teaser much less impressively here if you like.)

Grand Theft Auto IV, on the other hand... not so much!

All Over But The Crying

I didn't even watch Game 3 of the Rangers/Penguins series tonight - we played Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction instead - but I see it was yet another loss for the boys from Broadway. This makes it 3-0 Pittsburgh and all but guarantees there will be at least one Pennsylvania team in the Eastern Conference Final... I just now have to hope there's actually two Keystone State teams there! If that happened, it wouldn't be a complete disaster for this Rangers-loving, Habs-hating fan.

It's Like A License To Print Money...

Today, I noticed that I'd made my third online sale of a copy of The Real-Life Adventures of AgileMan (Lessons Learned in Going Agile) via the Lulu site. I know who the first sale went to (confirmed by the buyer, shortly after it happened), but have only theories so far as to the identities of the two subsequent purchasers. They could be complete strangers, who searched for Agile books at Lulu and found mine, but more likely are people who've been pointed to the website by me, or by friends and family (or co-workers). I may or may not find out eventually who bought the latest copies.

And that got me thinking... When I make an online sale of the book without having to do anything - I don't have to pay to order the copy originally, I don't have to convince anyone to buy a copy and I don't have to "request" payment from them - it all seems quite magical to me! Today's sale, for example, will net me about $13 in profit, despite me not doing anything beyond writing and publishing the book way back when! In theory, I could still be making money through online sales of the book weeks, months or even years from now! Imagine being a famous author, like a Stephen King, Michael Crichton or Neil Gaiman, and having royalty cheques coming in for the rest of your life for things you'd written decades earlier! What a concept!

I think the reason such a thing seems so revolutionary to me is that I've always only made money in a more direct and limited fashion. I do something, and I get paid for it. Once! Even selling comics on eBay, when I was doing that, was a 1-for-1 deal: this item sells once, and makes me that much money. The notion of producing something once, and then (in theory) making money off of it again and again and again is just... really cool! Even if I only ever make dozens of dollars, instead of the millions that others may make, it's still really cool!

It's almost enough to make me want to be a writer for real!

Weekend Of Woe For Rangers Fans

After losing a 5-4 shootout with the Penguins on Friday night, this afternoon the New York Rangers played a much tighter game, but with the same result: another Penguins victory, this time 2-0 (with an empty netter).

I'd hoped that the Rangers could improve upon last year's playoff success, but right now it looks like they'll only match it in terms of how deep they go into the postseason. And if this series continues along the current lines, they may actually be swept out of the Second Round and finish with a losing record (4-5, compared to their 6-4 result in 2007). I just hope the Pens are as good as they look, because if they face the Canadiens in the Conference Finals they damn well better be able to knock those jerks out!

Another Countdown Ends

This past Wednesday, DC's latest weekly comic stumbled and fell across the finish line, completing a journey that now seems largely wasted. This 51-issue series that has been almost universally-panned by fans and critics alike, managed just one noteworthy feat: like 52 before it, Countdown provided a new issue to the reader each and every week, like clockwork, for (essentially) one solid year.

DC had originally planned Countdown as a 52-issue run which would employ reverse numbering, starting with # 51, then # 50, and so on down before finally wrapping up with a (Jimmy Hinckley-friendly) final issue, numbered zero. Partway through its existence, however, plans changed, and Countdown # 0 morphed into DC Universe # 0 (which is out next week, for a bargain basement price of a mere $0.50), meaning that this particular weekly series came up one week short of a year.

So, yes, Countdown came out reliably, and I give DC a non-trivial amount of credit for that. It's a tough act to follow one year-long weekly comic with a second one, but they did it. But was it any good? Frankly, it was almost without exception quite crappy! There were a few issues in the second half of the run that actually got me interested, but even they didn't really go anywhere. We got to see the events leading up to Kamandi's tale (the last boy on Earth), but so many plot holes were left unfilled that it might as well have been an Elseworlds story (which, given the use of the DC Multiverse, I guess it sort of was). I didn't buy Mary Marvel going bad for a minute, and yet here we are now, stuck with a "Black Mary" character who I couldn't care less about. I was sick of Jimmy Olsen by the second issue, and hadn't changed my opinion of him one iota by the time the series wrapped up. None of the recurring characters were engaging, in fact. And other than killing off the New Gods - which, I believe, actually happened in the Death of the New Gods mini-series that ran alongside Countdown - I'm not sure anything of any import happened in the 51 issues. That's approximately $150 of the consumer's money, for... what? 51 reliable installments of pretty bad comic stories.

I have higher hopes for the third DC weekly, Trinity, but if it doesn't deliver then I'm dropping it. And yes, I said the same thing about Countdown before it started up, but I also asked to have it reserved at the comic store, after which I felt obliged to stick with it (since at any given point during the last year, the next 3 months' worth of issues had already been ordered by the store and I didn't want to leave the owner holding the bag, as it were). No such "pull order" has been placed by Your Humble Blogger on Trinity, as I'm not about to get burned like that again!

Rangers Blow 3-0 Lead, Lose Opener To Penguins

It's been just that kind of a last 24 hours. Our settop box gets turned into a brick on the busiest TV night of the week so that we miss most of the Thursday line-up (thanks, Rogers!), I get about three hours of sleep, pretty much nothing goes right at work all day, and then I get to watch the Rangers open the Second Round of the playoffs with a 5-4 loss after getting an early 3-0 lead. Oh, and yes, another goal went in behind Lundqvist off a Rangers player! It should be a short series if tonight's choke performance is any indication.

Not The World's Best Case Of Timing

On the night that the NHL playoffs start Round 2, and my favourite TV show - Lost - returns with new episodes, I came home to discover that our Scientific Atlanta cable box has decided that we're no longer authorized to use it! We've called Rogers three times already, and they keep attempting to fix the situation, but as of right now - three hours after the first call and just over an hour before Lost starts - we're still confined to watching our TV in Standard Definition mode. Ugh. How did we ever watch television this way for all those years?

A Simple Matter Of Perspective

This story made me laugh out loud. I'd so love to know if the "90-degree different" image was intentional or not! If OGC ends up abandoning the logo, I can think of a company or two that might want to adopt it...

Record Numbers Of Visitors Have Come Here Recently

I just simply can't imagine what to possibly attribute the increased traffic here lately to... unless of course it's word of mouth about The Real-Life Adventures of AgileMan (Lessons Learned in Going Agile), catching on like wildfire!

That must be it!

Rangers Vs Penguins In Round Two

The Flyers just won their series against the Caps in overtime of Game 7, sending the Rangers on the road to Pittsburgh sometime later this week. Montreal will host the Flyers when their series starts.

I wasn't feeling particularly good about the Rangers' chances against either the # 1 or # 2 seeds in the second round, but unfortunately once Boston was eliminated, they had to play one of them next. I guess one's as good - or bad - as the other, in that sense.

Congrats to the Capitals for making such a great run at the end of the regular season, and for pushing Philadelphia right to the very edge of elimination in Round One. It'll be interesting to see what that franchise is like next year.

The Western Conference matchups are still to be determined, as Game 7 between Calgary and San Jose is just getting underway on the West Coast. Detroit will play a C-team (Colorado or Calgary), Colorado will draw one of the D-teams (Detroit or Dallas) and Dallas will face either the Sharks or Avalanche.

Have You Heard? My Agile Book's A "Best Seller!"

We were joking at work today when I crossed the "25 copies sold" milestone that I'd achieved "best seller" status... I was quick to point out that it was, indeed, the best selling book that I'd ever written! Of course, it had had that distinction since the first copy was sold more than 2 weeks ago!

I'm delighted that so many more copies have sold than I had ever dared hoped for! There hasn't been a whole lot of feedback from the people who now own a copy, though... which I hope isn't an indication that most of them haven't read it yet! After all, I wrote it to be read. So feel free to post your open and honest reactions to The Real-Life Adventures of AgileMan (Lessons Learned in Going Agile) right here, if you have any. Better yet would be to post a review at the Lulu site for the book, but that's a lot to ask, I realize. Also, recommend it to your friends, if you're so inclined... I don't mind! I've got lots of copies left! :-)

25 freakin' copies sold.... who'd have ever thunk it?!

Huh.

"Open and honest communication" doesn't always mean what you might think it would mean. Good to know!

That is all.

Why Neil Is Great

Just go ahead and read this post from Neil Gaiman's blog, and note the way he handles things like being (repeatedly) misquoted as a good indication of just how much class the guy has. He's not only a wonderful writer; he's a good person, too! We could all learn from Mr Gaiman, including some folks who work with me and get bent out of shape by things I say here.

Am I One Of The World's Most Prolific Bloggers?

Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I ask the question: am I among the planet's most prolific bloggers?

I'm talking about people who write single-author blogs only, rather than community blogs like The Studio. And at the moment I'm focused on number of posts, rather than word count (because the latter's harder to measure when viewing a blog). I did a search on "prolific blogger" and most of the results were people who had several blogs, but usually the sum total of all of their blog posts was still under 1000. Are there people out there who've single-handedly published 1500+ blog posts, not counting silly things that are done just to drive up post counts?

Not that it really matters, but sometimes I wonder about these things.

Final Secret Crisis Invasion

With Marvel's Secret Invasion series having debuted a few weeks ago and the launch of DC's Final Crisis only about six weeks away, now seems like a good time to consider each series for a moment or two.

I've already described Secret Invasion, in which chameleon-like Skrulls have apparently infiltrated the Earth and are threatening to take over, but what is Final Crisis all about? As the title suggests, it's at least tangentially related to 1986's Crisis on Infinite Earths and 2005's Infinite Crisis. At the New York Comic Convention this weekend, Final Crisis was described as "the final saga of the multiverse." It's also been tagged as "the day evil won." Apparently some really bad stuff happens, on a cosmic level, "and the DC Universe will never be the same again." At least one well-established Justice Leaguer is alleged to be killed during it (Internet speculation is that it'll be the Martian Manhunter). To which I say: yawn!

Now, it's entirely possible that writer Grant Morrison and artist J.G. Jones will knock my socks off with their 7 issues of Final Crisis. But if they do, it'll be a very pleasant surprise for this fan. Central to the plot are Jack Kirby's New Gods characters, who I quite frankly have zero interest in. I didn't find any of Kirby's 1970s work to be the least bit appealing, either when it was coming out, or since. The characters themselves - Darkseid, Orion, Metron, Mister Miracle, Big Barda, etc - all seem two dimensional at best, with the same notes being struck every time they appear. Other fans have seemed enthralled by these archetypes, including the aforementioned Grant Morrison, but to me they're just blah. Beyond the so-called Fourth World cast, what I get out of what I've heard about Final Crisis is that something will occur that changes the basic nature of DC's multiverse. That would be the multiverse that they've done almost nothing worthwhile with since re-introducing it a couple years ago? Yeah. I wonder why my expectations are so low, hmmm?

On the Marvel side, Secret Invasion posits a world in which no one can be trusted, because they might be an evil, shape-shifting alien in disguise. I can see some good potential there, but considering that the series will spill over into dozens of other comics beyond the 8-issue mini-series, is it really deep enough of a concept to carry that much story? Somewhat reminiscent of DC's (rather crappy) Millennium series from the 80s, Secret Invasion could similarly fall into the trap of simply being a "shock of the week" series, as character after character is revealed to be an imposter... or are they? I think the true measure of this event will be what tales come out of it in the year or two immediately after the central series wraps up. Civil War continues to leave its fingerprints on the Marvel Universe, for example, but nothing really new seems to have come out of it in that time.

By the same token, will Final Crisis have any lasting impact? Wasn't the DC Universe supposed to lighten up following Infinite Crisis? If so, was that it? Did I blink and miss the 2nd Golden Age? With some of the downright depressing storylines that DC's run over the past year - in Batman, Checkmate, Countdown, Salvation Run, and Green Lantern, just to name a few off the top of my head - I kind of thought that we were still waiting for that particular makeover to start!

It's entirely possible that Morrison has something incredible up his sleeve, but considering that his Seven Soldiers series of a few years back left me cold, I'm not feeling all that optimistic right now. While I dearly loved his early issues of Animal Man and JLA, the majority of his work of late has been mildly entertaining, at best. I don't know if maybe he's doing brilliant work and I'm just too dense to get it, but it certainly hasn't worked for me.

On the art front, I can safely give the nod to Final Crisis. Jones is a good artist, as he showed with 52 great covers on 52. Leinil Yu, the Secret Invasion artist, is more of an acquired taste... and one that I haven't picked up, personally! Most of his characters just look wrong to me, and not in a "oooh, he's a Skrull!" sort of way, either! I can live with Yu's style on a series that's well written, but it definitely adds nothing to the experience for me.

Ultimately, I'm not looking forward to either series with the kind of fanboy enthusiasm that previous events have gripped me in. On the other hand, I'm planning to buy both, and expect that I'll get my money's worth... just maybe not much beyond that!

Improve Your Vocabulary And Feed The Poor

Vicki suggested that I point people to this site at which you can take simple vocabulary tests and have rice donated to the world's hungry for your efforts... and so I have!

An Amazing Third Period Of Hockey!

I'm not sure if Boneman's still among the living following the heart-stopping third period of tonight's Boston/Montreal Game 6, but if he is then he should be a very happy guy right about now!

The period started with the Habs up 2-1 and then the two team blew the doors off the place for a final score of Boston 5, Montreal 4. That's right: they scored twice as many goals in the last period as they had in the first two! Montreal held leads of 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2, while Boston briefly lead 4-3 (for 11 seconds) and then went ahead 5-4 with 2:37 left. It was end to end action, with lots of scoring and even more golden opportunities that came up short. Along that line, the Bruins hit at least three pipes (goal posts and crossbars) over the course of the game, meaning that the goal total could've easily been even higher. (The added bonus to the great game and the Bruins winning to extend the series was seeing Habs goalie Carey Price give up 5 goals for the second consecutive game.) This was quite simply the most exciting (non-New York Rangers) period of hockey that I've seen in a long time!

So now we know that there will be at least one Game 7 in this year's first round of NHL playoffs. And what a Game 7: Original Six rivals Boston and Montreal, playing for the 15th time this season (between regular season and playoffs). The Canadiens hold all of the statistical edges, including historical head-to-head results and the season series between the two, but Boston's now won the last two... so anything can happen!

Six Of Eight First Round Series Will Go At Least Six Games

After my complaints last fall about how the baseball playoffs started off with so many short series (three of the four Divisional Series were sweeps), I'm happy to see that three-quarters of the NHL's first rounders will last at least six games. Only one series ended in a sweep - Pittsburgh over the Senators - and now we know that only one of them will end in five games - the Rangers' ejection of the Devils - with every other series now sitting at 3-2 heading into Game 6, thanks to the Capitals' gutsy win over the Flyers this afternoon and the defending champion Ducks staving off elimination late last night against Dallas.

With that many Game 6s, what are the odds that we'll get at least one or two Game 7s in the first round? Well, let's see (looking at those teams who are up 3-2 right now):

- Montreal is in Boston tonight, and if there's any momentum to be had, the Bruins should have it, but...; hopefully it goes 7 but this is more a case of me crossing my fingers than really believing it will happen! [Update: Game 7 is now set for Montreal on Monday night!]

- the Flyers head home for Game 6 on Monday night having just missed one chance to close out the series in Washington; I suspect that the home town crowd, in front of whom Philadelphia won both earlier games in the series, may be enough to prevent a Game 7 from being needed [Update: Yet another wrong prediction, as the Caps overcame a 2-0 deficit tonight to win 4-2, and force a Game 7 tomorrow night.]

- Detroit was unable to win either of the two games in Nashville so far, so why would I expect them to be able to pull it off tomorrow afternoon? This has been a homer series to date, and so I could definitely see this one going the distance [Update: Wrong again... So much for the home team winning each game! Detroit blanked the Preds 3-0 in Game 6 and so avoided a seventh game in Round One.]

- San Jose and Calgary had been alternating wins through the first four games, but then the Sharks managed back-to-back victories to take their 3-2 lead; I can't see the Flames losing three in a row, especially with Game 6 at home tomorrow night, and so I'll predict a Game 7 in this series [Update: A good prediction this time around, as Calgary blanked the Sharks 2-0 to force one more game back in San Jose.]

- Colorado is at home tonight with a chance to close out the Wild, the latter of whom still haven't scored a second period goal in this series yet, and only have one first period goal through five games! I like the Avalanche's chances of avoiding a "winner take all" game back in Minnesota [Update: I got this one right, as the Avalanche held on to a third period 2-1 lead last night and became the first Western Conference team to advance to the second round.]

- Dallas gets a second crack at knocking off the champs when they host Game 6 tomorrow night; considering that the Ducks didn't even show up for the first two games, it feels like they've got the momentum now and they'll probably force a Game 7 [Update: Well, the Ducks didn't look a team with any momentum in Game 6 in Dallas, as they took a 1-0 lead into the third period and then put forth a flat effort for the final 20 minutes and lost 4-1. No Game 7 to see here!]

In other words, I'm expecting roughly half of the series to extend to a seventh game (Detroit/Nashville, SJ/Calgary, Dallas/Anaheim) which probably means that it'll actually be the other three that do so! After all, predictions aren't exactly my strong suit! But that doesn't stop me from making them every once in a while. [Update: Well, I was 2 for 6, which is about my usual accuracy rate at predicting sporting events! Yes, flipping a coin would be a better tactic! So what's your point? Besides, I did correctly guess that three of the six Game 6s would result in a Game 7!]

[Update on the Rangers' opponents for the 2nd round: Following Boston's loss in Game 7, the Rangers now know they will play either Montreal or Pittsburgh. They'll find out which one tomorrow night, when the Flyers/Caps series is settled.]

Nail-Biter Of A Third Period, But Rangers Advance!

After getting up 4-1 in the 2nd period of Game 5 against the Devils tonight, the Rangers let New Jersey claw back to 4-3 before the period was over. In the final frame, John Madden terrifyingly had a chance to tie the game on a penalty shot, but fortunately Henrik Lundqvist stood tall and kept his team in front on the scoreboard.

Several excruciating minutes later, with the Devils dominating play in their frenzied attempt to draw even, Brodeur came out for the sixth skater just long enough for rookie Brandon Dubinsky to pot a beautiful empty netter and help his team post their second consecutive 5-3 win over their hated rivals. With that, they dispatched the Devils almost as convincingly as the Rangers themselves had been knocked out by New Jersey in the first round two years ago. Particularly noteworthy this time around was the fact that the two teams met 13 times, between regular season and the playoffs, with New York winning 11 of those games and both losses coming after regulation had ended. That's a pretty impressive bit of domination, especially when you consider the Devils finished 4th in their conference and tallied almost 100 points in the regular campaign. Not exactly a pushover club for the Rangers to beat 11 times in 13 meetings!

And so for the second year in a row, the Rangers have advanced past the first round of the postseason. According to my calculations, they'll face one of the following four teams next:

• Montreal, if both the Habs and Capitals win their series [season series results: NYR got 7 of 8 possible pts, Mtl got 3 of 8 possible pts];
• Pittsburgh, if Montreal and Philadelphia both win their series (this seems the most likely scenario, as those teams are both leading their respective series currently) [season series results: NYR got 10 of 16 possible pts, Pit got 8 of 16 possible pts];
• Washington, if the Capitals and Bruins both prevail in their series [season series results: NYR got 6 of 8 possible pts, Wash got 4 of 8 possible pts]; or
• Philadelphia, if the Flyers and Bruins both complete upset wins in the first round (this is the only scenario where the Rangers would actually have home ice advantage in the second round) [season series results: NYR got 12 of 16 possible pts, Phil got 8 of 16 possible pts].

Obviously, at this point, I'm not favouring any of the above teams over any other. I'm still just a-glow with the prospect of New York Rangers hockey continuing for at least another four games!