It is a Good Day to Diet

"I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter of my grandmother's journal."
- Dr. Beverly Crusher
CMO, USS Enterprise

Like most normal people I have an assortment of Star Trek themed candy bars on display on a shelf in my house. When "Star Trek: First Contact" was released in 1996 I was completely oblivious to these promotional chocolate bars.
But I recently tripped over them on eBay. I bid. I won. I paid. And I received. Up on the shelf they went and as they sat there classing up the place, life just seemed to make a little more sense.

But as they say, "All good things..."

My house recently made first contact with a few mice who decided to do a full on Cardassian vole-style rampage on my collectible edibles. The first casualty? Dr. Beverly Crusher.
Always getting the short end of the deal when it came to TV or movie screen time, Dr Crusher once again takes a hit as her chocolate bar was selected for rodent nourishment. Resistance was apparently futile.

The mice weren't even receptive to taking bribes as my chocolate Gold Pressed Latinum bar was also acquired. Damage Report:
Ok, so maybe it's not exactly the Khitomer Massacre, but it's a sad day in the history of Star Trek promotional candy. To better understand how bad things can happen to good candy, I set up a reenactment with tribbles in place of the mice. On the left, portraying mouse #1 is Gary and on the right, portraying mouse #2 is Roberta. This is how I imagine it went down:
Brutal and unyielding, the tribble-mice mercilessly chomped away like they were in a storage compartment full of quadrotriticale. A good portion of my patience was also nibbled away and as far as the mice go, I am now taking my phasers off stun.

From a "the glass of Romulan Ale is half full" perspective, this incident does allow me to knowingly and willfully open an item and (gasp) remove it from its packaging.
The Latinum bar hasn't aged well and interestingly the Crusher bar has an imprint of a ship that reads "Vulcan Lander," thereby spoiling the end of the movie. Thanks a lot Dr. Crusher. No wonder people don't like you.

Reese's Bat Stuff

"You got Batman in my peanut butter! You got peanut butter in my Batman!" Sounds a lot worse than it actually is. Reese's comes to the Dark Knight party a little late with both the Special Edition Reese's Pieces and the Special Edition Reese's Peanut Butter Bat.

To be fair these have probably been out for a while but a Sunday trip to the Dollar Store almost always leads to blog fodder. The Peanut Butter Bat is the clear winner here as it makes the extra effort of actually taking the shape of a bat...or a bat shaped object...ok, maybe it's not perfect but it certainly edges out the Reese's Pieces.

Apparently making the colors black and blue somehow make it related to Batman. They're still good but they don't exactly scream, "Batman!"

While I'm on the topic of Gotham, we at the Comic Book Literacy Documentary are planning a trip to New York City this summer to shoot interviews for the documentary. We're putting the word out that we will be looking for New York based comic book professionals and educators to interview for the film. Interested? Contact us.

"Dinosaurs Alive!" touring exhibit

Communing with nature typically brings about a sense of tranquility. A spring breeze, the crackling of autumn leaves, the roaring of a hungry robot Therizinosaurus, they can all lead to a heightened sense of centeredness. This zen-like level of awareness is capable just by taking a simple trip down Hoot Owl Trail.

The Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary is known for its work in environmental restoration, raptor rehabilitation (bird-raptors, not necessarily dinosaur-raptors) and acres of hiking trails. Most notably for me, however, is that it is the latest stop of the "Dinosaurs Alive!" traveling exhibit.

Now, think of the greatest museum exhibit you've ever seen. I'm sure that as you were enjoying that exhibit you were thinking, "The only thing that would make this better would be a robotic component and some type of dinosaur." Well I absolutely agree. There's an old Celtic saying, "No matter what it is, robot dinosaurs make it better." So let's hit the trail

The "Dinosaurs Alive!" touring exhibit travels the country to bring "dino-robotly" goodness to the masses. Its latest stop at the Heard includes a dozen roaring, robotic thunder lizards strewn across the Hoot Owl & Sycamore hiking trails.

They move. They growl. They even spit.

Yes, perhaps bowing from Hollywood pressure, the Dilophosaurus is fully equipped with a spitting feature. I didn't have the guts to stand in front and actually get spat upon but on a warmer day I can certainly see it as a refreshing change of pace from stodgier museum exhibits that don't spit on you. (assuming that the "spit" is actually water and not some kind of face melting acid)

As much as I love robot dinosaurs even I wasn't oblivious to noticing a flaw or two. For example, it seems the Amargasaurus was meant for a brushier, greener local. Ideally the alpha Amargasaurus stands in front as the others poke their heads through the bushes. However, the month of January is not terribly conducive to this type of presentation.

So what we end up with is "Amarga Prime" surrounding by the mysterious, severed floating heads of his friends. It took a good fifteen minutes of staring to figure out exactly what was happening. Unforgivable? Certainly not. The best laid plans are always at the mercy of the weather. And I've never heard of anyone complaining about too many robot dinosaur heads.

Floating heads, notwithstanding, I'm sure you can figure out who the big man on this campus was. Here he is:

Surely there were bigger and more ferocious dinosaurs, but none of them had as good of a press agent of the T-Rex. As such, he is the anchor and grand finale of the trail. Kids ran in fear, gasped in awe and crapped pants out of panic. Tears were shed, rocks were thrown and everyone walked away a little more educated.

All in all, we come away from the exhibit with the understanding that even though man and robot dinosaurs are natural enemies, we can all hike the same nature trails.


Roar!

Holiday Geek Parade

Let's face it, most holiday parades are overshadowed by Macy's bloated cavalcade of d-listers and dance numbers. For many, anything less is usually considered a bargain basement motorcade. Not true, however, as Dallas' Neiman Marcus Adolphus Children's Parade crams downtown's Commerce Street with enough holiday hullabaloo to choke eight tiny reindeer.

In the past I've given little thought to parades in general since the only elements that ever grabbed my attention were the giant balloons shaped like playthings from the past. Luckily I didn't have to wait long.


Attention getting? Sure. The Mr. Potato Head balloon was enough make me take notice. But my short attention span demands more fanboyish sights to hold my interest. So in an effort to force my sadly myopic view onto the world, here are the geeky highlights of the 2008 Neiman Marcus Adolphus Children's Parade:


One thing that may be important to note is that when an object is in motion, it tends to be difficult to take a picture of it that is in focus. So that's my lame excuse for this slightly out of focus picture of Iron Man. It's a shame too because he had one of the cooler costumes of all the characters in the parade. Oh well, there's always next Christmas.


The fighting 501st Garrison made an appearance, trooping through the procession, on their way to becoming cannon fodder. It's true, no one can take a blaster shot to the face like a Storm Trooper.


No float could contain the Amazing Spider-man or his amazing hand shaking powers. One wonders if Spidey feels he needs to work a little harder and vamp for the crowd as a way of damage control for the crappy reviews from his last movie. As you saw, the well reviewed Iron Man stayed comfortably perched on his fire truck. Speaking of which:


So did a particularly creepy looking version of the Hulk. Instead of hearing cries of "Hulk smash!" We got bellows of "Hulk feeling a little cocky after comeback movie! Hulk will most likely be in Avengers movie so Hulk not have to make effort to work crowd like Spider-man."

That's all fine and good but at the very least I thought he could have worn one of the cute little Santa hats.

So on that note of overconfidence the parade comes to a close. Nothing left to do but watch the guys dressed like Elvis clean up the horse poop.


Happy Festivus everyone!

Latest Shoot: Wizard World University

This movie just doesn't seem to want to make itself so out came the camera and off we went to Wizard World Texas.

This year Wizard World Texas hosted Wizard World University, an academic track of programming created alongside the Institute for Comics Studies. Saturday's "Comics in the Classroom" panel featured none other than CBL producer Khindra Kent and her presentation, " Comic Book Literacy in the Early Childhood Classroom."

Joining her on the panel were Weldon Adams (Overstreet Price Guide Advisor) presenting "Comics Strips as Classroom Material" and Stephen T. Varela (University of Texas - El Paso) presenting " Re-Canonization: Transforming the English Curriculum with the Grapic Novel." The room was packed and there was a genuine sense of excitement and support for the topic.

Afterward we were able to interview several Wizard World University participants.

Above: Interviewing Travis Langley, WWU-T Provost and professor of psychology.

Special thanks to everyone at Wizard World and ICS who helped out and made this shoot successful.

Comic Book Literacy at Wizard World Texas

This time let's have dessert first. Hostess Hulk Cakes, anyone?

If you say "Hulk Cake" really fast it almost, kinda sounds like "cup cake." Which is what they fundamentally are but, as always, green food coloring, sprinkles and revamped packaging turns an everyday, mild mannered lunchbox treat into a gamma radiated beast intent on dessert domination.

Add on a half-assed attempt at a holiday tie-in (these are "Hostess Scary Cakes"...scary...like Halloween...) and we've got a real cafeteria commodity here. Sure, the cynical might point out that the cream center could also have been green but the goo's shear gooeyness makes up for any tonal indiscretion. In fact, the goo amps up the sweetness factor so much that eating one of these may be a life experience equivalent to being punched in the face by the Hulk himself.

And if it seems like I'm waaay too excited about these things, it may be because I rarely eat sugar. So after two of these I'm about ready to throw on the purple pants and go on my own Hulk-style rampage.

On to the main course:


Join us Saturday November 8th for Wizard World University at Wizard World Texas. At 2:00 the "Comics in the Classroom" Panel will feature Comic Book Literacy producer Khindra Kent as she speaks about the utilization of comics in early education.

The panel also includes Weldon Adams (Overstreet Price Guide Advisor) presenting "Comics Strips as Classroom Material" and Stephen T. Varela (University of Texas - El Paso) presenting " Re-Canonization: Transforming the English Curriculum with the Grapic Novel."

Tickets on sale on Wizard's site.

Crossing Over

Awhile back I mentioned that I had donated my bizarre Super Hero Food Collection to the Toy & Action Figure Museum in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma. Well the best part of making charitable donations is shamelessly bragging about them in a public forum...which is what brings us here today. I finally got to visit my old food in its new home:

Yes, not only is this rare photographic evidence of CBL director Todd Kent (I usually prefer to stand behind cameras, not in front) but it's also a look at the greatest assembly of super hero related food products in Central Oklahoma. A recent road trip to the Sooner state gave me an opportunity to bask in the super hero foody-ness contained behind museum grade glass. Nothing exudes significance like being enclosed behind glass. See for yourself:

Yeah, the gang's all there. Spider-Man Candy Canes. Superman Orange Drink. Hulk Gumballs. Batman Bottled Water. And so much more. I just hope that the collection can bring a little bit of "WTF" to the museum visitors' experience.

And as I've said before, the museum itself is worth a visit. It's not huge but it is densely crammed with every kind of action figure related whatnot in creation. Of note on this trip was the (I assume custom made) life size Green Lantern statue.

As eye catching as that was, there was a somewhat more subtle, yet maddeningly genius display hidden in plain site amongst the 12 gazzillion action figures locked in eternal battle. Look closely:

At first it appears to be the USS Enterprise-D being attacked by the combined might of the Klingons, the Romulans and the Borg. Picard's crew seems to be aided by Captain Kirk, Captain Sisko and Odo. That might be enough for the casual crossover fan...but wait. The Romulans brought reinforcements. Alien, The Terminator, Edward Scissor Hands and Cyclops from the X-men are all looking to get their hands a little dirty.

Fortunately it looks like Starfleet enlisted the help of the Guardians of the Universe, the Flash and Captain America (or possibly U.S. Agent) mans the helm. The robot from Lost in Space looks on in a fairly useless fashion, as usual...but in a stunning field promotion, the first officer's chair is occupied by Alf.

A seemingly arbitrary arrangement of random collectibles or a blockbuster in the making? You be the judge.

And for those of you in the "everything must have some kind of explanation" club, it looks like that's Q standing on top of the bridge. So we can all assume he put this little party together. Happy now?

Find the museum online here:
http://www.actionfiguremuseum.com

Also, I had posted this awhile back but it's worth another look. It's a video we made about the museum after we had shot there for the Comic Book Literacy Documentary: