I'm posting this from my iPhone
Dec 17I’m also reading Grok #3 on it. Then I’m going to Twitter about that… From my iPhone.
Also;
iPhone.
Haterz.
Grok #3: Nameless Horror
Dec 17
The holidays can be a bit much, eh? We’ve already spent way too many hours stuffing our faces with eggnog-flavored gagh, shoving through the mall in search of discontinued Mighty Muggs, and avoiding the handsy Skrulls that always seem to be lurking under the office mistletoe (yes, we know He Loves Us; no, we do not need a one-on-one demonstration).
And yet, we can’t help but be gripped by a certain joyful spirit and goodwill toward geeks and we want to make sure your year-end festivities are as stupendously awesome as possible. So we have a little gift for you…Grok #3!
If you’ll recall, this is our PDF zine that you can read on your computer screen or print out and tote wherever you desire. Within, you will find fiction, essays and other general hilarity dedicated to geek culture and the nerd experience. This time ’round, we went a little Lovecraftian with the theme and called it “Nameless Horror.”
Grok #3: Winter ’08, Nameless Horror (PDF)
In this issue (which, incidentally, is our fattest edition evAR and features glorious cover art by the amazing Toren Atkinson)…
One Con Glory, Part III, by Sarah Kuhn: As Julie’s tale of “sex and woe and fandom” finally wraps up, the following things occur: People chase each other. There is a very important Buffy debate. Braidbeard meets his fate. Oh, and someone Twitters something.
So This Ghost Walks Into a Bar… by Jeff Stolarcyk: Jeff shadows some professional paranormal investigators for a night and has a few close encounters of the extremely spooky kind. As some dude once said, the truth is out there.
Love, Lovecraft Style, by Matt Springer: Becky loves her Coo-coo-lulu as only a 16-year-old “world-weary veteran of the battlefield of love” can. But does Coo-coo-lulu feel the same way?
Autotaxonomy, by Samantha Rich: Choosing your internet pseudonym is one of those excruciating experiences that involves hours of pondering, teeth-gnashing, and swapping out “Y”s for random vowels. Samantha explores the pain.
So Perfect, by Stephen Graham Jones: Teenage girls. Ticks. The quest for perfection. To say anything more would be to spoil things, but rest assured: you will have nightmares.
My Tattoo, by Chris Stewart: Chris has a dirty little secret. OK, so it’s sort of given away in the title, but as with most interesting stories, there’s a lot more to it than that. Horror — capital “H” — is involved.
The Tale of the Gallant Sailor, by Matthew Walden: Long ago, when wishes still came true, there lived a father who performed his service to the world as a reactor operant on a nuclear submarine. Second class petty officer of the United States Navy, Sir!, was his rank and Northrop Glitten was his name. This is his story.
Yelp Reviews of the Arkham Waffle House, by Ivan Sian: I ordered my hash browns “scattered, smothered, and covered,” NOT “scattered, smothered, covered, slimed and coated with entrails.” OK?
Plus: filler jokes! Throwaway quizzes with funny art! Scintillating contributor bios! And another letter from your pal Fake George Lucas! Check it out…if you dare!
Finally, Crisis
Dec 15So I spent some time this weekend re-reading all of Final Crisis to date, and then reading a CBR file of issue 5, since my physical copy is currently winging its way toward me in an envelope from Arlington, MA. Some notes:
I think it’s definitely true that a lot of Grant Morrison’s work tends to make more sense as a totality than as specific chapters published in incremental installments, but Final Crisis actually works pretty well from issue to issue, when you slow yourself down and concentrate enough to adjust to Morrison’s unique sense of pacing. He really does clip off the beginnings and endings of scenes, compressing each bit of action and dialogue until only the barest essentials remain. It requires a level of discipline as a reader that frankly most comics don’t need.
So on the second reading, I understood everything better, but not just because it was the second time I’d read it–I also slowed myself down enough to consume the story morsels I was being rapidly fed, instead of speeding through them with the expectation that at some point all the heavy lifting would be done for me and I’d get some kind of breather to process what I was seeing.
This fifth issue really does tighten the noose quite a bit–the threads are being pulled taut and we’re past the “what the fuck” moments and into the “oh, that’s what the fuck” moments big time. Finally, this does feel like a Crisis, beyond just the touchstone moments that Morrison gave us in rapid succession over the past four issues.
An Aggregate of Diverse Topics
Dec 15As a nerd who is not a hardcore Trek fan, I have to confess that the new Trek trailer (which isn’t exactly new, is it?) gets me going a bit. As an artifact of the way I viewed TOS, I don’t think I’ve ever really had a grasp on the character behind Kirk, nor have I ever really had it explained to me. There’s something perfect about that very first scene in the trailer that communicates who Jim Kirk is to me, and he’s a guy I think I like. The rest of the trailer tries very hard to communicate this grand, epic sentence, and I like its trailer-appropriate stings of sturm and its accompanying drang (it stimulates the part of my brain that sneaks into Michael Bay movies). However, all of the subsequent fireworks are kind of dross to me after watching some cowboyish little kid drive an incalculably valuable classic car off a cliff for no apparent reason.
If you find Grant Morrison’s work on Batman and/or Final Crisis difficult to follow, you may want to invest in the recently solicited 3-pack of Blank Comic Books. Not to make your own, but to let your mind get invested in a story that it can follow without suffering psychic damage. As to Batman RIP, it was really a bit of a non-ending, no? It wasn’t bad at all (and by that I mean that I think it’s quite good, not just the stock, dismissive “not bad,” but expecting more from it wasn’t unreasonable.
Though I have generally broken up with DC Comics, I still maintain that I will fight anybody who dislikes New Frontier.
Who is Fake Dan DiDio? Who cares? BUT — the heavy-handed, thinks-its-witty-but-actually-isn’t tone of the updates makes me think that it might actually be Triple D himself.
Hearing that One Tree Hill sire Mark Schwann is developing the new Melrose Place is causing quite the hubbub (is that still a word? 23 skidoo!) in the lushly appointed Alert Nerd offices. It won’t be good, but will it be so bad it’s good? We’ll be sure to give you a full accounting.
Oh, and the amazing amazingness that is Grok #3 drops tomorrow. It features the complete lyrics to the Ewok Celebration Song. And that’s only on one of its 69 GIANT SIZED pages.
Grokin' Around The X-Mas Tree 2008: A Holiday Music Mix
Dec 15We went through a couple different ideas on how to celebrate the holidays here at the Alert Nerd/Grok compound, and we have QUITE the amazing holiday present for you fine folks coming later this week.
Until then, here’s a little something to get your holiday parties ROCKING OUT: Our first annual holiday mix CD/playlist! Download it today and watch the faces of children, the elderly, and vagrants light up as you crank bitchin’ holiday tunes with a geeky bent out your car window.
I take full blame for the included insert, which sucks desperately.
As for the track list…well, you gotta download to find out! But it’s decent. Most of it’s good stuff, with a bit of novelty sprinkled in–that’s how I like my holiday mixes, and also, my men.
Ho ho ho!
