PENDRAGON'S POST

Monday, October 26, 2009

Comic News: Marvel Comics On-Sale 10/28/09

Hey there True Believers, here’s your official list of comic books, collections and posters arriving in comic stores on October 28th, 2009.

For more information on any of these titles, and on upcoming mighty Marvel releases, please visit http://marvel.com/catalog/?date=2009-10-28 or contact your local comic book retailer at 1-888-comicbook. Stay tuned each week for a brand new list of Marvel releases so that you’ll never miss your favorite heroes in action!

Comics On-Sale:
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN PRESENTS: ANTI-VENOM - NEW WAYS TO LIVE #2
ANITA BLAKE, THE LAUGHING CORPSE - EXECUTIONER #1
AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE #29
AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE #29 SHS VARIANT
DARK AVENGERS: ARES #1
DARK REIGN: THE LIST - DAREDEVIL 2ND PRINTING VARIANT
DARK REIGN: THE LIST - PUNISHER
DARK REIGN: THE LIST - PUNISHER HERO VARIANT
DARK REIGN: THE LIST - WOLVERINE
DARK REIGN: THE LIST - WOLVERINE HERO VARIANT
DARK REIGN: YOUNG AVENGERS #5 (DR)
ENDER'S SHADOW: COMMAND SCHOOL #2
FANTASTIC FOUR #572
FANTASTIC FOUR #572 EAGLESHAM HUMAN TORCH VARIANT
FANTASTIC FOUR #572 SHS VARIANT
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #19
HALO: HELLJUMPER #4
HULK #16
HULK #16 MCGUINNESS DEADPOOL VARIANT
HULK #16 MCGUINNESS VARIANT
INCREDIBLE HERCULES #137
MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN #56
MARVEL DIVAS #4
MARVEL HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR MAGAZINE
MARVEL PREVIEWS #75
MODELS, INC. #3
MODELS, INC. #3 ZOMBIE VARIANT
MS. MARVEL #46 (DR)
MS. MARVEL #46 ZOMBIE VARIANT (DR)
NEW AVENGERS #58
NEW MUTANTS #6
NEW MUTANTS #6 ZOMBIE VARIANT
NOVA #30
PUNISHER #10
PUNISHER #10 REST IN PIECES VARIANT
RIFTWAR #5
SECRET WARRIORS #9
SECRET WARRIORS #9 SHS VARIANT
SECRET WARRIORS #9 ZOMBIE VARIANT
SON OF HULK #16
SPIDER-MAN: THE CLONE SAGA #2
SPIN ANGELS #3
ULTIMATE COMICS ARMOR WARS #2
ULTIMATE COMICS AVENGERS #3
VENGEANCE OF THE MOON KNIGHT #1 2ND PRINTING VARIANT
WAR MACHINE #10
WOLVERINE ART APPRECIATION
WOLVERINE FIRST CLASS #20
WOLVERINE WEAPON X #6
WOLVERINE WEAPON X #6 KUBERT
X NECROSHA
X NECROSHA CRAIN VARIANT
X-FACTOR #50
X-FORCE #20
X-MEN FOREVER #10
X-MEN FOREVER #10 ZOMBIE VARIANT

Collections On-Sale:
ANITA BLAKE, VAMPIRE HUNTER: THE LAUGHING CORPSE BOOK 1 - ANIMATOR TPB
FANTASTIC FOUR VISIONARIES: JOHN BYRNE VOL. 1 TPB (NEW PRINTING)
HULK VOL. 3: HULK NO MORE PREMIERE HC
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN VOL. 2: WORLD'S MOST WANTED BOOK 1 TPB
KABUKI: THE ALCHEMY TPB
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: ATLAS ERA MENACE VOL. 1 HC
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: ATLAS ERA MENACE VOL. 1 HC (VARIANT)
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN VOL. 3 TPB
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN VOL. 3 TPB NEW AVENGERS VOL. 10: POWER TPB
SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIPS VOL. 1 HC
SPIDER-MAN: AMERICAN SON PREMIERE HC
SPIDER-MAN: THE SHORT HALLOWEEN PREMIERE HC
WOLVERINE: OLD MAN LOGAN HC
WOLVERINE: OLD MAN LOGAN HC TURNER VARIANT

Posters On-Sale:
DEADPOOL #900 POSTER

*DR= Dark Reign tie-in

Read more...

Get Moving with Qee Rapid Transit

In a unique collaboration ? designer toy giant, Toy2R and Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Network worked together to release the KRTCO Kuso Qee Bears. Each Qee Bear features a simple form of the transit network available in Black and White.

Available stating October 24th and all KRTCO subway stations, each 2.5? Scale Qee exhibits a simple and yet recognizable design and includes patented key chain attachment while limited to only 1500 pieces of each version. The design of each Kuso Qee Bear will be represented on transit theme cards while the blister card backing features the entire transit map.

In addition ? Toy2R has created a 60? version of the Black Kuso Bear, which will be located in the station and passengers are encouraged to stop and take a photo with the giant Qee Bear while traveling on the transit system.

KRTCO has developed some great activities for additional giveaways during this promotion for a limited time.

View the advertisement video online at YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWq0l0OjXrI&feature=player_embedded

Read more about the marketing of the Kuso Bears here:
http://www.krtco.com.tw/marketing/marketing-1_detail.aspx?ID=0c2d2c52-a94b-49c6-959c-d6bf501e2dc5

Qee x KRTCO ? Going Your Way!

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Tonight, G4 (http://www.g4tv.com/) debuts “Rise Up”, the official Astonishing X-Men music video, from David Ari Leon, Guy Erez, Bronx Style Bob, Christian Altman and the Marvel Music Group exclusively on Attack Of The Show.

Featuring previously unseen footage from the hotly anticipated Astonishing X-Men motion comic, based on the acclaimed story by superstars Joss Whedon (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) and John Cassaday (Captain America), “Rise Up” will have you cheering for more! Astonishing X-Men Motion Comic Episode 1 debuts on iTunes this Wednesday, October 28th, but tonight at 7pm Eastern you can’t miss Attack of The Show for the official Astonishing X-Men music video!

Marvel is also proud to present MarvelFest NYC 2009, an all-new interactive outdoor experience in New York City to celebrate the iTunes release of the groundbreaking Astonishing X-Men Motion Comic on October 28th. In celebration of the release of the Astonishing X-Men Motion Comic, this landmark first episode will be projected three stories high so that fans can experience the adventure like never before! Join celebrities and the biggest names in Marvel history to commemorate the Astonishing X-Men premiere with a costume contest, giveaways and more! For complete details and official costume contest rules regarding MarvelFest NYC 2009 please visit www.marvel.com/fest.

Plus, click over to http://www.marvel.com/ after Attack of The Show for the all-new Marvel Music widget on Marvel.com and download “Rise Up” in addition to music from a variety of Marvel Animation properties.

For more information on motion comics please visit Marvel.com at www.marvel.com/motioncomics

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Impassioned TV adaptation of Terry Goodkind's sword and sorcery epic

Pop the first Legend of the Seeker DVD into the player and do a double-take: is this a sequence of Lord of the Rings we'd forgotten about? Right off the bat there's the majestic New Zealand landscape (doubling as the Midlands in this case, not Middle Earth) and a horse race eerily reminiscent of Arwen fleeing the Black Riders. Then the heroine splashes through a shallow fjord and erupts in blinding flashes of light. There's even a co-executive producer named Stephen Tolkin [sic]. OK, weird.

In some ways Legend of the Seeker is like an American mashup of elements and themes from the Lord of the Rings, but it really is a different animal, less ambitious in scope and more focused. We still have good and evil battling it out (to avoid, you know, the total enslavement of humanity and all), otherworldly choral music, wizards, heroes eating apples in mossy glades, runic writing, massive CG armies, scary critters, and so forth.

But Legend of the Seeker takes itself somewhat less seriously. Like Star Wars, characters have names with thinly-veiled meanings (Richard Cypher) or that sound outlandish to the English ear (Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander). In the commentary track, leading man Craig Horner describes our first encounter with his character as “Baywatch in a forest” and yeah, he's not that far off. The horse chase has mounds of heaving bosomry a-plenty. I can just imagine the teenage boys watching those late-night reruns... At the same time we have anachronisms like pseudo-chess matches, medieval European armour and Latin magic incantations à la Harry Potter. But who cares? It's all jolly good fun and fills a much needed void in the world of sword and sorcery tales.

You would think that a 25-million selling 11-book epic like Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth would be a hit regardless of how it was brought to the screen. But the excellent cast and production team ensure that we won't be finding Legend of the Seeker in ye olde bargain bin anytime soon.

Listening to the production/cast commentary is almost as much fun as the episodes themselves. Everyone seems to be having an unbelievable good time, genuinely enjoying what they are doing, and reveling in the finished product. It's a good sign.

The casting is bang-on. Bridget Regan has the perfect combination of freckly femininity and fiery warrior charms as Kahlan Amnell. It's not an easy mix to achieve. Bruce Spence simply eats up the scenery as Zedd, a wizard who acts like a hippie version of Gandalf. Craig Parker's Darken Rahl is a delight to watch, managing to make the evil look as deceptive as it should.

The bonus feature conversation with author Terry Goodkind sheds interesting light into what makes the books tick. As mentioned in the documentaries, The Sword of Truth is unique because a couple shares the leading role rather than having only a man or only a woman in the spotlight. This provides a nice tension and relationship between the primary characters and drives the story.

Goodkind is a fascinating author and his insights into art, life and writing are surprisingly refreshing. Especially wonderful are the parallels he draws between race car driving and creating novels. He put his heart and soul into the books and thus imbued them with a moral and philosophical resonance that most fantasy tales generally lack, skillfully weaving meditations on free will and the intrinsic worth of life into the saga.

The bone I have to pick with ABC here is the useless previews tacked onto the disc one via autoplay. When I buy a season of a favourite show, I am well aware that other TV shows also have collections available. I do not need to skip through a preview of Desperate Housewives before getting to the hacking and the slashing. I would pay extra money for a version with such previews removed. They're totally unnecessary and aggravating. Disney investors, take note of this revenue-enhancing opportunity. Hopefully the increased availability of TV seasons on iTunes will keep the pressure on DVD manufacturers to remove the irksome auto-play previews. Keep 'em in the “Sneak Peeks” menu for goodness sake...

Adapting long fantasy tales into a television show can be a mixed blessing. On the downside, budgets are more restrained. But the upside more than compensates: the television format enables characters to be developed slowly and stories to unfold gradually, rather than being compressed into bite-sized movies. The full-season DVD experience mimics the original source rather well: just like a reader can curl up with a Goodkind book and stick with it for as long as they want, coming back to it whenever they want, the viewer can stop and start the DVD's at their leisure. As we hear in the commentary: “It's much more fun without the commercials”. Amen to that.

Street Date: 10/13/09
MSRP: $45.99

Adam Paige
Senior Reviewer Read more...

FINDING DCUC WAVE 10 AT WALMART

When DC Universe Classics Wave 5 came out, it was a Walmart exclusive and it was nearly impossible to find. This wave was missing from many Walmarts. Of course people's first reaction was to blame the manufacture, Mattel. This was the wrong company to place blame on. The problem was with Walmart's poor and spotty distribution on the wave.

And with Wave 10 being another Walmart exclusive, the same situation seems to be happening again.

I decided to get to the bottom of all of this....

What it mainly boils down to is simple supply and demand. Mattel will make only so much as Walmart orders. No more, no less. It is then Walmart, who decides on which of their 7,000 stores will get this exclusive line.

On Wave 5, Walmart only had it in 1,800 of their stores. At least this time, it doubled to 3,000 stores, but still not great.

So I made a call to Walmart and spoke to Melissa O'Brien, Senior Manager PR & Brand Reputation for Walmart. This is what she told me:

DC Universe is hard to keep in stock because it does sell out quickly. They do realize this is a popular item and it why they increased the order from 1,800 stores to 3,000 store. Unfortunately, they wouldn't tell me the exact number ordered.
They are considered a collectible and not a standard toy like GI Joe or Transfromers, and that makes for smaller purchasing amounts for DCUC.
They determine with stores get Wave 10, by the total number of sales in each store. The higher the overall action figures sales are, the greater the chance that store will get DCUC.
They do not want to put them on-line because they feel that this would be unfair to collectors. Walmart feels by selling DCUC in stores, the collectors have a better chance of finding them.
Walmart doesn't always know the exact date of a shipment, and since DCUC are more limited in manufacture, they may not come in as often as other Mattel items.
If you can not find them, to contact your local store (see the list below). New toy stock usually arrives on Tuesdays and Wedsdays.

Now I don't agree with everything that was told to me. And a lot of it sounds like double talk. But Melissa was nice enough to provide me a list that shows exactly, which Walmart stores are supposed to carry Wave 10.

Please also note, just because a store is on this list, that doesn't mean they will have Wave 10 in stock, as they sell out very quickly.

Hopefully Mattel will not have to do another exclusive wave with Walmart again, but it's really up to us, the fans/buyers/collectors, to let Walmart how we feel about their distribution on DCUC.

Just something to think about.

Here's the list in clickable thumbnails & good luck to all of you in your search: