Birthday Gifts Part 3-The Beatles

As I mentioned before, I have become a huge fan of the POP vinyl figures. I love the look of these little bobble-heads and I am starting to look for them as I am out and about. I have already made a list of th ones I want to add to my small, but growing collection. A list, which is now down by 4 thanks to my latest birthday gift.

These Beatles POP figures have been on my "Must Have" list for quite some time now. My friends, Julissa and Mike, know how big a Beatles fan I am and bestowed all four of the Fab Four upon me as a birthday gift. Funko released them as their Yellow Submarine counterparts as well as a Blue Meanie in this set.

Love the packaging. a drawing of the character on the side of the box with the name of character on the bottom, product and number in series on the top with colors and lettering associated to the characters on the box. Paul McCartney's figure looks great.

The back of the box shows the characters in the set and continues the trend of colors and lettering that was on the front.

Lets take a look at the other 3 Beatles:

John Lennon

George Harrison (It's all in the mind)

And Ringo Starr.

This is a great looking set and a must for any Beatles fan in their collection. These will look great next to my McFarlane Yellow Submarine figures and I cannot wait to put them up when I have room to display my Beatles collection. I'm hoping for a second series where we can get Jeremy, Fred, Glove and maybe The Beatles in their Sgt. Pepper garb. I would love a set of POP's with the Beatles as themselves from their Saturday morning cartoon show.

Huge thanks to Julissa and Mike for a very thoughtful gift. Oh, almost forgot to show off my birthday card.

I'm not going to say what age joke was inside.

Birthday Gifts Part 2

For part 2 of my showing off the birthday swag, I am showing off 2 comic books my buddy, George, gave me. Now these are comics from my childhood, the 1970's. When I tore off the wrapping paper and saw the comics I got, I was quite pleased to, say the least.

If you were a child of the 70's, you owned over sized comic books or Treasury Editions, at one time or another. Usually, the stories inside were reprints of older stories, but there was about 3 or 4 stories in these issues. I remember owning quite a few of these. I would lie on the floor, on my belly and read these books. These were my graphic novels, before there were graphic novels. I read stories about the Justice Society Of America, Superman, Wonder Woman, and one shot stories like Spider-Man vs Superman or Superman vs Muhammad Ali and loved reading them. George had given me a Spectacular Spider-Man book and now he added these two to my collection.

I had been actually watching a few eBay auctions, hoping to snag this book. Luck would have it, I got one for my birthday. Love the cover art on this book. Unfortunately, it doesn't say who drew it inside or out. There are 5 Batman stories inside written by writers like John Broome, Bill Finger, Denny O'Neil and art by Neil Adam, Carmine Infantino and Dick Sprang. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I really can't wait to read some of the classic stories that are inside.

A shot of the back cover

A look at some awesome Infantino art on the inside.

Here's a book I had owned as a kid and was thrilled to re-add to my collection. I loved reading this adaptation  of The Empire Strikes Back. Marvel did an excellent job with it and  look forward to re-reading this again. The book was written by Archie Goodwin with the art shared by Al Williamson and Carlos Garzon. Not an exact word for word retelling of the movie, but it didn't have to be. The writing was real good in this book and the art was fantastic. Flipping through it bought back tons of memories for me.

A look at the back of the book. AT-AT's on a cold Hoth day.

A look inside of the book. What did I tell you about that art, huh? Pretty sweet.

Big thanks to my buddy George for the trip down memory lane with these two awesome comics. I am definitely to old to lie on my belly on the floor (I might be able to get back up), but I am going to have fun reading these books and feeling young while doing so.

Birthday Gifts, Part 1

A couple a weeks ago, this sexy geek turned the big 42. Yes, my friends, I am getting older. But, it's another year older, but another year geekier. This year, I got some gifts from my buddy's and sweetie that are worthy of a place in the house of swag.

So, the first few gifts came from a very special woman. She knows what the this sexy geek wants and loves...BATMAN AND JOKER STUFF!!! Now, for some reason, my camera is not downloading or sending pictures to my email, so I found pics of what I got for my birthday.

My boo and her daughter picked out this awesome Joker T-Shirt

This shirt is awesome. When I opened it up, I was in awe of the design. The Jokers hair and much of his face is made up of bats. It's scary looking, maybe a bit freakish looking and I love it. It has already been worn.

I  have seen this poster before, yet I don't know who drew it. I love this poster of the Joker walking out of Arkham, free as a bird, no doubt on his way to Gotham to cause mayhem, chaos and anarchy. I cannot wait to frame it and hang this up in the House of Swag.

I love, love. love Pop Vinyls. This awesome Joker found it's way into my collection for my birthday. This Joker marks my 5th Pop Vinyl. I need to pick up Batman so Joker has someone other than Luke Skywalker  and Spider-Man.

Finally, I have a Bat-chair to rest my weary self to watch my Batman DVD's, play video games or just sit in my laid and admire the junk I have accumulated and treasure and come up with ways to add more stuff. It might all be crap, but it's my crap, Bwhahahahahahaha!

Thanks to Gina and Mariah for the awesome gifts. You both have made this old geek very happy.

Hopefully, camera cooperating, I will show of the rest of my birthday haul over the next 2 blogs. Look for them, same bat blog, same bat website!

New Comic Book Pickups

As of late, I really haven't been picking up a lot of comics. I've been mainly concentrating on picking vintage toys for my various collections or new items for my sports collections (if you want to check out the sports blog, you can check it here :http://thesexygeekssportsroom.blogspot.com/ ). I have been picking up various comics here and there, but I had decided a long time ago to just stick with the graphic novels and not pick up any single issues.

Well, I kind of back peddled on that promise yesterday when I dropped by Midtown Comics to see what they had on the shelves. I wound up picking up a few new issues for me to read during the week. My geeky soul thanked me over and over for the new books to read as it missed the characters, the papers and the adventures.

So, what did I pick up?

Of all the comics I used to read, I never stopped buying Batman. I really haven't bought Detective Comics, Batman Incorporated or any of the other Batman related books and I'm sorry I haven't. As you probably know, Robin, Damian Wayne was killed off by an aging, crazed clone of himself in Batman Incorporated #8 and I missed it. Midtown still had copies as well as copies of the beginning of the Requiem story arch, in which Batman deals with the lose of his son and his wanting to avenge his death against his mother Talia Al Ghul, whose assassin was the one who killed Damian.

I have been enjoying this Star Wars story called Star Wars: In The Shadow Of Yavin, which takes place between New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. In this story, The Rebel Alliance has been searching for a new home base and learns that there is a spy in the Alliance. Leia, Luke and others team to search for a new base as well as flush out the spy, while Han Solo and Chewbacca go off on a secret mission to Coruscant. The story also deals with Darth Vader's faliure in New Hope and his getting back in the Emperor's good graces. If your a fan of the original trilogy, like I am, pick up these books.

I have always been a huge Green Hornet fan. I loved the TV Series. I liked the movie as well, although not as much as the TV series. I have been wanting to read some of the Green Hornet graphic novels, especially Kevin Smith's run as on the book. His book was supposed to have been made into a movie years ago with George Clooney as the Hornet, so I need to hunt those books down. For now, I picked up the first issue of this comic with Mark Waid  writing. It takes place in Chicago in the 1930's and follows Britt Reid and Kato as they fight crime, posing as criminals. Read the first book and loved it. Might be time to start a small vintage Green Hornet collection.

Yeah, yeah. I know what I said regarding Superior Spider-Man. I wasn't going to pick it up, I hated what they did to Peter Parker, yadda yadda yadda. well, I made the mistake of reading the first 2 issues of the book, with the intentions of having it further cement my hatred for what happened to Parker. After reading the first two issues, as well as the next two, I hated to admit it: the comic was very good. This was a different maybe even fresh take on the character. Doc Ock is trying to be the best Spider-Man, but at times a bit of the old Doc Ock will resurface. The spirit of Peter Parker is there right by Ock's side to make sure he doesn't do anything wrong. It kinda reminds me of Firestorm, except that Ock doesn't know Parker is floating around. It's an interesting dynamic and I'm curious to see how they will bring Parker back (you know they are going to eventually), although it doesn't look like they will make the switch anytime soon.

I also picked up this Age Of Ultron tie in, even though I am not reading that arch. I figured I'd take a peek at what's going on with this issue, provided that I don't get lost reading it.

Overall, I am pretty happy with the purchases and cannot wait to sit down and read them. I have been enjoying previous issues of these books and enjoyed the first issue of the Green Hornet book. I'm still trying to pick up just the graphic novels, but for now, I'll just enjoy reading these books and getting my geek on.

Unleashed Luke Skywalker

Remember that scene in Empire Strikes Back when Luke's Snowspeeder gets shot down by AT-AT's and he single handedly takes down one of those infernal war machines? Of course you do, because it's awesome.  It's one of my favorite scenes from my favorite movie in the Star Wars franchise and my newest addition to the Luke Skywalker PC captures that scene beautifully.

I've always wanted to add the Luke Skywalker Unleashed figures to my collection and I was finally able to find one in my price range. These Unleashed figures are some of the coolest figures. I like the sculpts and poses they were made in and, of course, the Luke Skywalker's were my favorites.

The Unleashed line are like plastic statues. I might not be able to afford any statues anytime soon, so I have the next best thing. Also, the detailing on these figures are something else.

I love that he's holding on to his blue lightsaber. The green lightsaber might be my favorite, but I do have plenty of love for the blue saber as it was his first one. As a kid, I always had to have a blue lightsaber when I played Star Wars. I was always Luke.

I am very pleased to have been able to add this figure to my collection. I have my eyes out for the Jedi Luke Unleashed as I hope to add that figure to my collection at some point. I'm starting to build a nice little Skywalker collection and I hope I can keep adding to it until it's an awesome collection. I have a nice mix of modern and vintage pieces and I'm always looking to add more. Figures, pins, statues, anything and everything. If it has Luke on it, you can bet I'm going to buy it at some point.