Corusca

My Sunday afternoon’s amusement for a couple of hours was Batman: Arkham Asylum. So far, I’m liking it, especially the visual of it which I’m finding very pleasant.

I went to BD Amadora and Ramón Pérez was there. I asked him to autograph my copy of TX Comics and also if he could make me a Darth Vader drawing. The result was awesome, and will be framed and put on our home office wall.

I’ve had a pretty busy week so far which explains me kind of slacking with posts. Several things are changing in my life, some for better, some for worst, and some I’m still unsure of and will have to wait and see what life brings.

I started looking at wedding dresses last week over at Chiado, and the ongoing adventure of finding me a dress that I actually like and that looks good on me will continue this weekend. x_x This time we’ll need to be there in the morning as the stores which had more affordable stuff (meaning: stuff that does not require selling my liver to purchase) were closed in the afternoon. Boo.

Tonight we’re going to pick up our new World of Warcraft expansion Collector’s Edition. Yay! I’ve been informing myself and with some luck it will only take 15-20 minutes to install on my laptop. I’m hoping there’s no new patch after that. Of course playing tonight will be as painful experience as it gets in an MMO: people camping everything, hellish lag, server queues and quite possibly servers going down. In other words: a normal launch week day.

As you may have noticed I’ve posted some photos of Sintra and of BD Amadora on my flickr account. The Sintra photos were taken in the evening we got locked in the Pena Palace Garden, and we went to BD Amadora the following week. It was a good and bad expo at the same time. I enjoyed the sci-fi decoration, and I loved some of the art sections there, such as the Tara McPherson one, and the section with chinese artists’ work which were the best in the expo. I also liked the fact that Richard LeParmentier a.k.a Admiral Motti in Star Wars was there signing autographs, like he’s doing for us in the photo below.

This year I managed to resist buying anything (except for the autographed photos), and even refrained from buying a Sasuke gashapon (or trading figure? I couldn’t tell with the distance) I saw being sold there. I’m hoping my usual anime merchandise dealer get some at his store someday so I get the coolest-looking character in the show (so far). Yes Gaara also looks cool, but I’ve never seen him do anything in the show, plus he’s not as stylish. :p

[ Side note: dear 'Naruto' fangirls/boys who may be thinking of replying to this post: refrain from hate commenting on my personal taste. I hardly give a rats arse about the show and could not care less if your heart belongs to Gaara or another imaginary character with whom you'd like so sleep with ( since you obviously can't with a real person). I simply like the quiet, cursed dude who dresses in blue, has a sad repressed past and who kicked ass whenever I saw him fight. Thanks. ]

I finished reading Alan Moore’s ‘Watchmen’ graphic novel last week and still haven’t posted my thoughts on it.

In short: It’s brilliant.

The universe it’s set in is very immersive, and Alan Moore makes you either like or dislike some characters, but you’re never indifferent to them, even the less important ones. The plot itself is what I liked the most and makes you wonder about humanity, its lighter and darker sides, and what people do to achieve their goals.

Despite having been published in the 80s, the art by David Gibson is still very good by today’s standards and some little visual details on what goes on in that world, are simply delicious.

having read it I now understand some fans’ concern about the movie adaptation. Since the comic is set during the Cold War, but there’s always the incomprehensible urge to adapt movies to the time they hit the cinemas, I’m really afraid they’ll turn it into yet another oh-noes-the-evil-terrorists kind of movie. I don’t know about you, but I am sick to tears of hearing about terrorists and terrorism in recent movies. We know it it exists. We’ve seen it before a zillion times. Terrorists are evil. We know already! It’s been done and redone to a point where nailing my nostrils to a moving vehicle would be more fun. Am still clinging to he hope that the director, Zack Snyder, who happens to be the dude who made 300 into a cool movie, won’t screw it up.

Regardless of how the movie will be done, I advise anyone to read the graphic novel as it’s well worth your time and money. Meantime I am off to my next comics read: V for Vendetta, also by Alan Moore (rejoice, Alma, I’m finally reading it! :P).

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (”Who watches the watchers?”)

First wise words o’ the day. I miss Percy and Pooch comic strips.

Anyone got some ice cubes? Meltin’ here. :P

Since I don’t think that my ever growing pile of unread books, comics and manga is large enough, I’m already planning my next online purchases. I’m starting to think I’m an addict.

So far the list of shiny new stuff goes like this:

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Long Way Home – Buffy season 8. I’ve been reading the monthly issues and liking them. I already have the complete TV series on DVD, so this will just make the ‘collection’ complete with something well written (by Joss Whedon himself and a few other writers that I dig, like Brian K. Vaughan) and entertaining.
• The Dark Mirror by Juliet Marillier – recommended by a friend. Will start reading it after I finish the George R. R. Martin novel I’m reading (which might actually take a while, hm…)
• Chunchu vol 1 to 3 – This korean manga has caught my eye a while ago. I’m not sure if the story is good, but the art and character design are. This I’m still wondering if it’s worth buying. I still have the rest of the Death Note issues to read and Claymore #1 and #2.

Any suggestions for nice readings, be it books, comics or anything else?

Anyone has anything they’d like to suggest, reading-wise?