The Glenn-less All Things Fun! New Comics Vidcast for the Week of 2-29-2012

The All Things Fun! New Comics Vidcast is shot live every week at All Things Fun! - the area's best comics and gaming store, located in West Berlin, NJ.

Co-hosts Ed (Font of Useless Knowledge) Evans and Allison (Schism) Eckel (Glenn Walker is home, sick in bed, catching up on Downton Abbey, and will be back next week) discuss the new comics out this week in two fun video segments, in wicked high definition, and available on the YouTube. See it here!

This first segment includes discussion of the following topics: Happy Birthday Superman, Justice League #6, Legion of Super-Heroes The Origin #5, Batman Beyond Unlimited #1, Bendis' Avengers and New Avengers, the AvsX Event at All Things Fun!, all things X, FF, Ultimate and miscellaneous Marvel, and Ed's trades in Marvel. Schism.



The discussion continues here in segment two including: Allison's wardrobe, Kevin Smith's "Comic Book Men" and Bionic Man, Voltron #3, retro comics, The Walking Dead #94, Invincible #89, G.I. Joe A Real American Hero Annual #1 by Larry Hama, Game of Thrones, Magic The Gathering #2 (of 4), Grimm's Fairy Tales Myths & Legends #13, Star Trek #6, Angry Birds, and Allison's kids comics.



Be sure to check out the cool new All Things Fun! website, and the All Things Fun! Blogs, by Allison and Glenn, and ATF! on YouTube.

Special thanks go to Dina Evans who keeps us all in line, and on the straight and narrow, and runs the show from behind the scenes. And be back here every Wednesday (or Tuesdays at midnight) to watch the new broadcast, and thereafter throughout the week!

Comic Book Men

AMC wanted to cash in on "The Walking Dead" so bad that I guess they accepted any show about comic books. Now don't get me wrong, I am a hardcore Kevin Smith fan, but "Comic Book Men" is, on many levels, a disappointment.

Unless Kevin Smith himself doesn't know what he wants this show to be, it seems to be suffering from a lot of outside, or possibly even inside interference. It's all over the place. Sometimes it wants to be a reality show, sometimes a bad imitation of "Hardcore Pawn" and other shows of its ilk, sometimes an extension of Smith himself, sometimes a podcast on video, and sometimes just an outright commercial for the Secret Stash store, Smith, and/or AMC. Could they really get any more Smith or Walking Dead merch in the camera frames?

Having frequented comic book shops all my life, I can tell you, that except for the guy who doesn't work there and never leaves, this is sooo not like a comic book shop. They did however have to clean up the Secret Stash, which was a relief. I've been there, they cleaned, believe me. The occasion of folks coming in wanting sell stuff doesn't happen all that often, neither do hockey games, or sadly women in the shops. And of course that's the other thing that bugs me about it, the supposedly unscripted employees are more than a little sexist - perhaps they should be scripted.

Maybe they could focus on the buying comics from customers concept, or the roundtable podcast concept, or just make it Kevin Smith-centric - I really enjoyed the Jason Mewes/Batmobile episode. Maybe it could be cut down to a half-hour, but it must focus, and pick a direction. Sadly the one thing I enjoy about visiting a comics shop, talking comics, has only been featured once, and they mocked it. To me that's what the show should be about, sans ridicule. If you're fanboys (and girls), embrace it!

Right now, we're three episodes into a six-episode run. I hope it gets better, and finds its center. It would be nice to have a geek home on television, especially smack between "The Walking Dead" and "Talking Dead."