Yo, yo!
In response to my popular Spike TV 2008 Scream Awards posting, I’ve gotten in a lot of emails asking about just who is Maniac Mike. Well, I could write thousands of words on my crazed wingman at the Scream Awards show or, better yet, I can just show you a video. Watch the below for a full sampling of the amazing talents of Maniac Mike. Ladies, look out!
-Mat Nastos, the Nifty Nerd
http://www.theNiftyNerd.com
This year, the Nifty Nerd was able to snag a couple of tickets to the Spike TV Scream Awards. I’ve never really watched the awards on TV because I think they’re about as valid as the MTV awards, but I did leap at the opportunity to attend this year because…well, because I never turn down free tickets to anything. If someone offered me tickets to an accounting award show I’d probably go as long as there was a concert and free booze. Tons of hot chicks decked out in the sluttiest Ho’ gear don’t hurt either.
The Scream Awards this year were particularly interesting because Spike has opened them up quite a bit beyond just horror. This year the show celebrates Sci Fi and fantasy as well, but also had a very strong leaning towards comics. Even the red carpet itself was lined with giant Alex Ross comic paintings and had the Owlship from Watchmen down at its end.
Got a little Captain in ya?
Anyway, I was able to con my buddy Maniac Mike to go with me, so we got dolled up in our Halloween finest and headed down to the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. Our costumes were totally sweet enough (or bizarre enough, I’m not quite sure which) to get us pulled out of the throng waiting to get in and placed along the red carpet walk. It was an interesting experience to be sure…I think it ran a bit long (2 hours) for Maniac Mike and myself and we both would have rather headed in to the Greek Theater itself to partake of their free flowing alcohol and the insane amount of eye candy roaming the area. I love the fact that most girls equate Halloween with “slutty stripper wear” these days. And to the pair of girls sitting in the Q seats right behind Captain Morgan, excellent choice in costumes. I could hear Maniac Mike’s erection from 10 feet away.
Once we got in to the theater and the show started, things moved very well. Having been at a number of similar shows in the past, this one was handled expertly and moved very quickly. Having a terrible memory and bad name recollection, I’m just going to go over the highlights for me from the show. Read More »
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The Dark Knight
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Screenplay by: Jonathan Nolan & Christopher Nolan
Story by: Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer
Created by: Bob Kane and Bill Finger
Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Eric Roberts, Nester Carbonell
Running Time: 152 minutes
Rated: PG-13
Release Date: 2008
As any good comic book nerd should have been, last night – July 17, 2008 – I lined up at a little before 11pm to see the latest installment in the Batman film franchise, The Dark Knight. Surprisingly, my non-comic book fan wife stood next to me. Even more surprising, it was her idea to go.
A quick aside: after the hour plus wait in line (and we were in the very back…we heard people had been waiting for 3 hours or more) and as we filed in to the theater-proper to be seated, my wife looked around with a very puzzled look. I asked what was wrong but she shook her head and said “nothing.” A bit later, when a particularly obnoxious group of comic book fans sat down behind us, she took another look around the room with that same puzzled look playing across her face. I leaned in to inquire what was the matter and she, in her infinite wisdom asked, “Is there anyone in here who has ever been laid?” Thinking myself incredibly clever I smuggly answered. “well, I don’t know about them, but I have.” To which my wife, who is far smarter than I am replied, “That’s just because I felt bad for you.” Nothing worse than having your manhood taken away in the midst of a room full of comic book geeks. Read More »
Like this post? Buy us a coffee!You know, I feel a bit sad and pathetic for even spending the time to put this list together. I almost feel like I should be back as a virgin living in my mother’s basement. This is one step away from the bottom of the genre fan totem pole — becoming a Brownshirt. If you know what that is, then you’re just as pathetic as I am. If you are one, then you have my sympathies. At least there are chick fans of Firefly…even if they do tend to be on the homely side of things.
Sorry, Firefly fans. The only portion of fandom worse than you are Elfquest fans. Trust me, I know.
Anyway, this week my buddies over at Old-Wizard.com sent me an email asking me to check out there new top ten list of the most powerful superheroes in comic books. I guess they were wanting the opinion of a professional nerd before posting it out for the amateur nerds. After taking a look at what they put together, and thoroughly disagreeing with the initial list, which included Black Bolt and Professor X…and, even worse, put Green Lantern in the #10 position — Blasphemy — I decided to put together a list of my own.
Here we go…the Nifty Nerd’s Top 10 List of the Most Powerful Superheroes in Comics! Read More »
My mother recently came out to visit me and, as usual, she brought a truckload of stuff for me. A big part of that most recent junk drop-off consisted of my dad’s old collection of records…most of which consisted of songs he performed on as either the lead guitar or as lead singer.
While it was great to get the old albums, I haven’t had a way to play a vinyl record in around 20 years now. I grew up on tapes and CDs more than record albums, and now all of my music exists solely on my iPod. Needless to say, I was left in a bit of a bind because I had never heard many of my dad’s performances.
Lucky for me, after a quick search online, I came across a truly marvelous piece of nerd gadgetry: the Audio Technica AT-LP2DUSB LP-to-Digital Recording System with USB
Which is awesome because I do love me some cake. Read More »
Like this post? Buy us a coffee!This week was a pretty big week…well, at least in terms of charges to my credit card. My total bill come out pretty close to $40 and, strangely enough, didn’t include any trades or graphic novels at all. An unusal thing for sure because I almost always find some sort of higher priced book to pick up.
1. Secret Invasion #2
2. Mighty Avengers #13
3. Conan #50
4. Rann-Thanagar Holy War #1
5. Avengers-Invaders #1
6. War That Time Forgot #1
7. American Dream #1
With that out of the way, let’s get on to the comic reviews!
At the top of my list and soon at the bottom of my trashcan, Secret Invasion #2 by Brian Michael Bendis and Lenil Francis Yu. Lenil’s artwork on the series continues to be flat, uneven and very awkward. I’m not sure what Marvel was thinking by hiring him to draw a book where multiple versions of characters are appearing in and out of costume because everyone he draws looks the same. It doesn’t help that Yu isn’t the strongest storyteller around as the book quickly becomes very confusing — I’d go so far as to call it unreadable.
Speaking of storytelling, have I warmed up to the series after 2 issues? Not at all. The crossover “event” seems to be nothing more than Marvel attempting to fix a lot of its character and continuity mistakes and missteps over the past 10 years. Truthfully, they’re forgetting about their biggest mistake of all…putting Joe Quesada in charge as editor-in-chief. Of course, allowing Bendis to come on board as a writer is a very close second. Hopefully we’ll eventually find out everyone is a skrull and pretend none of it ever happened.
Secret Invasion has replaced Secret Wars 2 as my nominee for worst company crossover of all time. It’s nice to see Marvel finally answering the question of how badly one company can fuck itself up. Read More »
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Iron Man
Directed by: Jon Favreau
Screenplay by: Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway
Created by: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Terrance Howard, Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow, Leslie Bibb, Faran Tahir, Shaun Tobb, Clark Gregg, John Favreau, Samuel L. Jackson and Stan Lee
Running Time: 126 minutes
Rated: PG-13
Release Date: 2008
On May 2, 2008, Iron Man premiered here in the US and went on to pull in over $200 million worldwide. As a lifelong comic book geek who just happens to have every issue of Iron Man through the mid 1990s (starting with Tales From Suspense #39 from back in March 1963), I must admit that I have been dreading the release of this film since I first heard about it a few years ago.
While I am a big fan of both Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr., everything I saw or heard about this flick screamed “pure cheese” to me for some reason. Every still I saw or report I read gave me horrible flashbacks to earlier crappy Marvel movies like Daredevil, Electra, the Punisher and that God-awful Generation X made-for-TV flick from the mid-90s. I had resigned myself to yet another horrible comic book film with my only hope being that, maybe, somehow, it might not be as bad as Catwoman.
After standing in a long opening day line and being forced to sit in a crowded theater, I have to say I have never been more glad to be proven wrong in my entire life.
Like this post? Buy us a coffee!In honor of the Iron Man movie released this past weekend, I would like to dedicate this episode of Game On to the best comic book video games of all time. Unfortunately, the new Iron Man game will not be on the list. My quick review of the game is: they did a great job with the look and controls of Iron Man himself, but the game itself didn’t seem to be as well developed. The environments and enemies were a bit of a let down and, after a few hours of playing, I really wish they had paid Robert Downey Jr to record a few more one-liners because the limited number they had in the game got old real fast.
That being said, it might be worth a rental from Gamefly if you enjoyed the movie like I did (more on that tomorrow).
Here were go with the Nifty Nerd’s Top 10 Comic Book Video Games of All Time:
10. Punisher – Capcom (1993): Easily one of the coolest arcade side-scrollers produced by Capcom, the Punisher was built around game play similar to that of the Final Fight series and Capcom’s other comic book arcade release at the time, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs. In this arcade gem, you were able to play either the Punisher or a cigar-smoking Nick Fury as you fought your way through six levels of mayhem and destruction. Wielding guns, knives, swords, bats and grenades, you encountered faces familiar from the pages of Marvel Comics, including Bushwacker, Bone Breaker and the Kingpin…oh, and don’t forget a whole gaggle of canon-fodder goons, thugs and ninjas.
The Punisher arcade game was great fun to play and was loaded with some truly spiffy comic book style cut scenes. Now, there was a port of the game to Sega’s Genesis/MegaDrive console, but it really wasn’t the same due to some silly censorship. If you can find one of the old arcade cabinets for sale online, or have an X-Arcade Mame Cabinet, Capcom’s Punisher game is a ton of fun. Read More »
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If you were a kid in the 80s, then you were following the battle between two of the world’s super powers at the time. No, I’m not referring to the US versus the Soviet Union. There was something BIGGER going on and it threatened to tear families and friendships apart even more than the US Civil War. That’s right, I’m talking about the battle between the two greatest shape-shifting robots ever created – the Trainsformers and the GoBots.
If you were a fan of robot toys in the 80s then 1984 has got to have been one of the greatest years of your life. In 1984 both the Gobots and the Transformers both made their way to toyshelves across the US and I for one experienced my first erection. Although I enjoyed both lines of toys, I had an immediate preference for the Transformers from the very beginning. Their good guy vs bad guy branding and statistic cards on the back of the toy packaging reminded me of the GI Joe figures I was already buying and made me feel like I was taking part in some storyline greater than myself. To me, the Gobots were cheap and nowhere near as cool. Read More »
It’s another exciting week here at the Nifty Nerd and we’ve got a new episode of Comics That Piss Me Off to go along with new comic day for the week of April 23, 2008. This week we’ve got some good stuff and some bad stuff, and a new Modern Master volume all ready to become the latest addition to my “bathroom reading” stack of books.
Let’s see what wonders are waiting in this week’s buy pile:
1. Mighty Avengers #12
2. Hulk #3
3. Number of the Beast #2
4. The Spirit #16
5. Justice League of America #20
6. Modern Masters Volume 16: Mike Allred
First up, Mighty Avengers #12 by Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev. I am a regular reader of the Mighty Avengers, in spite of it being a fairly poorly written book, and I have to say this new issue confused me. I say this because as I read the issue I kept flipping back to the cover to make sure it was an issue of the Mighty Avengers and not its companion book, the New Avengers. Bendis must have been confused himself as he wrote the book because it features not a single member of the Mighty Avengers, and focuses almost completely on the renegade team and Nick Fury. This book is even worse than regular Marvel books which require you to have read every previous issue of a book for the past 5 years…this book requires that you have read every issue of some other series. Marvel really needs to get rid of Brian Bendis if they want to open their books up to new readers…or open the books up to good writing. Read More »
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