Mneh, Mneh, Mneh, Mneh, Mneh, Mneh, Mneh, Mneh: Batmanning

I came across this on Geek Out!:

What is “Batmanning,” you ask?

Zachary Levi, bona fide nerd and star of NBC’s “Chuck” seems to have popularized the concept on his Twitter late last month, a response to the “planking” craze.

Levi tweeted a photo he found of a man hanging upside down by his feet in a doorway, not unlike a scene in the 1989 “Batman” where Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne is caught doing the same thing.

Levi’s tweets have been more and more influential ever since he launched “The Nerd Machine” website just over a year ago. His supporters helped drive “Chuck” to a fifth season.

Will “Batmanning” succeed as a nerdy twist on “planking?” (“Carbonite” planking by two of the writers of the next “Star Trek” movie, notwithstanding.)

So far, a Youtube video uploaded a few days after Levi’s tweet showing various creative methods of “Batmanning” around the campus of Purdue University has 750,000 page views.

For what it’s worth, here’s that Youtube video:

I like to think of myself as a huge Batman fan, but I’m also a fan who needed Special Gym as a child. Batmanning would only lead me to bruised ankles and a cracked skull and I had quite enough of that in kindergarten. Stupid ball crawl.

Well, That Looks Green. And, Moist.: Swamp Thing #1 Review

Strange things are afoot – and not just at the Circle K. No, all over the world birds fall dead from the sky; bats plummet from cave ceilings; and, fish take a break from fornicating in the ocean to, well, die.

Does She Walk? Does She Talk? Does She Come Complete?

I will warn you now: as I sit here contemplating Gail Simone’s Batgirl #1, I am full of mediocre Pu Pu Platter and 12 year old Bunnahabhain Scotch whisky. The Pu Pu Platter was to provide grease to medicate myself after reading Batgirl #1 and then trying to solve my disappointment with Jagermeister. The Scotch is, well, I just like Scotch.

I was in San Diego this year at the convention when the decision to give Barbara Gordon her mobility back was formally announced. Now, I liked Oracle and I think that John Ostrander made a masterful use of leftovers by adding a paraplegic Barbara Gordon to Suicide Squad after the events of “The Killing Joke”. However, and perhaps this says something about me, the only incarnation of Barbara Gordon/Batgirl/Oracle I actually was ever really attached to was the one embodied by Dina Meyer in 2002’s Birds of Prey. Did I mention I drink? So, I was willing to keep an open mind for the new Batgirl relaunch – if only because I’m fairly certain that Gail Simone’s Batgirl will show up more regularly on my comic book store shelves than J.H. Williams’s Batwoman, which appears every 100 years or so out of the mist like Brigadoon and then fucks off again about as quickly.

Are Babies More Entertaining Than A Punch To The Stomach?

As I mentioned before, I’ve been giving the DCnU books a lot of attention. Babies, even baby comics universes, have a way of being attention stealers. There’s other comic book news happening out there, though. Morgan Spurlock’s love letter to sweaty cosplayersSan Diego Comic Con documentary premiered yesterday. Also, a comic book store owner has come up with a new marketing strategy:

AlleyCat Comics in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood has an unorthodox approach to rewarding frequent customers: Shoppers that hit 50 purchases get to punch a store employee in the stomach.

Excuse me. I have to fly to Chicago. BRB

And, Newsarama has posted some Marvel previews. Here are some of the issues I think I’ll be picking up soon (click through for larger images):

Who Wants A Puppy?

DC released 13 new #1’s this week in its effort to reboot the DC universe. I’ve been trying to work through the stack. It’s been challenging; I love comics, but I also love having the opportunity to get up and do things like eat or huck rocks at the neighbor’s kids.

One of the books I’ve enjoyed the most so far has been Animal Man, written by Jeff Lemire (most well known for Sweet Tooth) with art by Travel Foreman and Dan Green. Lemire sets up Buddy Baker, aka Animal Man, as a mostly retired super hero who is now focusing his attention on animal rights activism education. He’s also just finished shooting an independent movie that sounds suspiciously similar to “The Wrestler”, but with more super heroes and less dignity. Despite Baker’s fame and success as Animal Man, there is tension at home. Money is tight; his wife is giving his mixed messages about whether he should continue being a super hero; and, his daughter really wants a puppy. I mean really wants a puppy. More on that later.

When Buddy finally does get to escape the house to go defeat a threat at a local hospital, using his powers come at an unexpected cost:

Do not eat the brown acid.

And then, he comes home and finds out the lengths his daughter will go to in order to have a pet. Plus, mutant powers!

What was most enjoyable about the story is the way Lemire’s storytelling worked in conjunction with Foreman’s penciling to give the whole issue a creepy, otherworldly vibe that was reminiscent of Grant Morrison’s work with the character without being completely batshit whack-a-loon. Furthermore, Foreman and Green’s artwork is a pleasant respite from the pretty to the point of sugar shock art in many of the other books that DC has released in the past two weeks (JL #1, I’m looking at you).

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with a plate of nachos and this bag of rocks.

Low Hanging Fruit

Paging the copy editor for the Bluewater Productions Web site: you have a typo on your September 2011 releases page. A hilariously awesome typo:

FAME: Justine Bieber 2

The sound you just heard was the hearts of little 10 year old girls around the world breaking, accompanied by the collective whooshing fist pump of little 17 year old lesbians who are now optimistic that Beebs might actually play for their team. Good work!

Look, I’m Classy; I Own Art

Don’t mean to brag but, we just got some art we purchased at a few conventions back from our local, friendly art framer. We bring stuff to him all the time – like the My Little Pony painting stuff that a 40 something year old by all rights should have put behind herself years ago. He doesn’t even think our stuff is that weird; yesterday, someone came in the store looking to get a lock, an honest-to-Christ authenticated fucking lock, of Abraham Lincoln’s hair framed in museum quality glass. I can only imagine this means the dude is done with his plans for cloning the man? Look out, Tea Party!

Anyway, check these out:

Top is a David Mack print set I picked up at San Diego in 2010. Bottom was from the Boston convention in 2009. Was a female artist who's name, unfortunately, the whiskey took.

This is a fantasy meet-up between old school Captain America and The Rocketeer by Jamie Snell from this year's SDCC. Support folks in Artists' Alley, people! They need to buy food so they can have the energy to fulfill filthy fanboy requests for pencil sketches of Zatanna on Wonder Woman.

This is an actual canvas painting of a Dalek by Josh Adams that I bought at this year's SDCC. It is menacing. but adorable.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lock of Warren Ellis’s beard on a used napkin in lucite to crate and store.

DC to Batgirl From SDCC: Sandwich – I Don’t Have One.

Image via Bleeding Cool. Also, I like pie.

This week, we’ve got thirteen new number ones, plus Justice League #1 from last week. I added it in because it seemed a little silly to give it its own post last week, so I saved it. On September 7, 2011, DC released 14 (really 13, plus 1 from the week before) brand new titles featuring 105 credited creators, 97 male and 8 female. So we’re nearly two percent less than the average amount. If you want to get into a whole percentage of percentage thing, this 7.6% is almost twenty percent below the average total of female creators.

So, holding all those “The New 52” panels hostage while constantly harping about how DC needs more women while you were at the microphone really seems to have worked out, huh, Kyrax2? Don’t you know you were supposed to do the decent thing and walk up to the microphone and say “Mr. Didio, you’re really awesome! How’d you get to be so awesome?”, while shallowly breathing through your mouth to avoid smelling the other sweaty, latex clad superfans gathered in the aisle waiting for their turn to fawn at the throne?

14 down, 38 to go. Maybe DC thinks hiding the Mysterious Woman Of Mystery in every single DCnU #1 is raising the total number of women in its books. Maybe we’ll find out she could be any one of a set of octuplets. Cosmic octuplets. Cosmic octuplets who follow Booster Gold through space and time, because he’s from the future and he knows that it’s important for the future of humanity to up the number of women involved in DC and –

Oh, fuck it. Just come back next year and try again. I have money riding on this.

DC’s Crazy Stalker Girlfriend

You promised me Dave Matthews tickets in this timeline! And cuddling!

Who the hell is this chick? DC wants us to play Where’s Waldo and spot the crazy lady in each of the 13 issues of the New 52 that have been released this week, with plans for her to make appearances in each remaining #1. They’re whoring her out more than Ke$ha at a recording industry retreat, “Can a sister drop some mad rhymes on a random kinda celeb’s mixtape? What? Ke$ha. K-E-dollar si- Please? I’m so lonely.”

No one knows who she is, but theories range from some sort of new Harbinger to a gender swapped Time Trapper Keeper. To paraphrase Bill Cosby quoting another guy, “She’s in your home state! She’s outside your front door! And she’s coming to get you!”.

Publicity generator or monster in my closet: you decide! Also, I am not a hoarder.

Oh no! She found me!

Time to start smearing Jell-o and lighting my couch on fire. BRB.

From The Wilds of Hotlanta!

CNN’s newly formed geek culture blog, Geek Out! has been covering Dragon*Con this week. This is good because I can’t set foot in Atlanta since my last, tragic attempt at cosplay there which involved Jack Daniels, a General Sherman costume and a pack of Twizzlers. Possibly in front of the CDC. No. I’m not going to explain, what with the “pending charges” and the “gag order”, but suffice to say: this Yankee will stay up here, thank you.

It’s too bad though, because apparently I missed Carrie Fisher making out with a fan:

I’m going to go watch A New Hope and cry a little.