Leisurely Geeks

Mayan Calendar (Photo credit: Michael Kwan (Freelancer))

I’m just going to come out with a bold prediction: the world isn’t going to end tomorrow. I’ll just leave it to the friendly people at NASA to do the grunt work of debunking if you don’t believe me. While I think this whole Mayan calender hysteria has gotten a little overboard I do find apocalyptic things generally fascinating. I often nerd out on documentaries about fallen civilizations. I sometimes go on mini marathons of the History Channel show Life After People and the book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed was my favorite non-fiction book that I have read this year. On the fiction side I don’t really care how the world ends I just like reading about what happens in the aftermath.

It’s hard to know when it’s a good time to start in on a new comic so to help you out I have listed some jumping on points I have found from personal reads and around the internet. If you are looking to add a little flavor this week but don’t want to heavily invest in trades consider picking one of these up. If you know of something I missed from either 7/4 or the other three previous weeks, hit me up in the comments. If you need to know what the title or character has been up to previously then I highly suggest hitting the wiki over at Comic Vine.

We’re back to the usual format this week after a two week hiatus. There wasn’t much going on as far as jumping on points other than the zero issue month by DC. I was a little burned out going over all of the DC #0′s for two weeks in a row. Now that the dust has settled I bring you two DC comics from last week worth checking out.

Detective Comics #13

After not reading Detective Comics for the past six months I decided to read this issue. Since the New 52 Detective Comics has been critically lambasted and issue #13 a new creative team takes over. I found that Detective has turned into the comic book version of a police procedural. Reading this issue was like randomly turning on an issue of CSI. Batman his typical Batman thing; using deductive logic, gadgets and martial arts to get things done. It was comforting, solidly written but I personally don’t know if it’s compelling enough to “tune in” every month. What I did find interesting in this issue was the B story included in the back. It is an interesting take on Gotham’s the seedy back alley contingent and how the every day criminal schmo gets along in a city that is patrolled by the Dark Knight.

It’s hard to know when it’s a good time to start in on a new comic so to help you out I have listed some jumping on points I have found from personal reads and around the internet. If you are looking to add a little flavor this week but don’t want to heavily invest in trades consider picking one of these up. If you know of something I missed from either 7/4 or the other three previous weeks, hit me up in the comments. If you need to know what the title or character has been up to previously then I highly suggest hitting the wiki over at Comic Vine.

DC Comics (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Another slow week outside of DC’s zero issues so I decided to dedicate another jumping on point fully to DC. There were four this week that I couldn’t find enough information on but I hit, what I think at least, are all of the major ones and then some. The ones not covered are Legion Lost, Resurrection Man, Suicide Squad and The Ravagers. Let’s go take a quick look at the rest and how they stack up as a jumping on point.

It’s hard to know when it’s a good time to start in on a new comic so to help you out I have listed some jumping on points I have found from personal reads and around the internet. If you are looking to add a little flavor this week but don’t want to heavily invest in trades consider picking one of these up. If you know of something I missed from either 7/4 or the other three previous weeks, hit me up in the comments. If you need to know what the title or character has been up to previously then I highly suggest hitting the wiki over at Comic Vine.

DC comics new logo (Photo credit: Gaynoir_)

It’s hard to know when it’s a good time to start in on a new comic so to help you out I have listed some jumping on points I have found from personal reads and around the internet. If you are looking to add a little flavor this week but don’t want to heavily invest in trades consider picking one of these up. If you know of something I missed from either 7/4 or the other three previous weeks, hit me up in the comments. If you need to know what the title or character has been up to previously then I highly suggest hitting the wiki over at Comic Vine.

Mudman #5

I have come to realize something with my rediscovery of my love of comics. The comics I get the most enjoyment out of are more of the prototypical superhero type. I like gritty realism and real emotion to be balanced with a bit of levity at least once and a while. This book looks like it leans on the classic Marvel styling with a bit of British sensibilities mixed in. It’s a pretty easy formula of take one teen, give him super powers and see what kind of trouble he gets in to. the reviews have me interested enough to give it a shot.

Reviews: Comic Bastards, Comic Book Resources

It’s hard to know when it’s a good time to start in on a new comic so to help you out I have listed some jumping on points I have found from personal reads and around the internet. If you are looking to add a little flavor this week but don’t want to heavily invest in trades consider picking one of these up. If you know of something I missed from either 7/4 or the other three previous weeks, hit me up in the comments. If you need to know what the title or character has been up to previously then I highly suggest hitting the wiki over at Comic Vine.

Amazing Spider-Man #692

This oversized issue is the 50th anniversary issue of everyone’s favorite wise cracking wallcrawler. There are three separate stories in this issue. The first part kicks off a new arc and is an introduction of a new superhero. I try to avoid spoilers so I’ll just say after reading it I have my trepidations with this new arc. The second story was a throw back to the classic Spider-Man No More! story and the third and final story is best described as Spider-Man’s bad day. Personally, I don’t think this comic is worth the $5.99 price tag and all three stories seemed a little trite. As for the future of Spider-Man, there is no word on what the Marvel is planning for Spider-Man come Marvel Now! The current writer, Dan Slott, is at least staying on up to issue #700 which should come out in December.

Reviews: IGN, Comic Book Resources (spoilers)

E3 Expo 2012- Borderlands 2 (Photo credit: Pop Culture Geek)

Jonseing for Borderlands 2 but played the hell out of Borderlands? Gearbox has graciously released the “original” game that started it all The Border Lands.  You can find it in its full 16 bit glory over at http://www.wubwub.eu/demake.php Head over there now and kill some skags and pop some loot boxes in the comfort of your own browser for free.

It’s hard to know when it’s a good time to start in on a new comic so to help you out I have listed some jumping on points I have found from personal reads and around the internet. If you are looking to add a little flavor this week but don’t want to heavily invest in trades consider picking one of these up. If you know of something I missed from either 7/4 or the other three previous weeks, hit me up in the comments. If you need to know what the title or character has been up to previously then I highly suggest hitting the wiki over at Comic Vine.

Daredevil #17

Out of all the comics I read, Mark Waid’s run on Daredevil has been consistently new reader friendly. This issue of Daredevil is a special one shot that delves into the history Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson. Also, if you haven’t been reading Daredevil, it will help set up the upcoming four issue arc. This issue came about when artist Mike Allred (Madman, iZOMBIE) wrote a fan letter stating how much he loved the current Daredevil and wanted to draw an issue. He was taken up on that offer and this is the result.

Batwoman #12

 Batwoman bucks the trend of not starting a new arc before September’s #0 issues and thankfully gives me another jumping on point to talk about. This issue starts a team up arc with Batwoman and Wonder Woman. I’ve constantly heard good things about both titles but personally there is only so much bat I want to take on at once. I do think the cover of this issue is amazing.

Reviews: Comic Book Resources, Multiversity Comics

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It’s hard to know when it’s a good time to start in on a new comic so to help you out I have listed some jumping on points I have found from personal reads and around the internet. If you are looking to add a little flavor this week but don’t want to heavily invest in trades consider picking one of these up. If you know of something I missed from either 7/4 or the other three previous weeks, hit me up in the comments. If you need to know what the title or character has been up to previously then I highly suggest hitting the wiki over at Comic Vine.
It looks to be some lean weeks ahead for this column when it coming from the the big two. On DC’s end the one-off zero issues will be rolling out come September and with the Marvel Now! initiative restarting many titles in October there won’t be many recommendations coming from that publisher either. I always look out for jumping on points from the smaller publishers as well but in terms of volume one of the big twos weekly comics is typically more than the smaller ones combined. There is at least one very big jumping on point from DC this week though so without further ado…

As an update to my earlier prepaid article Simple Mobile has reduced the price of it’s 4G unlimited plan from $60/month down to $50/month. There are lines to read between as per usual. 4G means HSPA+ which is in real world usage it’s about double the speed of 3G compared to LTE 4G which is about ten times as fast. Also unlimited doesn’t really mean unlimited. I’ve heard cases of throttling after 2-5 gigs of usage so keep that in mind.

I think now is also a good time to talk about my personal experience with switching over to a prepaid plan. I have been on Straight Talk’s $45 unlimited plan for about six weeks now after leaving Verizon Wireless. I chose an AT&T SIM for my phone because I wanted the extra coverage from the AT&T towers versus the extra speed on T-Mobiles HSPA+ network. Overall I haven’t had too much to complain about service wise. My secod job has me traveling all over Central New York and the only places I have found that have had poor service is a strange three foot dead spot directly in front of the computer at my primary job and at my parents house out in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t have any problems with Verizon in those places but I don’t find that to be worth the extra $100 a month that I was paying.

The plus side to switching is that when I am on a HSPA+ tower my data speeds are significantly faster but I have been walking on eggshells using their internet. If you read section six in their Terms and Conditions unlimited data only extends to websites and it specifies streaming video or audio as a no-no. Hunting through a few forums it seems that there is a 100 mb/day, 2 gb/month rule of thumb.

I am happy that I made the switch. Changing up my data usage habits to shave $100 off my monthly phone bill was much easier than changing my texting and  phone call habits to save $40.  Since I’m not held down by a contract anymore I am always looking for a better deal so I will try to keep the prepaid article as up to date as possible and keep you abreast of any changes.

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