An All Female X-Men Series by Brian Wood? Sign Me Up!

I am the first one to admit that I am not well versed in the world of X-Men, but when I heard about the upcoming X-Men series which focuses solely on the X-Women, my ears immediately perked up and the excitement level set in.  Most of the reason I became so intrigued by the new series is because it is being penned by Brian Wood.  If there’s one thing I love about Wood, it’s his incredible ability to write captivatingly and accurately about female characters.  His most recent example of this is in the new Star Wars monthly comic that launched a few weeks ago, which is highly Leia-centric.  I also have adored his New York Four and New York Five series that Wood had written for Vertigo.  With the exception of Whedon’s run on Astonishing X-Men, X-Men Season One, and several other collected trades, I haven’t ever delved too far into the world of Mutants.  My initial inclinations were affirmed when I read an interview that USA Today did with Wood in which he was quoted as saying “I feel like as far as the X-Men go, the women are the X-Men. Cyclops and Wolverine are big names, but taken as a whole, the women kind of rule the franchise. If you look at the entire world as a whole, it’s the females that really dominate and are the most interesting and cool to look at.”  He also stated that he’s drawing inspiration for his series from Chris Claremont’s 70’s and 80’s Uncanny X-Men (which I’ve heard nothing but brilliant things about), and Grant Morrison’s 2001 New X-Men. 

Books I Read in 2012

Every year I make a list of the books I have read throughout the year by month as a way to keep track of what I've read.  I had been really worried about not having read enough books and graphic novels in 2012 because I had felt so pressed for time between all of my responsibilities, but once I tallied my list I  was thrilled to discover that I enjoyed a total of 102 books.  2012's reading list was very graphic novel heavy as compared with previous years, so another of my 2013 goals is to make sure I have a more well rounded list.  2010 was my best reading year to date.  I had been commuting and for 3 hours per day, and since I didn't have any close friends at my previous job I also had an extra 80 minutes of reading per day in break times.  That's a total of 4.5 hours of total literary bliss 5 days a week.  I was much more conscious of switching up my reading as well.  I would alternate between modern fiction, classics, non-fiction (mostly based on physics or nutrition), sci-fi/fantasy novels and graphic novels.  I want to get back into that habit for 2013.  So without further adieu, here is my 2012 reading list! (Some titles are repeated if I had read them multiple times.)

January
1. The Walking Dead Book 7 by Robert Kirkman
2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
3. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
4. Morning Glories Volume 2 by Nick Spencer
5. Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows by Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez
6. Kingdom Come by Mark Waid & Alex Ross
7. Batman: Through the Looking Glass by Bruce Jones & Sam Kieth
8. Spider-Island by Dan Slott
9. Green Arrow: Year One by Andy Diggle & Jock

New Years Resolutions & Goals for 2013

The second half of my New Years blog post is the obligatory resolution portion.  It's always been a tradition of mine to write down a list of goals more so than resolutions for the upcoming year.  A lot of people feel as though resolutions are broken so easily that it's pointless to waste time creating them but I disagree.  Even if you set goals that are too high or you're only able to follow your plan for a short time I believe it is better than to have not spent any time trying at all.  Anything you accomplish in the short time you try is still more than if you hadn't tried at all.  I think I did a pretty good job last year of accomplishing the goals I had set for myself with one major exception.  The one goal that I considered to be the most important and wanted to complete above all was the only goal that I wasn't able to check off on my list.  But mark my words, it will happen in 2013.  I will have a completed first draft of an original work.  In 2012 I was only able to make the time to write half of a screenplay and 100 pages of an original novel.  Having written both towards the beginning of 2012, I was forced to put my own stories on the back burner as the year progressed.  But not this year.  I've outlined the rest of goals below. 

2012 in Retrospect: The Good, The Bad & The Beautiful

Every year around December 31st when the weather gets colder and the year is coming to an end, I tend to spend some of my time inside reflecting on what I learned during the year, things I've accomplished, and things I want to spend more time improving upon in the coming year.  I'm so pleased to say that 2012 is shaping up to be an incredible year for me.  There is no doubt that it has also been one of the most chaotic and dramatic years of my life to date, but overall the great things that have occurred highly outshone the bad.  I have so much to be thankful for that I wanted to write it all out and document the things that have contributed to my happiness.

Happy Birthday Stan Lee From Your Friendly Neighborhood Gwen Stacy!

Last year I wrote this Happy Birthday blog post/love letter to Stan Lee for On Wednesdays We Wear Pink and I thought I'd share it on my personal blog this year in honor of Stan the Man's birthday<3!  Stan means a lot to me as he's created so many of my favorite characters.  I read his biography a few years back and it made him all the more charming.

Today is comic book legend Stan Lee’s 89th Birthday! For those who don’t already know, Stan is responsible for creating the majority of today’s most popular Marvel superheroes.  Some of his brain children include SPIDER-MAN (he’s our favorite at OWWWP), Iron Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Thor, Daredevil (with Bill Everett) and Doctor Strange (with Steve Ditko).  If you have not yet read Stan Lee’s autobiography “Excelsior!” I highly recommend it.  One of my favorite parts of his book was the story of how Stan Lee created Iron Man.  One of Stan’s bosses at the time remarked about how easy it was to make a superhero because everybody loves a hero.  Stan obviously knew better so he made a bet with his boss that he could create a successful superhero who the antithesis of everything America believed in at the time. During the height of the Cold War, when young American’s everywhere protested and despised the current war, Stan created Iron Man as a millionaire industrialist who developed technology and supplied the military with weapons. And as we all know, Iron Man became a favorite character of everyone. Another thing Stan shines some light on in Excelsior! (which by the way means Onward and Upward to Greater Glory!) is his early life and how he kind of fell into comics. Even after taking a brief hiatus and joining the army to assist in World War II (Stan ended up filming instructional videos and writing manuals for the soldiers going off to fight) he made his way back to Marvel.

The 12 Best Episodes of Christmas on Television

Christmastime is hands down my favorite time of the year.  I always do everything I possibly can to enjoy each moment of the holiday season before it ends and I'm forced to wait until next year to celebrate again.  Some of my favorite traditions include helping my mom bake Christmas cookies (this year we baked gingerbread cookies, raspberry thumbprint cookies, pecan danties, almond crescents, butter cookies, and rainbow cookies in Christmas colors), driving around aimlessly to admire all of the festive lights, watching some of my favorite movies (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Elf, A Charlie Brown Christmas, The Santa Clause, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, It's a Wonderful Life, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Home Alone, Love Actually), enjoying way too many of Starbucks' gingerbread lattes while visiting all of the holiday shops and Christmas trees set up around New York City, reading some of my favorite stories (Nicholas Was... a short story by Neil Gaiman, Batman Noel [which Jen & I just did a Super Villains Comic Book Club episode about], Polar Express, Tim Seeley's Hack/Slash Christmas issue and Christmas Trees by Robert Frost), decorating everything in sight from my house to my desk and even my car, and loudly singing along to the Christmas music I grew up listening to (as Buddy the Elf says, "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear).  Well this post has turned into a list of all of the Christmas entertainment I love, but the purpose was to focus on television episodes.  Below are my 25 favorite Christmas themed television episodes in no particular order!

1) Buffy the Vampire Slayer - 'Amends' (Season 3, Episode 10) - Amends is the only Christmas episode of Buffy that was made in all eight seasons.  In this episode Angel is haunted by his past by the forces of the The First Evil, and Buffy struggles to get rid of the Bringers.  The episode ends with a beautiful snowfall in Sunnydale.  

2) Batman: The Animated Series - 'Christmas with the Joker' (Season 1, Episode 2) - The Joker escapes from Arkham Asylum on Christmas Eve on a Christmas tree and begins to wreak havoc in Gotham.  He kidnaps Commissioner Gordon, Barbara Gordon, and Harvey Bullock, and the gives Batman and Robin until midnight to save them.  

An Unexpected 80's & Hello Kitty Weekend

I'm still recovering from what was quite possibly one of the greatest weekends ever, but I had so much fun that I felt compelled to write a blog post about it before attempting to catch up on some sleep!  I only spent a total of 9 hours (including sleep) at my house this weekend but it was worth every minute!  As a long time LOTR and Hobbit fan I knew that I had to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey on opening night.  I was overcome with joy at the thought of spending more time with Gandalf and seeing Bilbo's adventure finally come to life, so I brought my plushies of Gandalf and Bilbo to snuggle with during the film.  But before heading to the theater, I unintentionally stalked my good friend Alan (@SizzlerKistler) via Twitter who happened to be filming at Midtown Comics.  Melissa (@mechamelissa) and I met him there to buy a graphic novel for Thursday's Super Villains Comic Book Club and then stumbled into a Ricky's to buy wigs for the next days festivities.  Before arriving at the theater we met the birthday girl, Jill (@TheNerdyBird), her boyfriend Brad, and one of my closest friends, Dan (@DanSlott), at an adorable restaurant that was decorated beautifully for the holidays!  Next, we proceeded to stock up on movie snacks since we knew there was an almost 3 hour journey ahead of us.  We all agreed that the film was rather lengthy, but I really enjoyed it anyway.  I did not however enjoy the 48 frames per second 3D aspect of the movie.  It was just plain odd.  Everything looked too real so it was as if you were watching a documentary.  But I adored seeing Gandalf again, and Martin Freeman did a wonderful job playing Bilbo.  Plus Thorin is the hottest dwarf in Middle Earth.  But my favorite scene of the whole film was towards the end when Gollum and Bilbo were exchanging riddles.  The same scene in which Bilbo happens upon the ring.  I was pleased that the film was much more action packed than I was expecting, and I would really like to see The Hobbit again in 2D before it leaves theaters.