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.  

Spoilers: Why The Walking Dead Mid-Season Finale Just Didn't Do It For Me

I'm aware this may be an unpopular opinion as The Walking Dead has risen to become one of the top television shows currently running on cable television, but as a lover of Robert Kirkman's comic series, I am sorry to admit that the adaptation is really falling short.  Perhaps it's because having read the series, I can envision just how spectacular the show could be, or perhaps it's the steady decline in well written episodes ever since Frank Darabount's forced departure after season one.  The lack of strong female leads is certainly a major contributing factor.  But either way, The Walking Dead television series simply is not cutting it.  It seems as though the average viewer is willing to overlook poorly written scripts and lack of character development as long as they see a few good zombie kills at some point during the episode.  This completely takes away from Kirkman's original intention for the series.  He has always explained that The Walking Dead is a tale about the survivors, and how they cope in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse.  In fact, Kirkman created the series due to his love of zombie films, but since he always felt curious about what the survivors would do when the movie ended, he started writing The Walking Dead so there would be a long term tale.  Zombie apocalypse's don't just end when the movie does, which is why The Walking Dead is currently up to its 105th issue.  Now I'm not complaining about the zombie kills, because who doesn't love seeing them?  But when the best episodes of the season are the ones with the least amount of dialogue, I think it's safe to say there's an issue.  

Super Villains Comic Book Club!

The events that transpired between Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year were unlike any other I had previously experienced.  We all tend to save up and shop a little more than we probably should during the days following Thanksgiving, but it was a purchase I made this year that quickly snowballed into one of my favorite projects thus far.  One of my best friends, Jen (@jennifermarie), has always had an affinity for Namor, and seeing as how Amazon had some of the trades on sale, I decided to buy two and see what all the fuss about Marvel's Atlantean was all about.  Naturally I texted Jen as soon as I placed my order and she wanted me to let her know what I thought about them when I finished reading.  We had been trying to schedule a Skype date for after the holiday (we're on different coasts) and that's how the ball started rolling.  We thought it would be great to discuss the trade during our chat, which we quickly decided would be made even more fun with the addition of wine.  We joked that it would be like our own little comic book club.  Both of us possess really enthusiastic personalities coupled with a love of comics, so it was only mere minutes before we realized this should be something we do every week.  As we continued to get excited about our new weekly chat, it dawned on us that other people may want to join in the conversation as well! And so, the Super Villains Comic Book Club was born.  I mean, what could be better than attending a weekly book club from the comfort of your own home?  We filmed our first issue last Thursday, based on Namor The First Mutant Volume 1: Curse of the Mutants.  In case you missed the video, you can watch it below or on YouTube.  And you can even subscribe to our channel and take part in upcoming issues!