2015 Reading Challenge Book 071 The Walking Dead Fall of the Governor part 2

TITLE-The Walking Dead The Fall of the Governor part 2
AUTHOR-Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga
FORMAT-Paperback
FIRST TIME READING-Yes
PRICE-$5.35

I love The Walking Dead. It is one of the few comics I keep up with anymore. And the only TV show I make sure to not miss each episode. So when I found the first of the Walking Dead novels I grabbed it and read it in 3 days.              

This novel tells the Governor and Woodbury's side to the conflict that happened at the prison. Now one thing these novels are based on the comics not the TV show. And while it is interesting to get the other side of the story,the book drags badly. I have been reading this novel since early this year.I would read it for a few nights then get bored with it and switch to another novel.

Finally about 100 pages from the end it gets good. And I can't wait on the next novel. Which will be set in Woodbury after the Governor is dead. I can't wait to see what happens. Since this is something that so far hasn't been covered in the comic.

Fall of the Governor part 2 gets a 2.11 outta 5.

2015 Reading Challenge Book 070 Fireworks

TITLE-Fireworks
AUTHOR-James A. Moore
FORMAT-Paperback
FIRST TIME READING-No
PRICE-$1

Grabbed this mostly cause I needed another book to get a deal. And it was from Leisure horror. But really it isn't a horror novel.

In a small town they are about to celebrate 4th of July. When a UFO crashes into a nearby lake. Then all hell breaks loose. The military comes in and takes over. And our heroes are just trying to get out of the town alive.

This really feels like an episode of X-files. You got all the tropes. The small town cop that wants to do right by his people. The harden soldier that is just following orders. You know the ropes here.

Even with it being a bit predictable it turned out to be a decent read. And now I am wanting to read more from Mr Moore.

Fireworks gets a 2.94 outta 5.

2015 Reading Challenge Book 069 Night in the lonesome October

TITLE-Night in the lonesome October
AUTHOR-Richard Laymon
FORMAT-Paperback
FIRST TIME READING-No
PRICE-75 cents

Thanks to my local used bookstore and a great used bookstore on the coast,I have acquired a decent sized collection of Laymon books from Leisure Horror.After discovering Laymon I was grabbing any of his books I found for cheap.

Ed is at college,and gets a Dear John letter from his girl. Of course he gets depressed. To cheer himself up he takes a late night walk to a donut shop not far from the college. On the way he sees an attractive woman breaking into a house. He lets his curiosity get the better of him and goes to see what she is doing. This sets off one of the strangest novels I have read in modern horror.

Once Ed sees this young lady once he starts going out every night hoping to see her. And he runs into all kinds of crazy shit. Like cannibalistic homeless men that live under a bridge. Seems night time in the small town he lives in is very very different from the 1950's everything is great daytime hours.

Really it is hard to describe this book. I reads like Laymon just wrote down whatever popped up in his head. Normally when an author does that it doesn't work. This time it does. Just do not go into the book expecting most things to be explained. And do not expect a happy ending. But it is Richard Laymon so you should know to not expect a happy ending.

Night in lonesome October gets a 3.87 outta 5.

Wacky Pack Erasers

As a kid I wasn't into baseball cards like most of my friends. I didn't get into collecting those until I was about 12. But I feel in love with 2 non-sport card series. First there was Garbage Pail Kids. I loved those stickers so much. And had at least 300 when I was younger. The other series was Wacky Packs. At a out of the way Mom and Pop corner store I found an old box of Wacky Packs. I bought as many packs as I could afford. But once all the packs in that box where gone I didn't see anymore Wacky Packs.

Fast forward to 2003.Topps had brought back Garbage Pail Kids. And I was buying the so called Bonus Boxes at Target each payday. And one of them included a few promo cards for the upcoming revival of Wacky Packs. Sadly I never saw the packs of Wacky Packs.

Fast forward again,this time to 2013. I was in Dollar Tree,about to check out when I saw a box of what I assumed was packs of trading cards. I noticed the familiar Topps logo then saw WACKY PACKS!! I looked closer and these were not stickers,they were novelty erasers. I grabbed 10 packs. And once I was in my car opened them up. Each pack had 3 erasers. 3 stickers of the erasers you got in the pack. Plus a tiny guide letting you know the rarity of each eraser.

3 days later I went back to Dollar Tree planning on buying more of them,and they were gone. Oh well. Then last week I was on Dollar Tree,grabbing batteries and seeing what books they had in. When I saw a box of Wacky Pack erasers. These are from a new series. I grabbed the 4 packs they had. And ended up with 10 erasers plus 2 extras. So here are the ones I got.

Yep instead of Pringles this is Prickles. And they are Thorny flavored.

Caveman Wich with sloppy dino sauce.

                                                          Dead Bull no energy drink

 Geek Giant dorky pea-wees. I do wish this had a parody of Lil Sprout on it.

 Sneez-its,A good example of the gross out humor common on Wacky Packs.

                     Zit Kat,a beef coated wafer for Cats. I figured they would go the gross out route here.

Jelly Bully,I really love the art on this one. 

Frosted Snakes,after having a run in with a king snake the other night I agree with Tony the tiger.

Boreo cookies,LOL I have always found Oreos a boring cookie. So this parody works for me.

And I saved the best for last. Just for Wolfman Shampoo-In Scare Color.Had someone tell me they were buying some of this for me. "Cause you are hairy like a wolf and got some grey showing."

So how is the quality? Well I haven't tried erasing anything with them yet. You would have to rip the labels off to do that. The labels are fairly heavy stock coated paper. I have no idea what these Wacky Pack Erasers normally cost. But $1 for 3 erasers and 3 stickers is a good deal to me. I got about 15 more that when I find them I will do a feature on them.

2015 Reading Challenge Book 068 1984

TITLE-1984
AUTHOR-George Orwell
FORMAT-Paperback
FIRST TIME READING-Nope
PRICE-$1

I will assume that most of yall reading this know what this book is about. So not going to bother with a half ass plot synopsis.

I first became aware of this classic when I was 8. One of my older cousins was in a local production of 1984. We went to see him,and the next day while at the library I checked out the book. Over the course of the next week I read the book. And really enjoyed it.

So years later I had started AP English,which was basically a literature class. And the first book we got assigned was 1984. Ever 3 weeks we got assigned a book. Along with the book the teacher gave you a packet of questions. With a page full of questions for each chapter. Quickly someone in the class discovered the questions were copied word for word out of Cliff's Notes. Wait do Cliff's Notes still exist? Anyway once word got out about how the teacher had stolen the questions out of Cliff's Notes every one ended up buying Cliff's Notes and not bothering to read the book. Since I had already read it before and really liked it I went ahead and re-read the book.

The teacher also had taken the time to not only get a copy of the film adaptation from 1984,but also edited out all the nudity and foul language. Yeah cause you don't want a group of 15 year olds seeing or hearing that vulgar stuff :P We watched it in class and because huge chunks of the film were missing every one else had no clue what was happening.

Well at the end of the 3 weeks we took a test on the book. With a bonus question worth 20 points. The teacher wanted us to convert the Declaration of independence into the new English of the novel. I watched as everyone else in the class spend almost the entire period trying to convert it over. I remembered that in my copy of the novel in the afterword the writer mentioned that the Declaration of Independence would translate into two words "Thought Crime". So while everyone else wrote paragraphs ,I wrote two words and made 120 on the test.

But yeah if you haven't read this book,and I am shocked when I meet people that didn't have to read this in either high school or college,go get a copy. Hell I am pretty sure it is in the public domain,so you should be able to find an e-book copy for free.

1984 gets a 4.86 outta 5.

2015 Reading Challenge Book 067 Project Superpowers volume 01

TITLE-Project Superpowers volume 1
AUTHOR-Alex Ross and Jim Krueger
FORMAT-Trade Paperback
FIRST TIME READING-No
PRICE-$7.50

I remember first hearing about this mini series in early 2008. I have always liked the Golden Age public domain heroes. With Malibu's Protectors being one of my favorite series. So when I found out Alex Ross was doing a mini series at Dynamite that was reviving lots of PD Golden Age heroes I had to read it.

I managed to grab issues 0 thru 7 out of the cheap bins at the comic shop on the coast I was going to a few times a year. The owner and I ended up chatting about the Black Terror and the Golden Age Daredevil for a long time that day.

Then a few years later the Science Fiction Book Club was having a big sale. I went to see what they had on clearance and they had the trade reprinting the first mini series for cheap. I gave away my copies of the issues. Cause everything in them is reprinted in this trade.

So what is the story? Starting in WWII the Fighting Yank is going around and trapping the various heroes into Pandora's box,which is a urn actually. By doing this he is told it will cause all the evil in the world to also return to the box.

Then in modern day he realizes he was duped. So with help from the Green Lama,he breaks the urn and all the heroes return. But cause of their time in the urn they have changed.

The main thrust of the story is these now free heroes dealing with not only being betrayed by one of their own,but dealing with how different the world is now.And by the end of the mini series they have taken control of New York City.

I ended up re-reading this because finally after a few years of nothing Dynamite has a new Project Superpowers series on the stands. Written by Warren Ellis,and up to it's 3rd issue. I wanted to refresh my memory on this series before starting the new stuff.

Project Superpowers volume 1 gets a 3.99 outta 5.

3 Toys from the Junkbox 6/12/2015 edition

Doing a theme this time. It is all Superhero teams. And everything is from the same toyline. Back in the mid 2000s the Marvel Superhero Squad line of mini figures started. About the size of the Smurf PVCs every kid in the 80s owned,these have a bit of articulation. And were normally sold in packs of two. My local Walmart started putting them all on clearance back in 2008.I bought piles of them.

Fantastic Four (Mr Fantastic,Invisible Woman,Human Torch and The Thing) vs Doctor Doom

It is hard to tell in the photo,but Sue Storm's feet and lower legs are see thru. And Torch is floating on a ball of fire.The sculpting on the four heroes is great. I do wish the Thing figure was a bit taller.Dr Doom ,besides the almost smile,is impressive. The details on his armor are well done. I must own 30 Superhero Squad figures.With only two of them being villains. Dr Doom and Super Skrull,I wish I had put Super Skrull in this pic.

 The Avengers (Ant Man/Hank Pym,Wasp,Captain America/Steve Rogers,Hawkeye and Vision)

This team I didn't start off buying figures to make it. Ant Man came with another figure I needed. Pretty sure Cap and Hawkeye came in the same pack. Grabbed a Avengers boxed set that had Vision in it. That boxed set came with another Captain America. Where his shield is on his back.That version is on the dash of the Newt-mobile.I like how every figure I got in this team are all long time Avengers.

Defenders (Silver Surfer,Dr Strange,Namor and The Hulk)

Yep the original Defenders line up. The Defenders are my favorite Marvel team. And to not only be able to get all the original members,but to get a Namor in the outfit he wore in the early Defenders tales is amazing.Dr Strange was the first Superhero Squad figure I got. Huge fan of him,and he was packed with Ant Man.I am kind of pleasantly surprised and pleased that they used Namor's short lived 70s outfit.Sadly Surfer has no articulation at all. It doesn't matter I got the original Defenders. All I need now is a Valkyrie,Nighthawk and Son of Satan Superhero Squad figures to boost the membership of this team.

2015 Reading Challenge Book 066 Stolen Hearts volume 01

TITLE-Stolen Hearts volume 01
AUTHOR-Miku Sakamoto
FORMAT-Trade paperback
FIRST TIME READING-Yes
PRICE-$1

I grabbed this in a lot of comics last month. Flipped thru it and saw it is a romantic/comedy aimed at teens. So kind of  put off reading it.

Our lead is the girl on the cover in the red kimono.Who ends up dating the tall guy on the cover. And of course the guy has no clue she has any interest in him. Just like she doesn't realize the same thing.Every trope of romantic comedies is here. Plus way more info than I ever needed on kimonos.

Yeah I get I am not the target audience for this. And while the story didn't appeal to me,the art is decent.

Stolen Hearts volume 01 gets a 1.96 outta 5.

2015 Reading Challenge Book 065 The Marvel Encyclopedia

TITLE-Marvel Encyclopedia
AUTHOR-Various
FORMAT-Hardcover
FIRST TIME READING-No
PRICE-X-mas Gift

Back almost a decade ago I got this along with the DC Encyclopedia for X-mas. If you remember the old Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series,this is a mass market version of that.

From what I remember,I really haven't read much from Marvel since the late 90s,it seems to be fairly accurate.And most of the time the artwork is pretty good.The selection of heroes is well done. You get all the big names,plus a decent amount of lesser known heroes.

I think there is a newer version out now. So finding this one cheap shouldn't be hard.

The Marvel Encyclopedia gets 4.11 outta 5.

2015 Reading Challenge Book 064 King of the Ring the Harley Race Story

TITLE-King of the Ring The Harley Race Story
AUTHOR-Harley Race and Gary Tritz
FORMAT-Hardcover
FIRST TIME READING-Yes
PRICE-$5

Until the mid to late 90s I had seen more of Harley's work in WWF than his NWA stuff. I knew of his legacy. But just hadn't seen lots of his classic matches.

Now after reading this fairly short book,I think it was around 300 pages,I have started tracking down as much of Mr Race's pre-WWF work.

The book follows the standard biography path that Jericho,Foley and yes even Chyna have done before this book.Starting off with Harley being a child. And moving forward.The tales of him working the carnival circuit are my favorites.

What I do wonder is how entertaining would this be for someone that knows next to nothing about Harley and what all he did in pro wrestling? Might end up trying to get my uncle to read this and see what his thoughts are.

King of the Ring The Harley Race Story gets a 4.00 outta 5.