Some odds and ends before I depart:

1) While not a contest, Leaguers sent in some great names for Nathan's new blog.

We now have:

Attack of the Cones
Send in the Cones
Mr. Blog
Nathan's New Groove
Corn!
The Wrath of Cone
Coneferous

And my personal favorite: The DaVinci Cone

I do believe this one somehow crossed the line from giddy silliness to certain sublime absurdity. Is Nathan the sacred feminine? An inverted Cone, if you will?

Nathan has suggested, himself: I Like Cold Water

This title also seems like a good fit for Nathan. Of course, there is no guarantee of a blog appearing at all, but I think Nathan has to be happy to know that maybe he'd get some spillover readers from The League if he did, indeed, launch his own journal. That, and Nathan routinely broadcasts his own voice to the greater San Antonio area, so he's got a better chance at drawing folks in. This is in contrast to The League who can't even keep the attention of a puppy.


2) Heroes and Villains

I felt as if we had acceptable participation in the "who do you like for a villain" sweepstakes.

Jim felt the need to bring up MadCap, and has been dealt with. The very fact that I can't find a decent bit of reference on MadCap should tell you something.

The League will be working on a Top 10 villain countdown. We may even do a top 10 Marvel Villain AND a Top 10 DC villain countdown. But that all depends on comments posted below.


3) Site redesign

So, what do you chumps think? Telling you guys how long this took would be totally embarassing as it would reveal exaclty how much I don't know about html.

You may recall the former color-scheme. Some time ago, when we were ready to leap head-first into blogging, The League had sort of picked the least offensive template we could find and just stuckw ith it. But recently, we'd begun to feel a little down about an orange, red and green scheme. It just didn't scream "HEY, KIDS! COMICS!" Also, the many, many items tossed into the html gutters around the daily copy had sort of left The League feeling as if the site was looking like a yard sale.

So, anyway, MAKEOVER!!! (You must all find a copy of Clone High, Season 1. Do it now.)

Masters of site design, Jim D. and RHPT, have been making suggestions. I've taken them all under consideration, and the ideas have really worked. I think. Randy's suggestion to make all of the text scrolling blink tags is still in the works. You can expect to see animated gifs of torches here soon.


4) Saw Madagascar this weekend. I wasn't expecting much, but it was pretty funny. Most kids' movies have a sort of sappy moral homily buried under the fart jokes and grannies falling down. Madagascar is mostly moral-lesson free. That is, unless you want for your kids to be prepared with a moral compass should you guys ever get stuck on a trip and suddenly you realize your dinner reservations are under "Donner, party of four... no, three!".

Anyway, maybe not something for which you'd pay full-price, but it's a decent renter, or maybe worth matinee price.


5) Batman Begins was screened at a comic convention in Philadelphia. Reviews have been universally glowing, which is extremely rare in the nitpicky world of comic geeks.

I'm excited. Expect a full "Batman and Me" post in the near future.


6) I read "Mage: The Hero Discovered" over the weekend. While aspects of 80's comic storytelling linger, it's an enjoyable read with classic Matt Wagner art. I kept thinking Jason would have liked this series during it's initial run, and I'm not sure how he missed it.




7) Ring a ding-ding

Off to Vegas. Jim D. called to let me know of a targeting range off the Strip which works on an hourly rate. Apparently, under close supervision, one can rent an M-16, an uzi, or any number of firearms. Then, one buys a box of ammunition and unleashes a lot of frustration upon a helpess paper target.

The League isn't nuts about guns in general, but this, Leaguers, sounds right up our alley.

Also, Lt. LT chimed with some Las Vegas ideas. Well, one idea: El Cortez Casino. Sounds like exactly The League's sort of place. Not much appears to have been updated since the El Cortez's booming 1960's success. If the low-fi website is any indication, it seems a swell time.

8) Return to Comics must be reading The League. Which is good. We're reading Return to Comics, and we highly recommend it.

Return To Comics also brought up Halo, who The League probably had some sort of twisted crush on back in the mid-80's. Alas, Halo was much older than me, sort of dead/ sort of a cosmic entity, and a fictional character. It just didn't work out.


It was the 80's. I was 11. I have no further explanation.


9) The League was meaning to react (or, more accurately, opine) to The Beat's recent postings about the perception of women in comic books as well as the role of women working in the comics industry.

here

and here

I do want to get to this, because I do think it's an important topic and not much discussed. When it is discussed, the topic of women in comics is usually addressed on comic fan sites and message boards with all the maturity you would expect out of grown men who think they can never get too close to anyone, because if their enemies ever learned who they really were...

But rather than dwell for too long on social issues, The League turns to the schadenfreude you've come to love and respect.

Here, Heidi notices The Invisible Girl is wearing an invisible dress. This one's for Jason.


10) Ya'll entertain yourself while The League is away. Mayhaps Mrs. League will materialize and fill in for The League while he confers with other folks working in his exciting new field. (Apparently if I can get five of MY friends to sell these exciting products, and they can each get five of THEIR friends to sell these exciting products...)

This person really knows not only how to hold a grudge, but really committed to her fairly unimpressive plan.

Comic convention season is upon the comic geek community. Wizard World Philly is currently going on.

The cover art to Jim Lee and Frank Miller's "All-Star Batman and Robin" was released.



Looks like it's going to live up to the promise.

No major Superman news to speak of.

Some bits and pieces

1) The League may be undergoing some aesthetic changes. Our content won't change much, except in the usual, organic sort of way as The League's interests flit from place to place. I do predict a decent into critical analysis of adult film by 2009.

The first sign of the change is the banner I made in Photoshop. It's directly above. Check it out.

2) Nathan Cone is considering launching a blog of his own, but he needs a title.

Thus far we have:

Attack of the Cones
Send in the Cones
Mr. Blog!
Nathan's New Groove
Corn!

and... (from Nathan himself)

I like cold water.


You know, Nathan should be able to make just about anything work. He's an interesting guy, he's got an interesting career, his wife is really cool, and when he runs out of material, he's got a kid to discuss. So I totally think Nathan should jump on this blog thing. Vote for your favorite title, Leaguers, and convince Nathan this blogging thing is where it's at.


3) Not so long ago a high school chum of The League resurfaced after several years of absence. Scott Wiser is a part-time musician, part-time film maker, and full-time master of funk.

At my behest, Scott sent along several videos he's worked on. The only downside is that Scott's been pretty busy making videos over the past few years, and so there's a lot to watch. I've only made it part way through the tape he sent. So far I've gleaned that Scott's got a good eye and an interesting, if off-kilter, story telling style that serves him well. And he's not afraid to still insert absurd chase sequences, just as we did in our 1992 collaboration "The Spatulator". A damn fine piece of film, that was.

Anyway, Scott's in a band. Austin Leaguers should seek him out. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the band is called, so, Scott, pipe up and let me know.

4) Next week The League will be on hiatus. The League is going to fabulous Las Vegas for three glorious days of EduComm excitement. If you plan to be in the greater Las Vegas area during this time, The League will be spending his days at EduComm and his evenings alone in a hotel room at Circus Circus eating circus peanuts, drinking malt liquor from the gift shop and watching basic cable.

Mrs. League is not going to Vegas, which sounds like a wacky time for The League. But the League has been associated with Mrs. League for so long that he tends to go a little stir crazy when he doesn't have Mrs. League around to keep him in check.

Anyway, I'm going to try to get a lot of stuff posted for you guys to read next week while I'm out.


5) They closed Bento Bar today. I went there at least once a week every week since I began working here in Arizona. Some weeks I ate there every single day. It's the end of an era.

6) The League un-celebrated his third anniversary in Arizona on the 1st of June. It feels like the winds of change may blow soon. Nothing going on. It's just a gut feeling.

Congratulations to the San Antonio Spurs, 2005 Western Conference Champions!

Great game. Seriously. Fantastic game. Wish the series could have gone on longer so I could have seen another one like that, but, hey... a little rest for San Antonio before the Finals.

Ginobili, Duncan and Parker looked great, and I think the whole team is going to smoke Eastern Conference in the Finals.

The Suns had a fantastic season with the highest number of regular season wins and the highest average scores all season.

One wonder show many players will return to The Suns next season. I hope we get them all back. I think next season will be even better.



Honestly, becoming a Suns fan has made living in the Valley of the Sun a lot more tolerable. It's given me something to enjoy which is directly tied to my local area. And God knows, anything which can improve life in this miserable desert is welcome.

We're not huge baseball fans at The League, so we haven't really taken to the Diamondbacks. We don't understand golf, so we've missed out on the PGA fun which occurs here semi-regularly. And we'd LIKE to know more about the Arizona Cardinals, but since they black out all home games which haven't sold out, we miss half of the games every year.

I've been a Spurs and Rockets fan for years, so I didn't think I'd ever jump ship, and I still don't really think I have. But they show every single Suns game on local TV out here, and after a while, you learn to pull for the hometown squad.

The Suns played great this year, and I'm hoping to get tickets to a few more games next year. We like watching games on TV, but The League has a deep, deep love of shouting at opposing teams from really bad seats.

So here's to a great 2004-2005 season. Let's hope 2005-2006 winds up at least as well.

Nanostalgia.com reviews the ideal of pop music bringing the world together.

The League would like to buy the world a coke.

10 minutes of clips from Batman Begins.