Brooklyn Nine-Nine is almost like a what would happen if The Wire were pitched as a network show rather than HBO, where what started as a serious drama would slowly morph into a wacky comedy. In The Wire, Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West) has a hatred of authority which manifests itself in self destructive behavior like drinking, womanizing and taking a path of overall career destruction. Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) of Nine-Nine has a distaste for authority that manifests itself in wearing ties around his chest and adding glitter to his reports.
The whole time I was watching Nine-Nine I could see story elements used there — like Peralta arresting the son of a deputy police commissioner for vandalism, and the commissioner telling Peralta that Peralta’s career was in the commissioner’s hands, so let the kid go — being turned around on The Wire where it would be McNulty arresting the kid and it being the commissioner owing McNulty a huge favor to keep the whole thing quiet and it benefiting McNulty’s career.
Darwyn Cooke’s masterful and multi award-winning series of Parker graphic novels continues with Slayground! Parker, whose getaway car crashes after a heist, manages to elude capture with his loot by breaking into an amusement park that is closed for the winter. But his presence does not go unnoticed – a pair of cops observed the job and its aftermath. But rather than pursue their suspect… they decide to go into business for themselves, with the help of some “business associates.” From then on it’s a game of cat and mouse, one played out through closed rides of the abandoned carnival… a game that slowly starts to favor the mouse. Includes the Eisner award-winning short story “The 7th,” previously only available in the Martini edition!
Thrill to the exploits of the greatest heroes of the 31st century, the original Guardians of the Galaxy! Join telekinetic Vance Astro, alien archer Yondu, flame-haired Mercurian Nikki, superstrong Jovian Charlie-27, crystalline Plutonian Martinex, the mysterious Starhawk and his wife Aleta as they undertake a quest to find the long-lost shield of Captain America – a mission that pits them against Iron Man’s twisted legacy, the marauding alien cyborgs called the Stark, as well as the intergalactic thieves known as Force!
From Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnston to Doug Chiang, Ryan Church, Iain McCaig, Erik Tiemens, and the next generation of animation and video-game artists, Star Wars Art: Concept collects, for the first time ever, the very best Star Wars conceptual artwork. As curated by George Lucas, the artwork that helped bring the Star Wars Saga to life is revealed in all its glory, featuring pre-production drawings and paintings from the Original Trilogy, the Prequel Trilogy, the TV shows, and the video games, including an exclusive preview of artwork from the highly anticipated 1313.
These 1950s science fiction tales from STRANGE ADVENTURES #74-93 star weird alien creatures and intrepid space explorers. Stories include “The Metal Spy from Space,” “The Secret of the Man-Ape,” “The Hungry Meteorite,” “The Day Science Ran Wild,” and many more.
I think Agents of SHIELD has a serious Global Frequency vibe going on in its first episode. In both, each has a shadowy secret organization manned by mostly misfits that see themselves as the only line of defense between civilization and a weird destructive unknown. And the first episode of both Agents of SHIELD and Global Frequency featured a living bomb that could go off at any moment that could only be stopped by team members of Global Frequency/SHIELD.
But if Agents of SHIELD was a riff on Global Frequency I didn’t mind it too much. It did enough stuff differently and Clark Gregg was brilliant as usual which was enough to differentiate the two.
*Global Frequency was a comic that was turned into a pilot TV episode for The WB that never official aired but was unofficially pretty darn good.
USED TO BE. Re-watching the show in syndication this week makes me realize just how goodModern Family was in it’s first few seasons and how crummy it got afterwards. I don’t think it ever became a bad show, it just stopped being interesting when the characters broadened out and became caricatures of what had come before.
Making Monsters is a fascinating look at the world of animatronics and mask makers. Ed Edmunds and his small staff work tirelessly in Greeley, CO, to create some of the scariest animatronics and “frightronics” the haunt industry has ever seen. Ed and his company, Distortions Unlimited, are known in this industry as innovators with their impeccable design and execution.
