Comic Mini-Reviews Week of February 8th, 2012

This week: Conan barbarians, Lemire writes his own After Watchmen story, and Exoristos headbutts a triceratops!

New 52 Year 0.5: Batman and Robin

We've reached the halfway point of New 52: Year One, and it seems like a good time to go back and look at some of the most outstanding series in total so far. So for the next month, I am going to choose a book each week, read all six issues, and jot down some general thoughts and reactions. This week: Batman and Robin!

Weekly Round Up, Saturday February 11th, 2012

News:
Trailer - The Amazing Spider-Man
More Change is afoot at DC!
First Pics from GoT: S2

Comics:
New 52 Third Wave Pitch: Department of Extranormal Operations
Comic Mini-Reviews Week of February 1st, 2012
New 52 Year 0.5: Swamp Thing and Animal Man

100 Books in 2012:
Laura's 100 Books in 2012 - #3
Laura's 100 Books in 2012 - #4
Laura's 100 Books in 2012 - #5
Liz's 100 Books in 2012 - #5

Super Bowl Commercials:
Best Super Bowl Commercials of 2012
Super Bowl Commercial Addendum

FIGcast:
FIGcast - Episode 51 - "Creepy Whispers"
What Would Darren Read, Home Edition (Feb. 8th)

What Would Darren Read, Home Edition (Feb. 8th)

This week on What Would Darren Read? we allowed him to venture outside the big two for the first time! Welcome to the game, Dark Horse! Check out the covers we let Darren choose from after the break!

First Pics from GoT: S2

Fans have been waiting for these for quite awhile.  Specifically, we've wanted to get a good look at our new characters in full costume/makeup/etc.  In light of that, I'll start with the newbies.  All photos courtesy of HBO.

Melisandre, the Red Lady, and Stannis Baratheon, claimant to the Iron Throne

Davos Seaworth, known as the Onion Knight, trusted aide of King Stannis

Brienne Tarth, sworn sword of King Renly Baratheon

Balon Greyjoy, the Lord of the Iron Islands

Click through for more pics of our surviving returning characters

New 52 Year 0.5: Swamp Thing and Animal Man

We've reached the halfway point of New 52: Year One, and it seems like a good time to go back and look at some of the most outstanding series in total so far. So for the next month, I am going to choose a book each week, read all six issues, and jot down some general thoughts and reactions. This week: Animal Man and Swamp Thing!

More Change is afoot at DC!

     All morning, Josh Kushins over at the DC Source Blog has been posting announcements about DC's plans to move some of their artists around beginning in May.  So far, the books involved in the Musical Chairs are Birds of Prey, Resurrection Man, Animal Man, and Suicide Squad.
Steve Pugh will take over as the ongoing Animal Man artist freeing up Travel Foreman to move to Birds of Prey. Meanwhile, current BoP artist Jesus Saiz will move to Resurrection Man, where current penciler Francis Dagnino will take over Suicide Squad.
     I'm not really sure what would have caused such a restructuring.  My guess is that the departure or reassignment of an artist caused the dominoes to start falling.  One thing I will point out is that the artists who worked on Suicide Squad 1-7 haven’t been mentioned so far.  Federico Dalloccio did the art for the first five issues, but the last two have been fill-in artists.  Based on the pattern of changes, it seems that this all began with Dallccio and Suicide Squad. Perhaps, DC is moving things around in an effort to bring stability to the book?  Then again, that may be an unfair assumption.
Regardless, I will be sad to see Foreman and Saiz leaving their current books. Foreman on Birds Of Prey should be very interesting, I like him quite a bit but I am not sure he would have been my first choice for a book like BoP.

Update:  Travel Foreman weighed in on the changes over at the comicbookresources forums:

"I just want to chime in briefly, because everyone here has been so supportive of the book and because there's so much behind the scenes stuff that goes on with these books... I read a lot of comics and I too get confused about whats going on in some books and ultimately feel like we're getting a raw deal sometimes.

The change on Animal Man boils down to the reason I was on the book to begin with, which was that I needed to take on a job after my mother died (to deal with the financial end of someone being sick for a while and then passing) and Animal Man was the only thing DC was going to let me do. Which in any other time frame would have been perfect.
But really the context of me dealing with the death of my mom and drawing the kind of content in Animal Man just burned me out sooner than I thought.
I had hoped to stay on the book until at least the spring so that the artist I wanted to replace me was free from his commitments, but I would have ultimately just dragged the book down if I did, because it was becoming harder and harder to concentrate on the work.

Steve was bending over backwards on his fill-ins to keep the book on schedule so you have to keep that in consideration. Really, he won't skip a beat once he's doing the book full time.

Thanks, everyone."

[Image courtesy of DC's Source Blog]

FIGcast - Episode 51 - "Creepy Whispers"

Creepy whispers are creepy.

FIGcast - Episode 51 - "Creepy Whispers"

Shownotes:

• (00:01:25) Darren watched Midnight in Paris and bought a bike
• (00:12:30) Trey finished The Annotated Sandman Vol. 1, read Gates of Gotham, and started watching Freaks & Geeks and Deep Space Nine
• (00:27:45) Tripp read Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Morning Glories and watched The River and some Clone Wars
• (00:44:50)  TV Talk: (lots of new episodes this week, including the return of The Walking Dead)
• (00:46:10) Blu Rays: (Anonymous...A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas...Lady & the Tramp...Downton Abbey: S2)
• (00:48:55) Coming Attractions: (The Phantom Menace 3D...Journey 2: The Mysterious Island...Safe House...The Vow)
• (00:55:55) Box Office: (Super Teens win!!!)
• (00:58:30) We talk "Before Watchmen" and "The Night of the Owls"
• (01:17:00) Keith talks books, mutant piano players, and his love of Trey
• (01:25:15) What Would Darren Read
• (01:37:35) Trey's Pullbox:  (Batgirl...Batman & Robin...Batwoman...Demon Knights...Frankenstein...Green Lantern...Wolverine & the X-Men...W&tXM: Alpha & Omega...Thief of Thieves...Conan the Barbarian...Captain America)

Don't forget, you can email us at FullyIntegratedGeeks@gmail.com, you can follow us on Twitter with @theFIGcast, or you can look for us on Facebook or the iTunes Store.