Anya's Least Favorite Holiday Movie

From Angry Alien Productions: It's a Wonderful Life in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies. (via the Daily Illuminator)

Quick Holiday Comic Reviews

Marvel Holiday Special 2004

by Tom DeFalco, Roberto Aguire-Sacasa, Takeshi Miyazawa, Roger Cruz & Victor Olazaba, Duncan Rouleau & Aaron Sowd

The opening story by DeFalco & Miyazawa is a re-telling of A Christmas Carol, with J. Jonah Jameson filling the Scrooge role. It works pretty well, as DeFalco uses the occasion to look at the roots of Jameson's dislike of vigilantes, but there have been so many re-tellings of the story through the decades that it loses any sense of drama. The two shorter back-up stories are both written by Aguire-Sacasa: The first is an X-Men tale feature Scott and Emma staying at the school over the holiday break to look after a mutant who can't go home, while the second has Franklin Richards asking the members of the Fantastic Four about their holiday traditions. Both stories are okay, though the FF suffers from what comes across as religious wishy-washiness from both Sue and Reed (Franklin's a bright enough boy that surely he's asked his parents about their religious beliefs before, I would think.) I did like Ben Grimm's line about he and Kitty Pride being the only two openly Jewish super-heroes.

Rating: 2.5 (of 5)




Jingle Belle #1

by Paul Dini, Jose Garibaldi, & Stephanie Gladden

If it's holiday time, it must be time for another round of Paul Dini's Jingle Belle, the tales of Santa Claus's not-quite-naughty but not-quite-nice daughter. In the opening story, Belle is miffed that no one in the real world knows who she is, so she concocts to star in her very own Christmas special. There are some fun scenes with thinly-disguised versions of characters from the classic Rankin-Bass shows, and when the network suits show up to meddle one gets the feeling that Dini is drawing on his own experiences with Hollywood. The back-up story is about Polly Green, one of Belle's friends, who is a teenage suburban witch (a la Sabrina). Fun ensues as Polly teaches her greedy family a lesson about fulfilling every desire. The only mystery with this series is why Dark Horse would schedule it so that the later issues will come out after December.

Rating: 3 (of 5)




Spider-Man's Tangled Web #21

by Darwyn Cooke & J. Bone

Peter Parker has brought some lost field trip kids to the Daily Bugle Christmas party; meanwhile, Sue Storm, Janet Van Dyne & Crystal are Christmas shopping at Macy's where Flash Thompson is dressed up as a dpartment store Spidey & The Puppet Master is staging a robbery. If that all sounds like wacky fun mayhem to you, then you're absolutely right. Darwyn Cooke merges a 60's vibe with modern storytelling to bring us a fun tale of holiday hi-jinks. So hunt through the back-issue bin (or find it in the Spider-Man's Tangled Web, vol. 4 collection) and give yourself a holiday treat.

Rating: 3.5 (of 5)

Win Swampy!

Mike Sterling over at Progressive Ruin is having a contest where you can win the Swamp Thing: Bad Seed trade. It's easy to enter, so if you haven't read Andy Diggle's Swamp Thing--go for it!

Christmas Covers - December 20

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.

Today's cover is 1989's The Amazing Spider-Man #314. Artist Todd McFarlane shows poor Peter and Mary Jane getting evicted from their apartment just before Christmas. Although since the Toddster recently filed for bankruptcy he may find himself re-enacting this cover...

Just 5 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

(You can find more comic cover Advent calendars at Polite Dissent and Raw Feed.)

Christmas Covers - December 19

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.



Today's cover is 1976's The Spirit #12. The legendary Will Eisner presents The Spirit getting into, well, the Christmas Spirit.



(Sorry, no Christmas monkey cover today--I couldn't find a third :( Monkey Covers will return next week.)



Just 6 more 'get-ups' until Santa!



(You can find more comic cover Advent calendars at Polite Dissent and Raw Feed.)

Christmas Covers - December 18

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.



Today's cover is from Mutt & Jeff #32 (Date uncertain--probably 1945). Bud Fisher's cover shows Jeff, in the spirit of the season, giving Mutt some gifts that he can truly use.



Just 7 more 'get-ups' until Santa!



(You can find more comic cover Advent calendars at Polite Dissent and Raw Feed.)

A different kind of 'contest': CBLDF Donations

Every pledge drive, our local NPR station has a 'new member challenge': if 10 people become new members for a certain amount over the course of an hour, a local business will match that donation.



I'm now making a similar offer, but for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF).



For the period between now and December 24, if 10 people make first time donations of $25 to the CBLDF, I will donate $250 to CBLDF.



(To donate, go to the CBLDF Website and click on the link across the top that says 'donations').



Just email me the confirmation email that you get from CBLDF when you make your donation. I'll post again once the goal has been met. (Please mention in your email if it's okay to identify you, or if you'd prefer to remain anonymous.)



(Of course, if you've previously donated to CBLDF I encourage you to do so again, but the purpose here is to drum up new support.)



From the CBLDF site: "The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund was founded in 1986 as a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of First Amendment rights for members of the comics community."