link love 06-18-08

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More on the subject of comic books, read the tales of the Mile High Collection and its sordid sequel, two of the largest finds in the history of comic book dealers and collectors.

This weekend is another free Team Fortress 2 weekend on Steam. Looking forward to seeing how the PC version plays compared to the 360.
Also, Meet the Sniper. [via game|life]

New mega64 videos! Marcus’ Corner episode five, and uh, Assassin’s Creed.

Hot Toys is preparing to release 1/6 Dutch & Billy figures.

And as they say, the future of gaming is user generated content.

What else I did last weekend.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pektowxRIoo]

Found this pigeon sitting on the street as the car he was taking refuge under pulled away. The above video is after he’d been in the house for a few days and graduated from baby bird mush to soaked pellet bits. The tea kettle sound he makes when he’s hungry drives the dog bonkers.

Video Games Live Las Vegas.

The show opened with the video of “Yuri the only one for me” by the Leetstreet Boys. This, friend reader, is one hell of a nerdy song.
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=189QSTKC5no]

The Las Vegas stop was held at the Henderson Pavilion, a somewhat intimate outdoor amphitheater with seating for 2500. The Las Vegas Philharmonic accompanied Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall, giving an extraordinary performance all evening (and playing through some not-quite-extraordinary sound mixing), and pianist Martin Leung was amazing as usual. Vocal artist Dee Baker was also onstage for a segment, performing his staggering Berserker routine.

For me, the highlight of the evening was Frank Klepacki’s performance of his C&C classic “Hell March.” Great tune, and timely with the upcoming releases. The crowd seemed to really enjoy it as well, and I hope they bring him back to do more next year. I’d love to see “Divine Intervention” live.

Video Games Live
The Las Vegas Philharmonic warms up.

Video Games Live
Frank Klepacki rocks the stage during a Vegas-only performance of “Hell March.”

Aside from the VGL touring regulars, special guests for the meet & greet were the local folks, Westwood alumni and Petroglyph staff, and they stuck around for another hour or so after the concert to sign autographs and say hello to the fans.

Ich Liebe Comics

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So the TMNT action figure bit in my last post has led to a hunt to see what back issues are going for (fairly cheap, if you don’t insist on 1st printings), if there were ever any trades released of the original Mirage issues (there were, and they are long out of print), and what the online comic book industry looks like these days. Everything in life is a potential rabbit hole to be lost in, for me.

Comics are one of the rare things I tend to always buy in person, and that’s mostly thanks to Ralph Mathieu, progenitor of Alternate Reality Comics, a shop I’ve been visiting off and on since the mid ’90s. I’ll drop by once every few months, he recommends a book or two, and off I go. Ralph reads pretty much everything and has a great eye for quality, so his recommendations tend to be pretty much spot on.

I just discovered that Ralph has a blog, an outlet where he can now share his comic book wisdom with the whole of the world. Go read through the archives, and find yourself a new gem or two.

link love 06-11-08

On photographing your anime and game figures. [via tomopop]
And somewhat related, taking better photos for etsy and ebay.

Also somewhat related, I’m sold on the NECA release of action figures based on the original Mirage Studios version of the turtles. My dilemma is deciding whether I want the current release or if I should wait for the black & white series 2 coming later this year.

Not counting the brief performance at the Spike VGAs, Video Games Live finally makes its way to Las Vegas this weekend. VGL is a great show, and someone we know well may be making a surprise guest appearance. Need tickets? Here’s a set on ebay going for cheap.
Update: They’ve posted the news, get ready to see Hell March live!

And finally, that didn’t take long.