We Got Movie Trailers!

As I’ve mentioned plenty of times before, I love watching movie trailers. And they’re fun to share on this blog, just in case you good readers haven’t heard of these movies before. I’m bringing knowledge to the masses!

First up is Wildwood, an insanely impressive stop-motion animation film that I really, really hope excels at the box office.

This thing looks amazing. It looks beyond amazing. It looks like the kind of art that just doesn’t exist in the world anymore. And, fun story, the Laika film studio is owned and operated by a dude named Travis Knight, who is the son of the owner of Nike, so the family is loaded. And Knight uses that wealth to prop up his independent stop-motion animation studio. So a good billionaire, for once! Guy also directed Masters of the Universe this past summer, which I loved.

Wildwood comes to theaters on Oct. 23.


Next up, let’s talk about How to Rob a Bank.

This one looks pretty neat. Looks like the kind of movie we could all use these days. And maybe it’ll actually be educational. But the most we can hope is that it’ll be fun to watch.

How to Rob a Bank comes to theaters on Nov. 13.


Finally, we got a brand new trailer for the film Ray Gunn, another animated flick.

Also neat! So many neat movies on this list. Ray Gunn is the passion project of Brad Bird, the guy behind The Incredibles and The Iron Giant. I never saw his Tomorrowland movie (which isn’t mentioned in this trailer), but I still have faith in Bird. I bet this one will be really fun!

Ray Gunn comes to theaters on Dec. 4 and then goes immediately to Netflix on Dec. 18.

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The Cover Bard Kickstarter is Live!

The time has come for my latest comic book project to hit Kickstarter! As longtime readers of my blog may know, I want to write comic books myself, and I’ve got a couple of projects already in the world. You can check them out on the My Comics tab of this blog.

But the important project for today is Cover Bard #1, the first issue of my original fantasy comic! The Kickstarter for Cover Bard is now live and you can go and order yourself a copy for only $7 + shipping.

Cover Bard is the story of Langley Stoll, an ordinary dude who dreams of being a rockstar bard, but rather than pursue that dream, he busies himself playing cover songs down at the local tavern. When he’s offered the chance to go to the big city to possibly meet his musical idol, Langley jumps at the chance…too bad he’s being scammed.

This comic is semi-autobiographical, in that it’s going to explore the idea of standing in your own way when wanting to achieve your dreams. I’ve wanted to be a fiction writer since I was at least a teenager, but I’ve never done much to make it happen. Now I’m on the wrong side of 40 and am no closer than I was 30 years ago. Cover Bard will explore what’s stopping Langley from pursuing his dreams of being a professional musician.

This first issue is 22 pages long, with artwork by Luke Beatrice and lettering by Marina Leon. Overall, I’m planning probably 5 issues to tell the full story. If this first Kickstarter is a success, I’ll move on to making more issues!

Also, my writing partner Kristi McDowell is part of the same Kickstarter with her solo project, The Yearbook Club. Check out her comic too!

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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 9/19/26

I was off from work this week and I spent the whole time on a nice staycation at home. Got some cleaning done. Read some comics. Played a lot of video games. And mostly just didn’t work. So it’s a good week for Wonder Woman and Absolute Green Arrow.

Comic Book of the Week goes to Daredevil #7 for a really fun, really energetic issue.

I’m going!

Meanwhile, I took this week off from work to play the new Wolverine video game and I’m very much enjoying it! Haters gonna hate and chase those hate algorithms, but this is a very enjoyable, straight forward Wolverine brawler game. So I’m quite pleased. I’m also working on a second playthrough of Star Wars: Zero Company, which remains fun. And I’m currently working my way through the fourth season of Reacher, which is also enjoyable. So good times for me!

Also, it’s time once again for me to put my money where my mouth is. I review comics week in and week out, and I’m once again making one of my own. Check out my profile on Cover Bard, my new first issue, which will be coming to Kickstarter on Monday! If you enjoy my reviews and want to see me put up or shut up on writing comics, this is a good opportunity and I would appreciate your support!

Comic Reviews: Absolute Green Arrow #5, Avengers Armageddon #4, Daredevil #7, Wonder Woman #37 and Uncanny X-Men #35.

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It’s Time to Introduce Cover Bard

The time has finally come to do a proper introduction to my original comic, Cover Bard. This is a project I’ve been working on for a few years now, and it’s taken this long largely due to both money and finding a good time to bring it to Kickstarter — which is why I’m bringing it up now, because we’re going to Kickstarter next week! You can sign up now to get notified when it launches.

Pun very much intended

Cover Bard is my original fantasy comic about a guy who has spent his whole life dreaming of being a famous rockstar bard, but never doing anything to make that dream happen. He still lives in his hometown, works a boring day job, and busies himself by playing cover songs of his favorite bard down at the local pub.

The story is semi-autobiographical. I’ve wanted to be a professional creative writer since I was a kid. I think you can still find some of my teenage writing on FanFiction.net. And while I have been making some comics over the past few years — including Gamer Girl & Vixen and a few short stories — I still haven’t really made any big push to do this professionally. Cover Bard will be about exploring this idea.

This is the first issue of a planned mini-series. If it does well, I’ll hopefully have the second and third issues out before long, and someday I’ll have the whole story printed and out in the world.

As for the plot, Cover Bard is about Langley Stoll, a villager with a penchant for music who operates as a tribute bard to a more famous musician, Phoenix Fire. He plays cover songs at the local tavern, still lives with his mom and works at the lumber yard like everyone else in town. Then one day, Kenzie Fleet, an elf rogue passing through town hears him play and gets an idea: I can use this naive fool as a fall guy for a heist in the big city. She convinces Langley to come with her, and then she recruits a gnoll fighter she knows named Bartlesby, and together the trio set off on an adventure.

The artwork is all done by Luke Beatrice, with lettering by Marina Leon. All of the interior artwork and pages are done, this Kickstarter will be about raising money to print some physical copies.

I hope you like what you see and will consider backing my Kickstarter when it launches. Also in the Kickstarter is The Yearbook Club, a comic by my writing partner, Kristi McDowell. We do Gamer Girl & Vixen together, and this time we’ve each branched out to do our own solo comics. We’re all very excited to make more comics!

And, of course, I will be posting about this a lot more in the month ahead as we raise money. So get on board now and join the party!

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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 9/12/26

It’s going to be a small week for reviews because I sort of got distracted, apparently, and didn’t read many new comics. I’m going to be on vacation next week, and I think I was just ticking off these days to get through them. Anyway, here’s Fury of Firestorm,

Comic Book of the Week goes to The Fury of Firestorm #6 for an excellent finish to its first story arc! Can’t wait to see where we go next.

Imagine if the whole comic was like this

Meanwhile, I’m wrapping up Star Wars: Zero Company. It was a fun play, but far shorter than I was hoping for. I may do a second play through just to pad out my time. I’m still excited for the Wolverine game in the week ahead, even if the internet seems to be reveling in its okay-to-good reviews. I expect to still have fun with it, though it might also be shorter than I was hoping for. We’ll see!

Comic Reviews: The Fury of Firestorm #6.

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