The Cephalopod Coffeehouse - February

While cleaning my side of the bedroom recently, I stumbled over a whole slew of books that I had been loaned at one time or another.  Our host, The Armchair Squid, let me borrow this ages ago...

This is the "true" story of the birth of the comic book and the comic book industry in America.  I've read the fictionalized account, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" by Michael Chabon, at one point and struggled to finish it.  My comic book data base tells me I have 53 comics written by the author, Gerard Jones...mostly early 1990s Justice League books.

I did enjoy this more than Kavalier and Clay and really liked some of the insight, but found myself, at times, wanting more.  I understand that so much of this story may be lost to history, but the book is filled with so many off-hand phrases like "We will never really know..." and "We can only speculate on...", I often found myself pulled out of the story.

I don't read much non-fiction but this did whet my appetite for the other comic book related books that have been published in the last few years.

School is out this week so I am on vacation.  One of my vacation goals was to start reading another book.  I exceeded my goal because I actually started AND finished a novel in the last few days.

I enjoy the escapism of the Mitch Rapp series.  I haven't read one of the books in a while.  They end up on my GoodReads shelf entitled "Credulity Straining Action."

The series took an interesting turn, in that Rapp was given a head injury in this novel.  It allowed Flynn to do a few different things with Rapp.

What I didn't know until I went to GoodReads to add that I had read this was that Vince Flynn died last June.  Apparently he left behind another Mitch Rapp novel.  I've read most but will make an effort to fill in the gaps...

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What is The Cephalopod Coffeehouse, you ask?

The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you've finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same.  In this way, we'll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts with other enthusiastic readers. 

Why not check out some of the other folks who are writing about what they read this month?

1.	The Armchair Squid	2.	Scouring Monk
3.	Trisha @ WORD STUFF	4.	Wishbone Soup Cures Everything
5.	The Random Book Review	6.	Words Incorporated
7.	StrangePegs -- The Casual Vacancy	8.	Read, Write, Repeat
9.	Mockity Mock Mock	10.	I Think: Therefore, I Yam

Shoulda saved these for Thursday....

I'm trying to put together a unit on division with decimals.  While searching the interwebs for information, I stumbled across these two pics...

Seriously??

This is the commercial that got some people so upset?



I'm having a really bad day and might be overly tired and sappy, but it actually made me tear up.

Cinema Sunday: February 2, 2014: "Definitely not Swedish."

Cinema Sunday: The Lone Ranger, Independence Day (Special Edition), X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Star Trek: First Contact

Currently #186 on my flickchart list

It always seems like faint praise to say a movie was better than I expected.  That being said, despite the reviews, we actually expected to like this movie.  Nan and I are big fans of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but were disappointed by numbers 2 and 3.  The fourth was, for us, a return to form.

While we agreed this movie could have been a little more "light" in places, overall it was enjoyable.  We expect it to be added to our collection once we find a used copy.

Currently #113 on my flickchart list.

I saw this sooooo many times in the theater.  At the time, it led to the (short lived) public debut of both my Robert Loggia and Harry Connick, Jr. impressions.  Despite all of that, I've never seen this extended edition.  Well, I've a stack of papers to correct, two assessments to enter into the school grade book and a week's worth of lessons to plan, so why not bring up some movies to have on in the background.

I find it weird to type that this version added to the movie, but it actually did.  A few character motivations get fleshed out and there is nothing that feels padded.

Currently #132 on my flickchart list

Better than I remembered.  And the only portrayal of Gambit in any medium that I've liked!  I'm fine with the mucked up movie timeline and the changes to how things "really" happened in the comics.

Currently #65 on my flickchart list

Our last movie of the day was Logan's choice.  We watched it with the pop up Trek trivia which fired us both up to watch more episodes of ALL of the series.  It leaves the episode of Enterprise which deals with the fall out of this movie as the only Borg themed installment we haven't seen!

Happy February!

I was up for about two hours this morning before I realized it was a new month!  What a nightmare January seems to have been!  It ended nicely though....despite the cancellation of recess, my teaching partner and I threw on our jackets and got our students outside for twenty minutes.  We secured a bus in the afternoon and went to the high school to see a wonderful performance of "Guys and Dolls" (co-directed by The Armchair Squid) with all of the fifth grades.  And I ended the day with Nan, our boy, and a dozen friends at an impromptu gathering at our local Buffalo Wild Wings.

So here are some of my favorite comic book covers with February dates:

February 1963

My oldest February comic.  I found this on my desk last year but with no recollection of where it came from.  I am meticulous with my records and couldn't find any invoice or any indication as to where it came from.  It should probably bug me more than it does...

February 1966

Another issue from "The Riley Collection"...I probably should read it just to find out what's the deal with Susan!

February 1978

One of the best Batman/Joker stories of all time.  The writer, Steve Englehart, once wrote that the comics from this run "define the modern Batman franchise, and from that, the modern superhero film franchise."  

February 1981

One of the last great self-contained stories in the X-Men franchise.  The entire story that will be the basis of the next X-Men film was completed in two issues.  Today it would be a twelve issue mini-series with numerous spin-offs and no lasting repercussions...

February 1983

My comic book collecting software assigns numbers to everything.  If I had been thinking long term when I started using it, this comic would be number 1.  This is the one that started it all.  Not a terribly remarkable cover but this is the one that started my obsessi....hobby!  

I just mentioned to Nan this morning that someday it might be fun to get a piece of original art from this issue!  While looking to see what was out there, I found this image of the original cover choice:

I remember once seeing an image of the two covers combined but I thought it was done purely as a goof...I had no idea they had messed up originally and someone blended the two covers together!