Last year, Christina and I were eagerly awaiting Disney Epic Mickey for Wii, which was being headed by legendary game designer Warren Spector. In several interviews, Warren expressed his fondness for classic Disney animation block Disney Afternoon, and would love to make a new game based on DuckTales if given the opportunity. The game never happened, but he wrote a new comic book series based on the property.

This was exciting for me, because as a child of the 80s, I LOVED Disney Afternoon and thought Warren Spector was a totally rad guy, and knowing that he had the desire to breathe new life into something I loved as a kid was an incredible feeling. The back page of one of the DuckTales issues was advertising a few of Boom! Studios’ upcoming releases, and one jumped out at me immediately: Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers.

Rescue Rangers was my FAVORITE cartoon series as a kid. I could talk for hours about how much I loved it, how much fun the characters were, how the NES game is STILL AWESOME TO THIS DAY, and how disappointed I was that there was no merch at Disney World for me to spend money on.

I’m not going to, though. I’m going to talk about the comic instead.

We grabbed the first graphic novel entitled “Worldwide Rescue” from our local comic shop which collects the first four issues of the new Rescue Rangers comic (it covers the first story arc, there’s a second entitled “Slippin’ Through the Cracks” that I haven’t read yet).

A few years ago I stumbled upon a Rescue Rangers fan comic called “Of Mice and Mayhem” (just a heads up, it’s 231 pages. Once you start reading you will NOT be able to stop) which acted as a continuation of the series, but had a darker, more grown-up atmosphere about it. It dealt with some pretty serious issues, but the characters were true to who they were and the story, for all intents and purposes, “fit” into the universe.

Boom!’s series isn’t nearly as heavy handed as the fan work is, but it still takes into account that the people reading it are in their late 20s and early 30s, having grown up with the original cartoon in the late 80s. As a result, the story is overall fun and lighthearted although certain things that would never be referenced in the cartoon (such as death) are given a very respectable treatment as part of the narrative.

Series villain Fat Cat has somehow gotten control of the Animal Rescue System, a device created by Gadget’s late father that could trigger a “berserk” state in animals in order to help them protect themselves against humans. Of course Fat Cat has his own uses for the machine, and begins using it to send armies of animals after the Rescue Rangers. It’s up to them to figure out how Fat Cat got ahold of the ARS and shut it down permanently.

The writing is incredibly sharp and sits comfortably between the old cartoon and a modern comic book. The team dynamic is just as it was when we last saw the Rescue Rangers in 1990, and without the constraints of an animated series, we get to delve a little deeper into each character’s personality. Reading that last sentence again, I feel a bit silly describing five anthropomorphic animals that way, but hey, Disney certainly can’t be accused of creating bad characters. Boom! just gave them more room to move around.

The art is simply incredible. The world looks much richer than it did in the animated series. The colors are vibrant and bring each panel to life, and although the style is slightly different from the series, the characters all retain their looks and charm.

Oh yeah, there’s even a reference to the NES game in here. It was so awesome I experienced nostalgia palpitations.

It might just be because I have such fond memories of the show (I bought the first DVD volume a few months ago… I haven’t opened it yet, I just really like owning it, knowing it’s there) but I’m really, really impressed with the first part of the Rescue Rangers revival. At $15 for the graphic novel collection, you really can’t go wrong. Of course, even owning this I’m going to want to go back and collect the individual issues (and each one has several variant covers!), but I doubt you’re as crazy as me.

We made shirts for the premiere of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World! We’re nerds so we like dressing up for things. We decided to do homemade band shirts for all the bands from the comic, and did them with fabric paint so they would have that real indie band vibe to them.

I went with The Boys!! and Crash! because I love how it completely disregards grammar rules (and AutoCorrect is giving me hell right now). It doesn’t come across very well in the picture, but you can see little extra brush marks on the bottoms and side of the letters from where I had too much paint. I think it makes it look pretty rad.

Christina made the Gideon shirt because she has a crush on him or something. I don’t know. I think it looks great regardless. The white letters have a bold black paint outline around them, which really makes the shirt itself look like it’s from the comic.

Christina’s sister made one for The Clash at Demonhead. I love how the word “Clash” came out and how she worked in the skull from Todd Ingram’s shirt in there.

Christina’s friend Eryn made the shirt for Sex Bob-Omb. There’s official Sex Bob-Omb t-shirts for sale now, so I like how she made it very different from the ones you can buy from Hot Topic or wherever.

Dressing up for things is like some kind of geek calling. It’s hard to resist! If we’re in a situation that calls for it, we can’t help but want to show off our enthusiasm for the event. We go to Anime Boston every year, and in ’09 we went as Dawn and Ethan (then still called Gold) from Pokémon. We got a lot of good feedback, and a ton of people wanted pictures of us.

Last year we didn’t really have the time or money to put together a cosplay, but we made hoodies based on our favorite Bleach captains. Christina did Squad 6, Byakuya Kuchiki’s squad, and I did Squad 10, Toushirou Hitsugaya’s squad. Christina even wore barettes and a scarf like Byakuya does.

Do any of you cosplay? Or are you more of an admirer than a participator?

I don’t really know how to start an article about how awesome Scott Pilgrim is so I’ll start it by saying that I don’t really know how to start an article about how awesome Scott Pilgrim is.

Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour, the sixth and final volume of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series was released on Tuesday. I’ve read it a couple of times now, and really, it was a great ending to what is honestly one of the best things to happen to comics in the past decade.

For those of you who don’t know (all five of you) Scott Pilgrim is a graphic novel series written and drawn by Bryan Lee O’Malley about a guy named Scott Pilgrim who falls in love with a girl named Ramona Flowers. In order to be with Ramona, though, Scott first has to fight, and defeat, her Seven Evil Ex-Boyfriends. Hilarity and video game references ensue.

The Scott Pilgrim saga (we can call it a saga, right?) is just… I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s geeky, it’s trendy, it’s down to earth, and it’s mind blowing. It really has something for just about everybody. I haven’t met anyone who’s read the books and NOT loved them. Even people who I figured would be kinda “meh” about them have loved them.

It says a lot about author Bryan Lee O’Malley. His art style is deceptively detailed, the simple character designs playing host to a surprising amount of emotional depth. Even better than his art is his writing, where he manages to take these people that these fantastic things are happening to and make them just like people we all know in real life.

We all know I’m a huge nerd so it’s obvious why I love Scott Pilgrim so much. The books are essentially pages and pages of fan service. Each fight with an evil ex-boyfriend is basically a boss fight from a video game. Scott levels up. He gets extra lives. Defeated enemies leave coins behind.

I was looking forward to Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour with equal parts excitement and dread. I was excited because I have been waiting FOREVER to see how it all ends, but I was really bummed out because after I finished reading, that was it. No more Scott, no more Ramona, no more Kim, Stephen Stills, Young Neil, Knives, Wallace, or Stacey. The story was over.

LUCKILY I found out that since the final volume wasn’t written when they started work on the movie that the movie and the books have two different endings. I think this is awesome because I get to experience the end of the story twice, and neither time do I know what’s going to happen.

More people are becoming aware of Scott Pilgrim due to the heavy marketing for the movie, and I think that’s pretty awesome. Usually when they take something I like and turn it into a movie I think it’s going to turn out dumb, but everything I see from the movie (called Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) just gets me more and more pumped. I wasn’t sure about casting Michael Cera as Scott at first, because A) he doesn’t look like Scott and B) Michael Cera really only knows how to play Michael Cera, but from what I’ve seen he pulls it off well.

With Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) directing, you know it’s going to be awesome. The trailers are showing us that he’s really taken the comic and put it on the screen. Every outlandish thing that happens in the panels are happening in the movie, from the pee meter to the extra lives to Lucas Lee whipping Scott into a distant building like Mario throwing Bowser by his tail.

I’m stoked about people getting excited about the movie because that means they’re going to read the books. We have a whole bookcase full of manga and graphic novels and there’s a lot of books on that shelf that mean a lot to me. I have my mint condition Dragon Ball Daizenshuu guide. I have my Akira Toriyama art book. I have my PVP volume 7 signed by Scott Kurtz. Even with all those things, seeing all six Scott Pilgrim volumes lined up really makes it all feel complete.

And then, to top it all off, we get a VIDEO GAME. It’s a 2D classic sidescrolling beat ‘em up with art based on the comic and music by chiptune rock band Anamanaguchi. So we have a video game based on a movie which is based on a comic which is influenced by video games.

I will have every achievement in that game. Mark my words.

Today, Bryan Lee O’Malley showed off on his Twitter pictures from Comic Con, and we’re getting Scott Pilgrim action figures and plushes in August to coincide with the movie.

Seriously, all of this is so mind-blowingly awesome I almost can’t handle it.

When I picked up Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life from that tiny, dank hole-in-the-wall comic shop in Cambridge, I had no idea that I was going to love it so much. I had no idea it would get as popular as it is now. I’m not one of those losers who gets mad when something they like gets popular. It’s a wonderful story and the way I see it, the more people who experience it the better.

Next week we are FOR SURE going to have a podcast I PROMISE. Believe me, I feel like a giant ass for missing two in a row. I hope all you sexy folks can forgive me.

But! I have more comics for you. Remember to click them for full size, otherwise they break the layout. First one by Jacob, other two by me.

New Pokémon games were announced too! They’ll have more information on the Japanese television show Pokémon Sunday, so look for my thoughts in my post on Monday.

Back in 2003-2004, I used to do a webcomic called Terminal Crossing with some old friends of mine. Most of the time it was pretty crappy but we had a few gems in there. I’ll share some of my favorites with you on nights like this when I just don’t have the time to get anything done for real.

The first one was written by my old friend Jacob, the second and third are by me. Click for full size, because otherwise they break the blog’s layout. Enjoy!