Most Popular Geekery....

The start of a new year means doing the taxes for last year, yuck.

But it also means you get to review what you accomplished during that time, Yeah!

LarsenGeekery launched with a bang in 2012 and has kept on gaining altitude.

It looks like our most popular creations of 2012 were:

You're a Wonder: Prints and Cards.

And anything with a TARDIS door sign on it: Especially the Bags.

Thanks to everyone who picked up some Geekery Gear at our Shows or Online.

We hope to see you again in 2013.

New Year, Marvel NOW!

I have already said that I have an affinity for Marvel comic books, so I may be biased.  When comparing DC's New 52 "reboot" with Marvel NOW!'s "non-reboot", Marvel wins hands down.

Good things were already happening at Marvel in 2012: Fear Itself (the 2011 event) was finally over. Hickman's run on Fantastic Four and FF were amazing!  Bendis ran Avengers for longer than any other writer in Marvel history, and he did amazing things with them.  Fraction's Iron Man was solid.  Defenders got resurrected with a bang and retired with a whimper (sorry Marvel, it wasn't all good).

The big event of the Marvel year was AvX, Avengers vs X-men, which sounded like a gimmick, and ended up being pretty damned good.  I especially liked when Black Panther slaps the science out of Tony Stark just as he was going to go all Civil-War-Serious on us again.  (Tony only gets to tear the world apart once a decade!)  Cyclops started sliding into madness years ago (in my opinion) and the Phoenix Force just made it so everyone else could see it.  AvX managed to hit the other books without making them slaves to the "big event" (which shows that maybe Marvel is learning from it's past mistakes.)  Wolverine reopening the school turned out to be a really fun ride and showed what an ensemble cast book could be like, in Wolverine and the X-men.  New Mutants had a great year (thanks Abnett and Lanning) especially the "Date with the Devil" issue #37--possibly the best single issue I read all year!

Marvel did get bought by Disney last year.  This still kind of creeps me out and makes me worry, but so far so good.
Marvel movies did great: Avengers anyone?

So 2012 was a good year for Marvel.
And then they announced Marvel NOW! (which has to have CAPS and an Exclamation Mark!) the new "not a reboot" of the Marvel line.  Uh Oh!, I thought to myself.  Marvel is going to do a DC-style New 52 (which I did not think turned out well for DC).
But so far, so good in my opinion.

Marvel moved all their most popular writers and artists around, giving them fresh books to work on.  This resulted in some really good endings to some of the existing story arcs.  Fantastic Four, Avengers, New Avengers, Iron Man, Spider-man all got interesting stories that their old teams wanted to tell before they left.

And NOW! the new Marvel NOW! issues have been coming out (with more promised for later).
Bendis is on X-men now.  He did my least favorite thing and did a time travel story where the 1960's teenager X-men meet the new screwed up X-men.  I didn't want to like it.  But it is turning out to be really great.
Matt Fraction has taken the Fantastic Four on an intergalactic road trip.  And put a replacement FF team on Earth to hold down the fort.  I can't wait to see what happens next.
Fraction and Aja have are also 7 issues into a new Hawkeye series that is one of the coolest things being published right now.  It is hard to describe, but a joy to read.
The new Thor series is good.
Avengers is going cosmic, Hickman style.
Spider-man just killed Peter Parker (again) and replaced him with Doc Octopus!  (Don't worry kids, it is the 50th anniversary of Spider-man this year.  I'm sure Peter will come back to us somehow.)
And there are still more NOW! titles that have not come out yet.  Fearless Defenders, an all Girl X-Men Team, Nova, and Guardians of the Galaxy!  I am Groot!

This could end up being a great year for Marvel Comics!  I think they are doing a lot of things right with their "not a reboot".  It's a great time to jump on and Marvel didn't throw all their history and continuity into the garbage.  I like it so far.  But maybe it's just me?

-- Jay

New Year, Old 52

I always seem to end up reading Marvel Comics.  Even as a kid.  But I always liked Batman and found Wonder Woman interesting but poorly written.  But it was Iron Man and Captain America that I would read over and over again.  I like the idea of Superman, but the actual Superman in the comics usually bored me.

As I got older, my tastes stayed the same.  I would dip into DC territory once in a while.  Hey Green Arrow got interesting for a bit.  Green Lantern got good for a while.  But mostly it was Batman that was worth reading.

So when DC announced the New 52 "reboot" of the DC Universe, I gave it a try.

I read dozens of their number 1's, and as the year went by I was reading fewer and fewer DC books.  I wanted to like Birds of Prey, but it went nowhere.  Flash has had great page layouts, but not a good plot to be seen.  Superman had all sorts of potential and just left me yawning.  Green Lantern (which I had been enjoying before the reboot) enslaved Hal Jordan to Sinestro and put me into blackest boredom.  Green Arrow just sucked... The only surprise was Wonder Woman, whose book has stayed very good all year by basically remaining independent from the rest of the DC Universe.  I am convince the Wonder Woman kissing Superman in Justice League is a different Wonder Woman than the daughter of Zeus who has been kicking ass in Hades and Olympus.

There were a few sparks of interest on Earth 2, but I'm not sure that book will ever stick with any of those characters long enough to make it really interesting.

And there has been Batman.  Batman, especially the Synder/Capullo series, has been fantastic!  I can't say enough about how good Batman has been.  That maze of the Owls sequence will go down in comics history.

But that's it.  Batman and Wonder Woman.

DC said this was a great time to jump in.  DC said we didn't have to know all the back story to understand these characters.  But it didn't turn out to be true.  The "reboot" didn't reboot nearly enough for me.  And the end result was kind of a wash.  I back down to reading Batman and Wonder Woman again.  Sorry DC.  I tried.  Maybe it isn't you.  Maybe its me?

Thankfully, there is still Marvel and other comics companies.

-- Jay

Happy Holidays from LarsenGeekery

Merry Christmas from Jay and Evelyn, aka LarsenGeekery.
Have a Super Solstice, a Killer Kwanza, a Yawping Yule, and we hope to see you all in the Geeky New Year!

Count Down to Geek Fest 2012

Only a few more days until our next live show,  Geek Fest 2012, a concert and vendor fair put on by Seattle Browncoats Charities.  Spirited music, spirited performances and Spirited Shopping in Shoreline, WA.

Shoreline Conference Center, 18560 1st Ave NE, Shoreline, WA 98155 on December 15 & 16, 2012. Hours: Saturday: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., Sunday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

We will be there with all our best Geekery Gear: Coffee Hero Cards, Prints, Comics, Bags, Hoodies, etc., etc., etc...  Oh, and there will be music and other vendors as well.

Tis the Season and all that Fa-La-La-La-La

We've got the spirit, how 'bout you?  The Holiday Spirit that is!
Join us at our next live show,  Geek Fest 2012, a concert and vendor fair put on by Seattle Browncoats Charities.  Spirited music, spirited performances and Spirited Shopping in Shoreline, WA.

Shoreline Conference Center, 18560 1st Ave NE, Shoreline, WA 98155 on December 15 & 16, 2012. Hours: Saturday: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., Sunday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

If you can't make it to the show, get your Holiday Geek Gear at LarsenGeekery.com. 

There is still time to have things shipped in time for Christmas.

New Comic: Giga-Geekery #1 Is Here!

I'm pretty excited to announce that my newest comic book, Giga-Geekery #1: Emperor Jack's Day Off, is making its debut right here!  Ta-Ta-Dah!  That was a horn flourish...

It is the story of how Emperor Jack tries to beat the Monday Blues by taking a day off.
He leaves a plate of Eggs and Toast to run the government while he is away, and amazingly, his breakfast does a pretty good job while he is away having fun adventures.  And it is written, penciled, inked, colored, lettered, printed, stapled and folded by me, Jay Larsen.

You Can Read a Preview of Giga-Geekery #1 by Clicking Here!

You Can Buy a Copy at our Etsy Store by Clicking Here!  Only $3.00!

You can see all of my original comics by Clicking on the Comics Tab at the top of the page.

We will be bringing copies, hot off the press, to our next live show,  Geek Fest 2012, a concert and vendor fair put on by Seattle Browncoats Charities.  Great music and performances and Great Shopping in Shoreline, WA.

Shoreline Conference Center, 18560 1st Ave NE, Shoreline, WA 98155 on December 15 & 16, 2012. Hours: Saturday: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., Sunday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

So what are you waiting for?  Get yourself a copy of this All-Ages-Friendly Comic and get yourself some tickets to Geek Fest 2012!

I'm pretty excited.  In case you missed that part.  -- Jay Larsen