Universal Dork

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  • Comic Book Cover of the Week: Muhammad Ali vs. Superman!!

    There’d just be no better time to post this legendary comic book cover, yesterday we lost boxing legend Muhammad Ali at the age of 74. I really don’t need to go into much detail about the legend as he’s one of the most well known athletes of all time. However some people may not have known that he had a part in the DC universe when he took on Superman in a boxing match!

    Yeah the two squared off in a fight to save planet earth from an alien invasion! This was an epic comic at 72 pages in length Superman was in the fight of his life!! Ali is also rumored to have written all of his own dialogue and make a specific request, that in the book he would discover Superman’s true identity.

    RIP Muhammad, you were a real life Superhero…..

    Here’s the full scoop on the legendary comic book-check it out!!!

     

  • Will The Reavers Save Wolverine 3?!

    I’ve been a bit torn lately on the the upcoming third Wolverine movie which is slated to also be Hugh Jackman’s last appearance as the legendary mutant. Why? Well ever since we got word of this final flick being based upon the popular ‘Old Man Logan’ series it’s been a major issue that the story wouldn’t be able to use the key characters from the comics due to issues with studio property rights. I think they should wait another five or so years to do Old Man Logan, when Hugh IS actually older. I’ve also stated before that a totally original story would be pretty awesome for the third movie as they seem to almost always slaughter any story they rip from the comic books. I mean how can you do Old Man Logan without the fucking Incredible Hulk?!! Well now there’s word that this third movie will feature some classic villains which have me back on board for Wolverine 3.

    Yeah Old Man Logan is rumored to feature “The Reavers” who just happen to be some of my favorite bad guys from the X-men comic books. A futuristic road trip Mad Max style Wolverine movie with these blood thirsty cyborgs on their trail sounds fantastic to me! My only concern is that they’re also supposedly going to try and bring back Liev Shreiber as Sabretooth….uggh. (more…)

  • Vision Quest: Portland’s Finest Free Comix!

    Issue number five just dropped of Portland Oregon’s FREE comic newspaper! Vision Quest is a collaborative effort put together by local comix writers and artists and it’s a great change from all of the mainstream stuff out there flooding the market. It’s got a real feel to it as well, black & white, hand drawn ink on paper quality that will likely bring you back to the good ol’ days of self published comic books and zines of the nineties.

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    It’s a ton of fun too as each issue showcases 30 plus full page bursts of old school comic strip mayhem. You never really know what to expect within it’s pages either, stating on the cover it’s recommended for mature readers so it’s not quite the comic book either for your kid. You get a fine collage of the all of the local talent here in Portland and beyond & yeah it’s free and can be found all around town. Cool artists like Alex Chiu, Tim Root, Erin Nations, Liz Yerby to name a few are featured in issue five and some of the artists are veterans in the underground & local comic scene.

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    Tim Goodyear (Teenage Dinosaur / Video Tonfa), one of the publishers and contributors elaborated on the  inspiration behind it saying “Vision quest is a boiler plate we got from The Intruder up in Seattle. I have been bummed on the commercial structure of comics for a long time and have tried many times to get comics to folks with out all the barriers that are in place. Ian Sundahl asked me how The intruder paper was structured and I told him what Max Clotfelter had told me. He asked if I’d want to do that here, I said I wasn’t sure. 6 or 8 months later he asked me again and I said yes. It’s been great. I love it.”

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    With regards to submissions to be included in Vision Quest, Goodyear advises that “people should write to us at Visionquestcomix@gmail.com – people should look at the paper and they should make the comic that they want. Not everything fits, whether it be math or tone or outside our interests. Hand lettering is a big key.” 

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    Check this shit out around town here and I’m certain copies can be acquired via the Vision Quest email! 

  • X-Men Apocalypse: The Origin of The X-Men’s Famous Hairdos!!

    I checked out ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ today, a movie I was super excited for as I was a huge fan of ‘Days of Future Past’ and the other Singer X-Men movies. I’m sorry to say that for some reason this latest installment is a big bloated mess that sadly misses the mark by a boatload. I loved that the last movie was set in the 1970’s & was so stoked on the idea of this one taking place in the 1980’s. However, aside from some cool vintage wardrobe and a Ms. Pac-man video game there wasn’t much else in this one that for me really brought me back to that great era of the X-Men comic books.

    There was simply just too many damn characters running around, the story was missing heart and the special effects were just too much of a cartoony CG mess to convince me that the Earth was in any serious danger. I had high hopes forthe movies antagonist Apocalypse too and didn’t even mind his look, which most people were in a frenzy about from the start. However, Apocalypse as a villain was just way too hokey to be taken seriously and yeah he really did look a bit ridiculous I must admit.  

    And Talk about a villain who takes himself way too seriously, jeez, he seemed more like an overdramatic cartoon version of the legendary villain. We’re really not given that much character development here for anyone, everything that happens happens way too coincidentally including the origin of people’s hairstyles! It seems Apocalypse is not only responsible for huge amounts of global chaos but also for Storm’s white hair & ALSO Professor X’s bald ass head!! (more…)

  • Lucid Dreaming: The Secret to Having Superhuman Powers Every Night!

    You wanna have superhuman strength? You wanna fly high above buildings? You wanna have the indestructible claws of Wolverine? Well I’m gonna let you in on a little secret-you CAN have superhuman powers every night with a little commitment and perseverance. Now of course there is a slight catch, you’ve got to get serious about your dreams! But not just any old regular dream, learn to ‘Lucid Dream‘ every night. I’ve spent some of my nights transforming into The Incredible Hulk and smashing up whole cities, I’ve flown high in the sky with birds like Superman and I’ve also popped those adamantium claws Wolverine made famous from my knuckles. It was unbelievable, but it’s all true and I chose to do it all myself while fully conscious!

    First though let me explain, ever since I was in my late teens I began to have lucid dreams and in the past year began to get more serious about it all. This here is the key to all this madness. So to anyone out there who doesn’t know what a lucid dream is  let me give you a proper definition,

    “A lucid dream is any dream during which the dreamer becomes aware that they are dreaming. During lucid dreaming, the dreamer may be able to exert some degree of control over the dream, dream characters, narrative, and environment.”

    Chances are you may have already had dreams like this in the past and didn’t quite realize it was something special or maybe you’ve never even realized this was possible? Remember ‘Dreamscape’ with Dennis Quaid? Or ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors’? Well it’s just like that except it’s easy to kick Freddy’s ass in a real lucid dream. And truth be told anyone can be a lucid dreamer all it takes is a little practice and focus. Also keep in mind a vivid dream is not a lucid dream. But a lucid dream is a vivid dream. Let me be clear here, once you experience your first real lucid dream you’re likely to never really be the same again.

    Even more so, recently I’ve begun to focus on lucid dreaming a bit every day of my life. I’ve now begun to be able to control my dreams, create dream characters and really do anything that my mind can dream up quite often. Some of these lucid dreams are just as real as anything you can experience in the waking world, it all really depends on how seriously you want to delve into it. One thing I can guarantee is that it’s most definitely worth the effort. In many ways it might change the way you see life and reality altogether. (more…)

  • Comic Book Cover of the Week: Daredevil & Black Widow in Rare Form!

    Here’s a look at one heck of a great cover by the master Barry Windsor Smith way back from 1985 with Daredevil #217! This has always been a favorite of mine and there’s just no denying that Barry’s unique style rivals any current artist. Anytime in the 80’s that he was involved you just knew you were going to get something memorable. This particular cover is no exception to the rule, Barry gives us an epic cover with Daredevil & The Back Widow swinging high up in the skyscrapers  giving our ol’ pal Spidey a run for his money for pure perfection in acrobatic form!

     

  • The Night Watchmen vs The Ghostbusters!

    I just saw this cool little trailer for the a new horror comedy called The Night Watchmen which seems like a helluva great gruesome time. Despite the fact that there’s a new trailer for The Ghostbusters reboot that just dropped recently to me a smaller flick like The Night Watchmen thus far captures the vibe of a  Ghostbusters movie than this latest reboot.

    I know that  there’s a lot of negative press out there already about The Ghostbusters and though I really want to be excited something about it feels incredibly forced.

    It’s not the fact that the cast are all women either as many seem to like to claim is causing all the negative hype . Perhaps it’d made more sense to have at least a couple of the  original Ghostbusters pass the torch. It would have been cool to have Dan Akroyd & Ernie Hudson be a part of the movie as the last two Ghostbusters standing who need to hire some new recruits once the supernatural start to stir in the city again.

    Instead we get another bland  reboot that thus far doesn’t look like it’s got much of a personality of it’s own. It also feels more like a sequel to the recent Goosebumps movie in it’s way of bad CGI effects that in 2016 somehow still don’t improve on the original movies. Anyway check out this new Night Watchmen trailer as a horde of vampires led by an undead clown attack the after hours employees of a boring ol’ office building..

     

     

  • The Best of VHS Box Art: Evilspeak!!

    I recently checked out an awesome early 80’s flick called ‘Evilspeak’ starring everybody’s favorite awkward actor Clint Howard who’s the younger brother of superstar director Ron Howard. Evilspeak delivers all the goods besides having Clint Howard in the lead it’s got some gruesome fx, a truly unique story and some pretty cool sets. It’s also got a swarm of possessed pigs that are more than willing to carry out the evil deeds of the devil! So track this one down if you get the chance, it’s totally worth it. Now one last thing obviously this one had got going for was the incredible VHS box cover art! One of my faves…

    Well I also realized that this artist C. Winston Taylor is responsible for many of my favorite movie posters and box art of the 1970’s and 80’s in fact it turns out that he did the cover art for one of the other blogs I did recently for the movie Mutant Hunt! Also check out the blog post on with more details on his artwork on another cool ass blog I dig: Camera Viscera!!

  • Rock the F*#k Out With Jason on this Friday The 13th!!

    Hey you! Here’s a couple songs to celebrate this unofficial holiday of Friday the 13th!! It’s the second best spooky holiday to Halloween for cryin’ out loud so it’s time get serious about celebrating!

    One of my favorite modern videos indeed does feature Jason in quite an awesome way-if you haven’t already check out The Menzingers “I Don’t Wanna be an Asshole Anymore” as Jason tries his best to clean up his act!

    Oh but wait you want a more classic era? Let’s not forget good ol’ Alice Cooper’s classic “He’s Back”! This is the perfect song to jam after a few beers tonight!! Just to don’t get too drunk cuz Jason just might getcha!!

     

     

     

     

  • wiFree : The Future of the World as We Know It?!

    There’s a cool little project of grand proportions that recently came to my attention that could change the world as we know it! This cool Kickstarter campaign intends to pose some big questions about the future of our modern society and the radical change technology casts upon our world. wiFree will be a short film offered to everyone on the internet for free upon it’s completion, now that’s something we can all get behind!

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    The short will tackle some questions about modern technology and the human gods that deliver it all to us. Most fascinating is premise, where a Steve Jobs type character dying of a terminal illness decides to unleash ground breaking new product that would provide free energy to the people of the world. Sounds wonderful huh? Well guess what, a situation like that might be the biggest threat to the giant corporations who’re behind the curtain of our pulling the strings of our elected officials. wiFree presents a grand conspiracy to silence real change for the betterment of the planet by those trusted govern  over us. (more…)