Review: Presidential Monsters - Wild Bill and The Monster of the Watergate Lagoon!

America has never been opposed to putting a monster in the White House (HA! POLITICAL ) so indie toy company Heroes in Action takes it another step further with their creepily creative line of Presidential Monster dolls. Presented in a similar retro style to the Mego figures of old, each 8 inch character is a tongue-in-cheek mash-up of a scary classic monster and a beloved (or loathed) US leader. Sadly they are long sold out of their brilliant "Baracula", but thanks to our good friends at Big Bad Toy Store we were able to snag a couple...

Find out which hideous creatures are running rampant in the West Wing... after the jump!

Oz Comic-Con 2013 Perth: Cosplay Parade & Competition!

We're coming to the end of our coverage of Oz Comic-Con 2013 in Perth, and it's finally time to look at the wonderful cosplay from the weekend. I love seeing what people come up with for their convention outfits, and the standard at OCC (as with any Con, I suspect) ranged from hilarious to jaw-dropping. We saw a lot of brilliant costumes out on the showroom floor, but for the purposes of this post we're going to be checking out the Cosplay Parade on the Saturday, and the Cosplay Competition on Sunday, where the cream of the crop were pitted against each other for ULTIMATE COSPLAY GLORY. Join us below the cut for a few of our favourites, and the eventual victors.

Thank GIF It's Friday!

Hey Friday. Hey. How YOU doin'?

Thursday Threesome: Three 80s/90s franchises that I horribly misunderstood

The 80s were my pre-school years, and accordingly I was a trusting and gullible little doofus. This was not helped by the fact that my sisters were ready and willing to feed me untruths to amuse themselves, which means nowadays I become immediately defensive if someone gets all incredulous about the gaping black holes in my pop culture knowledge. Screw you guys, I was busy reading Asterix and teaching myself hieroglyphics. Important things.

To add an additional layer of confusion, my older sister was very happy to load her own enthusiasms on me, who dutifully tried to mimic fandom though I was really too young to make any sense of it. 90210 springs to mind. As does East 17 and Snow's Informer. I overshot and tried to understand teen sensations and thus missed out on a big chunk of primary aged stuff that my schoolmates were all over. 

Yet despite all this I managed to develop my own healthy crop of misunderstandings about the franchises that surrounded me as a pre-school and primary aged child, many of which I'm still actively undoing (I only learn recently that a badger is not, in fact, the size of a bear. The animated Redwall series had led me to believe otherwise). 

Join me after the jump for more ridiculousness!

Oz Comic Con Perth 2013: Day 2 Review

Sunday morning was hard going. By the time I had stayed up late with Bene and Jacinta watching Fast Girls and analysing English slang, I’d not slept nearly as much as con fairing requires and there was no time for coffee. I donned an awesome Doctor Who apron, designed by a talented internet seller as a dress to resemble the 11th Doctor’s outfit, and Bene and I trundled back to the convention centre for more fun and more punishment.

Follow me under the jump for day 2 panels and adventures.

New Playmates Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Figures Review!

The new Playmates TMNT figures have been (barely) sitting on the shelves for a few months now, and I've been eyeballing them real hard. At a glance, the style is fresh without being FRESH! and the character design is cool without being WAY COOL! You would totally expect an over-the-top TMNT line of figures, but these hover right at the top letting the kids take it to the next level with their imagination. Or you can just buy the deluxe figures, which are a pretty good example of over-the-top.

I went out with my 3 year old son Leon (whose favorite turtle is not Leonardo) and told him that we would share these figures with one condition: Donatello is mine. We eventually picked up 6 figures and a vehicle, and let me tell you… it was difficult. Getting all 4 turtles took three different stores. I found Metalhead in a few stores, and it took waiting a few days and going back to find one enemy, Shredder. In the frustration of trying to find an enemy we bought the Turtle Van, and now I'm spent and I've been to every store in the area.

I'm going to talk about a few things in this review. Specifically the design, the articulation the accessories and the van.

Some Thoughts Upon Completion of Garth Ennis's "The Boys"

One of my best friends spent years trying to get me to read The Boys. While we have a lot of overlapping interests in sports and books, I'm late to the comic game and he tends to like very different stuff. I grabbed the first volume back when Thwipster was a thing, and I think I got through half of the book before being fairly mortified by the graphic violence, borderline-misogynistic sex, and the overall brutality of the whole thing.

At some point, something prompted me to pick it up again. It might have been praise from other people. It might have been my confusing him with Ennis from Planetary. Either way, I powered through the first book, looked past some of the ultraviolence, and found some good. By the time I got to the last trade this past week, it turns out that I may have found one of my favorite comic series after all.

Follow beyond the jump for some discussion. Might get spoilery all up in this.

Review: Lego TMNT - Kraang Lab Escape!

As the universe embraces/endures what is probably the 300th relaunch of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the last thirty or so years, the ingenious Danish maniacs at Lego have decided to get all up in this barely-legal reptile action! A whole line of TMNT Lego, based on the new computer animated series, have finally hit shelves in Australia, and although I don’t often delve into the sets themselves, I am curious enough about these new minifigures to pick up the smallest offering.

I have set 79100 Kraang Lab Escape, containing a prison, a futuristic vehicle, and THREE new minifigs. It’s a total steal, even at the CRAZILY INFLATED AUSTRALIAN PRICE! (Lego still hasn’t passed comment on this, or shown interest in forging a tighter relationship. Lego is the hot girl who keeps rebuffing us at the party).

It’s blocky cowabunga pizza time... after the jump!

Stryder's Favourite Comics - 3/06/2013

There's a lot going on this week in the DCU as we look at the first comics of March!  But first, a comic that was delayed from February....Superman!!

Superman #17 - "I am tired of you invoking the dead of Krypton!"

"H'El on Earth" concludes here as Superman and H'El do battle to decide the fate of two worlds!!  In Superman's corner are Superboy and the Justice League.  H'El has Supergirl on his side...or does he?  After the events of Supergirl #17, perhaps not...

Also, the mysterious cosmic entity known as the Oracle reaches Earth to communicate his wordless message to the Man of Steel.  But what could it possibly mean?  Is the Earth really...doomed??  This part of the story definitely raises a lot of questions! 

Well, some questions are answered by the end of the issue, but many more will have to wait for another day...for whatever the future may hold, it definitely looks like a job for Superman.

Of course that's not all!  Take a look at Detective Comics, Green Arrow and more after the JUMP!

The Book Was Better Podcast: Teaser for Episode 38!

The Book Was Better is the podcast where we discuss, debate and make dumb jokes about hastily written novelizations of the films you love and loathe! In this week's teaser mini episode I reveal the crazy book for the ladies that we'll be getting hot and steamy with next week, plus the extra adorable special guest host who'll be sharing it with me!

Also I respond to your feedback, tell a story about not meeting William Shatner at Oz Comic Con Perth, talk leprechauns, highlight reels, and some other miscellaneous crap!

You can download it right now from the official site, or why not subscribe to us on iTunes and impress our mums.

Haha! Look at that frigging book punch that stupid video cassette! 

Oz Comic Con Perth 2013: Day 1 Review

Wow. Oz Comic Con Perth was fun and hectic and I don’t even know where to begin. For the first time the event was held in Perth it was damn successful with what seemed to be about 30 thousand people over the course of the weekend. There were cosplayers (how friggin cool is that Iron Man??!!!?), stalls and guests of course, and my review is going to be from the experience as a con-goer. Please follow me under the cut for tales from panels and epic lines.

Oz Comic Con Perth 2013: Day 2 Highlights! Cosplay! Artists! Panels!

We have recovered from a weekend of walking, waiting and jostling to bombard you with many more photos and musings from our second long day at Oz Comic Con Perth. Our expectations of a leisurely Sunday quickly disintegrated as even MORE keen and costumed fans piled into the fancy Exhibition Centre, quickly transforming it into a heaving circus of gaudy lycra and cardboard where even the most cautious attendee could be suddenly crushed between a Master Chief and a sidling Catbus.

Yes. There was a Catbus. And it was life-affirming. I have no idea how many people were sweating inside that thing but I hope they got along!

Find out more about - and see many more pictures of - the cosplay, our favourite artists, Klingons, Macgyver, Momoa and much more... after the jump!