Captain America Superbowl Trailer

Well, here it is, the first trailer for the upcoming "Captain America" movie, starring Chris Evans.
Looks very nice, very pulpy, which is just how it should.
Here at Legacy Comics we're eagerly looking forward to seeing more.

Legacy Laurel's Best Artist: J H Williams III

Every once in a while, an artist comes into the comic book world and completely breaks the mold, turning everything on it's head making the reader stop and take notice. From Alex Ross and his stunning art on "Marvel's" in 1994 and "Kingdom Come" in 1996 and Adi Granov on the now classic "Iron Man - Extremeis" storyline in 2005 to J H Williams III's run on Detective Comics with Greg Rucka from June 2009. Williams had done previous Work in the Wildstorm Series "Desolation Jones" with Warren Ellis and "Promethea" with Alan Moore, but the colours and style used in the Gotham City setting truly bought an art deco/Gothic feel that hadn't been experienced anywhere else. The Batwoman stories ended in Detective and returned back to Batman adventures, much to the outrage of fan's that loved the Rucka/Williams that in November 2010, a "Batwoman 0" one shot was released, promising a Batwoman ongoing series in February 2011. Prove positive that the power of art can turn heads and make editorial staff take note when fans request more, so this is for you Mr Williams.

Legacy Laurel's Best Writer: Ed Brubaker

The man that killed off Steve Rogers and rewrote the origin of the Marvel Universe in "The Marvel's Project" Ed Brubaker is having another phenomenal year as one of Marvel's top writers with the brilliant "Secret Avengers" with Mike Deodato and the start of the second series of "Incognito" with Sean Phillips, along with a book he's made his own, "Captain America". With a sleek and polished spy like noir style, any of Ed's book's are a joy from start to finish and with such an impressive back catalogue already to his name such as "Gotham Central", "Criminal" and "Sleeper" you know you're in for a treat! On a personal note, I did have a chance to meet Ed at Wizard World LA back in 2007 and got him to sign my copy of Captain America 25 (before having it slabbed by CGC) and I stumbled across his writing class, followed by a class from my all time favourite writer Peter David, an experience I'll truely never forget.

Legacy Laurel's - The best of 2010

Well what a year 2010 has been for Comic books, some points have been good, some almost awe inspiring and some just plain awful :S So to summarise the year, we've composed the "Legacy Laurel's", a series of awards for the outstanding writer's and artist's that work in our favourite business and our chance to raise a glass in thanks to these great men & women. The categories for the Legacy Laurel's are as follows: * Best Writer * Best Artist * Best Series * Best Graphic Novel * Upcoming Writer / Artist of 2010 * Best Comic Cover * Best Character of 2010 * Best Comic moment I'll post the winner's of the Legacy Laurel's up over the next few days (two at a time) so stay tuned to see if your favourite creator has won...

Pick of the week - Spider-man hits the "Big Time"

I'm sure you all suffer from this problem: The company that produces your favorite comic book character suddenly changes creative team or direction through editorial decision, and you slowly read as they slowly destroy and desecrate all you loved about the character until you no longer recognize them and you end up canceling the title and moving on. (Case in point on a personal perspective was when Peter David's legendary twelve year run on the Incredible Hulk sadly came to an end, a run that has yet to be equaled! and Daniel Way's revamp of Ghost Rider after Howard Mackie's classic run; even though Jason Aaron had a great run after Way, picking up the scraps Way left in his absolute demolition of the character, even thinking about what he did leaves a bitter taste in my mouth; GHOST RIDER IS NOT A ******* ANGEL!!) And in the same vain there's character's you'd like to start reading but are scared cause of either the amount of titles the character has or such a convoluted history that it gives you a migraine (i.e Superman, you needed to work a second job to keep on track with all the titles he had! Thankfully each of his title's have gone off in their own direction with different characters (Lex Luthor now has the reigns of Action Comics if you haven't picked it up already) A character that's kinda suffered over the years with both problems I've found is Spider-man! From the virtual swamp of titles under the Spider-man umbrella with writers and artists coming and going like the tide, only the die hard Spider-man fans kept on with their titles, (second & third jobs aside) but even they started to crack under the arc titled "Brand New Day" (That's definitely another story to tell with all the problems that raised!) but from an outsiders perspective, you could see problems with the title (the number of titles were reduced to just Amazing Spider-man at this point, but coming out a whopping three times a month :S) To politely summarize the problems of "Brand New Day" - "Too many cooks spoil the broth" Too many writers and artists were on the title, leaving their own mark on the book and ignoring what others had written, throwing continuity out of the window and losing hardcore fans (a noticeable number of my customers were dropping Spider-man as a result) But fear not True Believer's, there is a happy ending to this tale of woe. Marvel noticed the drop in sales of Amazing Spider-man and acted accordingly by ending their "Brand New Day" run, with "Big Time" written by Dan Slott (count them, writers = 1!) and art by Humberto Ramos and two other artists and coming out twice a month now. A thankful end to all the previous debacle that's surrounded Spider-man over the years and a perfect jumping on point for new readers and returning die hards (demand for this issue has been high!) But other than the relief of the end of "Brand New Day", "Big Time" is a great book! a fun for all ages title chock full of costumed villains, dangling plot threads and basically getting back to the essence of the Spider-man mythos, adding his status as a member of the Avengers to strengthen the book rather than confusing his title (Notice how any of Wolverine's teams are not mentioned in his own title). So in conclusion, with Slott & Ramos at the helm, Spider-man's ready to retake his crown as premiere Marvel character from the grumpy old man and the unfunny whack job to truly take Marvel to it's "Heroic Age".

Halloween Havoc 2010 Results

Thanks to everyone who took part in this years Halloween Havoc; the bar was definately raised from last year and our judges (Comic book artist Dave Golding & Ms Lauren C Waterworth) couldn't pick a person for the "spoon of least effort" prize, and they picked four winners! Winners (In reverse order) 4: Diane Barker as Lady Riddler 3: Jessica Morgan as X-23 2: Simon as Pin Head 1: Robert Smith as Obelix A special thank you goes out as well to Matt Birdsall for once again taking quality pictures of all of this years contestants. As for me... Well, I couldn't enter my own competition but I messaged Jason Aaron on twitter to tell him my Girlfriend and I were going to be dressed as Dr Rot & Nurse Fester from the Wolverine Weapon X story "Insane in the Brain" I sent him some pictures of us and he liked them so much that he put us up on his own blog! Jasonaaron.info (It's rare I have a proper geek out moment but this was definately one of them) Now we all have to wonder what we'll all see for Havoc III...

Pick of the week...The trouble with Deadpool?!?!

Earlier this year it looked like Marvel was taking note by ending the series "Deadpool: Merc with a mouth" but a few months later, they suddenly launch a brand new title, "Deadpool Max"...WTF!!! Looking further at this title, it has the team of David Lapham & Kyle Baker behind it, two respected creators so I decided to give the book a go. And do you know what...I like it!!! A well written first issue about Deadpool's handler Bob and what it takes to get into Hammerhead's domain so he can give Wade Wilson access and take him out once and for all. The reason's I like this book 1.) As with all Max books, they aren't bogged down with the mainstream Marvel continuity, (curse you Daniel Way!) 2.) Deadpool's hardly in it!! I normally find there's two mindsets people have when they look at new comics, those that follow the writer's and those that follow the artists. I'm fans of both of Lapham and Baker but reading them both on a character I can't stand left me feeling torn, so kudos guys for making me read a character I can't abide. As to how long this title will last, only time will tell...

R.I.P; The missing Chapter

One year ago, Grant Morrison shook Batman fans to the core with a very dark, yet brilliant tale entitled "R.I.P", Bruce Wayne was gonna die! But yet at the same time, DC ran a summer event, also written by Grant Morrison called "Final Crisis" which seemed a bit disjointed and out of continuity as Bruce Wayne/Batman was there as fresh as a daisy! Would expect that from other comic companies but not DC to be honest. But there was an underlying plan to it all... Thirteen issues into the new series Batman & Robin, Dr Hurt (The villain of R.I.P, a man posing as Thomas Wayne, Bruce's father)has returned, while we're eagerly awaiting the 4th issue of "The return of Bruce Wayne" telling the tale of Bruce making his way back to the present day from the dawn of time after being hit by Darkseid's omega beams at the end of Final Crisis, building up to an immense conclusion to Grant Morrison's Batman Opus and to tell the missing chapter of R.I.P is only stoking the fire to what is now essential reading and leaves you hungry for more! First is was the JLA & the Seven Soldiers of Victory, then the X men to All Star Superman and now Batman...what's next for Mr Morrison??

Halloween Havoc, The Return!!

The biggest event we held last year makes it's return on Oct 30th 2010! Registration begins on July 31st for Halifax's biggest Fancy dress competition where the grand prize is a commisioned piece of artwork of you in your costumed identity by a renowned comic book artist, but this year we're planning on making it bigger and better than before, (I'll be in a dress so you gotta come and see that!) More details to follow...

Aug 8th 2010, The next event...

Up next at Legacy Comics, to tie in with Big D's Biker rally happening within the Piece Hall, Geof Banyard will be returning with his awesomely funny comicbook series Fetishman, a series that flies off my shelves as soon as I get it in! If you've been living under a rock and you don't know what Fetishman's all about, here's a link to the Fetishman website and I'll let Geof explain it all to ya (Don't wanna be treading on your toes there Geof lol).

WWW.FETISHMAN.CO.UK

So for a day of Bikes, Bikers, adult comedy, tea drinking and general tomfoolery, pop down to the Piece Hall and Legacy Comics on Aug 8th, you'll be so glad you did ;).