Celebrate #ForceFriday with a Finn Action Figure
Have you felt it? There’s been an awakening…
You’ve watched all of the unboxing videos. You camped in line outside Toys R Us, waiting for a special midnight opening. Now, #ForceFriday is finally here. Even though Star Wars: The Force Awakens is still three months away, you would be unwise to underestimate the power of Star Wars merchandising. Hell, you can’t spell swag with out SW, right?
Speaking of swag, we’re giving away some of it. Keep reading if you want to know how.
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Misty Knight Cast in Netflix’s Luke Cage
As we get closer and closer to the late-2015 premiere date of Jessica Jones, Netflix’s follow-up to the mega-successful Daredevil, the rest of Marvel’s Television Universe is starting to take shape. We all know that Luke Cage is the next series in the pipeline; in fact, Cage is part of the main cast of Jessica Jones, played by Mike Colter. Now, news has come out that the next major Marvel character to get the live action treatment will be none other than Misty Knight, who will be played by Southland’s Simone Missick.
N.O.C. One-Shot: Why Wanting Diverse Comics is Not Enough
#WeNeedDiverseBooks is a powerful hashtag and message. But we can’t just want these books. We have to support the ones that are already out there too. The latest One-Shot from Shawn Taylor (@reallovepunk) gets at some of the reasons why.
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NOC Recaps Vixen: The Animated Microseries
Watch the episode here.
I was probably more excited than most when it was announced that DC Comics’ Vixen would be animated for the small screen. Vixen is one of my all-time favorite characters and if you aren’t up on her, check out this and this. Marvel may be the heavyweight champs of the cinematic landscape, but DC are the lords and masters of the animation realm. Rarely does DC miss with their animated properties. So far, with Vixen, I think I’m going to have to put the first five-minute episode in the ‘eh… maybe’ column.
[Spoilers Ahead]
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Hell on Wheels: Chinamen, The Final Frontier
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t watched through Episode 6 this season, there are some character revelations and minor plot twists revealed, but ostensibly nothing that would alter anyone’s viewing of the show.
AMC’s Hell on Wheels entered its fifth and final season this summer with seven episodes scheduled to finish in 2015 and seven more in 2016 to close it out. The show follows a former Confederate solider, Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount), as he reconciles his dark past while becoming a key player in the race to build the Transcontinental Railroad.
Admittedly, I have never been a regular viewer of the show. I only tuned in for this season after hearing that Hell would finally include Chinese railroad workers as part of its story; and not without some healthy skepticism. Chinese workers have been mostly glossed over in mainstream media depictions of the western frontier and they got the same treatment through Hell‘s first four seasons. While the show’s creators Joe and Tony Gayton gave practical reasons as to why this happened, the chances of whether the Chinese would ever be included on the show seemed less promising with each passing season.
Season Five, however, has been worth the wait.
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Throwback Thursday: Why I’m Down with The LXD
So I thought I’d switch gears here for a second and discuss one of my all time favorite series: The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers.
Hip hop culture is a long lost love of mine.
This usually shocks people when they learn that I used to be huge fan of vintage hip hop. It’s understandable given my cerebral and uptight demeanor.
As a kid, hip hop culture was starting to gain traction and even then I knew it was something special. It was from the streets, it was humble, it was pure. It was by the people for the people. It was inclusive. Hip hop/rap was for everyone: male, female, black, Asian, Latino, and white.
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Character Study: Barbara Gordon
Dedicated to the late Yvonne Craig — who passed away yesterday.
It’s a shame how much Barbara Gordon/Batgirl is perhaps one of the most underrated characters in comics and pop culture. Not surprising that many dismiss her as little more than a “female Robin” or a lesser spinoff character of the caped crusader.
But the astute observer will note that by being tied to the Batman mythos, Barbara Gordon has arguably made more appearances in mainstream media than any other comic book super heroine, including Wonder Woman, thus perhaps making Batgirl the most publicized comic book super heroine to date.
A King Among Men, Dinosaurs, and Robot Karate Bears
It’s the distant future, it’s Los Angeles. So the desolate wasteland in King — a new creator-owned comic by Joshua Hale Fialkov, Bernard Chang, and Marcelo Maiolo — is no stretch. The titular man is the last of his kind, left on an Earth we recognize only in its rubble, surrounded somehow by talking dinosaurs, humanoid animals they call CrossFreaks, and of course, giant karate robot bears.
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Secret Coders Entertains and Educates
Secret Coders, a new graphic novel series written by Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Superman), sets out to bring computer programming to kids and adults. Some people may not know that Yang, when not writing comics, is a high school computer science teacher. This is his attempt to combine his two passions – comics and programming.
Why It’s Still Showtime Synergy for Jem and the Holograms
Originally posted on Geeks OUT
So like most geeks, I recently caught the first trailers for the upcoming Jem and the Holograms movie. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can check it out here.
The verdict?
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Star Wars: Rogue One Brings Diversity to the Galaxy Far, Far Away
Over the weekend, Anaheim, CA was ground zero for the geek-o-sphere as pop culture junkies joined the throngs of Disneyphiles to experience the wonder that is D23 Expo. Now that the House of Mouse owns everyone’s fandoms, D23 rivals only San Diego Comic-Con in terms of hype-building. And this year’s Expo did not disappoint. In addition to teasing footage from Marvel Studios’ and Pixar’s 2016 (and beyond) slate of movies, the announcements that got our attention here at NOC HQ came from Lucasfilm on Saturday.
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Superhero Romances, Princesses, and Ponies with Jeremy Whitley
Prolific comic writer Jeremy Whitley (@jrome58) steps into the Hard NOC Life this week to talk about his latest books, including his short story in Marvel Comics’ romance anthology Secret Wars: Secret Love and issue #2 of Princeless: The Pirate Princess from Action Lab Entertainment, both in stores next week.
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The Most Watched Hard N.O.C. Life Episodes
We’re continuing the celebration of our two-year anniversary week with another look back. This time, we’re going to count down the top ten most watched episodes of Hard N.O.C. Life, our (semi-)weekly YouTube series where I talk to folks about various topics.
When the site first launched in 2013, the idea for a YouTube show utilizing the Google Hangout format was going to be one of the main pillars. I had just come off a stint appearing on a similarly formatted show about basketball (more specifically, about Jeremy Lin) created by Terry Park for Asian CineVision and thought the format would be great for talking comics, movies, and TV. And thus, Hard N.O.C. Life
was born!
So just like we did yesterday, we’ve combed through the archives to find these, the ten most viewed HNL episodes over the last two years.
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The N.O.C.’s Most Read Posts of All Time
In this case, “all time” refers to two years. You see, today marks the second anniversary of the official launch of the site. Since that time, we’ve amassed dozens of contributors, hundreds of articles, thousands of readers, and hundreds of thousands of views. It’s humbling, and as the site’s lead editor, I want to thank each and everyone who has made the Nerds of Color what it is today, two years later.
So before we move forward into Year Three, I wanted to look back at the last two, and share ten of the most read posts in the history of the blog. Also, if you haven’t already, be sure to follow us on twitter and Facebook where we’ll be sharing links to these classic posts all week. Anyway, on to the countdown!
Nostalgia vs. the Present: What to Keep and What to Throw Away?
Over the weekend, I was going through all of the media that I own. Granted, nowadays it is a very small amount because everything is on tablets or a hard drive. I used to be that dude who collected everything from magazines, to comics, to laserdiscs, to CDs, VHS tapes, Blu-rays/DVDs — yeah, moving sucked. As I perused my stash, I noticed that most of the physical things I held on to were from the ’80s-’90s. They were talismans of nostalgia, reminding me of when I was fully immersed in the pop-culturescape. Do you remember that feeling?
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N.O.C. One-Shot: Shawn Reacts to Fantastic Four
Shawn caught an early screening of the new Fantastic Four movie that’s out in theaters this weekend. Rather than write a traditional review, he had to get his thoughts out on video.
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Casting Wally West and the Redundant Anger Over the Diverse Flash
In the only casting choice that makes sense in the African-American family of Joe and Iris West from TV’s The Flash, Divergent star Keiyan Lonsdale has been cast as Wally West aka Kid Flash!
NOC readers and really, anyone with access to Twitter knows what happened next. The typical outrage at a once white (in these cases — superhero) character being cast as black has begun. (See: Iris/Joe West, Jimmy Olsen, Johnny Storm, Hawkgirl, Nick Fury, Heimdall, I’m tired now. You name the rest.)
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Concrete Park Vol. 2: R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Another Huge Endorsement
I can only talk about the second volume of Concrete Park, “R–E-S-P-E-C-T,” in relation to music. I wanted to use other graphic novels or films as benchmarks, but I’d be talking more about the evolution to make the book, the shift in materials and not the meta-shift I want to capture here. While I enjoy what GeekCulture has to offer, it doesn’t transform me the way that music does. There has yet to be a geek-influenced film, comic, graphic novel, or anything else that has affected me the way Bad Brain’s 1983 life defining album Rock For Light did.
Well, that is until now.
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Spare Parts: An Emotional Roller Coaster at the Theme Park of Broken Immigration Policy
The number of PG or PG-13 films that really move or inspire me is not that large. Somewhere at the top of that list is Finding Neverland. It’s tough to remember exactly what was going on with me at the time, but I remember it hit me hard. There is now a new contender: Spare Parts. The movie is based on this Wired article about four undocumented high school students from Arizona with a shoestring budget that enter and win a national robotics competition. Oh, and they end up at the college level knocking off the likes of MIT students.
Coming Soon: MaeJay and the Mech
Close to a decade ago, I met a Blaxican artist at Dr. Comics and Mr. Games in Oakland, CA. We had mutual geek interests, as well as an undying love and connection to hip-hop culture — the vibe was pure fiyah. He was already a parent, and I was about to be one. We became friends. He’s a visual artist, toy maker, animator, and filmmaker. I’m a writer, marketing guy, pop culture scholar, and performer. Match made in geek heaven. We bandied about ideas on how best we could work together, but nothing really panned out. Then, something happened. I don’t know what his catalyzing agent was, but mine was WonderCon. Continue reading “Coming Soon: MaeJay and the Mech“
An Open Letter to New Line Regarding Shaft
Originally posted at BadAzz Mofo
Numerous people have reached out to me about my thoughts on the new Shaft movie, which New Line Cinema recently announced would be more comedic in tone. Here are my thoughts…
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Five Reasons You Should Pick Up Cyborg #1
[Full Disclosure: David Walker is a good friend of mine and I told him that I would only write something, if I liked the book.]
I’m a Teen Titans fan from since Raven first got the team together. Cyborg (Vic Stone) was never my favorite character, or a character I particularly liked. I mean, how many damn times were you going to use X amount of decibels from your white noise generator? Not to mention that Cyborg is the most dehumanized superhero of color in all of comicdom. Folks are mad that Vic is beginning to look “more human.” I have a question: Why were you okay with him being a walking and talking negroid PS3?
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Get Cyborg #1 by David Walker in Stores Today
We’ve been waiting for this day for a long time, and it’s finally here. Make sure you head to your local comic shop as soon as it opens so you can cop the historic first issue of DC Comics’ Cyborg by our very own David Walker!
Then, as soon as you have a copy in hand, take a selfie with it at the shop and tweet it using the hashtag #CyborgWednesday.
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