NY Cosmos merchandise

NY Cosmos tees and other goods.

Art roundup

Character designs by Mark Bello.




Age of Ultron #10 cover by Joe Quesada.




Fire salamander by Eric Canete.



Lou Pimental's contribution to a zombie-themed show at Last Rites.




Class of 1999 poster via.

*Buy Angela toys at ebay.

Link roundup

1.  Gawker:

Reporters and TV crews in Oakland are routinely robbed of all their equipment, so it's now common to assign security guards to the teams before they take on harrowing assignments such as a feature story at a local art gallery. But the guard was inside the art gallery protecting the crew, instead of protecting the van.

So the thieves broke into the news van and the security guard's car.

2.  Carl Zimmer:

Over the past year or so I’ve gotten to know some extraordinary people. They were born with a single mutation to a single gene that caused them to grow a second skeleton.

3.  Wikipedia's list of common misconceptions, including:

There is no evidence that iron maidens were invented in the Middle Ages or even used for torture. Instead they were pieced together in the 18th century from several artifacts found in museums in order to create spectacular objects intended for (commercial) exhibition.

Via.

Lego King Candy from Wreck-It Ralph

Lego King Candy in his final form from Wreck-It Ralph, made as a commission by Bruce Lowell.

*Buy Wreck-It Ralph toys at Amazon.

Move over Pacific Rim, here's Astroganga

Astroganga/Astroganger figures by Medicom.

Lego "for girls"

Various Lego creations by Nicolaas “Brickthing” Vás. The warsuit at the top was made from two Lego Friends sets.

Alan Wake Humble Bundle

Here's the extras that come with the name your price Alan Wake Humble Bundle.  I wish they came with downloadable versions of Bright Falls.

Link roundup

1.  "[A] source familiar with the company told Valleywag that Tumblr's actual revenue (not bookings) in 2012 was less than $5 million."

2.  Breakfast suggestion from Nate Appleman:

I cook breakfast for my son everyday and his favorite breakfast is avocado toast with eggs, a hint of chile flake and extra virgin olive oil, followed by a kale, ginger, banana, lemon, strawberry and honey smoothie

3. "So America came within a hairbreadth of placing its entire national-security apparatus under the authority of a high-school dropout connected with organized crime, and today almost no Americans seem aware of that fact."

4.  "Ben Kokes wanted to give a ring to his sweetheart, and to make it interesting, he decided to create a ring with an inductive loop that would cause the stones to light up when they were close to a power-source."

Art roundup

G.I. Joe covers by Jim Rugg.




Iron Man and Logan's Run by Brandon Schaefer.




Poster for Maniac.  Via.



Jupiter by Joe Van Wetering.



Weird - - starter Munnys designed to be turned into Marvel characters with stickers.

Beware the Batman figure; free Avenger Assemble download

Upcoming Beware the Batman action figure maybe for preorder here?  Via.




And in other super hero news, you can download the first episode of the new Avengers Assemble carton for free at iTunes.  Via.

Art roundup

Marco Mazzoni posted a big batch of new work.



You can now watch the pilot for Cartoon Network's upcoming Steven Universe.  (Extremely reminiscent of Adventure Time.)




Frederick Jurk.

New pulp by Stephen King plus two other great reads

I've started and abandoned a few books and comics recently, but these three were terrific:



1.  Joyland by Stephen King: Probably the best Hard Case Crime book to date.  How should I describe it?  The dull official description is:

Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, Joyland tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work as a carny and confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will change his life forever.  

This book deserves something a little more sensational.  How about,

It's the team-up you've been waiting for!  Can a group of meddling kids help a (sexy) gunslinger, a telepath, and a dog unravel the mystery of a haunted amusement park before the killer strikes again?!

Joyland showcases King's considerable gifts for suspense, supernatural horror, and touching coming of age stories.  There's an unmasking straight out of Scooby-Doo.  Yet it can easily fit alongside the Dark Tower series.  The regular version, featuring a cover by Glen Orbik, is $7 at Amazon.  There's also signed and unsigned limited editions featuring a cover and interior illustrations by Robert McGinnins.  Highly recommended.  (By comparison, I did not enjoy King's other novel for Hard Case Crime.)

2. The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi: I loved the first three quarters of this book.  Imagine William Gibson's Neuromancer with just a touch of China Mieville's bizarre world building - -  in a richly imagined future world, a thief with a damaged memory teams up with a mysterious warrior woman to steal a poorly defined but incredibly valuable item.  My only complaint about the book is that it's so overfilled with ideas and twists that the last quarter of the book feels rushed.  Not much of a complaint.  I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series. $7 at Amazon.

3. Prophet, Volume 1: Remission by Simon Roy, Farel Dalrymple, Giannis Milogiannis, and Brandon Graham: This is a comic where you're better off knowing as little as possible.  Suffice to say that it's a terrifically-illustrated post-apocalyptic thriller.  Like Saga, every page seems to present a brand new inventive character, or design, or planet, but you never feel lost.  $8 at Amazon.  I could even say, "If you loved Thundarr the Barbarian, you'll love Prophet."