consume

Crushing On: Cheap Graphic Novels

December 1, 2012 by krisis

Reading comics via graphic novels can be an expensive habit to maintain. They’re are rarely any cheaper than a $15 cover price, and sometimes run more like $20 or $40 – and hardcovers can be as much as $100! When you’re trying to gather a run of dozens or hundreds of individual issues, that adds up really fast.

When I first started buying, I thought I simply had to pay cover price at book stores or comic shops. That was really expensive, but it was immediately gratifying and I could make sure the quality of a book was high – both in its contents and its physical condition.

50% off of new graphic novel releases every week? Yes, please!

Then, I realized I could order them on Amazon for at least 25% off, and as much as 33% off. That was a lot less expensive, and fast with Amazon Prime – but, the physical condition of a book after it had been packed and shipped could vary widely. At one point I was sending back a fifth of everything I received!

Then, I discovered Cheap Graphic Novels dot com (CGN). They have (or, can get) every graphic novel in print, and if it’s from Marvel or DC it’s 45% off. And, if you order it the week of release, it’s an even 50% off! Not only that, but they are comic book lovers who are friendly to chat with and take a good look at books before they pack them in indestructible double-boxes with paper on all sides.

This totally exploded my comic book buying – I was getting double the books for the money I’d spend in a bookstore, and always in perfect quality compared to Amazon. I have spent an obscene amount of money with CGN in the past two years, and they have never made a mistake, and the worst quality issue I’ve encountered is a tiny bend on the cover of a single book.

I see you doing the project management math. Low cost. High quality. Surely there’s a downside? Well, there is, but it’s a minor one: CGN ships via Media Mail from California, which means I might not see the books for two weeks. And, they require signature on delivery, which means if you aren’t home to receive your order you’ll be headed to the post office.

You know what? That’s okay. When it comes to my comic habit, I’d rather spend a little extra time and keep my money and high quality bookshelf intact. If you agree, you should make your next order from CGN. There are a handful of other sites with similar discounts, but none that I’ve found so reliable and friendly.

Note: I haven’t been compensated for this in any way, although I’d love for CGN to start a referral program so I could add them to my Definitive X-Men, Avengers, and Fantastic Four guides. If you order from them, tell them Krisis sent you!

not what i meant to say

November 4, 2012 by krisis

That post was supposed to be about the Marvel Avengers Alliance PvP tournament and how you have to be in the top 1,000 people in the world to win Deadpool for free and how I am currently ranked 1,700 out of TWO MILLION but I am never going to close that 700-person gap between now and tomorrow when it’s over even though I am taking every POSSIBLE shot at this point.

In my head I still know it was about that, but I’d have to draw a effing diagram to explain to you how it wound up being about Wayne Gretzky.

Instead, please accept this rather hilarious comic book cover of Deadpool facing off against an undead Teddy Roosevelt and a hoard of animals – presumably either ones that he hunted or intended to kill but never got around to prior to his death.

Why they are playing for Team Teddy, I don’t understand.

Crushing On: Productivity Tools ToDoist & TimeSheet

November 3, 2012 by krisis

I’m at my best when I’m on the clock.

That’s not just a euphemism for procrastinating until a deadline. I am consistently, measurably better at getting things done when I consistently measure what I’m getting done.

That’s always been true for me at work, especially starting in 2006 when I flourished like a unruly weed when paired with a project management system that allowed me to track my billable hours. Knowing what my to-do list consists of and how long I spend doing it is a huge motivator for me. I guess it was my own version of “gamification” before that became a hip thing to do to everything in your life.

It hasn’t always been as easy to find the same productivity alchemy at home. I always have long-term goals and near-term projects I’m working on, but I don’t exactly have billable hours. Who is there to charge, aside from myself? Left to my own devices I’ll always pick the thing that is the most fun or the most methodical – which works out frequently to rehearsing, occasionally as laundry, and hardly ever as cleaning the bathroom.

I’ve found a website and an app that both nip that occasional path-of-least-resistance listlessness in the bud, but from slightly different directions.

ToDoist: a tasklist website and app

First, there’s ToDoist. I found it over the summer after demoing over a dozen task management systems online to help my wrangle dozens of things I was hoping to get done. Some of the services were no-frills checklists, while others were practically their own personal Outlook installation.

ToDoist falls closer to the former side of the scale – it’s a simply, obvious checklist that allows you to group tasks into projects and set deadlines and priorities.

When I checked out other systems, I discovered the lack of projects and priorities to be a real dealbreaker. If you can’t organize your tasks or give them some sense of order then you might as well be working with a pen and paper – which is cool and all, but I wanted something dynamic that worked from any internet connection as well as on my phone.

ToDoist does the trick, and for a mere $2 a month you can add improved filtering, tagging, searches, and reminders – totally worth it!

ToDoist meant I was actually crossing things off my list of at-home to-dos – awesome! However, it lacked one feature I really treasure about entering billable hours at work – the ability to perform an audit on what I was spending (wasting?) the most time on. I find that’s a useful exercise to undergo both at work and at home to normalize your expectations … like, your commute is always 45 minutes, so stop being so sure you can leave work late and still get home by six!

Timesheet: a time tracker app for Android

I needed a super-straightforward phone app – effectively, just a stopwatch for tasks. I found my match in a free app called TimeSheet.

It’s the perfect tool for a freelancer or home project enthusiast. You can set up multiple projects, each with a client and a billable rate. When you start working you simply start the clock on your project! When you’re done you stop the clock and wind up with a handy task summary that breaks out your billability and allows you to add expenses and notes. You can also add tasks after the fact without the clock, and export your data to Excel.

Is this overkill for a week or two of auditing how I spend my time? A little. But, you don’t have to use all of those features. Heck, you could use it just for one thing you are trying to bring more of in your life, like working on your NaBloPoMo book or mixing your band’s new album.

(Not that I need extra motivation to do either of those.)

(Okay, maybe just a little.)

In just three days I found out that I’m getting way more sleep than I used to, and that my commute takes up a lot more time in aggregate than I realized – so I should find something productive to do while I’m in transit. I also decided I could be spending a minimum of time each day doing other things (a-hem: blogging), so I added projects for those too.

There you have it – two free productivity tools that can help you get a better handle on your time. I’m totally into them both, so hopefully you can find some use for them too.

Now it’s your turn: What productivity tool are you crushing on lately? Is it super-techy, or as simple as a pen and paper?

#MusicMonday: Heart – “These Dreams”

October 15, 2012 by krisis

E and I saw Heart at the Tower Theatre on Friday, a classic-rock date night sequel to our spur-of-the-moment decision to see the Pretenders a few years ago.

I don’t adore the entire Heart catalog like I adore that of The Pretenders, but I do love a great number Heart songs – especially from their first three albums. That acoustic-driven galloping rock is definitely in the lineage of Arcati Crisis; I’ve always been fascinated that Gina isn’t a particular fan, given her similarities in writing and performance to the Wilson sisters.

Of course, those Heart albums were all before my time. My actual introduction to the band was most like the video to “These Dreams” in 1986, which to me at the time might have plausibly seemed as though it came from the Labyrinth soundtrack.

Don’t worry, I won’t subject you to the entire video.

I was always confused by Heart on Casey Casem’s count down, because in their videos they were made up just like the big-haired rocker guys I was so bored by … except, these were… women? I felt like I should have liked them, but this was in their “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You” period, a song Ann Wilson won’t even sing today, so could you blame me for not liking them?

Yet, these were also the acoustic-rockers who spawned hits like “Barracuda” and “Crazy on You.” What gives?

I read Heart’s new memoir Kicking and Dcreaming overnight on Friday, and it explained the peculiar duality of the band. Heart nearly dissolved when they left CBS Records imprint Portrait in 1982, and when they reformed for Capitol records they began performing songs by other writers in an attempt to fit in on rock radio. It brought them their greatest success – including their first number one single, “These Dreams,” one of their few songs with Nancy Wilson singing lead.

My obsession with not purchasing an $18 copy of Nancy’s live acoustic solo record lead me to snag the early Heart discs from the bargain bin.

I’ve always been obsessed with the song, but the synthesizer- and reverb-drenched original never really sounded right to me. Back in college while I was trolling through the CD racks at Tower Records I noticed a peculiar lone title in the W section – Live at McCabe’s Guitar Shop by Nancy Wilson?

That Nancy Wilson? I picked up the case an examined the track list and, LO AND BEHOLD, it included an acoustic version of “These Dreams”! But, it was $18 – far too rich for my blood when it came to CDs.

(Oh, the quaint stories of being a music fan in early 2000s.)

I eventually did buy the album, after picking up those early Mushroom and Portrait LPs with the encouragement of my old colleague Alex. I’ve never been one for those Capitol albums, though. Their stadium rock sound also mean that Nancy’s acoustic leanings were muffled and later altogether drowned out.

Happily, that wasn’t the end of Heart – in the past decade they’ve refocused on their old-school sound with a bluesy tinge on three solid studio albums.

That also means that on tour they’ve reclaimed some of their excessive 80s hits. On Friday they brought me to tears with an acoustic version of “These Dreams” with Nancy on mandolin that flowed directly into an acoustic and piano duet on “Alone.”

Uncanny Avengers & A+X – Collecting Guide and Reading Order

The definitive, chronological, and up-to-date guide and trade reading-order on collecting Uncanny Avengers comic books via omnibuses, hardcovers, and trade paperback graphic novels. A part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated November 2024 with titles scheduled for release through February 2024.

Collecting Uncanny Avengers

Before 2012 the word “Uncanny” had always been a mutants-only adjective at Marvel and The Avengers franchise included relatively few mutant members.

That all changed in the wake of Marvel’s massive Avengers vs. X-Men crossover in 2012. The flagship book of their new Marvel Now line-up was Uncanny Avengers – a greatest hits combination of the most recognizable members of both teams, all striving to maintain Professor Xavier’s message of unity and the Avenger’s mandate of protecting the Earth.

What felt like an uneasy alliance to start began to feel more natural with 2016’s All-New, All-Different Marvel. Maybe that’s because the book felt less like X-Men problems pasted onto the Avengers, or maybe it’s the mix of characters – now also includes of The Inhumans.

The third volume (there was a brief second one after Axis) jettisons the idea that the team must be comprised entirely of major stars like Wolverine and Thor and leans hard into Rogue as the central character. It rotated more Avengers in and out of the mix, plus brought in Deadpool and then Cable (the latter of whom has always been a great partner and foil to Rogue when they occasionally bump up against each other, as they did early in Mike Carey’s X-Men Legacy run).

Now, over half a decade since their debut, Uncanny Avengers feel like their own institution distinct from their pair of parent franchises. Who knows how that feeling will be affected by “No Surrender,” mega all-Avengers crossover in early 2018 that will see all of the books merged down to a single Avengers weekly title.
[Read more…] about Uncanny Avengers & A+X – Collecting Guide and Reading Order