How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #27 - Coaster

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around!

#27 - one comic - Ever see someone spill something on a comic and frantically try to wipe it off before the comic is damaged? Well, using a comic as a coaster is about the exact opposite of that. 

Sweat rings, here we come!

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 36 of 1989! 1953 left to use!

How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #26

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around!

#26 - one comic - Ahhhh... the paper hat. A classic! To get one that's actually big enough to wear, you'll have to tape two full comic pages together top to bottom. 

Someday I'll show this photo to his girlfriends to embarrass him.

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 194 of 1989! 1795 left to use!

How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #25

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around!

#25 - eighty comics - For number 25 I decided to bust out a big one. Wallpaper a room in your house (not a dollhouse this time)! Just take the staples out of the comic, coat the wall in glue, and apply the comics!  I arrived at the number 80 based on the size of the room I did (I only used one coat). Of course, if you have a smaller or larger room your actual number will vary.

It's not the fumes from the glue that makes you dizzy.

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 193 of 1989! 1796 left to use!
Number 25! If I was a Valiant comic I'd put a special holographic cover on this!

How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #24

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around!

#24 - one comic - Dress up that doll house with some fancy wall paper! Barbie's been buggin' Ken about redecorating anyway. 

Ever wonder why Barbie's hair ends up standing on end?

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 113 of 1989! 1876 left to use!

How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #23 - Paper Chain

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around!

#23 - six comic - I don't know about  you, but when I was a kid we always counted down the days to Christmas with a paper chain. We'd tear off one link each day until there was only one left on Christmas day. Well, each Valiant comic can be used for about a month's worth of links. if you started your chain now with Valiant comics I'd estimate you'd use six Valiant comics!

How festive!
Now we wrestle around the festivus pole until my eldest son can beat me.

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 112 of 1989! 1877 left to use!

How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #22

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around!

#22 - six comics - Let's call this one a "demand note." Anyway, to get those nice big letters it took six Valiant comics. Sure, I could have used the tiny letters inside the comic and used only one but if you're going to make a demand note you want it to look good, don't you?  

Chances are that you've very sick if you can tell me the "DO" of "DOLLARS" came from Shadowman, the "M" of "ME" came from Magnus, and the "A" in "DOLLARS" came from Harbinger. Very sick indeed.

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 106 of 1989! 1883 left to use!

How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #21

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around!

#21 - four comics - You can save your furniture from the claws of your cat with Valiant comics! Just fasten a comic onto each corner of your coach or seat. If the comic gets shredded, it's easy to just throw up another comic. Voila! 

This worked for me because my cats won't go near  Valiant comics.

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 100 of 1989! 1889 left to use! Whoo-hoo! One hundred comics in! I'm 1/20 of the way!

How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #20

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around! 

#20 - six comics - Seal up drafty windows! First, open the window at the top and bottom. Next, place comics where the window would close - For me it took three on top and three on the bottom (on the top just lay them on top of the window). Then close the window and secure it. Voila! Your drafty days are over thanks to Valiant!

What can I say? Yes, I recognize how sad this is.

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 96 of 1989! 1899 left to use!
Hard to believe I've done TWENTY of these things and I haven't even used 100 comics yet! This could be a VERY long series!

How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #19

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around!

#19 - one comic - With a few quick snips of your scissors you can make some decorative and colorful paper dolls. Yes, I actually did this. Don't judge.

This is the line of people waiting to buy Valiant comics.

And THIS is the line of people ready to mock those other people.

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 90 of 1989! 1899 left to use!

How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #18

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around!

#18 - one comic - Ah, sweet, sweet poetic justice. Blowing your nose on a Valiant comic... 

This may actually improve the art.

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 89 of 1989! 1900 left to use!

How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #17

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around!

#17 - two comics - I'm sure you want to keep your furniture looking nice but you don't want to use those old lady doilies. Here's a solution - use Valiant comics! But learn from my experiences - you can't just lay the comic on the armrest and expect it to stay put. You've actually got to use those "doily screws" that keep a normal doily in place. They also prevent unwary children from accidentally opening the comic out of curiosity as well.

If a crook breaks in and sees this, trust me, they'll leave without taking anything out of sheer pity.

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 88 of 1989! 1901 left to use!

Gammarauders Comic

One last thought on Gammarauders:

Gammarauders comic book!

When I was researching to do the last couple of Gammarauder-related posts, I discovered that their was a Gammarauders comic book from DC comics! Who knew?

So, naturally, this aroused my curiosity. Which game first - the comic or the game? They're obviously related because they have the same title art. Well, it turns out that the game came first. I don't remember this game being big enough to warrant its own comic book but I was only 10 in 1987!

The comic ran for 10 issues. In fact, three of those issues had a "mini-RPG" supplement in them based on the board game Gammarauders!

This has to put Gammarauders in a very elite group of games. How many games do you know that have their own comic book (not counting video games)? Let's see... Magic, Dungeons and Dragons... I'm stalling here. Go, Gammarauders, go!

How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #16

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around!

#16 - one comic - If you're out of coffee filters and in a pinch, just stuff a Valiant Comic down in there! Mmmm... you can really taste the dyes. Just to warn you, if you actually do this you'll probably lose the ability to taste anything ever again. I miss being able to taste.  *sob*

The best part of waking up... is Valiant in your cup!

It's stuff like this that causes them to issue all of those ridiculous warnings.

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 86 of 1989! 1903 left to use!

How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #15

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around!

#9 - one comic - Next time you have to give a gift, don't waste good wrapping paper on the box. Instead, use a Valiant comic - they're cheaper! One comic should do it for most boxes. Having the shred the comic to open the box will be good therapy for the person receiving the gift. And just think, compared to the comic your gift will look ten times better!

For the purposes of the ongoing count below, we'll call this just one comic but we all know that over the course of the year you could use 100 Valiant comics this way.

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 85 of 1989! 1904 left to use!
The rate this is going, I might just still be at this at Christmas!

How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #14

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around!

#14 - one comic - Sun in your eyes? A Valiant Comic can solve that problem. Use that handy little bugger as a visor. Just try not to look at the comic itself or you might end up blind anyway.

Valiant comics aren't suitable for children... to read.

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 83 of 1989! 1905 left to use!

How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #13

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around!

#13 - one comic - Want to have a birthday party on a budget? Just snatch a rotting Valiant Comic off the stack and you can make your own party hats! Just tear out a page from the middle, twist it into a cone, tape it, and cut off the tails. Voila! 

Actually, now that I think about it, it's actually probably more fitting to use this as a dunce cap.

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 83 of 1989! 1906 left to use!

How You Can Use 1,989 Valiant Comics #12

Continuing our series on how YOU can make use of those worthless Valiant Comics you've got lying around!

#12 - forty comics - It's time to get serious about using 1,989 Valiant comics! If your child is like my three year old girl sits pretty low at our table. What she need is a Valiant booster seat! Here's what you can do. Stack 40 comics and wrap them up with tape (duct, packaging, or masking all work fine). You've now got yourself a big block of Valiant pick-me-up!

Poor little girl... she can barely see what she's eating.

Now she's happy and sitting tall. What changed?

Valiant to the rescue again!

VALIANT COMICS USED TO DATE: 82 of 1,989! 1907 left to use!

FCBD Enjoyment

Today, my family and I went to Comic Store West for Free Comic Book Day. As expected, we weren't disappointed!

FCBD logo

First, the store was PACKED. When I first entered, I would say there were a dozen people in line.

Second, the comic book selection was excellent, especially for kids. The store had a bunch of comics left over from previous years in addition to this year's offerings.

Third, the store had a Marvel comics trivia contest. I watched person after person go down in flames but I felt pretty confident myself. More on that in my next post.

Fourth, the store was having a screening of all of the Avengers movies. Very nice!

Fifth, the store had a tent and was offering hot dogs, chips and soda for the GREAT price of $2 TOTAL. Wow! What a great bonus! I could feed my whole family for $8!

Sixth, CSW had a Heroclix game demo based on the Avengers movies (it was a 600 point battle - Thor, Banner (Hulk), Iron Man, Black Widow and Hawkeye taking on Loki and a bunch of Skrulls (the 616 version of the Ultimate Shitari) on top of the Stark Tower playmat with a Cosmic Cube thown into the mix. SWEET!

Anyway, here's what we ended up taking home:

Smurfs/Tinkerbell
Yo Gabba Gabba
Dangerous Animals
Top Shelf Kids
Avengers
DC's 52
Star Wars/Serenity
Mouse Guard hardback book (not pictured)
2 Thor Heroclix
1 Green Lantern Heroclix

Not a bad haul for FREE! The kids loved it. Thank you, Comic Store West!

Free Comic Book Day 2012!

I know I'm pretty down on the comics industry... there's a lot to be down about, in my opinion. I may be doom and gloom, forecasting a bleak future for the once great American institution. But I do see some rays of hope. One of them in Free Comic Book Day! This is the 10th year for FCBD and the event has only grown and gotten bigger.

I, myself, always make sure I snatch up several hundred comics so I can give them out to kids. After all, they're going to be the future of comics.

I always get excited when I see what companies are releasing. This year doesn't disappoint with Mouse Guard, Peanuts, Bongo, Star Wars, Transformers, Avengers, Diary of a Zombie Kid, Spider-Man, Donald Duck, My Favorite Martian, Tinkerbell/Smurfs, Top Shelf Kids Club, and Animal Planet (to name a few).

 

Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi

I've got to admit - it's a question I've never spent much time thinking about. Where did the Jedi and the Sith come from? In Star Wars history, there is literally tens of thousands of years of history between these two factions. But certainly there had to be a time before force powers were discovered, right? How did that happen exactly? Well, that's the question the upcoming Dark Horse limited series, Dawn of the Jedi, sets out to answer. And I've go to admit - now that the question's been posed, I'm very anxious to find out the answer!