It’s Wednesday everyone, Happy New Comics Day!  Chris here again from Obsessive Comics Disorder (http://ocdcast.com).  While I, like many of you, wait patiently to get into Diablo III, I thought I’d post this week’s comics review – “Fables #1″ by Bill Willingham/Lan Medina/Steve Leialoha (Vertigo, $0.99).  Okay, now I know that *technically* Vertigo is a part of DC Comics and I said I’d review something other than that, but given the popularity of Fables and the fact that A) I hadn’t read it yet, and B) they had a big sale on the comics this week, and C) it isn’t your standard Batman/Superman or other super hero comic book that you guys would let it slide.  Am I right?

Fables is all about what happens with “Happily Ever After” meets reality.  All of the characters from various children’s fairy tales seem to be involved in the story, where these characters have been evicted from their fantasy homes and forces to live in New York City.  Those that can’t pass as “normal” get magical disguises so that they can move through the city without raising any suspicion.  In fact, this is the number one rule of the “Fables” — as they call themselves — that they must not reveal the existence of themselves to the normal world.  Therefore, a small underground government has propped up to take care of matters between the various characters.  We get glances into what these characters would be like if they had to face the harsh realities that we deal with everyday.

When I finished this book, I was very conflicted.  I have heard from years from many different people how good this book is.  Yet, from just reading the first issue, there really isn’t much here to pull me in.  A story is set up involving the disappearance/possible murder of Snow White’s sister Rose Red, but I am not pulled into the storyline as much as I feel I should be.  Honestly, if it were not for the reputation of this book, I wouldn’t bother picking up any more issues of this book.  I find myself wondering more about how these characters got to this point than what is going on now.  If the comic had started with some of that storyline, I would have been more drawn to this.

As far as the art goes, it seems to blend nicely with the storyline.  By that I mean while this is a story set in modern times, you get this fairy tale-like experience while reading the book.  Even though I was reading this on my iPad, I could see this comic getting made into a giant leather-bound book.  I’m not the biggest fan of this art style, but it seems to work in this book.  It would just take me awhile to get used to it.

My Rating: 2 out of 5.  As of right now, this comic seems to suffer from the problem of being over hyped.  Coming in fresh, I just do not see what people see in this comic.  However, I am willing to give this a couple more issues to see if it grabs me.  Yet, as the first issue is still only 99 cents, anyone out there should give this a try.  As always, if you have any opinions, feel free to comment below or send me an email at chris@ocdcast.com

A bit of a disclaimer up front: I am a HUGE DC Comics fan. I’ve been in love with all the great stuff that has come out of the new 52 push that they have been doing since September. I do love other comics as well, so I will make sure that next week’s pick will not be from DC. However, this weekend I happened to be at my local comic book store for Free Comic Book Day and one of the titles that caught my eye was “Earth 2″ (DC Comics, $3.99) by James Robinson, Nicola Scott, and Trevor Scott. I decided to wait on it for the time being, as I mentally added it to my “I’ll wait a month and get it for a $1 cheaper on comixology” list. Yet, for the rest of the day it kept nagging at me, so I decided to take the plunge and buy it early on comixology for the regular $3.99 price.

With the “Second Wave” of the new 52, DC cancelled a few books that were not doing so well and replaced them with different titles. Two of these titles, Earth 2 and World’s Finest bring back the idea of the multiverse to this newly rebooted DC Universe. “Earth 2″ is the designation for another Earth in another universe that is much like our own (if you remember the TV show “Sliders”….it’s kinda like that). The book titled Earth 2 gives a look into this world and its superheroes. The book starts out with a storyline much like the first arc of the new “Justice League” book by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee; with demons from Apokolips coming to take over our world. In the main DCU, this is what brought the Justice League together in the first place. For Earth 2, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman have been around for quite awhile before meeting these forces. By the end of the book, circumstances arise where a new breed of superheroes may be on the horizon, yet these characters may be familiar to those that have read DC books before.

From the beginning, I loved this book. It has everything that you would want from an alternate universe tale: characters that we are used to acting from a slightly altered point of view. For instance, we get to see a very touching moment between Batman and his Robin (who in this universe is his daughter). Yes, it is very cliche, but at the same time it isn’t because it’s Batman we are talking about, and we aren’t given the chance to see his fatherly side come out that much.
In addition, the story doesn’t spend an eternity dragging out the Apokolips War – if you want that you can read “Justice League”. No, the story quickly wraps up and proceeds to introduce us to these “new” characters – which is the most interesting part to me. A bit of back story: in the past, the entire premise of Earth 2 has been that it is where the “Justice Society” lives – heroes like the FIRST Flash and Green Lantern (Jay Garrick and Alan Scott). Earth 2 originally was DC’s way of retconning what happened to those heroes and why we have a Barry Allen Flash and a Jay Garrick Flash. When DC smashed all of their universes together, these older heroes were now the Golden Age heroes who would later inspire the Modern Age heroes such as Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman.

Now, we are given a story where these heroes do not even emerge until after the War is over and the planet is hoping for a new wave of heroes to emerge. It’s a twist on the characters and idea behind Earth 2 and in my opinion it’s executed very well. It serves as a mirror counterpiece to Johns/Lee’s Justice League, with the art and style looking very similar, especially when dealing with the extra-terrestrial look of the Parademons from Apokolips.
My Rating: 4.5 out of 5. Just about anyone can pick up this book and have a good understanding of this book. Those that have read Justice League will see the connections to that book and those who have been fans of the Justice Society will want to see the new take on these characters. As always though, it might be worth waiting a few weeks until this book drops to $2.99 — depends on if saving a dollar is more important than reading the book now.

Am I wrong? Let me know; either in the comments below, via email (chris@ocdcast.com), or send me a message via Twitter (@ChrisTheProf).

Ah the French, the world’s punching bag. Lord knows why Chillingo decided to go with the name, but that’s their call. First released in August of 2011, the “Contre Jour” app allows you to portay a… uhhh… thingy! This thingy’s goal is to get bits of light and then eventually go to the portal and escape the level, a structure very much based on Cut The Rope. The thingy itself cannot move under it’s own power. The deal is, though, that you must manipulate the ground in order to get the thingy through the portal. And I noticed that things had a way of getting challenging really quickly as they started adding new dynamics into the mix. Apart from the gameplay, the art style seems to be rooted in a Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet – Limbo hybrid, and the music sounds like something you’d hear in the background of a bedtime story.

Recently Contre Jour has been updated with both iPad retina support a new 20-level Jungle area. The $2.99 price tag may seem a bit steep at first, and it is, but after a short time you’ll notice that you’re actually having a lot of fun, and then after a while, you’ll realize that it was worth it.

Our nerdtastic crew returns to us for another great app-filled episode. On today’s show Angry Birds Space becomes the biggest selling app of all time, Draw Something seems to be drawing nothing, Rock Band iOS is closing up shop, and more…

Scott’s Reviews
Spell Sword - $0.99 Universal on iPhone and iPad –  
My Fitness Pal - Free on iPhone and iPad - 
Tabletop Clock – $0.99 for the iPad - 

Eric’s Reviews
Spell Sword - $0.99 Universal on iPhone and iPad -  
Dream: ON - Free on iPhone and iPad - 
(Swick’s Interpretation of EricSpeak)
Run Zombie Run – $0.99 on iPhone and iPad - 
(Swick’s Interpretation of EricSpeak)
Not to be confused with Zombie, Run. Which will be reviewed next week!

Eileen’s Reviews
LinkedIn - Free Universal on iPhone and iPad - 
Groove 2 - On Sale for $1.99 Universal on iPhone and iPad - 

In other news, Eric is a freak who doesn’t get enough sleep. Scott also give’s a quick review of Tabletop Clock app for the iPad and it seems to be worth a look. Of course, it was also developed by, friend of Frogpants, Buxley of The Instance fame.

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The app launched in October of 2009 for $10, and then again with a follow-up app in 2010. So far EA, or more specifically EA Mobile, has not commented as to why this has occurred. But one can easily surmise that Rock Band trend is falling quickly out of favor with gamers, not to mention that even fewer people would want to get their Rock Band fix via iOS. But still, it’s fairly lame that the app still exists on the iOS store at all, I feel bad for the folks that are buying the app in the next month only to find that the game won’t be playable by June.

Hello everyone!  I’m Chris Renshaw, and I run a blog called “Obsessive Comics Disorder” (ocdcast.com) where I have various podcast/videos about all the geeky things that I am into.  Being a big comics fan, one of my favorite apps on iOS is the Comixology app.  So each week, I’m going to bring you guys a new review of a comic (or series) that you guys can find on that app.  This week, I’m talking about the 1994 DC Comics event “Zero Hour: Crisis in Time”, written by Dan Jurgens and inked by Jerry Ordway (5 issues, $1.99 each).

Now understand, I’ve only been into comics for the past couple of years, so I did not originally read this event when it was originally published.  About a month or so ago, Comixology ran a sale where each issue was only $0.99.  I am an avid DC Comics fan, and  I’ve been working on reading DC’s major event books (Crisis on Infinite Earths, etc.), so I picked them all up.  There are five issues, labeled Zero Hour #0 – 4.

Around the DC Universe, strange occurrences start to happen.  People from alternate timelines begin to show up, confusing the heroes of the DCU.  Gradually, they begin to learn that something (or someone….) has disrupted the timestream, causing temporal disruptions that are eating way the past and the future, working its way to destroy all of time and reality!  Our heroes must work together to figure out what is going on and find a way to stop it before all of time and space is undone!

This was my biggest problem with this comic, as the way Comixology presented them, the issues started with #0 and ran through issue #4.  So I opened up #0 and began reading.  I was immediately confused by what I was reading, as I seemed to be jumping into the middle of a story.  I couldn’t understand anything that was going on.  By the time that I got to #2, I realized that events were happening in reverse order.  At first, I thought maybe that as a time travel event, this was on purpose.  However, after looking up the event online, I found out that the books were supposed to be read in reverse; starting at Issue #4 and “counting down” to Issue #0.  When I went back and read the books in the correct order, suddenly the story made more sense.

Just like any story dealing with time travel, there are a bunch of minor details that get overlooked.  As the “disruptions” destroy parts of the timeline, characters from the past and future that have been moved to the present blink out of existence.  Yet, if the past was vanishing, ALL our heroes would be gone.  Other than that, the story is fairly straight forward (if you read it the correct way….).  Just like any DC event, obviously the more you know about DC characters, the more you get out of their events, as you will recognize and understand more characters and their decisions that someone who hasn’t read many DC books.

As someone who has gotten started reading modern day books, it’s always weird going back and reading books from the past.  With the advent of computers, modern artists have completely new tools that older artists did not have.  Not only that, but every era has new “styles” of art that are popular, and reading outside of the style you are accustomed to can be interesting.  The art is this book is fairly similar to others I’ve read from the 90′s.  There are a few times when the artist gets a little crazy with some of the coloring, but otherwise the artwork is pretty standard and gets the story across, which is crucial in a complex story such as this.

My Rating: 3 out of 5.  It’s a standard DC event, used to correct various “continuity errors” that came up during the 90′s.  If you are a DC comics fan, you’ll enjoy seeing all your favorite characters.  If not, you might be a little thrown off by the story.  Just make sure that you read it in the right order….

Have you read this event?  Do you agree/disagree?  Do you have suggestions of other comics for me to review?  Leave a comment below, or email me at chris@ocdcast.com.  Also, you can follow me on twitter at twitter.com/ChrisTheProf.