NERDS AROUND TOWN

Nerds Around Town: Nerd Holiday shopping guide, piracy and libraries

Cory De La Guardia
Nov 27, 2019, 7:15 am
ART BY JESUS RODRIGUEZ

Born with a comic book in one hand and a remote control in the other, Cory DLG is the talent of Conroe's very own Nerd Thug Radio and Sports. Check out the podcast replay of the FM radio show at www.nerdthugradio.com!

GOOD DEED OF THE DAY

For the next two weeks I'm going to be pointing to the charity called "Let's Bring 'Em Home." They buy plane tickets for active duty enlisted guys and fly them home for the holidays. On December 13th, Nerd Thug Radio and The Adventure Begins will be teaming up and holding the Nerd Thug Takeover to benefit this wonderful organization. Starting at 6pm, proceeds from sales will be going to this 501c registered charity and will be helping to try and bring some enlisted people home for the holidays so they can see their families.

GREAT NERD GIFTS

So I hate that this is a thing but it's a real thing so it bears doing. This week has also become Christmas shopping kick off weekend, with all kinds of crazy Black Friday deals and a lot of people buy most of their gifts during this weekend so I suppose I owe it to the nerds around town to make some suggestions for people. So here are my five nerd gifts suggestions: 5. Watchmen Deluxe Edition 4. We're not always grim and gritty, maybe a little light hearted Superman and Batman statue 3. Black Science Premiere Hardcover, it's not just superheroes anymore 2. Bloodshot Deluxe Edition, in anticipation of this movie coming out next year and 1. Either "DCeased" or "Batman Who Laughs" they're both equally worthy of the top spot.

PIRATING COMICS

The hot topic of pirating broke out this week on Comic's twitter as the creator of Image comic "Crowded" got irritated when he saw roughly 90k reads of his 10 issue book but he as a starving artist is worried about his book being cancelled. I remember being a kid who illegally swapped music files when that stuff first came out and Lars of Metallica fame came out and went after Napster for stealing from artists. At the time, as a kid not understanding how stuff works I thought he was such a chump for that. Now as a creator who pays his own bills, I recognize the courage and the strength he had to come out and say, "if you're a fan of my music, then you need to buy it." The reality is that paying creatives for their work is the right thing to do. My grandmother passed away early this year and she had asked specific people to speak at her funeral service and after the fact there were conversations amongst the family members that they were surprised some of them took money for coming to speak. I know there are specifics that make this hard to explain well, and it wasn't that my family didn't want her to have a nice service, there was just surprise about the business of it. What wound up coming out of the conversation though is that this is their living, this is how they pay their bills and are able to continue their good works, by asking for and receiving money for their work. IF you like something, pay for it, I'm not saying pay everything for it, I make comics and I literally let people pay me personally whatever they want for a PDF of my comic. I'm not expecting to get rich doing this, but I have to receive value for my work or I can't keep doing it, the same is true for everyone else in this industry.

LIBRARIES BAD?

During the conversation about piracy, a village idiot from the "wise minds" of the Comicsgate community suggested Libraries and piracy are the same thing. This is vastly incorrect and an idiots take on a big idea. Yes libraries only may buy one copy of your work and then let tons of other people read it at no added benefit directly to you. But first of all, they bought A COPY, secondly libraries are the poor person's option to enrich their lives through the arts. You don't get mad that people use libraries, you get thrilled. Reading is the backbone of all modern societies through all of human history that mattered. Passing knowledge freely from person to person in a way that is respectful to the process is exactly what we should want everyone around the world to be doing. We certainly don't get mad at libraries loaning books out for free, that is just stupid. Also from a capitalism standpoint, if you sell your books to the estimated 100k libraries across America, you made a lot more sales than the estimated 2k comic shops across America, just a math thought.

NOT THAT YOU ASKED

Work is progressing on issue #2 of Another Day at the Office and I'm super excited but the real question is, what's the best way to market it? How exactly should I handle the release of issue #2? These are the big things I'm pondering this holiday.

Feel free to check out my brand-new comic book Another Day at the Office or buy a shirt from Side Hustle Ts where some proceeds help people struggling with cancer or listen to Nerd Thug Radio. Thoughts, complaints, events and comments can be sent to corydlg@gmail.com.

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Nerds Around Town: Justice League, Joe Pesci and stripper movies

ART BY JESUS RODRIGUEZ

Born with a comic book in one hand and a remote control in the other, Cory DLG is the talent of Conroe's very own Nerd Thug Radio and Sports. Check out the podcast replay of the FM radio show at www.nerdthugradio.com!

GOOD DEED OF THE DAY

The Houston Community Warriors are hosting a dinner to support the Houston Foodbank, there are tickets available for sale and you can just make donations if you'd like. The Houston Food Bank is here for those in need, keeping people fed when so many people these days have seemingly turned their back on the world, these guys feed people. Help them feed people, please.

OF COURSE HE IS

I didn't know this but when he was about 26 years old Joe Pesci, yeah that Joe Pesci, was a singer. He had an album out called "Little Joe Sure Can Sing." That is very much a 1960s album title if I ever heard one, and in 1998 he released another album. I bring this all up because he's back with another album called "Still Singing" which is a great album title whenever you release it. On the album there's a duet with Adam Levine, *sigh* yes, that Adam Levine, called "Baby Girl" and it's on the internet for googling and listening to. It isn't the worst thing you've heard all week I promise and honestly the internet is a weird enough place that I really see this getting traction. He's going for a crooner, old school Vegas lounge act singing style and it isn't bad and you can definitely tell its him singing. Please if you need to distract yourself for five minutes today you should check this song out, it feels like it's from another era.

HUSTLER

J Lo is making the media rounds trying to pretend like she doesn't care if she's nominated for an Oscar or not and in recent interviews she suggests that she didn't get paid to star in her film "Hustler" which she also produced. Isn't that the point of producing films though? Like if you're a movie star who is going to produce the movie that you're in, isn't the point of that because you are going to reap a big windfall on the back end by cutting costs by not paying a big name actor (yourself) to make the movie. Rather than get a $20 million dollar check to be in someone else's movie, you pay $50 million to own the entire film and keep the lion's share of the profits which are hopefully a lot more than the $50 million you put in. I know it sounds good to say out loud but she produced the film for crying out loud, of course she didn't pay herself. Seems obvious, but maybe not.

SNYDER CUT

In the comic fandom world there is this weird movement where lots of people are clamoring for the Snyder Cut of the Justice League movie. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, first of all be proud of yourself because this is a dumb one. Zack Snyder was the director for Justice League, which was his third foray into the DC universe after directing Man of Steel and then Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. Now neither of these movies were critically beloved or overwhelmingly recognized as well-crafted stories but they made good money and he had a linear concept for the movies and therefore Warner Bros studio tasked him with making Justice League, and creating a trilogy of sorts, now there were tons of issues and problems with the movie and the studio wasn't liking what he was showing them in meetings and there were problems, then sadly his daughter took her own life and Snyder stepped back to deal with issues at home. Joss Whedon was brought on to finish the film and lighten up the tone, the resulting reshoots blew up the budget including Paramount refusing to allow Cavill to shave so Warner Bros had to digitally take out a moustache that Henry Cavill's character in Mission Impossible had now grown because reshoots went so beyond what was scheduled. So in $25 million dollars of reshoots, there's a Superman with a weird lip. Anyway the movie comes out and it is hated by lots of people and is viewed as a failure and from there the DC movies have kind of ground to a halt and the connected universe seems to have been blown up with Wonder Woman making period piece movies, Aquaman staying in the movie universe, and a new Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey being "loosely connected" in the sense that Margot Robbie is back as Harley Quinn and she shared a scene with Ben Affleck's Batman in Suicide Squad. You get all that? Basically the version of the movie that was released broke the universe it was so bad. Well now fans and the actors themselves are clamoring for the release of "the Snyder Cut" as though his version is a better film and allegedly the studio is in talks to find a way to release it somehow, perhaps as a special feature on an upcoming anniversary release. I hope they do and I hope its somehow worse and all of these crazy people have to eat so much crow, not like they will, but a guy can dream.

NOT THAT YOU ASKED

Just found out about a really great charity that I'll be doing an event with next month and I don't want to steal the Food Bank's thunder so I'm going to wait until after this week but honestly, this might be my favorite charity yet… stay tuned!

Feel free to check out my brand-new comic book Another Day at the Office or buy a shirt from Side Hustle Ts where some proceeds help people struggling with cancer or listen to Nerd Thug Radio. Thoughts, complaints, events and comments can be sent to corydlg@gmail.com.

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