Are you ready for some football?

Tom Brady doing what he does best: throwing touchdowns

Mmmmm.

You feel that?

That little bit of electricity in the air can only mean one thing.

It's time for football!

Starting tomorrow with the Washington Redskins versus the New York Giants, we have four months straight of the greatest sport in all the land, and I couldn't be happier. It's like having one of my best friends back, except one that can only hang out every once in a while (sort of like my friend Brian, except way more intense). Due to Alaska being ridiculously far to the west, the game is starting here at 3 PM but you better believe I'll be there for kickoff.

Here's hoping my boys can finish the year right and go 19-0 this time. None of that messing around with 18 and 1 business, although as long as that one loss does not come in the Super Bowl again I suppose I'll be fine. Excuse me though, I have to go knock on some wood, rub my Wes Welker jersey, and say about forty two different prayers to make sure I didn't jinx the Pats.

Happy 300th post and a look at Fables #75!

Well, I've reached a milestone. In just one year and three months I've reached my 300th blog post, which is either really freaking sad or pretty cool. It's probably the former, but I'm going to say it's the latter for self confidence sake. Thanks for reading, and hopefully there are even more of you reading this when I reach my next milestone.

The cover for Fables #75 by James Jean

In other news, today was new comic day (strangely when there are national holidays other places in the U.S. receive comics on Thursday but Alaska still receives them on Wednesday - awesome!) and the second biggest release of the year came out. This has been a year of milestones, with Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's run on Y the Last Man ending and Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's Astonishing X-Men run wrapping up as well.

The release that came out today was issue 75 for Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham's epic Fables, an issue that Willingham declared would change the face of the entire series forever and dictate what would happen in the remainder of the series. Well did it fulfill promises laid down by its dynamic creator?

Good god yes.

This issue came in at $4.99, two full dollars more than a standard release, but also came in at 64 pages which is roughly equivalent to two and a half issues worth of material. In its pages were so many major events, so many memorable scenes, so much great dialogue, and so many dynamic visuals that you'd have to read entire arcs of other series to see half of what this issue laid out. The pace was very brisk, but never too quick to ignore the character details that have defined this series entire run. It was so good, I even read it a second time before moving on to other comics (very out of character for me).

I'm not going to reveal any plot details, but I just wanted to say that this truly was a special issue. Hats off to all involved with the run - artist Mark Buckingham provided the widescreen visuals that could be easily described in a word ("epic" would be that word), Steve Leialoha provided his trusty inks, James Jean provided his seventy fifth consecutive brilliant cover, and the maestro of the whole deal, Willingham, provided us with everything we could have asked for and more. Bravo to the team for producing one of the best issues of what is easily one of the best series out right now and one of my favorites of all time.

Also, to note - they are releasing a book of the seventy five covers James Jean has done for the series in one collection. It's pretty incredible work. If you're a fan of stellar art or the series, you'll want to check it out. You can preorder that here.

M.I.A. retires

M.I.A.

Musical It Girl and all around Queen of booty shakin' jams M.I.A. officially called it quits today in an article from Paste Magazine. She announced at Bonnaroo that she was retiring, but she confirmed it claiming that she will no longer tour or produce music in any way. If she ends up staying retired, this is a big loss for the musical community as she is an extremely innovative and fun talent, but I'm thankful that we have two albums from her still and that I got to see her at least the once (and what a performance!)

Of course, musicians stay retired as often as comic book characters stay dead, so don't expect her to stay retired for too long. Look at Jay Z...how many times has he retired? 3? 15? 47? Even dead musicians don't retire, they just dig deeper in their catalog. I say expect more music from her, but she's never exactly been traditional. She may actually stay retired, if only to be different.