Lego Star Wars: Darth Maul's Mission (Family Comic Friday)

Yes- this is a children’s book! It’s either completely wayyyyyyy too young for me or I’m wayyyyyyy too old for it.

  Whichever.

  So, why did I check it out and read it? Well, it was placed in the New Arrival Kids Graphic

Novel shelf at my library. I had recently watched the Freemakers Lego Star Specials Cartoon Network and while geared for kids, I did find them very funny. That explains the Lego Star Wars part, but why is a 38-year old husband trolling the kids section. Over the years, I’ve been working on building up the graphic novel sections (in 13 years, it’s gone from 1 shelf to over a dozen, plus a kids and young adult section.) It doesn’t help that the librarians at my local branches don’t really know what’s appropriate for kids and what’s not. I mean, I found Watchmen in Young Adult once and Death: High Cost of Living in the kids section!

   Anyway, the book wasn’t a comic book or graphic novel by any stretch of the imagination. It needs to be shelved in young readers for sure. Even though the characters used word bubbles to speak, there isn’t any sequential action indicative of the comics medium.

  It’s a children’s book, through and through. Though, there are plot holes as the action goes from Naboo to Tattooine to a dance party on said desert planet and back to Naboo with no answer as to why Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan make the interplanetary u-turn in the first place. Talk about your suspensions of disbelief!

  Parents, expect many laughs and probably even more questions when reading this as a bedtime story.

Worth Consuming

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

The 18 Days of a Star Wars Christmas Miracle +7: Day 23

 
  We are getting oh so much closer to Christmas. As I was searching for an Advent present for you today, I was reminded of what inspired me to make a Star Wars themed advent. The 2015 Lego Star Wars advent calendar.

   Now I can't bring you the advent online so, I offer you the next best thing-

Today's advent present is a link to a brand new Star Wars Lego game. (You will need to create an account in order to play.)

  Enjoy...

Just Announced~ Lego Cover Variants!!!

Just announced yesterday, DC Comics will be issuing Lego variant covers of most of it's titles this fall. They're supposed to hit stores for the November issue. However, because DC still pre-dates their covers by 2 months either the books dated November will have the Lego variant (thus available in September) or in November, the books dated January will boast the special fronts. I'm not sure which but the covers are due to coincide with the release of the new video game Lego Batman 3, I'm betting  they'll all be in stores before Christmas!

variant cover to Catwoman #36

  In honor of the Lego Batman video game that started this craze (and because I use Batman for all of my avatars) here's a first look at some of the Batman-themed covers.

variant to Batman #36



Beautiful Lego by Mike Doyle

Ok- I admit it; I didn’t check out this book from the library for the articles. I got Beautiful Lego for its vast array of impressive Lego art. Actually, when I checked this book out, I thought it was only pictures anyways.

The ‘articles’ are a series of Q&A type interviews with some of the artists featured in this coffee table tribute to the iconic plastic building block. Each interview is basically the same with the artist explaining their roots and their love for Legos. I wasn’t interested in that. I wanted pictures.

While there are hundreds of impressive photos of sculptures made of plastic blocks ranging from Freddie Mercury to imaginary castles in the sky, I feel like a lot of this book was wasted on text and not the real reason anyone would want to own this book- photos of Lego art.

I’m not going to blast the art in this book. Personally, I like the works that are made to represent something real or iconic; such as models of DC Comics characters or Battlestar Galactica vehicles. There’s a lot of fanciful stuff in here too like robots and geometric shapes. But those works while impressive are not my cup of tea. Some other Lego artworks of note are the ones that are made to look like flames and human anatomy.

Beautiful Lego is just that- absolutely beautiful. But I think too much of this book is spent on artist profiles. I obtained the book for the artwork and with ¼ of the book devoted to something other than Lego art; I don’t think it’s worth the $29.95 cover price. Once again, I am glad that I got this book from my library and didn’t shell out my hard earned money for something that I wasn’t expecting.

Worth Consuming- for the artwork alone.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.