Showing posts with label superheroes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label superheroes. Show all posts
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Take Advantage of the Batman Craze...

...and get them reading.
CBC Books posted a list of Batman non-fiction books you can highlight at your library for fans of the dark knight.
» Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero by E. Paul Zehr
» Batman: The Complete History by Les Daniels
» Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight by Travis Langley
» The Essential Batman Encyclopedia by Robert Greenberger
The article gives a brief summary of each, so head on over.

Readers may also be interested in learning more about the Physics of Superheroes.
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Axe Cop by Malachi and Ethan Nicolle

I'm a guy, and I'm here to tell you that I have no idea how girls think, or the rationale behind what they do. Women and girls are a mystery to us guys. Likewise, I know that boys don't make much sense to them.  I would like to offer a hand in resolving this situation.  I present to you: Axe Cop!

This is how little boys think.  Yes, Axe Cop, the story of a cop with an axe. Created by Malachai and Ethan Nicolle, a pair of brothers who love to hang out together.  You see, Malachi is a kid.  He was 5 when Axe Cop was created, with his comic illustrator brother who was 29 at the time. They would play together, with Malachi inventing stories and characters on the fly, the same way all little boys play.  Ethan would just take these stories, streamline them, and put them out as a web comic.  The only editing he would do is just to make sure that the story flowed a little more logically.

Okay, logic is a stretch, but this is what I mean:  the stories are pure, unadulterated (literally) imagination.  They are violent, but only in the way a little kid obsessed with dinosaurs and superheroes could think of.  They are crude, using plenty of poop jokes because poop is funny.  They are utterly bizarre, with a T-Rex with sunglasses and machine guns for arms and a baby with a magical unicorn horn that grants wishes. 

Axe Cop has been going for nearly 2 years now, so you can almost track the growth of Malachi as he gets older, so you can sort of figure out how boys grow up (do we ever?).

The Axe Cop world is ever expanding.  From its humble start as a web comic intended for friends and family, it has expanded to print issues by Dark Horse, collections of the web material (Volume 3 in February), Hallowe'en costumes and a theme pack for the Munchkin card game.

The web comic is free and there is a full archive, so if you want to know what it's all about, get to it right now.  Otherwise, go ahead and get the issues from Dark Horse. 

And just for a taste, here is one of my favorites.
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Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios

Not every teen boy is a nerd, and not every fan of superhero comics is so obsessed or even interested as to find our whether or not certain caped crusaders and otherwise super-abled people could plausibly do what they do. But there are lots of us out there who do care.

This book is a bit of a science lesson dressed in tights. Could Superman really leap tall buildings in a single bound? (No, he masses too much for the amount of energy that would be required to give him the required lift.) Could Iron Man really have a power plant implanted in his chest without killing him? (No, it would get too hot.) Could the Atom really shrinking to atomic sizes and beyond? (No, there is an absolute minimum distance in the universe, so the atom couldn't be smaller than that.) James Kakalios is a physics professor from the University of Minnesota who felt that physics could be taught in a more interesting way then the old stodgy examples of beams of light and little bits of stuff no can ever see. Using characters from the Silver Age, he illustrates major concepts such as the speed of light, atomic theory, and spacetime.

Is is science and some of the concepts are pretty heavy at some points, so this isn't for everyone, but the connections to popular culture are obvious. There is certainly a teen audience for this, particularly if there are lots of nerdy kids around.
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