DealsOfLondon

Act of Valor [Blu-ray]
Roselyn Sanchez (Actor), Nestor Serrano (Actor), Mike McCoy (Director), Scott Waugh (Director) | Format: Blu-ray
(58)
Release Date: June 5, 2012

Buy new: $39.99 $24.96

(Visit the Hot New Releases in Blu-ray list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

Game of Thrones: The Complete First Season [Blu-ray]
Sean Bean (Actor), Mark Addy (Actor) | Format: Blu-ray
(464)
Release Date: March 6, 2012

Buy new: $79.98 $43.96
57 used & new from $36.49

(Visit the Hot New Releases in Blu-ray list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

Underworld: Awakening (+ UltraViolet Digital Copy) [Blu-ray 3D]
Kate Beckinsale (Actor), Michael Ealy (Actor), Björn Stein (Director), Måns Mårlind (Director) | Format: Blu-ray
(70)
Release Date: May 8, 2012

Buy new: $45.99 $24.99
41 used & new from $18.00

(Visit the Hot New Releases in Blu-ray list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

John Carter (Four-Disc Combo: Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray/DVD + Digital Copy)
Taylor Kitsch (Actor), Lynn Collins (Actor), Andrew Stanton (Director) | Format: Blu-ray
(232)
Release Date: June 5, 2012

Buy new: $49.99 $29.96

(Visit the Hot New Releases in Blu-ray list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

Chuck: The Complete Fifth and Final Season [Blu-ray]
Zachary Levi (Actor), Yvonne Strahovski (Actor) | Format: Blu-ray
(14)
Release Date: May 8, 2012

Buy new: $49.99 $26.99
18 used & new from $26.99

(Visit the Hot New Releases in Blu-ray list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

The Vow [Blu-ray]
Rachel McAdams (Actor), Channing Tatum (Actor), Michael Sucsy (Director) | Format: Blu-ray
(28)
Release Date: May 8, 2012

Buy new: $40.99 $22.99
53 used & new from $14.95

(Visit the Hot New Releases in Blu-ray list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

Watch Video Reviews of This Week’s Comics!

We’re back for another edition of TFAW’s comic book reviews. Grab a seat and watch our reviews of Avengers Assemble #3, The Pro TPB (New Printing), Justice League International: Signal Masters TPB Vol. 01, and the Batman Arkham City Series 2 action figures!

Check out the video, below. SPOILER ALERT! We try not to go into too much detail in our reviews, but occasionally a spoiler slips through!

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We’ve made it simple to share this video on Facebook and other social media outlets with the social networking buttons near the title. If you wouldn’t mind doing us a solid and sharing this video with your friends, we’d be eternally grateful. What should we review next week? Post your comments below and we’ll see what we can do!

Mini DV – World’s Smallest Video Camera in the World with High Resolution Image
by MD
92% Sales Rank in Electronics: 295 (was 567 yesterday)
(84)

Buy new: $14.49
21 used & new from $9.88

(Visit the Movers & Shakers in Electronics list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

Netgear Universal WN3000RP Wi-Fi Range Extender – Manufacturer Refurbished
by Netgear
94% Sales Rank in Electronics: 323 (was 627 yesterday)
(1)

Buy new: $34.99
4 used & new from $34.99

(Visit the Movers & Shakers in Electronics list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

Power Acoustik PTID-8920 In Dash DVD AM-FM Receiver with 7-Inches Flip Out Touchscreen Monitor with USB/SD Input
by Power Acoustik
94% Sales Rank in Electronics: 306 (was 594 yesterday)
(31)

Buy new: $499.95 $166.89
29 used & new from $165.98

(Visit the Movers & Shakers in Electronics list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

Sony CDP-CE500 Compact Disc Player
by Sony
94% Sales Rank in Electronics: 270 (was 526 yesterday)
(78)

Buy new: $149.99 $130.99
5 used & new from $119.20

(Visit the Movers & Shakers in Electronics list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

Cisco by Linksys Factory Refurbished E3200 High-Performance Simultaneous Dual-Band Wireless-N Router
by Cisco
127% Sales Rank in Electronics: 234 (was 533 yesterday)
(14)

Buy new: $63.99
8 used & new from $63.99

(Visit the Movers & Shakers in Electronics list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

Intuit ITICD03437WI QuickBooks Pro 2012 Software
by Intuit
139% Sales Rank in Electronics: 261 (was 624 yesterday)
Platform:   Windows 7 / Vista / 95 / XP Professional
(1)

Buy new: $330.99 $125.95
59 used & new from $123.95

(Visit the Movers & Shakers in Electronics list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

53341 Super Tinker Swiss Army Knife
by Victorinox
230% Sales Rank in Electronics: 119 (was 393 yesterday)
(95)

Buy new: $19.97 – $38.62

(Visit the Movers & Shakers in Electronics list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

Certified Refurbished Kindle Touch, Wi-Fi, 6″ E Ink Display – includes Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers
by Amazon
37,568% Sales Rank in Electronics: 16 (was 6,027 yesterday)
(4685)

Buy new: $74.00

(Visit the Movers & Shakers in Electronics list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

Canon PowerShot ELPH 100 HS 12.1 MP CMOS Digital Camera with 4X Optical Zoom (Blue)
by Canon
80% Sales Rank in Electronics: 131 (was 237 yesterday)
(269)

Buy new: $179.00 $109.00
60 used & new from $100.00

(Visit the Movers & Shakers in Electronics list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

GE Power Pro X500-BK 16 MP with 15 x Optical Zoom Digital Camera, Black
by GE
84% Sales Rank in Electronics: 108 (was 199 yesterday)
(211)

Buy new: $149.99 $114.16
13 used & new from $114.16

(Visit the Movers & Shakers in Electronics list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

We’ve got a six-page preview of an upcoming indy graphic novels from Com.X: Monster Myths, by John Lupo Avanti!

Alfredo, a recovering felon turned working stiff, resides in Lower Scabo where working-class people live under the tyranny of the evil Cannibals Motorcycle Gang. After being beaten and left for dead by the gang, Alfredo decides to recruit a group of graffiti writers to instigate a war between the riff-raff of Lower Scabo and their neighbors in the well-to-do community of Northview.

In doing so, Alfredo transforms from a two-bit perp into an iconic rebel, determined to free Lower Scabo from the control of those seeking power.

PRE-ORDER MONSTER MYTHS TODAY!

SEE ALL COM.X GRAPHIC NOVELS

Are you intrigued by our Monster Myths preview? Let us know below.

Everyone know the Beatles: the hordes of screaming girls, the Beatlemania, the countless albums that shot out hit song after hit. But while Arne Bellstorf’s Baby’s in Black features the Fab Four, it really focuses on the lesser-known “Fifth Beatle,” Stuart Sutcliffe, and his romance with photographer Astrid Kirchherr. Sutcliffe, a talented painter as well as a musician, left the band in 1961 and died unexpectedly of an aneurysm in 1962.

Bellstorf spoke at length with Kirchherr to get her perspective on growing up in post-war Germany in the early 1960s and meeting Sutcliffe. Originally published in Germany, the English translation is brought to us by independent publisher First Second, who sent us an amazing six-page preview of the book, out May 9. Check it out, as well as our interview with Bellstorf, below!

TFAW.com: What made you decide to focus on the “Fifth Beatle,” Stuart Sutcliffe, and his girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr?

Arne Bellstorf: I was interested in the time–the youth culture in Hamburg, and what it was like being young in the early ’60s. Astrid went to the same art school as I did, and I could relate to her life in many ways, despite all the things that were different back then. We talked about what was important to her, aesthetically, and what influenced her–French existentialism, Jean Cocteau, Oscar Wilde, Cool Jazz–and what happened when she met Stuart and the Beatles.

First of all, The Beatles and their world was something she observed from a distance, like from another planet. And although she liked the loud, “hot” Beatles, it was Stuart she was particularly interested in–the silent, introverted, and to her the “coolest” guy in the band. He quickly became part of Astrid’s world. This is what I was interested in and wanted to depict: Two worlds collide, aesthetically, things merge, and then fuse into pop culture.

TFAW.com: Does Baby’s in Black mostly focus on those two, or do we get an inside look into the rest of the Beatles?

AB: No, I wasn’t interested in the Beatles, but in the time and the people surrounding them. This group brought a number of important elements together in their music, but they also decontextualized and mixed certain looks and codes from youth cults: they helped create and became pop culture, themselves. I think they were never interested in finding the roots of “authenticity”–they were always “pop,” and they kept undercutting their own pretenses.

If this book is about the Beatles at all, it’s about where they came from and what influenced them in the first place. Knowing about Stuart, who was a close friend of John Lennon, and his untimely death, maybe helps [the reader] to understand where Lennon’s urgency and radicalness came from. And maybe even why he was trying to fulfill his artistic dreams later on (with a foreign girl, not unlike Astrid), when he had already achieved everything a musician could ever dream of.

TFAW.com: What do you think would have become of Stuart, if he had lived?

AB: Stuart died at the age of 21, when he had just started to study again and live with his new love in a new town, in a foreign country. He sure was talented as a painter, but he was still experimenting, searching for something. His work as an artist will probably forever be contextualized by its position within the early career of the Beatles.

TFAW.com: How did you prepare for drawing people as famous as the Beatles? Were you trying for a realistic look?

AB: As a comic artist or cartoonist, I’m never trying to achieve a realistic or naturalistic look within a narrative. It’s about creating characters, finding a formula, and in some respects, working with stereotypes. But I tried not to look at the “famous” Beatles. When Astrid met them, they were just a small group, playing in seedy cellars and bars in Hamburg, and they looked like Teddy Boys.

TFAW.com: What do you hope readers take away from this book?

AB: First and foremost, it’s a love story. A true, tragic love story, about young people searching for something as a new decade opened.

Because of all the myths and legends surrounding anything related to Beatles history, it’s difficult to reconstruct the “historical” events soberly and realistically, and I chose Astrid’s perspective and her attitude–so it’s basically her story. I think it’s interesting to see, especially for younger readers, what exactly led to the mass pop culture we live in today, and how it was growing up in post-war Europe, during the beginnings of a new youth culture–the awakening to the viability of alternate ways of life.

We want to thank Arne Bellstorf and First Second for a great interview! Pick up Baby’s in Black May 9 and experience is for yourself.

ORDER BABY’S IN BLACK

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Do you wish you could go back in time and experience the youth culture of the 1960s? Post your comments below!

Valiant Entertainment is launching an incredible spring and summer of comics, bringing back old favorites like X-O Manowar with new twists readers have really been enjoying. Next up is Harbinger, by Joshua Dysart and Khari Evans!

Harbingers are powerful psionics who can read minds, bend steel, and break all the rules! Down-on-his-luck teenager Peter Stenchek discovers that he’s one of the most powerful Harbingers in the universe. But what will happen when he enters into an uneasy alliance with fellow Harbinger Toyo Harada, a wealthy business magnate obsessed with making the universe a better place–no matter what the cost?

We interviewed writer Joshua Dysart (Unknown Soldier, B.P.R.D.) about his plans for Harbinger and what excites him most about the series! Plus, we’ve got a great six-page preview of Harbinger #1, out June 6.

Enter our Harbinger Contest today to win one of eight Doug Braithwaite Harbinger #1 Variants (see his amazing cover, below left)!

TFAW.com: What is a Harbinger, exactly?

Joshua Dysart: The standard definition of a Harbinger is a person or thing that signals the approach of another. But it’s also come to mean any portent or omen. In our book the word Harbinger is used to mean many things, but primarily it’s the name of the special program where psiots (hyper-telekinetics and psychics) are awakened to their dormant powers and trained in the fine art of controlling them.

TFAW.com: What excites you the most about writing Harbinger?

JD: Harbinger has always been about youth culture in revolt. I think that’s an incredibly timely narrative. I’m pretty jazzed about exploring that idea through a superhero narrative. But also, I’m just excited to screw around with the whole superhero concept in general. Creating new psiots and showing how they use their powers is going to be a blast for me. I’ve only done one piece of straight-up superhero work in the past (Captain Gravity and Power of the Vril), and it’s still one of the things I’m most proud of. This will be way darker than CG, but still have some of the same inventiveness.

TFAW.com: Have you read the original Harbinger comics?

JD: Yes. Of course. Could you imagine embarking on this project blind? I’d be eaten alive by the fans! And rightfully so!

TFAW.com: How closely is the new series hewing to the original premise?

JD: That’s a hard question to answer. Characterization, pacing, tone . . . these things are all different in our series. But the broad strokes in plotting (at least when it comes to the first arc) and the thematic continuity are all still in place. All the characters you know and love will eventually show themselves, as well as many new ones.

TFAW.com: Tell us about Toyo Harada.

JD: Toyo Harada is a billionaire who runs a major international conglomerate of corporations that have a profound, secret effect on global affairs. Also unknown to the world is the fact that Harada possesses extraordinary psionic abilities. He is possibly the most powerful psionic on the planet (most likely activated during the Hiroshima atomic explosion in 1945).

Harada is the epitome of ambition. His ultimate endgame is to force the rest of the species into being better to one another, whatever the cost. But building a better world is a very, very complicated thing, even for someone with great power, and he’s not adverse to doing horrible things for what he perceives as the greater good.

TFAW.com: It seems like he originally had good intentions–to save the world from itself–but now he’s gone off the rails. Is this like if Professor X became a fanatic?

JD: A lot of the original Harbinger is a riff on the X-Men. So yes, there’s a touch of that. But I wouldn’t say he’s gone off the rails. I’d say he’s doing what he feels needs to be done. In a way, he’s giving himself to us heart and soul. But his hubris is massive. He is convinced that his choices are the right ones. That he’s the only one who can save us. Good intentions mixed with hubris can be a bit of a blinding concoction.

TFAW.com: Peter Stenchek is Harbinger‘s main character–and a very powerful psionic. What will he do with his newfound powers?

JD: He will rage. He will turn against everything that’s kept him down his whole life, and before it’s done he will shake the pillars of the Valiant Universe. Boom! How do you like them apples?

TFAW.com: The original Harbinger series featured two super-powered teams–one led by Toyo, one with Peter. Does this mean we’ll meet more superheroes–and villains–soon?

JD: Oh yes. Most certainly. Issue #1 starts with Peter and his friend Joe and Peter’s old flame Kris. With each consecutive issue, the cast of characters will broaden. I hesitate to call anyone a hero or a villain, though. It won’t play out quite that cleanly, but there are all kinds of people with all kinds of powers and intentions coming. And yes, battle lines will have to be drawn.

TFAW.com: You’ve done some fantastic war and horror comics, such as Unknown Soldier and B.P.R.D., but not a lot of superhero comics. What brought you to this genre now?

JD: Thanks for the compliment! Honestly, Valiant took a chance on me. I was laboring to move towards science-fiction comics when I got out of Unknown Soldier, but [Valiant Executive Editor] Warren [Simons] came to me and offered me this chance to be a part of something that was being built (re-built) from the ground up. I couldn’t say no. And I want to try my hand at this.

I want to build an audience and show that even though I have a different voice then what the genre traditionally calls for, that can be an asset instead of a hindrance. And maybe I can even bring something “new,” or at least “rare,” to the table. Of course the truth is that Harbinger, in many ways, has always trafficked in the familiar aspects of the genre, and taking those tropes and futzing with them just a bit is going to be fun for me, too.

TFAW.com: What else are you looking forward to?

JD: Once we start getting the book out I’m looking forward to the convention season. Getting out there and meeting the readers.

Our thanks to Joshua Dysart for taking the time to answer all of our questions. Make sure to pre-order Harbinger #1 and #2 now!

PRE-ORDER HARBINGER NOW

ENTER OUR HARBINGER CONTEST TO WIN VARIANT COMICS

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Did you see our review of X-O Manowar? Are you excited to read Harbinger? Post your comments below!

The news spreads from one end of the galaxy to the other like wildfire: Boba Fett, the galaxy’s most feared bounty hunter, is dead. But when members of the team that killed Fett are themselves picked off one by one, Connor Freeman–the son of one of Jango Fett’s clones–gets pulled into the action in a most unexpected way!

Star Wars: Blood Ties comes back in a big way this April when Tom Taylor (Star Wars Adventures, Star Wars: Invasion) and Chris Scalf (Star Wars: Invasion, Godzilla Legends) begin their four-issue miniseries.

Then in May, a five-issue Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison miniseries kicks off. The graduation celebration for the first class of Imperial cadets is disrupted by a sudden terrorist strike! But the real targets of the attack are the new Emperor and his second in command, Darth Vader. Only one man–a disabled, brilliant cadet–stands ready to fight alongside Vader for the life of his Emperor!

Don’t forget about the other Star Wars series that are already in progress. We have new issues of Dawn of the Jedi, Knights of the Old Republic – War, Agent of the Empire, Dark Times, and Crimson Empire III available for pre-order at TFAW!

SEE ALL UPCOMING STAR WARS COMICS

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How do these new Star Wars stories sound to you? Are you down for one or both of them? Want us to review one of these series in our video review when the time comes? Let us know below.

With Brian Wood’s critically acclaimed series–DMZ and Northlanders–nearing their finales, the multiple Eisner and Harvey-Award nominated creator is embarking on his next story, The Massive.

At the end of the world, the story begins. In a post-war, post-crash, post-disaster, post-everything world, the Kapital scours the earth’s oceans for its mysteriously missing sistership, The Massive. Captain Callum Israel and his crew will come up against pirates, rebels, murderers, and thieves as they struggle to remain noble toward their cause. How can you help save a planet that’s already doomed?

We’re really jazzed about Wood’s newest endeavor, so we’ve included the first issue in this month’s Featured Discounts, saving you 35% off the cover price thru 4/30! Check this one out!

ORDER THE MASSIVE #1 TODAY!

SIGN UP FOR A MASSIVE SERIES SUBSCRIPTION

Have you reading DMZ or Northlanders? Are you psyched for Wood’s new series? Let us know below.