Sean Äaberg's Halloween Book

Back in October of 2021 (has it been that long?!) I backed this project on Kickstarter. If you've been hanging around here any length of time, you know I LOVE Halloween. So this was a no-brainer!

 

Just looking at the art on the Kickstarter page was enough to sell me on this.

But, of course, it's more than just the art, it's also a sort of a mini-treatise on celebrating Halloween.

Hasbro Dungeons & Dragons Figure - Diana

 Well, it took almost 40 years but we are finally getting action figures based on the 80s Dungeons & Dragons cartoon! As soon as it was announced, I knew I was going to go all in on the line...even if I have no idea where I'm going to display them.

We're starting it off with the group's most agile member, Diana the Acrobat. By the way, if you're not familiar with this cartoon, you may at least want to watch the intro to get an idea about the series and characters.

Now, Acrobat itself wasn't really a class in D&D and I always thought it was an odd thing to be when you have Fighters, Thieves, Magic-Users, etc. Earlier the same year the show debuted, the class Thief-Acrobat was introduced in Dragon magazine. I'm guessing having a character be even part Thief was frowned on for a kids cartoon so they went with Acrobat.

This is my first purchase with the plastic-free packaging and I have to say, I like the look of it! The box art is fantastic. I understand some people's gripes with it and I think it's definitely going to lead to an increase of scumbags buying them, tossing some other figure in, and returning it. One thing I'm not a fan of is the figure and accessories are just wrapped in a thin paper and not held down inside the box. It feels really cheap.

Haul-iday Highlights 2022

 Back from the holiday break with the annual showing off of holiday loot!

We'll kick it off with the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special Funko Pops.

First up we have Groot and Peter Quill. Groot is looking better here than he did in the actual Special itself, I am not a fan of that costume. Quill's got a Santa hat (which you can't see much of here) and a wrapped gift. I'm glad they did these so I can bring them out every year to give a Guardians tweak to the holiday decorations.

Drax has his "little man" lawn ornament and I just love it! Also loving Mantis' festive headband. What I'm not loving? The fact that you can only get Holiday Rocket in an Amazon exclusive 5-pack. Booooo!

Monthly Media Recap - December 2022

Happy New Year!

 

It's time again for the annual tradition of cramming in as many holiday horror flicks as I can...no matter how bad they may seem. There are a ridiculous amount of Christmas themed horror movies and a lot of them are the visual equivalent of coal in your stocking. I found this list of what's on Tubi and after watching a couple, I don't think the author and I have the same taste.

I've said this before and it's worth mentioning again given the upcoming reviews. Indie, low budget horror can be a hard sell for me. I can get by bad effects and/or acting if there's something for me to grab on to.

Streaming

A Muppet Christmas: Letters to Santa (2008, Disney+)

It's Christmas, it's got Muppets, guest stars, and most importantly, Pepe the King Prawn. How can you go wrong? You can't!

Beauty & The Beast 30th Anniversary (2022, Disney+)

This was pretty cool! They showed the original movie intercut with live action performances when the musical numbers come up. It was very well done, especially the opening which looked to be done in a single shot while traversing a backlot.

Movies

*Scrooged (1988, Amazon Prime)

It's been so long since I first saw this, it was basically like watching again for the first time. Murray is good but feels like he went off script a lot. By far my favorite performance here has to be Carol Kane. She steals her whole segment! The TV movie within the movie is great too. As a Christmas Carol adaptation, I don't know that Murray's character quite experiences enough to make him change his ways but it's still a good time.

Rating: 6.5/10