We just got photos of the first run of Vinyl Prototypes in their initial painted form from the factory. We are very happy with the results... but there are still some minor tweaks we want done before we officially reveal the various colors in public. Since we love our fans, we still wanted to show you guys something. Is this good enough?

It's back! Vinyl Pulse and Muttpop team up once again to give you the opportunity to create your very own Lucha Libre Comic strip. All you need is some Lucha Libre figures, a camera, and the willingness to let your imagination go wild.

Entries are due on March 19th. Winner gets a Dr. Destruction Classico figure and a copy of Lucha Libre #4 (which will include their winning comic strip!). So fame, comics, and a Dr. Destruction Classico? You KNOW you want them!

More information and rules can be find HERE ON VINYLPULSE.

Here's a look at Kuzeh's winning strip from Issue #3:

I'm really excited about NECA's new TMNT comic action figure line. I loved the look Eastman and Laird came up with for their original TMNT comic. That pseudo-Frank Miller/Vaughn Bode style they developed has a very cool feel to it that was totally lost in the transition to the super successful Playmates toyline and animated show. NECA must agree because they are releasing TMNT figures based on the Eastman and Laird renderings.

You can see more images of the different figures and a look at the special comic-style black and white figure at ToysREvil.

My favorite turtle is STILL Donatello!

I went to see "Be Kind Rewind" with my girlfriend.

My feelings are a bit mixed. I enjoyed the film, but there were some things that really bothered me.

Having seen "Science of Sleep" and "Be Kind Rewind" it has become very clear to me that Gondry doesn't care about structural perfection. I felt "Eternal Sunshine" was a near perfect film. The way it plays with plot and character suggested some deeper understanding. It also did a clever job of playing with the conventions of relationship dynamics in film to bring us to a very complex but satisfying place at the end of the story which gave me a nice mix of intellectual and emotional satisfaction.

But in the two films that Gondry both wrote and directed ("Science of Sleep" and "Be Kind Rewind") I felt like there were moments where it seemed that Gondry was more interested in getting from point A to point B with little or no effort given to finding a sensible means to get there. After watching "Science of Sleep" I attributed such problems to it being Gondry's first self written film. But after seeing the glaring plot problems that Gondry used to solve aspects of "Be Kind Rewind's" story, I'm starting to think that Gondry just doesn't care.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing... but having being raised in the limited language of "Hollywood" films, it still leaves a nagging feeling with me that with a shift in focus or a more concentrated effort on structure, both films could have been way closer to the near-perfection that I regard "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" to have.

The good stuff is absolutely wonderful. Mos Def and Jack Black are great. They make the perfect team of geeky misfits. The "sweded" versions of films they make together are beautiful... so much so, that you wish more time in the movie were afforded to the various low budget homages they do to modern film "classics".

The final film they put together is brillant and makes me wonder what the actual process was behind it. The way it looks and feels suggests that the brainstorming that characters go through for this final opus of a "sweded" film was the genuine brainstorm with the actors involved. Little bits that were thrown out and later integrated into the project feel way to free-form to have been included into the original script.

Unfortunately, the story, the glue that holds it all together, feels very rickety. It starts off great. But as the cast of participants becomes larger, the motivations take a huge backseat to the creative process... so much so that it feels like the film's story is just an excuse for everyone to become a part of Gondry's great filmmaking Sandbox.

The overall feeling of this creative movement is so strong, that I kind of got the feeling that Gondry didn't want to give you a satisfactory conclusion he wanted you to participate creatively to come up with your own.

To close things out, here are really nice "sweded" versions of "Kill Bill", "Star Wars", and "Die Hard". These guys were probably "sweding" way before Gondry introduced the term to the mainstream. With the release of "Be Kind Rewind" I'm sure they're getting some well-earned exposure!

I posted Sarah Silverman's "confession" to boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel. So, it's my duty to share with you Jimmy Kimmel's response.

Kimmel's "answer" isn't as catchy as Silverman's but the concept and All-Star guest appearances make it worthwhile to see.

Alan Moore and Frank Miller are the backbone of American Superhero comics. What they did in the 1980s on books like Swamp Thing, Watchmen, Daredevil, and Dark Knight Returns changed the general perceptions of the Super Hero Genre. There is a perfect mix of sophisticaton and intensity in those seminal projects that unleashed a whole new way of doing Super Heroes. Better yet, they were huge financial successes that suggested that "mainstream" comics don't have to be for kids anymore.

Let's ignore, that there's something very wrong with thinking that comics HAVE to be "Super Heroes". That's a scar to American Comics that came from the Red Scare 1950s. But, regardless, Moore and Miller took what they were given and legitimized it.

Frank Miller was more of the Jazz player. His comics had an organic flow and constant search to capture emotions at their purest. Alan Moore was far more calculating and meticulous. His way of writing was like putting together a swiss-engineered atom bomb. When it worked, it was a masterpiece... but no matter how perfect Moore's "instructions" were, they relied heavily on the craftmanship of the Artist in collaboration.

Alan Moore always seemed at his best when he was paired with a fellow Englishman. There must be something in the experience of being English that brought a fellowship to the pairing that us Americans could never attain. Maybe it's the cynicism, or the chastising humor.

Alan Moore's latest work with Kevin O'Neill on "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman" has been wonderful. Ignore that awful movie. "LoEG" brings life to classic British genre characters in an exhaustively composed world that assumes that every major English literature "classic" character lived in the same world. In th first few books you had Dr. Jekyll, the Invisible Man, Captain Nemo, Quartermain, and Mina Harker (from Dracula) together as a sort of Victorian Super Hero team.

In the latest book, Black Dossier, we skip to the 1900s to follow a mysterious couple who have gotten ahold of the "Black Dossier": a rare collection of various text, articles, comics, and literature that directly or indirectly refers to the adventures and legends surrounding the personalities from the many groups that, over time, were called the "League". As the couple, whose on the run, reads through the Black Dossier, you read the book with them. So the book is a clever combination of comic chapters and segue ways through the entirety of the Black Dossier whose contents eventually give you a broad picture of the League's many members and adventures.

Throughout the course of the book, you end up reading Moore and O'Neill's interpretation of Political Cartoons from the 1800s, Pornographic Tequila Bibles, a "lost" Shakespeare Play, an excerpt from a Beatnik book, and many other texts. To fit in theme, the various sections are designed to emulate the look of published pieces of the time... going so far as occasionally changing the texture of the pages to fit in with the appropriate look.

The book ends in glorious 3D (it's not THAT glorious... color 3D never looks good) and includes a nice pair of red/blue lense 3D glasses.

Overall it's a very ambitious and fun experience that pushes the boundaries of Comics. It's not striving for the perfection and craftmanship of Moore and Gibbon's Watchmen... but I don't think that's what they were going for. It looks like Moore and O'Neill wanted to have be a bit more freedom and have readers join them on their crazy little romp through their distorted version of Pulp Genre Britain. It's a bit dense, but those with patience and an open mind will experience one helluva of an adventure.