One of Hutch’s AHM covers has found its way into Complex.Com’s Top 50 Comic Covers of ‘09.

Personally I think all of them should have made it in. Even the ones from ‘08.

Well done, T-Dog.

I won’t exactly say I was looking forward to seeing this. More so than Avatar? Yes, but as previously mentioned, that’s not hard. I was in love with the trailer like so many others were but I’ve also come to realise that I’m a bigger fan of trailers these days than movies. Go figure. Either way this movie left me so cold I wanted to crawl away to my own imaginary land and stay there until the storm of woe-is-me had passed.

Shitty kid meets dysfunctional, depressing monsters and teaches them to…well…nothing. He makes their lives as shitty as he made his mother’s and then returns home in time for chocolate cake.

This gets 2 cool wolf pyjama points out of 5 (would have been 1 but the monsters looked incredible).

I think it’s safe to say I can finally decide on my top 3 films of the year.

Keep in mind though that I have yet to partake in James Cameron’s feast beyond feasts, Avatar. To be completely honest my excitement for that film rests, potentially, in the negatives. I don’t have any dislike for it, I’m simply uninspired by what I’ve seen. I have trouble shaking the Fern Gully feel and have creepy ‘Blueberry Jar Jar’ nightmares whenever I close my eyes after having seen yet another sneak peak. The reports coming in are good though so what do I know? So top 3…

STAR TREK - This film gets top marks from me for two reasons. One, for the first time in my life Star Trek is cooler than Star Wars. Seriously, WTF. JJ and the boys schooled Lucas up and down the field and wrote a new how-to on reboots. Two, it’s the first ‘blockbuster’ I’ve seen in years that I’ve gone to see more than once. I walked out of this film with the strangest of feelings. It took me a few minutes to put my finger on what it was…I’d just seen a multi million dollar Hollywood blockbuster and it hadn’t assumed I had the reading level of a retarded five year old. I’d bought my ticket, watched the film and, damn, I felt good about it!

INGLORIOUS BASTERDS - Tarantino’s best. Hands down. He was stylised but not excessive, violent but not gratuitous. I really felt like I was watching the maturing of a great voice in Hollywood and loved every minute of it. Plus, two words: Christoph. Waltz.

UP - Pixar has been up and down for me over the last few years. Toy Story and Monster’s Inc were genius however Finding Nemo seemed a little confused and Cars & Ratatouille were the most ‘Disney’ of their outings. All solid films but they lacked that Pixar flair that made the team really stand out from the crowd for me. Incredibles is a wonderful piece of work but, as any comic book fan would tell you, it was the Fantastic Four (right up to having Dr Doom as a brilliantly irritating red head). Don’t get me wrong, it was an amazing film, it just didn’t feel…new. Then we had Wall-E which was an outstanding piece of work and a return to sheer brilliance. Up was yet another amazing step forward and easily the most emotional of any of their films. I’m going to come right out and say it, I cried. Boy did I cry. And I loved it. The film brought back a lot of painful memories of losing my mother but not to the point where I found the film difficult to watch. It was sad and painful but also sweet and careful in its handling of such a delicate topic. Bravo, Pixar.

Special mention goes to Zombieland. Woody Harrelson is king.

Surely that’s true!

Why is it the older I get the shorter the years seem to be? It’s either because I’m packing them with more and more shit to do or it’s some crazy sciencey reason to do with perspective of years or dinosaur DNA. I think it’s dinosaur DNA. Either way, holy shit.

Christmas is around the corner and I’m planning on doing my shopping early this year. And by ‘early’ I mean the week before, and by ‘planning’ I mean probably not. My sister has demanded I don’t shop ‘like most years where you leave it till Christmas Eve Eve and scream at me down the phone about what buy your nephews’. I don’t scream though, I simply speak loudly because I’m usually being trampled to death by herds of rabid parents in a quest to rescue their child’s happiness. On second thought, I probably do scream.

The end of the year has been a crazy one. I’m doing plot rewrites, script rewrites, new outlines and doing my best to get them all done before 2009 waves goodbye. Years are like relationships to me, you should make sure you have all of your problems sorted out with the last one before starting a new one.

Much to Hutch’s annoyance my hope to do regular blog updates was dashed. He’s often telling me to update this thing and, as always, I nod enthusiastically and then get lost in work. There’s a New Year’s resolution right there, don’t do anymore work. No. Do more blog updates. Fingers crossed.

Merry Christmas Shopping everyone. I hope you make it out alive.

Like most bipedal forms on the planet I’m a big Facebook addict. Disturbingly so. However, often I receive friend requests from readers or stores and I have to sadly decline the invitations. I prefer to keep Facebook for the people that I actually know in life (I find it a far more personal device than Twitter or Myspace). So in order to stop rejecting people, thusly creating an army of people that want to knife me in the back, I’ve created a Facebook Fan Page.

Drop in, say hi, post things.

Also, for the record, I’m not dead. Just working.