Anyway, Nick wore an overwhelmingly positive post about the relaunch based on only one book release. DC actually released 52 comics over the course of the month, and I’m here to report back that it’s not all sunshine and puppies. In fact, most of the books are tolerable at best, and many of them are complete trash. I actually did read every single issue released in the last month, so here’s my checklist:

As you can see, most of the books are “meh.” They’re mostly forgettable, although a few have some good ideas but poor execution. A very small group (~15%) are books that I plan on continuing to read. A much larger group (~30%) are terrible, terrible books. They range anywhere from nearly pornographic to terrible characterization to atrocious art. See the comic below for one of the biggest offenders on all fronts:

So what lessons should we learn from this relaunch?

1) Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. DC had some great books and story lines that were cut off prematurely because of this relaunch. I’ll gladly admit that schools have a lot that needs fixing. But schools also do a lot of good. We should take a good look at what works in schools and find ways to extend those successes whenever possible. (Problem, of course: define “good.”)

2) A pursuit of the shiny and new is not enough. It feels like DC updated a lot of these books just to update them. Especially for those of us pushing for more use of educational technology, we should have compelling reasons to move in that direction and good plans for doing so.

3) The Market is fickle. Continuous chases of quick hits to get quick sales is one of the reasons why the comics market is in overall terrible shape.  Sure, DC has great sales for this month, but already retailers are freaking out about how they should order for issue number 2. To me, this seems remarkably similar to school districts in perpetual search for that magic solution to increasing test scores.

4) Engage your community. DC dropped this bombshell on  people only a couple of months before it happened. Creators didn’t get too much more notice before that. Are you making changes because they’re better for you or they’re better for the community?

The Rocketeer 20th anniversary from John Banana on Vimeo.

The original comics and movie this is based on are both great. The director of the movie directed the Captain America movie coming out next month. I’m hopeful for a good movie.

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So I’m surprised to see the apparent lack of excitement about this study saying that Internet use is good for the brain.  I guess it’s not as sexy since the study was done on old people, but I find it absolutely exciting, and would love to see a similar study done on the young’ns.

Each volunteer underwent a brain scan while performing web searches and book-reading tasks.

Both types of task produced evidence of significant activity in regions of the brain controlling language, reading, memory and visual abilities.

However, the web search task produced significant additional activity in separate areas of the brain which control decision-making and complex reasoning – but only in those who were experienced web users.

The researchers said that, compared to simple reading, the internet’s wealth of choices required people to make decisions about what to click on in order to get the relevant information.

They also get bonus points from me for throwing in a sly comics reference:

Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, said: “These fascinating findings add to previous research suggesting that middle-aged and older people can reduce their risk of dementia by taking part in regular mentally stimulating activities.

“Older web users – ‘silver surfers’ – are doing precisely this.

*Well, in theory.  I know some pretty dumb internet users, but that’s neither here nor there.

• Paperwork (wrapping up IEPs and RRs)
• More paperwork (getting grades ready)
• Tagging things on delicious.  Thanks goodness for setting it up to autosend to the blog, or this place would be a barren wasteland.
• Twittering.
• Going to Wizard World



• Going to the Devon Horse Show



• Taking adorable pictures of kittens



• Did I mention the paperwork? (getting all of my files organized for turning in)

i frequently enjoy Rhymes with Orange, but this is just too great.

• Blue Beetle #26 – A nearly all Spanish issue, and a delightful story that I (mostly) was able to understand
• DCU #0 – a decent introduction to the DC universe as of RIGHT NOW before things go crazy in Final Crisis
• Immortal Iron Fist #14 – if they ever get around to making that Iron Fist movie, it should be just like this.
• New Avengers #40 – Rewind to past events we glimpsed or had some ideas about from before and get a clearer picture of how the Secret Invasion started
• Thor Ages of Thunder – this book was beautiful and touched my mythology nerd core in all the right places
• American Way – I bought this trade at New York Comic Con for cheap based on vaguely remembering some internet recommendations, and I was not disappointed.  It’s a real world approach to superheroes, placing them in the midst of the civil rights upheavals of the sixties.
• Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle – I was at Borders and saw a copy of this opened on the shelf, so I took the opportunity to sit down and read it before the movie came out this week.  It’s a 30 year old story, and it’s great.  It was also pretty shocking at one point.

TV:

• How I Met Your Mother – some decent fallout from last week which could lead to some shift in the characters
• House – Nice joke played on the peons this week.

Movies:

• Iron Man – Awesome.  Great summer popcorn flick.

Games:

• Just Cause – I wrapped this game up.  It was actually a pretty cool ending that made use of the stunt system nicely.  As I said before, a decent enough $15 game, but not much more than that.  Clocked time, 25 hours or so, but you could do all of the story missions in under 5 hours easily if you don’t run around liberating villages, finding collectibles, and doing sidemissions.
• Mario Kart Wii – I’m really liking this so far.  Beth also enjoys it.  She plays with the steering wheel, while I prefer the wiimote + nunchuck.