Skylanders Halloween Themed Limited Edition Toy To Life Figure -- Candy Coated Chopscotch

Spook up your Skylanders gameplay with the limited edition Candy Coated Chopscotch Halloween themed character that is on store shelves now for the new Imaginators edition of the popular video game franchise.

 Candy Coated Chopscotch
 The only thing that ever mattered to Chopscotch was mastering her weapon of choice, the giant axe, while rocking out to her favorite musical idol, Wolfgang. It never bothered her that she was short in stature or that all of the other ghouls in the Underworld laughed at the way she spoke in rhymes as she made up her own lyrics to Wolfgang’s guitar jams. So when Wolfgang joined the villainous Doom Raiders, she was devastated. But instead of letting it destroy her, she chose to put her axe skills to good use, and fought Wolfgang and his Moon Goons when they attempted to curse her entire town during an evil concert. Her willingness to stand up to her long time hero came as a surprise to everyone, and soon all of the villagers were speaking in rhymes in her honor. Soon after, she met Master Eon, who was so impressed at her fighting abilities and positive outlook that he recruited her as a Sensei for the Smasher Class. Now she teaches new Skylanders how to fight… and how to rhyme!

Candy Coated Chopscotch is a playable character on Skylanders IMAGINATORS which was released on October 16, 2016 in the United States. CLICK HERE to check out A Geek Daddy's overview of all the fun new additions players can enjoy with the new Skylanders IMAGINATORS video game.

Skylanders SuperChargers Christmas Carol

With the kids off school for Winter Break, they've been having some fun this week playing their Skylanders SuperChargers video game.  Their game play has had a bit of Christmas spirit added to it with the special holiday edition Skylanders SuperChargers character we recently picked up for them as a reward for doing well on some tests at school.  Missile-Tow (see the holiday themed pun ) Dive Clops has a candy cane themed coloring to the character.  Plus he can slow enemies down with candy-coated missiles in the game.  If you are still looking for stocking stuffers or want to pick up something to add a bit of holiday spirit to your child's Skylander SuperChargers experience, you can find Missile-Tow Dive Clops at Best Buy or Game Stop.

With Christmas just a few days away, I also wanted to share this fun animated Christmas Carol from  Skylanders that has a great 1950's rock and roll, hot rod vibe to it.  SuperCharge your holiday with this high-octane Christmas Carol from the video game's cast of characters in the Skylands!




CLICK HERE for more information about the Skylanders SuperChargers video game.

Free book of Marvel comic art paying tribute to classic Hip-Hop album covers being distributed in January

As part of its effort to appeal to a younger and more diverse audience of readers, when Marvel relaunched its comic book universe with an all new lineup of titles this fall it included in its branding efforts a series of variant covers that pay homage to classic hip-hop albums for all of its #1 issue releases. In the comic book industry, a variant cover is when an issue is distributed with multiple covers each featuring unique art for consumers to choose from but the same story inside. There will be a primary cover which has artwork that relates to the story of the issue and than variant covers that may be based on a special theme  or highlighting work by various artists which are meant to either gain the attention of potential new readers who may be more interested in the subject on the cover than the story inside (but once they read the story may want to pick up the next issue) or be a more exclusive item for collectors than the main run of the comic book.  Variant covers are nice in that they really focus on the art aspect of the comic book genre and that they often have some really cool images that are great for framing to decorate a room or for enhancing a collection to make it a bit more interesting and unique.  Some recent variant cover themes by various publishers have included replicating action figure toy packaging covers, classic movie posters, monsters to tie-in with Halloween, 1980s Saturday morning cartoon characters, and WWII recruitment posters.

Marvel's most recent variant campaign takes the album artwork from artists like Dr. Dre, De La Soul, Lauryn Hill and Vanesa Del Rey and re-envisions it portrayed by characters from its comic book universe.  For example 50 Cent's "Get Rich or Die Trying" is remixed and featured on the hip-hop variant cover of Invincible Iron Man #1.

For those people interested in viewing and collecting Marvel's run of hip-hop inspired variant covers and didn't get around to picking up the individual issues featuring the art work you will want to swing by your local comic book store in January.  Participating retailers will be giving away a FREE 32-page comic book that will feature 14 of these hip-hop inspired variant covers on January 6, 2016.  The artwork in the book will include:

Invincible Iron Man / 50 Cent's "Get Rich or Die Trying"

Doctor Strange / Dr. Dre's "The Chronic"

Ms. Marvel / Lauryn Hill's "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill"

Extraordinary X-Men / De La Soul's "3 Feet High and Rising"

Amazing Spider Man / Tribe Called Quest's "Midnight Maruaders"

Web-Warriors /  Clipse's "Lord Willin"

Captain America - Sam Wilson / A$AP Rocky's "Long Live A$AP

Marvel Provides a Sneak Peek @ New Star Wars Comic Book Series

Comic books featuring the cast of characters and story lines revolving around the original trilogy of Star Wars movies aren't anything new as Marvel Comics had a monthly series in print during the time these films were released which was published between 1977 and 1986.  Dark Horse Comics followed that with a monthly series called Empire that had a variety of story lines tied to the movie Star Wars: A New Hope, including how Luke Skywalker's best friend Biggs Darklighter defected from the Imperial Navy to join the Rebels, that ran from 2002 through 2006.  More recently Dark Horse published a monthly series titled STAR WARS that was focused on the time period directly after the events in Star Wars Episode IV that ran from 2013 into 2014.

Marvel Comics is regaining the license rights for Star Wars comics in 2015 and is debuting a series titled STAR WARS with brand new stories focused on the time period between the movies A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back.  While this isn't exactly new territory to explore in the world of comic books, what is new about what Marvel is doing that will set these stories apart from previous ones is that they will now be part of the recognized canon for the Star Wars story.  This means they will be considered officially as much a valid part of the Star Wars universe and its over all tale as the movies.  In the past novels and comic books were treated more like fan fiction than an extension of the movies - as past published works are now known as the Legends Collection - so including these new stories as an official part of the Star Wars saga is really a brand new arc for comics.

With excitement for the upcoming Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens blockbuster that is arriving in theaters in December of 2015 joined with the fan and critical praise for the new Star Wars: Rebels animated television series there is a lot of excitement and renewed interest in the franchise that Disney acquired from George Lucas in 2012.  Marvel Entertainment, which was also acquired by Disney in 2009, is adding to this hype with its renewed publishing of Star Wars comic books.  In fact ComicBook.com is reporting that Star Wars #1 has collectively received more then a million orders from comic book stores for the series' January 14, 2015 debut issue.  Putting that into perspective, the last comic book issue to print and sell a million copies was the milestone 500th issue of BATMAN in 1993.

For all the fans counting down the days until January 14th, Marvel just released a sneak peek of the upcoming Star Wars #1:

 

So here is the synopsis from Marvel for the upcoming #StarWars #comicbook series:

Luke Skywalker and the ragtag band of rebels fighting against the Galactic Empire are fresh off their biggest victory yet—the destruction of the massive battle station known as the Death Star. But the Empire's not toppled yet! Join Luke along with Princess Leia, smugglers Han Solo and Chewbacca, droids C-3PO and R2-D2 and the rest of the Rebel Alliance as they strike out for freedom against the evil forces of Darth Vader and his master, the Emperor. Written by Jason Aaron (Original Sin, Thor: God of Thunder) and with art by John Cassaday (Astonishing X-Men, Uncanny Avengers), this is the Star Wars saga as only Marvel Comics could make it!

Another angle that Marvel is using to drum up sales and to also cater to its collector markets is that there will be a variety of variant covers, at least 13 of them, that will be printed in quantities significantly lower than the main release version of the comic book.  One will be my favorite comic book artist Alex Ross that will pay tribute to the original cover of Star Wars #1 published by Marvel Comics in April 1977.   Another variant will interlock with the first issue covers of the upcoming Darth Vader series and Princess Leia min-series to create a poster when all three are combined together.  The one I like the best though is a reproduction of the Kenner package for their Luke Skywalker action figure which is the first Star Wars toy I ever owned as a kid and which the artwork I find to be just really impressive.  

So what do you think of Star Wars #1 ... are you going to be picking up a copy from your local comic book shop?