Wednesday, December 31, 2014

America's Holiday War With Elves

However you spend you holidays, there is one thing that was universally felt across the planet....those frikken elves have got to go. Anyone above the age of 10, unencumbered by that glaze of of hope that the jolliest of men would finally bring you the Oscar Meyer Weenie Whistle you asked for so long ago, surely noticed our nation overrun with lanky, red suited tricksters. Some merely cataloged the impish antics. Others...took matters into their own hands, often with the help of pint sized plastic friends willing to join the battle. As we head into a new year, Idle Hands presents this gallery of images plucked from across the Facebooks, serving as a reminder to be ever vigilant, lest we be caught unawares next year and wake up glazed like a Christmas ham and ready to be eaten by snickering elves. ....it could happen. Don't let the terrorists win.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

ThinkGeek's Top Holiday Gifts for 2014

It's crunch time. You've walked the isles at Walmart and decided it was best NOT to give that case of chicken ramen noodles to your sister even though she said she reaaaaally loves chicken ramen noodles, so you are at your wits end. Here's where Idle Hands comes to the rescue with last minute gift ideas from the life altering to the anger inducing...because sometimes that is all you want to accomplish with your gift. WE GOT YOU COVERED!! For such a task, we go to our buddies at ThinkGeek who just happen to stock items marked "must have" and "must kick the ass of whom ever gave this to me". Let's check out this year's all stars...

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Christmas Flashbacks from Artist Pete Caballero

No matter what holiday season is upon us, we all must fight our way through our work day to get to the festive parts...like gifts and eating and family and more eating...and falling into a food coma after eating. Many people have a system for making these days flash by faster, and some just inject that holiday spirit into their work day...one special memory at a time. Artist Pete Caballero is one of those people making it his daily task to spread his own brand of geeky holiday cheer with every flashback-inducing swipe of his pen. Dive in below and check out Pete's 2014 Holiday lineup!

Unedited Footage of a Bear: The Video is Just the Beginning

At this point, I can't even recall if I watched "Too Many Cooks" all the way through. I certainly didn't do it in one sitting. Adult Swim has excelled in the mind-blowingly odd for years now, with most of that absurdity created by our buddies Tim and Eric, no doubt, but lately, they've bumped their insanity up a notch. If "Too Many Cooks" was just the start of an era of short films almost specifically designed to leave you with a nosebleed as the credits roll...we are in for some spectacular cranial hemorrhaging on into 2015. Here's their latest ultra violent, nightmare fueling short "Unedited Footage of a Bear"...which lead to a lot more than we originally suspected...

Cronenberg’s THE FLY Saga Continues at IDW

The Future! Yay!! We rule the world...Bla bla bla. I've said all this 100 times. It's getting to the point where the resurrection of any property I've loved in the past would not surprise me, so IDW announcing they are continuing the film story of The Fly, while completely out of left field and 100% freaking awesome, doesn't shock me so much. I am spoiled.

The story that began in David Cronenberg's film update of The Fly continues here with a five-issue miniseries The Fly: Outbreak written by Brandon Seifert (Hellraiser, Witch Doctor) with painted interior and cover art by menton3 (Silent Hill, Monocyte). Issue one will hit in March and will boast variant covers by Jason Edmiston and Lukas Ketner.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Jane LA: A Portrait of Modern Madness

I used to spend a lot of time exploring horror films for Dread Central. Among the new and old creators, you would cross your fingers hoping for a genuine moment of creativity that could spark your imagination and not just leave you scratching your head. Within these hundreds of films were a select few scenes that stuck with me, usually involving the monstrous nature of humanity rather than a finely crafted piece of special effects with tooth and claw and a gaping maw. An ordinary human being doing something absolutely terrifying simply because they can will always send a chill down my spine faster than any creature lurking in the shadows. 

Classic, Unhinged Roddy Piper Sings 12 Days of Christmas

There are several things you can count on happening every year around the holidays. There's the constant bombardment from your favorite (and not so favorite) stores having SALESSALESSALES, the Hallmark channel and an endless parade of recognizable folks in Christmas movies you never knew got made, and new Christmas music sung by top pop stars, awesome wizards, and sometimes, the unlikeliest of heroes. Today, we pay tribute to one of my heroes...Rowdy Roddy Piper, who proves he can still channel the bat-shit crazy when ever he feels like it...and there's no better time than the most insane-making time of the year. Presenting...Roddy Piper singing the 12 Days of Christmas....the violent version...

Friday, December 12, 2014

Bill and Ted are Back with a BOOM

The teaser went out and..well..it wasn't much of a teaser. We all know we live in a magical time when any of our childhood loves can suddenly resurrect to either usher in a bright new dawn (lasting about 3 weeks to a year) or bring on an apocalypse of dorky whining that will have us plugging our ears and running out of rooms going LALALALALALALALA for the foreseeable future. Boom! Studios is known for ushering in the happy...at all times...so we trust them......no Baysplosions...

Boom writes in:

We are indeed launching a new Bill & Ted comic book series, set to debut in March. The six-issue miniseries is called Bill & Ted’s Most Triumphant Return, and is set after the events of both films, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. In this series, Bill & Ted must now fulfill their destiny as the inspiration of galactic harmony, and they start by using their time machine to travel to the 27th century to turn a young Chuck De Nomolos into a fan of Wyld Stallyns. 

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars Activity Book Returns

Love Marvel’s influential 1980s classic Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars? Do you enjoy puzzles and games? Do you like FUN?! If you said yes to any of the above, have we got a book for you! Relive the unbridled joy of being a child of the 1980s with the MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS ACTIVITY BOOK as it makes its triumphant return in 2015!

Time travel back to a simpler time and discover – or rediscover – the magic of the 1980s with this radical replica collection of coloring books, activities, and sticker albums and stamp books! It’s got games, it’s got adventures, it’s got posters – it’s even got stickers! All it needs now is you!

Back in the 1980s, Marvel produced a number of totally tubular activity and coloring books to coincide with the release of Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars. With a brand-new Secret Wars on the horizon for 2015, there’s never been a better time to bring back these action-packed adventures where YOU CONTROL THE ACTION!

WWE and Warner Bros Team Up for WWE Immortals

WWE and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment are creating WWE Immortals, a free-to-play mobile game that will feature epic Superstar battles in a fantastically re-imagined WWE world. WWE Immortals is being developed by NetherRealm Studios, the creators of the best-selling Mortal Kombat franchise and Injustice: Gods Among Us, in conjunction with Phosphor Game Studios, and will be available worldwide on iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and Android devices in 2015.

Saturday, December 6, 2014

Big Chief Studios: The Latest on Doctor Who & Sherlock 12 inch Action Figures



While Hot Toys continue their domination of Asia and, closer to home, nearly every damn collector's heart here in the states via Sideshow Collectibles, a little company called Big Chief Studios has been making a big noise across the pond with a range of BBC TV based 12 inch action figures with likenesses that take down all comers. Our buddies at Big Chief set up camp at MCM Birmingham Comic Con nearly two weeks back and displayed their latest and greatest from both Doctor Who and Sherlock lines. Prepare to throw your money at the screen...

Friday, December 5, 2014

Legends of Kickstarter: The Fart Flinger Gun

If I were a network anchorman, I'd start this story by saying "Some Kickstarter campaigns are terrible. This one...down right stinks." ...but I am not that white, so we won't do that. NOT TODAY! Today, my friends, we receive word from some enterprising folks who boast the ability to harness the power of human gaseous expulsions and wield them like a weapon. Yes...we are talking about a fart gun. A real one. This is not The Onion. Stop checking.

The pitch reads as follows:

A prankster can only do so much when it comes to playing smelly pranks. Well today a new toy promises to reinvent one of the most cherished pranks. Fart Flinger is a toy gun designed to capture those smelly gases with ease and shoot them at unsuspected victims. The toy is made of BPA friendly plastic and is children safe. Check out the really, ridiculously horrible pitch video...

[REC] 4: APOCALYPSE

Several hours have passed since the terrible events that ravaged the old building in Barcelona. After the chaos of the first few moments, the army decided to intervene and an elite group of soldiers infiltrated the building in order to plant detonators and put an end to this nightmare once and for all. The mission is a success; quick and precise. Angela Vidal, the young television reporter who entered the building with the fireman just hours before, manages to make it out alive. But what they don’t know  is that she hasn’t made it out of the building alone; within her she carries the seed of the strange infection. She is to be taken to a provisional quarantine facility, a high-security installation where she will have to stay in isolation for several days. A perfect location for the virus to be reborn in all its splendor. It will take on new and even more deadly forms, setting the scene for horrors we could only have imagined, before finally revealing its true nature. The apocalypse has just begun…

2014 Holiday Buying Guide: A Little Baymax In Your Life

We are about to spiral headlong into a series of articles outlining some holiday buying suggestions to guarantee the mega geek in your life is grinning ear to ear when the wrapping paper flies on that faithful day. To kick things off, we'll take a look at a little robot who made a lot of noise on the big screen as of late, melting hearts and pounding enemies all at once. He's Baymax from Big Hero 6. Bandai nabbed the license, creating a full line of action figures and fun collectibles along side the expected wave of Disney Store exclusives which seemed to be almost exactly like Bandai's line! Odd stuff. Today we pour over Deluxe Flying Baymax, our pick for the Baymax with the most bang for your buck, packing in decent articulation, excellent paints, a perfect sculpt and little bells and whistles you will love.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

DC Comics Girls Makeup Packs


Mark another product line into your "stealth release" logs. Wandering into Five Below always reveals a multitude of pop culture products...some I've seen before and am now ecstatic to find at deep discount...and some I've never seen before and wondered how the initial release slipped past me and allllll the geeks I know...because that's a pretty long list! You see, by the time an item reaches Five Below, we can assume it has enjoyed a wide release with as much or as little fanfare as the manufacturer will allow, then several month languishing on the pegs before the remainder is closed out to our discounty friends. After a bit of research, we discovered this DC Comics Girls line of nail polish, lip ka-balms, lip gloss and press on nails turned up in Walmart as far back as September (or at least that's where it was spotted by Nouveau Cheap Blogspot). Now, in their new home at Five Below, thrifty super women and young ladies can enjoy the line at three dollars a pop.

Blizzard to Hold Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Tournament with Good Gaming

GOOD GAMING, has secured an officially licensed Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft – Amateur Open Tournament with Blizzard Entertainment.

The tournament gives gamers of all levels the opportunity to test their competitive skills and battle for a chance to win over $10,000 in cash and prizes. Qualifying rounds for the Good Gaming $10,000 Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft – Amateur Open are scheduled to begin Friday, December 19th, 2014.

Terminator: Genisys Trailer & Poster Premiere

So...WHOOOOO was betting they were going to pull a Star Trek and poison the timeline to rewrite the whole story line? Not me! Paramount unleashed their full length trailer for Terminator: Genisys today and my feelings are...mixed. No chills..no reall OO or AHH! moments. I'm still hopeful this one will pack in the fun left behind in the last instalment, which seemed to be big on explosions and chaos and light on the "thrill ride". Will I see it? Hell yea...so I guess any point I make for or against is invalid! Jump on in for the eye candy...

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

DC Comics Block Figures Sneak Onto Toy Shelves

It's rare these days that a licensed product could slip into retail stores without rabid fans of said license freaking out about it and blowing up the internet. With that in mind, I was shocked to find few people had known Underoos had made a fairly silent come back when we ventured into the heart of darkness (AKA Hot Topic...which is a dark store..not being funny!) and shot those pics of He-Man, Wonder Woman and Captain America skivies. That was a very short time ago, but now we are constantly wondering what other licensed merch might be sneaking around out there just waiting to be discovered. It wasn't long before we found more fun stuff!

The Terminator: Genisys Trailer Arrives This Thursday: Teaser is LIVE



Are you psyched for it for fun with endoskeletons in a dark, post apocalyptic future we seemingly have no hope of escaping??? Maybe a little? Yeaaa...at least a little. We know that last installment was chock full of men howling toward the night sky and not much else in the way of content, but you can't deny the action was absolutely up to snuff. That said, we've got high hopes for Terminator: Genisys..with or without the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger's now legendary robot alter ego (but he's in it so..it's with..so prepare yourself). Paramount is counting down the seconds til this Thursday's trailer release and has sent over a sweet lil motion poster to tide you over...

Jem and the Holograms Get a Reboot by IDW Comics

IDW Publishing is excited to expand its long relationship with Hasbro and welcome JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS to the world of comic books. Starting in March 2015, Jem and company will star in their first ongoing series! The creative team bringing this world full of fashion, art, action, and style to life is writer Kelly Thompson (Storykiller, The Girl Who Would Be King) and artist Ross Campbell (Glory, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), with subscription covers by Sara Richard (My Little Pony, Kitty and Dino).

It’s the 21st century, and Jem and The Holograms are 21st century girls! Meet Jerrica Benton, the gifted singer of The Holograms, a band that has the right look and the right sound… But one thing is holding them back—Jerrica’s crippling stage fright. Luckily, Jerrica is about to find help in the most unlikely of places when she discovers a forgotten present left by her father. And what she finds is truly outrageous!