Once Upon a Time
The Complete First Season
Actors: Jennifer Morrison, Ginnifer Goodwin, Lana Parrilla, Josh Dallas, Jared Gilmore
Studio: ABC
ASIN: B0058YPL66
Release Date: August 28th, 2012
Running Time: 946 minutes
Rated: PG


I was pestered to death by my parents to watch Once Upon a Time. Sure, I've seen the advertisements for it, but I never attempted to watch it because I never cared much for Jennifer Morrison when she was on House, M.D.

I saw the complete first season at my local Walmart yesterday and I thought I would give it a try. If I don't like it, I can always give it to my parents.

Inside the set was a $10 coupon off of any current and upcoming ABC series DVD/Blu-Ray Set, including Castle: The Complete Fourth Season!

I intended to only watch the pilot last night, but I ended up watching the entire first disc as I became addicted to the mysterious town of Storybrooke.

Batman: The Dark Knight: Volume 1: Knight Terrors
By: David Finch
Publisher: DC Comics
ISBN: 9781401235437
Pub Date: October 9, 2012
Pages: 208
Pre-Order: Amazon.com


Batman is back in this new volume of consisting of the issues 1-9:  Knight Terrors, A Rush of Blood, Catch Me If You Can, Welcome to the Jungle, Handful of Dust, Run Rabbit Run, The Final Curtain, The Madness, and  I Can No Longer Be Broken.

A mysterious woman dressed as a white rabbit enters into the Arkham injects the inmates with a special venom. An explosion causes chaos inside Arkham. Batman rushes inside, afraid that his old enemy Two-Face has escaped, but to his surprise, Two-Face is very much alive. The venom injected into him has caused him to take on a hulk like appearance and he now refers to himself as One-Face.

The Smurfs and the Magic Flute
Director: Peyo (original version), John Rust (English version)
Voice Actors: Richard Ashley, Robert Axelrod, Bill Capizzi, Cam Clarke, Ed Devereaux
Studio: Shout! Factory
ASIN: B0080730K2
Release Date: August 14, 2012
Running Time: 74 Minutes
Rated: G

The Smurfs and the Magic Flute was directed by the Smurfs creator Peyo and was released to theaters in 1976 in Belgium, and 1979 in the United Kingdom. In 1981, NBC aired The Smurfs from Hanna-Barbera and it was an instant success. An English dubbed version of The Smurfs and the Magic Flute came out to theaters in the USA in 1983. Despite being disliked by critics, the move was a box-office success. Over the years it has been only available on VHS, but never on DVD, until now.

The movie centers on a young squire, Johan, and his goofy sidekick, Peewit, (Peyo created the characters in 1952 and then created the Smurfs in 1958). Peewit gets a hold of a flute that has only six holes. Whoever is playing the flute can control other people by making them dance.

A Plain Scandal
An Appleseed Creek Mystery
Written By: Amanda Flower
Publisher: B&H Books
ISBN: 9781433676987
Pub. Date: February 15, 2013
Pages: 336
Pre-Order: Amazon.com

Chloe Humphrey is enjoying her life working at a college in Appleseed Creek, Ohio, but her life is turned upside down when she is informed that house that she rents with her roommate Becky has a new owner who plans on remodeling and selling the house.

Someone is going around the community grabbing Amish girls and cutting their hair. Chloe finds a body of an Amish man. He had been murdered and his beard has been shaved off. An elderly Amish man is pushed up against his own horse & buggy and someone cuts his beard off!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Written by: Denise Mina
Illustrated by: Andrea Muttti
Publisher: Vertigo/DC Comics
ISBN: 9781401235574
Pub Date: November 13, 2012
Pages: 152
Pre-order on Amazon.com

Based upon the best-selling trilogy by the late author Stieg Larsson is the new graphic novel adaptation from DC Comics/Vertigo. Thanks to edelweiss I got a chance to see a sneak peak at issue one. The complete book will be on sale on November 13th!

The graphic novel follows the same plot from the original books and both the US and Swedish movie versions. Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist who is having major legal trouble, is asked to investigate a forty-something-year-old missing case by Mr. Vanger.

This story did not start off as a western romance. The original idea I had was about a woman who was under the care of a psychiatrist because she murdered her husband.  What they didn’t know was her reason for the murder, which was self-defense. She had been in this abusive relationship for years and finally hit her breaking point, thus protecting herself and fatally injuring her husband.

I had plans to make this doctor-patient relationship, but I just couldn’t get into the story enough to make it work. For one, I know nothing of psychiatry and it would have been ridiculous for me to even try to write a character that specialized in that. They always tell you to write what you know and what I know is country living. So, I reverted back to my comfort zone and pulled ideas from the original story into “Zane: The McKades of Texas”.

The heroine of the novel, Kellan Anderson—later known as Andi Ford, is on the run from her abusive ex-boyfriend.  She keeps a journal (just like I had planned for the original story) that recounts the abusive attacks. That’s pretty much all I used from my original plot as the rest of the story involves ranch living and cowboys. The journal entries were what really started the whole story line. I just put myself in this character’s position and imagined how depressed and frightened she felt during these accounts.