Age of Bronze: Seen #1 (for iPad)
By Eric Shanower
Colors by John Dallaire
Reader’s Guide by Thomas Beasley
Published by Throwaway Horse and Hungry Tiger Press
Release Date: October 14, 2011
Price: $.99

Eric Shanower’s epic Eisner-Award-winning series Age of Bronze has been praised by comic book fans, historians, and educators alike. Currently at 31 issues (and counting), the title began in 1989 with an ambitious goal: merge literary sources and historical/archaeological data on the Trojan War into a singular cohesive story. The fact that it’s an entertaining read on top of that is just icing on the cake.

Now the team at Throwaway Horse has brought Age of Bronze into the digital age by combining the original stories with a comprehensive reader’s guide by Yale classics scholar Thomas Beasley. The result is an even more in-depth look at the Trojan War that includes maps, character guides, internet resources, and even a reader’s commentary forum… all without leaving the app (helpful hint: the forum can be reached by tapping “Reader’s Guide” when it’s active). [...]

Years ago when I was lucky enough to be vacationing in Maui, a friend and I got tired of laying on the beach and decided to take SCUBA diving lessons. It was a lot of fun, we learned a loads, and both of us came to the same conclusion at the end of the week: “There’s a lot of freaky stuff down there.” This was an epic understatement. The measly 40-feet we got to dive in was a tiny sampling of the fascinating world that occupies 3/4 of the earth’s surface. This was made abundantly clear when I watched BBC’s The Blue Planet: Seas of Life DVD Collector’s Set.

Narrated by the incomparable David Attenborough, this documentary explores all aspects of marine life over the course of eight episodes on four DVDs… “Ocean World,” “Frozen Seas,” “Open Ocean,” “The Deep,” “Seasonal Seas,” “Coral Seas,” “Tidal Seas,” and “Coasts.” There’s also a fifth DVD with four bonus featurettes that loosely tie into the series…

After the film Notting Hill was released, I had a business trip to London. When I asked a good friend if there was anything she’d like me to get her while I was there, she had one request: “a picture of the blue door from William’s flat in Notting Hill.” She wanted to frame it and put it in her bathroom, which was also blue. It seemed like a simple enough request, and a quick search of the internet revealed the location. Unfortunately, it was all for naught, because once I finally got there, the famous blue door was now black. Just for fun, I decided to see how many other sites from the movie I could find… and quickly got very lost.

Enter Movie London by Tony Reeves.

This meticulous guide is jam-packed with hundreds of movie filming locations throughout London, both past and present. Everything from the obvious (James Bond, Harry Potter) to the obscure (Laughter in Paradise, The Nine Ages of Nakedness) is represented. For the movie buff traveling to London, few guide books could be as indispensable.

The good news is that the guide is very well organized, taking London region by region and detailing anything of movie-related interest that happened there. Handy maps lay out exactly the route you need to take to see all the sites, and small black & white photos help you to make sure you’ve found the right spot (more important sites get color photos in an 8-page inset)…

In this age where we are bombarded with every imaginable type of reality television, After Hour’s 7 Days to Fame dares to ask the question “What happens when suicide becomes entertainment?”

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