LYDIA: And gentlemen in England now-a-bed…
Comments Off | Posted: May 22nd, 2009 | Filed under: Shameless Self-Promotion | Tags: lydia
Yeah, we’re making Shakespeare references now, being all high-falutin’ and junk.
Yeah, we’re making Shakespeare references now, being all high-falutin’ and junk.
THE RACK: Friction
1 Comment | Posted: May 22nd, 2009 | Filed under: Shameless Self-Promotion | Tags: the rack
Things continue to fall apart.
DESIGN FETISH: This is what Sean Phillips calls a sketch, you guys.
1 Comment | Posted: May 21st, 2009 | Filed under: Design Fetish
THE RUNDOWN: Is this a riot or are you just pleased to see me?
5 Comments | Posted: May 21st, 2009 | Filed under: The Rundown1.
Superman: New Krypton Volume 1 features over-the-top, too-florid scripting from James Robinson that calls more attention to him than the stories he’s crafting here, and while I can almost buy into Jimmy Olsen verbally masturbating in his quest to become a writer, but Vigilante saying “History is often but a patina of real come the light of tomorrow” while The Guardian1 ponders “the glint of [Olsen's] red hair in the morning’s glow” is a bit too close to the purplest of slash fiction prose for my tastes. Johns’s work in this volume continues his very readable take on the DC icon, and while I’m fairly unsure that I need to read about 100,000 Kryptonians who’ve moved to Earth, the setup is interesting enough to keep me going for at least one more volume.
2.
I’m very fond of Fred Chao, so I can’t be remotely fair about the new Johnny Hiro collection. A paean to love, New York City, food, giant monsters, Japanese cinema, hip-ho, and living with cats (among other things), the titular character’s trials and travails are sort of a pitch-perfect example of how to do this sort of thing. One of the reasons I think this comic works for me is that it embraces a lot of things that mean more to me than the Scott Pilgrim NES culture (even if I like Scott and the gang, I was never quite as enamored with River City Ransom as O’Malley was) and I can identify with Johnny and Mayumi. He’s the decent guy who can’t quite make things work like he wants, she’s the just-sweet-enough counterpart who has her own trials and travails, and the surreal misadventures they have just feel like they belong. Get the collection, seriously. You won’t regret it.
3.
I figured out why I enjoy Marvel Adventures: The Avengers so much today: it captures a lot of what I liked about the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League era without mimicking it exactly. The latest issue (no I don’t have it handy, nor do I memorize issue numbers) starts off with the gang at a flea market, just hanging out, before Tigra makes an unfortunate purchasing decision that leads to the whole plot of the piece that involves a genie, three wishes, and Wolverine eating a lot of sausage. As much as I enjoy (and advocate) the pure action mode of superheroics, I find a great deal of joy in moments where the team, be they the Avengers or the Justice League or even the Doom Patrol, are just hanging out, being folk, and Tobin ( as much as Parker, who kicked off the kid-friendly Avengers book) has the perfect ear for dialogue and a way of making those pages never feel wasted. Special note should be taken of Matteo Lolli here. His just-cartoonish-enough art really helps this story move along, and his layouts were both inventive and easy to follow.
4.
If you’ve not read the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic, then you have no excuse, really. Go, grab a nice length of rope, a milkcrate, and find an exposed beam. Surely you can do the math after that.
(Two word review: intimidatingly fantastic.)
5.
The first issue of Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance was exactly what I wanted: pop-savvy, bright, and with just the right amount of metacommentary without going too far into territory covered by The Authority and the like.
1And don’t get me started on revisiting the “original” Guardian and Cadmus, because I thought Morrison’s take was inventive and had potential while apparently somebody really, really likes masturbating over Jack Kirby’s corpse versus playing with new toys.
THE RACK: In For A Penny
Comments Off | Posted: May 21st, 2009 | Filed under: Shameless Self-Promotion | Tags: the rack
The Rack? On a Thursday?!? Face front, Yavineers!
Oh god I’m sorry.
DESIGN FETISH: Saké by B&T.
2 Comments | Posted: May 20th, 2009 | Filed under: Design Fetish
Lovely Package has several images featuring this lovely bottle of sake designed by B&T. Its clean lines and clever functionality actually makes me want to drink the stuff more than usual, and that’s an accomplishment.
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING: The Remastered Tank Girl Collections
2 Comments | Posted: May 20th, 2009 | Filed under: What I've Been Reading | Tags: tank girl
Titan has done right by Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin’s iconic heavy weapons fetishist with these nicely-priced volumes that feature the original Tank Girl stories in their original black and white, erasing the damage caused with the murky reproduction from the digitally-colored 90s reissues and reminding me why this is one of my very favorite comics series. Gloriously nonsensical plots, remarkably funny dialogue, and cartooning that never stops combine perfectly with the sort of alchemy that is all too rare in any medium, and the bonus materials (Martin’s introductions featuring rare photos and illustrations, covers from that era, etc) just make a $14.95 price tag seem a cursory thing, a slight delay in one’s attainment of these books.
Can you tell I like Tank Girl a truly embarrassing amount? Anyway Amazon’s got ‘em even cheaper – $10.17 a pop, qualifying for Amazon Prime, etc, etc. Volume 1 and Volume 2 are out now, with the next few months seeing Volume 2 and The Odyssey back in print.
LYDIA: I’m Trying To Pick My Top 5 Here.
Comments Off | Posted: May 20th, 2009 | Filed under: Shameless Self-Promotion | Tags: lydiaA nice pull quote and a fantastic last panel from Riffner make this my favorite strip so far.
THE RACK: Connections
Comments Off | Posted: May 20th, 2009 | Filed under: Shameless Self-Promotion | Tags: the rack
A special guest appearance! Two of them, in fact!
DESIGN FETISH: Danish 70s Interior Design Porno Style.
Comments Off | Posted: May 19th, 2009 | Filed under: Design Fetish
Just what the title says. Marginally NSFW.
Win a copy of Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta’s POTTER’S FIELD courtesy of BOOM! Studios and BeaucoupKevin.com!
Comments Off | Posted: May 19th, 2009 | Filed under: Contests
Thanks to my haranguing BOOM! Studios marketing head Chip Mosher to pony up when it comes to the tchotchkes, we’ve got three copies of the brand-new hardcover collection for the critically-acclaimed Potter’s Field to give away! Rightly praised by The Onion AV Club, who described it as “first-rate crime fiction, brought to noirish life by Paul Azaceta” before giving it a grade of A-, this collection features the original miniseries along with the Potter’s Field: Stone Cold one-shot and a previously unseen “lost” story by Waid and Steve Yeowell. For the publishing fetishists, the book is a damn fine object on its own with a silver-inked jacket by J.G. Jones and one of those fabric bookmark things that mean you won’t have to use a subscription card from the soon-to-be-deceased Wired magazine to keep your place.
How do you win a copy? Send an email to pottersfieldcontest@gmail.com with your name and address before 11:59PM on Sunday, May 24 and three winners will be chosen using a sophisticated system involving a random number generator and me going through the inbox to find the corresponding email.
THE RACK: Staff Picks for the Week of May 20, 2009
Comments Off | Posted: May 19th, 2009 | Filed under: Shameless Self-Promotion | Tags: the rack
Kind of a paltry week for me, but you may well find something on Yavin IV’s shelf to suit your tastes!
And then there was the time…
3 Comments | Posted: May 19th, 2009 | Filed under: Meta…that this guy took photochopped content from my site and ran it on his blog, unattributed.
Look, I’m fine with anyone borrowing stuff I do; that’s the nature of the internet. In fact, I rather like it when people think something I’ve done is decent enough to be used on their sites, but if you’re not going to ask outright, at least throw some damn credit my way.
I’m going back to damn bed now.
Dammit.
DESIGN FETISH: Interview with Kyle Cooper
1 Comment | Posted: May 18th, 2009 | Filed under: Design Fetish | Tags: hulk
The Art Of The Title Sequence has a very interesting interview with Kyle Cooper, who was responsible for the opening credits on 2008′s The Incredible Hulk. One of that underrated movie’s strongest points for me was how effectively the movie used its running time, particularly the way that it managed to achieve a soft reboot of the cinematic Hulk without retreading the origin. Cooper’s opening sequence was key to this effort, giving audiences the new1 genesis for the character in a brief span of time, allowing director Louis Leterrier to dive into the story.
1Yes, I know it’s a tweaked version of the one from the original TV series.
GAME REVIEW: The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault On Dark Athena
3 Comments | Posted: May 18th, 2009 | Filed under: Reviews, video games
The new release The Chronicles Of Riddick: Assault On Dark Athena is a stealth-heavy first-person-shooter for the XBox 360, Playstation 3, and Windows. In a move that I highly approve of, the 360 and PS3 versions come with both the newer game and a remastered version of the 2004 release The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay.
Pro: Vin Diesel, Ron Perman, Michael Rooker Lance Henricksen, Michelle Forbes and…uh…Xzibit provide strong voice talent. (Forbes in Dark Athena as the pirate captain stands out with a wonderfully throaty, no-nonsese intonation that makes me want to hire her to record my voicemail message.)
Con: They say some amazingly ridiculous shit. Being the tough-guy star of the two games means that Diesel is saddled with dialogue that’s a string of clichés punctuated by plot points. (The man seems to have a downright fetishistic relationship with the dark.)
Pro: Both games feature designs that fit easily in the amalgamated Dune-meets-Star Wars-meets-The Fifth Element look of the film whose license they’re based on.
Con: They also have the same nonsensical approach to story as the movie. For the most part, there’s no real reason for the gamer to care about what they’re doing, a problem I have with most game writing.
Pro: The player is able to kill the enemies in a truly astounding number of ways, with sneakiness playing a key role. Sneaking around, grabbing someone from behind, and snapping their neck is a pleasure each and every time you do it, and the implementation of Riddick’s “eyeshine” is very nicely-handled.
Con: Boy, there’s a lot of “Get this and this and then you can do this,” which is something I’ve never quite cottoned to in first person shooters. These recursive, repetitive calls to action dull some genuinely interesting game mechanics.
Short version: When all of these factors are combined with a heavy dependence on trial and error at some points and AI that’s glitchy, you get a pair of decently-made games that swing wildly between exhilarating and frustrating. If you’re an avid player of FPS games, this is a bundle you’ll likely want in your library, but a more casual gamer may want to look for a more balanced experience.
Please note that I actively avoid playing with the unwashed masses on XBox Live and so I can’t give any impressions about the multiplayer aspects of the game. I presume they involve flailing around in the dark with knives and cursing at other people, sort of like Hell Night at any given industrial club.
LYDIA: Yes, She’s In A Skirt.
2 Comments | Posted: May 18th, 2009 | Filed under: Shameless Self-Promotion | Tags: lydiaOne of the things in the little bible I made for Max before we started doing the strip was that Lydia was going to wear big girl clothes on occasion.
THE RACK: Baggage Claim
1 Comment | Posted: May 18th, 2009 | Filed under: Shameless Self-Promotion | Tags: the rack
“This may or may not be based on a true story told to me by someone.” That’s how Law And Order should start, really..
Kenzo Masaoka’s Abandoned Cat Little Tora
1 Comment | Posted: May 17th, 2009 | Filed under: Video | Tags: abandoned cat little tora, anime, kenzo masaoka, Suteneko Tora-chanTales Designed To Thrizzle creator Michael Kupperman twittered about this gorgeous, wistful anime from 1947 and I was blown away. Get a hanky.
DESIGN FETISH: Boing Boing Gadgets Picks Ten Beautiful Computers
1 Comment | Posted: May 15th, 2009 | Filed under: Design Fetish
The Cray still feels like how a “real” computer should look to me. Is that weird? View the ten.
THE RUNDOWN: You Have 20 Seconds To Comply
2 Comments | Posted: May 15th, 2009 | Filed under: The Rundown | Tags: castle waiting, jack staff, lockjaw and the pet avengers, nick fury, spider-man j, young liarsWe’re going micro this week!
1.
Lockjaw And The Pet Avengers #1 – Should have been a $10 digest off the bat.
2.
Castle Waiting #15 – I love that Linda Medley is completely ignoring what makes her setting so interesting for the D&D set and focusing on the characters.
3.
Sgt. Fury & His Howling Commandos – Not read it yet, but you’d have to work hard to fuck up a story featuring World War II, Nick Fury, dead Nazis, art by John Paul Leon, and lettering by John Workman.
4.
Jack Staff #20 – Honestly, I still don’t believe I read an issue of Jack Staff a couple days ago. It was like a dream. A beautiful, wonderful dream.
5.
Young Liars #15 – I think I missed an issue, but how do you tell with this thing? A comic I enjoy despite its efforts to make me frustrated.
6.
Spider-Man J: Japanese Daze – They need to number these volumes, which I may stop reading if I don’t get a Japanese J Jonah Jameson soon, dammit.
7.
I’ve not gotten my hands on the new League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen yet. Yes, I know. Diamond is to blame this time around.
