But if the unintentionally hilarious/sad Famous Comic Book Creators trading cards made in 1992 and recently dug up by the Comics Alliance blog are the alternative, then I'm not so sad. Don't get me wrong, they are a great idea. A well-done set of trading cards highlighting genre artists and writers could be wonderful; maybe even a game a la "Authors". The Comic Book Creators cards are... well, the *backs* of them are pretty cool, with brief biographies and lists of their works. But those photographs! What were they thinking! Their photos for the three (just three!?!) female writers/artists are just... *tragic*.
That Todd MacFarlane photo though...
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Sketch of the day!
In-between having my sister take pictures of me being awesome (I was inspired by Todd MacFarlane), I drew this Velociraptor, who is also being awesome:
At this point you are aware of this book series known as the Twilight Saga, a magical romp through a land of glittery vampires, cuddly werewolves, epic battles between the two, and some other stuff that is not at all as interesting as it sounds. I read some of the books and watched the first movie all in the interest of science.
And I didn't like any of it. I have since gotten into arguments over the quality of this series with my friends who do enjoy Twilight, and that brings us to the real point of this here post: If you have never heard of Twilight, you sure as hell have heard of it's fandom.
This is not without reason, mind you. Some Twilight fans are... aw, hell with it. Some Twilight fans are nuts. Sparkly vampire bat-sh*t insane, if you will. Several dozen copies of "Cracked Rear View" short of a used CD store. Crazy enough to be screaming for the fictional character portrayed by an actor but *not for the actor himself*(honestly, the vast majority of fans don't seem to give a pair of fetid dingo kidneys for the actors -- they just want the characters they embody, see all those chicks clawing at their jugulars so R-Patz Edward could feed off them.) Yet powerful enough to make the Mtv Movie Awards essentially useless for the next four years.
You know about them because the media loves to focus on the crazier side of fandom. This is why all Trekkers hang out in full Starfleet regalia at all times, all Furries are into the weird stuff, all Anime fans dress like "Naruto" characters and/or something called "Steamy-Punks" or "Lolly", and all "Avatar" fans are depressed over how life on Earth just doesn't cut it and they want to turn into Na'vi and move to Pandora and ride a Leonopteryx doin' barrel-roles and sh*t.
Some Twilight fans have delivered on the crazy fan behavior like no other known fandom. Boy, have they ever (and that's just from the surprisingly huge arts-n-crafts contingent).
SOME of them -- but not all of them.
As I've mentioned, I have friends who enjoyed Twilight. They are not crazy. They also like things that I can agree with. And they (well, except one of them) don't mind that I don't like the series.
The first time I saw this, I thought it was pretty funny... for about the first minute or two. And then, when all the fans filed into their theater seats, excited to see the movie they've waited so long for, I got a little twinge of uncomfortable familiarity. Haven't I been in a crowd like that? As a matter of fact, yes I have -- my cousins and I were in exactly this kind of crowd going in to see "Matrix Reloaded".
And we all -- the whole theater -- would have been Bull. Sh*t. If this little bait-and-switch stunt had been pulled on us.*
* - Yes, I know. But imagine having to wait four years between, say, "Lost" seasons and you have an idea of the agonizing wait between the first "Matrix' and "Reloaded". Expectations were a *little* high. (And screw you all, I *like* the whole trilogy.)
But that's not the half of it. It isn't just that this guy isn't going to show the promised movie. He berates the Twilight fans for enjoying the series. And you and I might not like Twilight -- but imagine if you were brought into a theater as a teenager and told that the thing you love is bad and you should feel bad? Wouldn't that be heartbreaking? Wouldn't you feel awful and alienated?
And so, I give the peace sign to all the Twilight fans I may have offended in the past. I'm sorry.
(But I still maintain that getting into an argument with a Creationist is more fun than getting into an argument with a Twilight fan...)
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WIKKID IMPORTANT HEAD'S UP:
Amazon's Gold Box deal of the day is the complete series of "Fraggle Rock" for $37.50. If you do not own "Fraggle Rock" on DVD, hop to it! This is less than I paid for each individual season! This goes double if you are a reader with kids.
Also, I got rid of the embedded video because it was causing problems.
---- Sketch of the Day! I believe we need something aggressively silly after all that.
* - This is happening because of Tim "Where's the Guy Who Gave Us Large Marge" Burton's "Alice in Wonderland"
* - It is going to be part of a wave of mutilation Darker and Edgier (tm) versions of childrens literature previously tackled by Disney (though, to be fair, Disney is not the only studio responsible for all the upcoming new movies).
* - These are all going to involve (or have, in some cases, already involved) the most random film-makers imaginable.
* - They are currently planning for all these films to be, you guessed it, in 3 (f***ing) D.
* - Somewhere out there is a version of the folktale "Snow White" that I was unaware of** that involves a dragon. ** - As I have my Masters of Education with a focus on childrens media, this makes me feel sad.
* - This is, and I quote, "not your grandfather's Snow White."
Well. Huh.
In other Darker and Edgier (tm) news, dammitsomuch!!! No! Just, no! Bad studio! (Slaps studio.) Bad!!!
And in other depressing film news, we can't have nice things. Nice things like, say, a Wayne D. Barlowe designed Smaug. (Gee, I was just thinking that "The Hobbit" wasn't taking long enough.)
Yes, I know it's actually called "Tangled". Whatever, go ahead and drop the other shoe and name it "Explosions, Monster Trucks, and Testosterone Galore" for all it matters. For all the sweat Disney sheds over who gets named what, every normal person is going to just call this movie "Rapunzel" anyway. I base this on the fact that I do not know a single person in real life who doesn't refer to "The Princess and the Frog" as "The Frog Prince(ss)". I suggest you watch this fullscreen.
OK? OK. I guess the real question is, how badly can *you* tell that this was first conceived of back when the title "Rapunzel Untangled" would have been relevant (dammit)? That's a wikkid adorable chameleon, though. And I love Glen Keane but I'm not sure I'm seeing much of him in this. To be fair, and we've covered this before, there aren't that many teaser trailers by Disney that inspire confidence. Still, the "like... FOREVER" bit makes me cringe.
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Our next animated film trailer is for another "Why the hell did they change the title?" case, "Legends of the Guardians: the Owls of Ga'Hoole" (let's call it "Happy Shrieks" or, better, "Owls Who Can Smith Armor. Somehow.") The full trailer can be seen here at Topless (it isn't what it sounds like) Robot, to which I am linking because Rob has, like me, never read this series and lists some hilarious, yet thought-provoking, questions about it. Once again, you may want to watch it in fullscreen. I'm... surprised that we're getting a Guardians of Ga'Hoole movie before, say, a Warrior Cats movie (which seems to have a far larger fandom) but whatever. I do like when HeroOwl does his Neo in the rain thing and I enjoy that Jared Leto song. I do not enjoy the fact that HeroOwl's parents sound exactly the same and the fact that I am getting the same creepily-almost-human vibe I got from "Happy Feet". Also, I believe we can all agree that this movie should end with this guy swooping in and kicking everyone's ass. EDIT: Thank you, Albertonykus (boy I hope I spelled that right without checking) for giving a good summary of the series in the comments. The salient point is that it's basically a straight-up fantasy with owls. And on that note, I am as surprised as he is that we aren't getting a Silverwing movie (or a Warriors movie, or a Books of the Named movie, or a Firebringer movie, or a Raptor Red movie, or a Pick Your Favorite Xenofictional Series With a Sizable DeviantArt Fandom movie) before Ga'Hoole.
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/Film just recently also posted stills and a teaser for "The Smurfs" and... yeah.
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It's not all bad news from the big studios, though it's odd that the best animated feature (so to speak) might end up being a video game. We got a teaser for "Epic Mickey" finally at E3, showing off the animation and gameplay mechanics. This looks amazing!
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Away from the big studios (and you'll want to go fullscreen on both of these as well) , we have Sylvain Chomet's "The Illusionist" (not to be confused with the pretty-good live-action movie of the same name from a few years ago), and it doesn't really tell us anything about the film aside from the fact that it is very, very pretty:
And of course there's Studio Ghibli's very, very, very pretty looking take on The Borrowers. Sadly, it's not so much a teaser as some footage recorded off a television show where it debuted. Try to ignore the people in the lower-right:
So over at Deviant Art, some artists like making these little charts for others to fill out. The intent is usually to draw your characters in the style of another artist/character from a movie/book/whatever. They are called Style Memes and I think I'm in love. Seriously, this is a great exercise for character design. I've noticed that younger artists tend to experiment more, drawing their characters (in this case) over and over again in different styles, different colors, different media and so on. Somewhere along the line we loose that enthusiasm. But it's great drawing practice and it's just plain fun! I found the Avian Style Meme at Lizkay's gallery and decided to put our dear friend Squee through the wringer:
Huh... first time embedding something from DA. Interesting. Here are my notes, pretty much somewhat longer versions of what I've posted below the upload, now that I have had more time to think:
Personal Style - Default Squee. Now, I've been trying to move away from drawing these characters digitally, as it really doesn't suit them (it looks too "neat" after a while). Also, when I do draw in Photoshop, it's usually at a much higher resolution, so this was a bit of a challenge. (Watch somebody tell me that there's a way to download a 300 dpi version of these memes, whereupon I shall say, "d'oh.")
Marahute!!! - Hell and yes. Glen Keane is the man and Marahute is his Crowning Moment of Awesome if I have to pick just one. I also thought the idea of drawing a chickadee in Marahute's "I'm Being AWESOME" pose was comedy gold.
Pokemon - Weird how so much of this meme includes big influences on me. Also, drawing a Chickadee as a Pokemon is sublime. (My crazy Anime-only theory: The Pokemon aren't walking around "saying their names". The Pokemon, like the Chickadee, are *named after* the calls they make.)
Jeremy - "Secret of N.I.M.H." is my favorite movie of all time. Don Bluth may be the one artist here who influenced me the most. Thing is, I never noticed until just now, doing the research for this meme, how *long* Jeremy's legs are!
Kehaar - Almost-photorealistic Squee, which was great fun to draw. Also, who couldn't leave out Kehaar's signature line?
"Quest for Camelot" - Squee's reaction here is pretty much my own. Seriously, what a random movie to go for. Not knowing what else to do, I drew her in the style as that fluffy little falcon.* * - No offense if you like "Quest for Camelot", but I... don't... The film is also part of a particularly strange family movie-watching experience. My grandmother loves Andrea Bocelli and "The Prayer" is one of her favorites of his songs. She also likes "Camelot". Grandma was delighted to learn that "The Prayer" was written for a movie that happened to be about Camelot (I think you can tell where this is going) and so we rented "Quest for Camelot" to watch together. I will let you imagine Grandma's reaction when she got to the particular scene in which her beloved song appears...
"Asterix" - This is where it occurred to me that there aren't a whole lot of cartoons/comics with birds as main characters. It's our What Measure Is A Non-Mammal problem again. *sigh*
"Family Guy" - Uh... eh. Not a terribly big fan of this series. (This has been my Gross Understatement of the Day.)
"For the Birds" - Ha-ha, she looks kinda cute like this! It'd be a hell of a challenge to draw after a while, though.
Iago - Birds with human-like teeth freak me out. There, I said it.
"Animals of Farthing Wood" - Now, now, let's be honest here. I only know "Farthing Wood" exists because the European contingent over at TV Tropes keeps raving about it. It sounds fascinating. (The heroes include a fox, a falcon, and a *snake*?!? Awesome!!!) And it could be the greatest animated series ever made for all I know, but sadly, I don't know if there's any way I can watch it in America (Youtube only appears to have the opening sequence). Wah.
Griff - Is... is this meant to be a Meme for Gryphon characters? (Long awkward pause...) Oh..... :p
Now I just found out that there's also a Dinosaur Style Meme floating around. Hrm...
I am temporarily adopting my usual "three times a week" schedule because there is suddenly much out there in the world of stuff I can geek out about arts and entertainment. Had I stayed with my twice-weekly summer schedule, this review wouldn't have seen the light of day until July. July is when Drawgasmic is happening! Also, I think -I hope- a certain book will be published during that month. Stay tuned...
On to the movie reviews. So I finally got around to watching Zack Snyder's film adaptation of Watchmen. Well. That was interesting. I guess if a Watchmen movie has to exist, it might as well look like this. Did that sound weird? This whole blog post is going to come across as weird. OK, look. I've read Watchmen many times. The first time was the best, of course. If you have read it, you know why. If you have not, then you probably have heard that the novel has a surprise ending. This is a bit of an understatement; I won't ever forget the experience of reading that ending for the first time. And the thing is, the book pretty much hinges on that ending. Reading the book again, you realize how incredibly *tight* it is. There isn't a single scrap of extraneous information in the book, which is phenomenal if you pause to think about it. I would say that the film-makers agree with me here, because the entire book, save for maybe a chapter's worth of information, is in the movie. Seriously. The film "Watchmen" feels like sitting down next to Zack Snyder as he reads the graphic novel to you. ...Until around the two hour, eleven minute (!) mark. Whereupon he puts the book down and makes some stuff up for a couple of minutes. But the thing is, he then picks the book up, flips ahead a few pages, and starts reading right from it again. Hrm... I have mentioned this before, back when the film was in theaters, but yes, the ending is different. Except when it isn't. So is the movie good? Well, yes. Actually, it's very good. They pull off some of the things I thought were going to be tricky or downright impossible (in particular, Dr. Manhattan, who in the film looks and acts as alien as he ought to.) But you know, I wish I had some kind of a control group -- people who had never heard of the book before much less read it. What in the world did they think of the movie? By the way, that had to be the secondmost-uncomfortable-to-watch sex scene I've ever seen in a superhero movie...
Shortly after watching "Watchmen", I was finally able to see "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus". You may recall that this film has been at the center of contention here at the Obligatory Art Blog. It is Heath Ledger's final film, and we American fans (a built-in audience for this movie, mind you) almost didn't get to see it. The given reason for this is because the major studios who would have bought the rights to it as it was being shopped around at film festivals believed it to be "too weird". That I read that news during the same week where the number one movie in the country was some crazy jazz about giant robots who are also cars that want to blow up the sun felt like a giant rude gesture in the face of me and anyone else who likes nice things. Ah, but thank goodness for Netflix, as arbitrary studio b.s. does not affect the DVD market too badly. I say to everyone reading this, put this movie in your queue. Even if you never actually watch "Dr. Parnassus", renting the movie is your vote for challenging, imaginative films. RANDOM READER: "That's all very noble, Trish, but DID YOU LIKE THE MOVIE?" Errr... If I said that this film is, out of all of Terry Gilliam movies, possibly the single most Terry Gilliam-est, would that make sense? HALF OF THE READERS: "Yeah, OK. I immediately get what I'd be getting into watching this movie and also what you thought of it." THE OTHER HALF: "... ... ... Terry Who-in-the-what-now?" OK, then. The Other Half of you might want to give it a shot anyway. I suggest following it up with "Lost in LaMancha", a documentary about Gilliam which is worth watching in it's own right. It's on Netflix instant watch as is, I just found out, all three seasons of "Avatar". So why aren't you watching that right now? Do it!
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Sketch of the Day! Guess what's finally happening at my hummingbird feeder?!
That is to say, I'm finally going to say something about "The Looney Tunes Show" and the new Wile E. Coyote shorts. Here's information about both series, via the wonderful /Film:
"Last time Warner Bros. tried to reinvent the classic Looney Tunes stable of characters, the result was a disaster. The 'Loonatics Unleashed' featured absurd 'extreme' versions of the characters that were booed off television within two years.
"Now WB is trying again with a new cartoon series and a set of 3D shorts that will play in theaters. Why would you even think about having confidence in this new approach? Because the studio is going back to the basics... Three new Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote shorts have been approved and three more are in development. The 3D shorts will debut in front of 'Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore' at the end of July. (Great. So now we have to go see that.)
"Then the new 'The Looney Tunes Show', a 26-episode half-hour series, will appear on Cartoon Network this fall. There Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck will be 'odd-couple roommates in a contemporary cul-de-sac' with neighbors Yosemite Sam, Tweety Bird, Sylvester, Marvin the Martian and Porky Pig."
This is pretty much all we know for now. Eh....... Could be worse. Not digging the "Bugs Bunny living in a suburban house" thing (that should have stayed in the comic books), but it could be worse. Speaking of worse, that Fully-Rendered 3D CGI Wile E. Coyote. Ugh. It reminds me of this wonderful essay (with a follow-up here) written by Will Finn addressing the fact that not every computer animated character has to be almost-realistic.
You can't really say that CGI!Wile E. isn't photo-realistic like, say, the characters in "Avatar" are. He is still recognizably based on the wonderfully expressive Chuck Jones character design we all fell in love with. Yet, for some dang reason, every damn strand of canine fur and scale of skin on his cold nose has to be fully rendered in ludicrous detail. Why? Just... why?
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Sketch of the Day! My Crack Pairing! Let me show you it!
Speaking of Crack Pairings, I kinda wish I was a projectionist right now. Because if I was, I would swap out the last reel of "Sex and the City 2" for the last reel of "Splice". I'd be fired on the spot for doing this, but I would regret nothing! Nothing!
When I rescued this old essay from my sunken Geocities website, I didn't expect it to get the reaction it got. In particular, I've been getting a lot of "OMG, THAT'S what those not-Wuzzle things were called! Thank you for helping me not go insane!"
In the older post, I described the Firffels rather unfairly as "The Wuzzles Who Didn't Make It", and assumed that "Remco probably saw the mint that Disney made with their cute little spliced furballs and said, 'WAH! Me TOO!!!'"
It seems I was wrong in assuming this. Maybe.
I got a couple of Anonymous posters stating that the Firffels actually predate the Wuzzles. I can believe this; it's fairly well-known that the Go-Bots were released long before the Transformers and it's not hard to see who won that duel. Further, one poster claimed that Michael Eisner saw the Firffels at some point, and liked the concept enough to do his own version. These wound up being much more successful because he had The Power of Disney on his side.
I can kinda see that happening. Thing is, I seem to recall seeing the Firffels commercials at around the same time Wuzzles cartoon was just getting popular. I hate to be like this, but it'd be nice to see some hard evidence that Eisner was aware of Firffels at all before we accuse him of stealing the idea...
I just kinda ran to Michael Eisner's defense and now I feel dirty. O.O
I did, however, have to admit that there is some reason to agree that Firffels predate Wuzzles by at least a few years. There's an old picture book featuring the Firffel characters; and I only knew about that thanks to a comment in TV Tropes. Then a nice poster called Venusboi79 provided some links. They don't quite answer all my questions about these weird characters, but they do deepen my curiosity.
The first link took me to the official website of the woman who created the Firffels characters, Othello Bach. (I still need to experiment with calling myself Trysch just to see what happens.) Her site is very Flash-heavy and a bit confusing, but if you hit "Books" and then "Collectibles", you'll find yourself at a page with a book entitled Whoever Heard of a Fird? Clicking the cover enlarges the picture and... that's it. (Well, there's also an arrow taking you to the book's Amazon page and the asking price made my eyes bleed, so I can't follow that thread.)
Far, far more interesting is the film clip under the book cover. Unfortunately, embedding is disabled. It's well worth watching though because it is fascinating (it's very clearly designed for buyers). I also found this commercial:
Venus also directed me to good old Ghost of the Doll, a website that has saved my rear end many times in the ebaying department. There's no entry on the Firffels, but there is a very extensive message board thread with loads and loads of pictures.
Looks like I remembered everyone from the toys (Fird, Dicken, Butterfrog, and Burtle) except Shamel (sheep + camel. We don't need to do this on the planet I live on because Llamas exist.) According to TV Tropes, the books also include a Woose (worm/goose and according to the illustration showing him at Ghost of the Doll, well up there with the Slobber and the Wyrm as the Saddest Imaginary Animal Ever), Blizard (bird/lizard), Girouse (giraffe/mouse), Snog (snail/hog), Dryder (dragon/spider - WTF?), and the not-as-horrifying-as-it-sounds Hyenant (hyena/ant). But there's also the truly horrifying Elephunky (elephant/gorilla). It's those giant arms. And the man-boobs.
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Sketchadaday! Speaking of imaginary animal franchises...
Sketch of the day! This isn't the drawing I entered, but it's sort of kind of tangentially related (not really). It's rather large so click the thumbnail to see the whole thing:
Now that I've had some time to process everything (and a few things to drink), and you've had at least a week to watch it once or twice, here are my thoughts. Vast galloping herds of unmarked SPOILERS ahead. You've been warned.
I liked it a lot.
I didn't *love* it. I'm having a slight case of "That's not what I would have done!"-ness. (Let us henceforth call this odd sense of fandom-entitlement "The 'Matrix Reloaded' Effect" [though I was fine with that ending too], or even better, based on Neil Gaiman's wonderful essay on the subject, The "George R.R. Martin is not Working for You" Problem). But I really liked it.
Part of the reason why I really liked this finale is simply because it made a lot of people angry. This is a show that never did the expected or "easy" things; characters could be downright unlikeable for large swathes of time, story arcs went down unexpected paths, weird stuff was introduced and never again addressed (there is now a small, steaming crater now where TV Tropes' Big Lipped Alligator Moment page once was.) I will admit, I am human and I would have liked a few more explanations (no, seriously, why were there so many ancient Egyptian things on the Island, what the hell was going on with Walt, and just what the heck *was* Smokey?) A lot of people said they feel as though the writers screwed them over by not addressing many of the stranger plot twists and have even started to resent the series as a whole. (Seriously. Take a shot when you run into a comment like, "They didn't address my pet mystery so now the whole series that I have been 100% on board with for longer than most people spend in college sucks and we hates if forevers!") My thinking is, if "screwed over" means six years of terrific television with smart science fiction and some of the best characters I've ever had the pleasure to meet, then I would like to get screwed more often.
That came out wrong... O.o
I like how some people will be debating those final ten minutes for weeks. I like how those final ten minutes are destined to be misinterpreted -- even though, and I don't mean to insult anyone, if you didn't understand what was actually going on there, I am in no position to help you. (Tellingly, a LOT of negative comments online are from people who just watched this last episode out of curiosity or otherwise didn't pay much attention to the series as a whole. It's pretty much your own darn fault for not liking it.) I've been on this ride since season two (my curiosity about the series was piqued when I saw the late, lamented "Best Week Ever" summarize the season finale), and I'm going to miss my weekly visits to The Island.
Listen, I was doing fine until around the twenty-five minute mark. Then it got really dusty...
