kate

Worth a read today: the New York Times profiles five rising animators in the American animation scene. The five featured artists are Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe), Minkyu Lee (Adam and Dog), Jason Ruiz (Murder Police), Justin Roiland (Rick and Morty), and Timothy Reckart (Head Over Heels).

Writing about Michael Moorcock recently made me think of the writing legends that had the most influence on me. These include people as far apart as Oscar Wilde and Fritz Leiber. But no one, perhaps, more so than Roger Zelazny.

I was in college when I discovered Roger Zelazny, reading “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” in a class. I really enjoyed it and thought about reading more from the author. But it wasn’t until a year or so later, when I discovered The Chronicles of Amber, that I really fell in love with his writing.

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My girlfriend at the time had the old two-volume Science Fiction Book Club edition of Zelazny’s stories. One with a yellow cover, the other an almost avocado color, both with the same Boris Vallejo cover of a shirtless man in a ridiculous red cape facing off against two cat-like creatures in a dark forest.

I needed something to read, so I picked the first volume up and found the fantasy series that would change my life. That sounds like hyperbole, I know, but both as a reader and a writer, Zelazny’s Amber books had a huge effect on me.

To start with, they had many of the things I enjoy in stories. Witty, charming, and delightfully unreliable first person narrator? Check. Near-immortal beings? Check. Travel between worlds? Check. Dysfunctional families and the resulting politics of such? Check. And yet it was so much more than this laundry list of items.

To this day, the Amber books are some of the select novels that I will re-read on a regular basis, usually every few years. And I never seem to tire of them. The novels that can stand up to that kind of regular scrutiny are few and far between for me. My interest and excitement in these books hasn’t waned, not in the five or so times I’ve been through them.

Zelazny wrote ten Amber novels—five that are amazing, five that have their flaws—and a scattering of short stories. In the coming weeks, I plan to go through them and take a look at each, sharing my thoughts on them as I go. If you’ve read the books, please feel free to take a look back with me. If you never have, feel free to read along. The books are short. You could easily get through one in a week.

Let us walk through Shadows together, and make for Amber. We begin with Nine Princes in Amber.

Welcome to a look at Nine Princes in Amber, the first book in Roger Zelazny’s The Chronicles of Amber. Be aware that beyond the jump there are spoilers, lots of them. If you’re interested in reading the book, please do so first. This will be here when you’re done.

[Let us walk through Shadows together, and make for Amber.]

I’ve always admired Zelazny for the way he opens Nine Princes in Amber. We start off with an unnamed protagonist waking up in a hospital, with no memory of who he is and how he got there. We are carried along by the sheer charisma of the narrator’s voice and because of his lack of memory, we’re starting out on similar footing. As he figures things out, so do we, and this carries us through the majority of the novel.

The narrator, whom we discover is named Corwin, may be an amnesiac, but we quickly learn he’s also resourceful. Knowing very little in the beginning, he nevertheless spends the first chapters of the book bluffing his way through all of the encounters he finds himself in, learning a little more with each encounter.

All of this bluffing leads him to his sister, Evelyn (otherwise known as Flora), the first member of what he discovers is a very large family. Eric, one of his brothers (and there are quite a few), has been keeping him in the hospital, drugged.  Corwin sets out with another brother, Random, to make for the place called Amber and confront Eric.

Along the way, Corwin learns that Random can move through worlds. They start off on Earth—our Earth—but as they travel, Random adds and subtracts elements of the world around them until they are moving through lands much different from ours.

Eventually they meet resistance and then outright pursuit. After meeting up with Deirdre, another of his sisters (there are a few of those as well), Corwin comes clean about his amnesia. His siblings are suspicious—they are not a trusting family—but they tell Corwin that if he traverses something called the Pattern, he might be able to regain his memory. The true Pattern lies in the castle in Amber, but there is a reflection of it in the watery city of Rebma.

Together Corwin, Random and Deirdre fight their way to the city where they are given sanctuary and where Corwin takes a moment to hook up with the queen. Then he is allowed to walk the Pattern.

The Pattern is just that, a large pattern inscribed onto the floor, like a line maze or labyrinth—mostly curves, with a few straight lines toward the center. Only a member of the royal family of Amber can walk it and it is what gives them the ability to move through Shadow and travel across worlds. Because Amber is the one, true city and it casts infinite Shadows in all directions, worlds that are reflections of various fidelity.

Corwin walks the Pattern and regains his memory. He remembers being a prince in Amber and fighting with his brother Eric over the succession after their father, King Oberon, disappeared. Eric won and cast Corwin into our Earth during the Black Plague. Corwin survived the plague, though his memory didn’t. The rest of his time was spent on our Earth up until the accident that landed him in the hospital.

Once at the end of the Pattern, Corwin transports himself (another property of the device) straight to the castle in Amber. There he fights his brother, Eric, and wounds him, but Eric escapes and calls for help. Corwin is forced to call for help himself, using the Trumps—tarot cards with all of the family members upon them. By touching the cards and looking at them, communication is possible between members of the family as well as transport. Corwin seeks aid from his brother, Bleys, who brings him over to the Shadow he’s in. Bleys is building an army to assault Amber and take the throne from Eric. Corwin and Bleys decide to join forces and worry about the throne later.

Corwin sets about building his own army, finding a Shadow where the inhabitants are strong and regard him as a god. We learn that a son or daughter of Amber can seek anything in Shadow and find it.

After much time assembling their forces, Corwin and Bleys assault Amber, resisted by their other brothers who are allied with Eric (or with Amber, depending). Eric weilds a powerful artifact called the Jewel of Judgment which allows him control over the weather, wiping out Corwin and Bleys’ forces. During the battle, Bleys falls off a mountain, perhaps saved, perhaps not, by a set of Trumps that Corwin throws to him.

Corwin is eventually captured and forced to watch the coronation of Eric (who up until now had been regent). After bearing witness to this, Corwin’s eyes are burned out by hot pokers and he is thrown into the dungeons. But Corwin has uttered a curse upon Eric, another power that a son of Amber has.

In the dungeons he leads a miserable existence, blind, kept half-starving. Only some kindness from former friends serves as any respite, along with smuggled-in packages of wine and cigarettes.

But Amberites are strong and superhuman, and after years of imprisonment, Corwin’s eyes start to grow back. He starts to hatch a plan for escape, but before he can do so, he is discovered by Dworkin Barimen, a strange old hunchback who is the keeper of the Pattern and who designed the Trumps. He is clearly mad, kept locked up by Corwin’s father, but he can use the power of his drawings, like the Trumps, to travel. Corwin gets him to draw a nearby lighthouse and then, when Dworkin is gone, he uses it like a Trump and transports himself from the prison.

He spends some time with the lighthouse keeper, recuperating and resting before leaving. On his exit, he sees a dark road leading into Amber—the result of his curse—a doorway for dangerous creatures. As the novel ends, he sends a message to his brother, Eric, saying that he is coming for the throne.

Commentary: One of the amazing things about this novel is that it’s mostly set-up for what comes later. It’s certainly engaging and exciting, but it has very little to do with the storyline that becomes the focus of the next four books. What it does do is introduce us to Corwin, show us his family and their allegiances, and explains Amber, the Pattern, and the Trumps. All of these elements will be tweaked a bit in later books, but they’re established here for later use.

Also established are Corwin’s changed ways. We get to see a lot of the negative qualities of the Amberites—their pride, their cruelty—but we also see how Corwin has changed from his time on our Shadow Earth. He dissuades Random from killing the tanker driver on their ride through Shadow and he spares Julian when he can easily kill him. These incidences are partially explained by guile, but we start to get a picture of an Amberite marked with compassion.

The most troubling aspect to the novel, for me at least, is Zelazny’s treatment of women. A commenter on my previous post expressed puzzlement over the sexist label this, and the other novels, receive. The thing is that Zelazny doesn’t really give us any real women characters. It isn’t until the next book that we get our first attempt.

Consider, Corwin has four sisters, yet the novel is called “Nine Princes.” Of the sisters that we see, Flora is an opportunistic follower and Deirdre serves as a damsel in distress. None of them are given any role in the defense of Amber—the fighting is left to the men. Of the non-Amberite women, Moire serves as a conquest for Corwin and little more, despite her being the queen of her people. Even Corwin disregards his sisters, saying, “And what of my sisters? Forget it. Bitches all, they.” He may hate many of his brothers, but he also affords them more respect.

Please share your thoughts and commentary on the book in the comments. And check back for a post on the next book in the series, The Guns of Avalon.

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Rajan Khanna is a graduate of the 2008 Clarion West Writers Workshop and his fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Way of the Wizard, GUD, and Shimmer. He narrates stories for Podcastle and Starship Sofa. He blogs about beer, wine, and spirits.

I thought getting my Professor Layton vs Gyakuten Saiban review out on the net three days after the release was fast, but apparently, I can write/play games even faster. Hmm.

The legendary attorney Naruhodo/Phoenix Wright was disbarred eight years ago for a crime he didn't commit. He promptly escaped from maxi He passed some years as a poker player / pianist, but has now returned to the law world in Gyakuten Saiban 5 (to be released as Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies in the near future). And things have changed in eight years. Dark times are upon the legal world. The public has lost its trust in the legal system. Even attorneys and prosecutors themselves don't believe that justice is served in court anymore and feel forced to fabricate evidence themselves to ensure they reach their goals. Heck, things have gone so crazy that even prosecutors convicted for murder, can still stand in court and proceed their work! Naruhodo, backed up by his two subordinates Odoroki and Kokone, once agains stands in court to turn this grim situation around like he has done so many times in the past.

A new Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney game! Longtime readers know that I am a big fan of this courtroom drama game. I wrote my bachelor thesis based on the script of Gyakuten Saiban 3. I have discussed the game mechanics, the manga, the musical, the movie and spin-off titles like Gyakuten Kenji 2 and Professor Layton vs Gyakuten Saiban in the past on this blog. But a new title in the main series? It's been many years since Gyakuten Saiban 4, so I was very excited. Heck, I bought my Nintendo DS for the original Gyakuten Saiban, and my current Nintendo 3DS mostly for Gyakuten Saiban 5 (and Animal Crossing, of course).


As a detective game, I still think that the Gyakuten Saiban series is undefeated. There are many ways to translate detective fiction to a game, but the method original creator Takumi Shuu introduced in the world many years ago was just brilliant. The player had to find contradictions in testimonies in court, which in turn lead to new testimonies (with new contradictions), and it was by this process that the story progressed, because each new testimony brought you new information. What is so great about this system is, is that works as both a gameplay mechanic and detective fiction. A flawed detective game like Sherlock Holmes and the Silver Earring for example just forces you find a lot of evidence, and then suddenly everything is explained for you in a movie without any interaction. This might work in a book, but is boring as hell in a game. In the Gyakuten Saiban games however, every testimony gives you that distinct great feeling when you solve a mystery, and it makes you feel like a brilliant (but struggling) detective when you finally see the big picture of the case. Add in quirky humor, a great music and HOTBLOODED FINGERPOINTING, and there you have Gyakuten Saiban in a nutshell.

Last year's crossover title Professor Layton vs Gyakuten Saiban felt really fresh, because a slew of new mechanics and a unique world setting, brought us a new way to enjoy the courtroom. Witchcraft in a trial? This game made it work, and mechanics like mob testimonies kept the player on their toes. Gyakuten Saiban 5 however is set in the real world and does not differ in principle much from the previous games. Yes, there is that new mechanic based on psychology where you look for contradictions between a witness' testimony and his emotions, which actually works out quite well, but for some reason feels less 'organic' to the trial parts, than the magic tome and witchcraft rules in Professor Layton vs. Gyakuten Saiban. There is too much of a gap between parts where they keep hammering on the fact you need evidence in the court, and you then talk about how it is a contradiction that someone was feeling glad even though she should've been sad.


But more of the same of Gyakuten Saiban, is still quite good. There are some interesting cases to be solved here, including one that seems to be committed by a youkai (a supernatural being), for it was committed in a locked room where the seal on an ancient monster has been removed. Great stuff, as　the story 1) actually plays on the youkai boom in Japan that started several years ago, and 2) the theories and legends surrounding youkai are actually of vital importance to the plot, in a Kyougoku Natsuhiko way. Though I have to admit, the case also reminded me of a certain Mori Hiroshi story too. The case in the game is short, and you figure out who the murderer is quite fast, but the way the twists and turns are plotted, is very good.

Another case is set at a law high school with special attorney/prosecutor/judge classes. What makes this case so memorable is that it ties in well with the overall theme of the game, the so-called dark times of the law, without being too obvious so. The problem is addressed through the teaching goals of several teachers at the school (some think it' okay to forge evidence to get your client off the hook), but it never feels like they rubbing it your face. The case itself, where a teacher is killed in the same way as a mock trial scenario written by a student, is fun too, as it combines the school setting and the murder-according-to-a-scenario in an interesting way.


There are one or two instances, where events of an earlier case, are mirrored in a not-very-obvious way in later cases: this is excellent plotting: it shows that the writers didn't just brainstorm a couple of cases and stuck them together. The youkai case for example addresses issues which wll be of importance in the last case Naruhodo has to solve in this game, but it is luckily done subtle and shows how to do a proper storyline that consists of seperate, but related cases. In Gyakuten Kenji, this was done by tying up the storylines of the seperate cases through an overlapping entity, but I much more prefer this thematic mirroring done in Gyakuten Saiban 5. One problem however is that there were quite a few instances of cases in Gyakuten Saiban 5 mirroring events of earlier games: at some times does give the player a feeling of deja vu, because it is basically presenting the same case in a slightly different jacket. This is not foreshadowing or thematic mirroring, this is just reusing an old plot.

Oh, and this has always been a series that has its share of interesting murder settings, which include film studios, the prosecutor's office, courtrooms, an amusement park and an airplane, but even I was surprised they skipped 'water' and went straight for... outer space (in a way). Overall though, it does feel like Gyakuten Saiban 5 was made a bit 'safer' than spin-off title Gyakuten Kenji 2. The latter for example featured an Ellery Queen-like search in a prison and a much more tightely structured overall plotline. Gyakuten Saiban 5 is more or less what you'd expect, both in gameplay mechanics as in cases, and that is not a bad thing, but makes it hard to distinguish from other games in the series.


It's definitely not a perfect game though. It in fact suffers a bit from having too much legacy: the return of Naruhodo, the 'dark times of the law' and a bloated cast of returning characters in the final case which means nothing to someone who has never played a Gyakuten Saiban game before. It's not incomprehensible, but its hard to get into for a newcomer. Which is a shame, because it's one of the best detective games on the 3DS at the moment. Oh, and this has become a pet peeve of mine lately, but like in The Testament of Sherlock Holmes, this game has problems with presenting a coherent narration: the game keeps changing the point of view, going from this character to another. And at times, the character narrating (in the first person) isn't even the same as the character you're playing, mirroring the weird Watson/Holmes problem I encountered last week.

As someone who loves detecive fiction, would I recommend this game? Yes. And yes. The feeling you get when you slowly, but surely solve little contradictions in testimonies until you manage to turn things around in the courtroom, is something only this series can provide. There are some great cases in this game and thematic mirroring between cases is something what should be done more often in detective series. It is the fifth entry in a series though and builds upon that past, so you should play the previous games first.

As a Gyakuten Saiban fan, would I recommend this game? Yes. And yes. It feels at time very much as a reaction, to the (sometimes somewhat negative) reception of Gyakuten Saiban 4, but it does that mostly well, in my opinion. Music and animation are top-notch, the story addresses some serious themes that can be seen as a natural result of all the major cases Naruhodo has solved until now and there is quite a bit of fan service. It does give you a deju vu feeling at times though, and I don't think the way the new character Kokone is implemented in the story is correct (i.e. she comes off to me as a Mary Sue), but hey, it's a new Gyakuten Saiban 5 and we've all been waiting for this.

Original Japanese title(s): 　『逆転裁判５』. TBR as Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies

Me: I can’t use the photos you put into the word doc for your website. I need the original JPEGs

Client: I don’t understand. How did people put pictures on websites before computers and Internet?

Editor’s Note: I… what?

“I think that your graphic designer can make this ad looking much smoother if he pimps it with CorelDraw”

If your wish in life was for Beetlejuice to have a baby with Maniac Mansion, and for that baby to also be written by Neil Gaiman, then consider your wish officially granted. Because that baby will come into the world this fall as the new PC/Mac/tablet game Wayward Manor. You can hear Neil himself talk the game, which is being developed by The Odd Gentlemen, in the video after the jump.

Continue reading…

scottlava:

I am very excited to share some news with you!

There is a brand new picture book to be released on September 3rd called If Dogs Run Free with words by the very legendary Bob Dylan and pictures by ME (Scott Campbell) from Simon & Schuster.

And ALSO to celebrate there will be a….

Book Release/Art Exhibition at Gallery Nucleus on August 24th!

Happy Friday, everyone.

hooray!!

The Survey Corps in the anime Attack On Titan may ride horses, but fans can now ride their bike representing their fandom as Good Smile Company has added the popular anime to their Cycling Gear series and details are now posted.

 

 

To promote the upcoming August 31st release of the new “Anohana” movie, transportation company Seibu Railway is currently operating a train decorated with characters from the anime.

 

 

During the promotional period, images and artwork from “Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day”, a dramatic coming-of-age story about a group of six young friends, can be seen in Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture, the setting of the anime series and one of Seibu Railway’s locales. A train decorated both inside and out with “Anohana” artwork is running on the entire Seibu Line, and posters from the anime are placed in every station on the train line. In addition, the digital signs at Takadanobaba Station, a stop on the Seibu Shinjuku Line, are also displaying “Anohana” artwork.

 

The decorated “Anohana” train will run every day until at least September 30th.

Links:
Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day
Seibu Railway

 

Source: YATTAR JAPAN

Kinja user David Pickett claims the Spider-man vs Doctor Ock short below is technically one of the best Lego stop-motion animations ever, probably tied with the one above—Star Wars: The Han Solo Affair. But there are many more, including the ones in our old Lego animation contest. What's your favorite Lego stop-motion?

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There’s a kind of meme going around right now with regard to Pacific Rim that really gets up my nose: that Pacific Rim is a “dumb movie.” As in, a friend recently asked on Facebook if anyone had seen it, and amongst the responses was a comment along the lines of, “It was a dumb movie, but I really liked it.” Even Chris Lough here at Tor has described it as “an exceptionally loud, kind of dumb action movie that focuses on being really good as an exceptionally loud, kind of dumb action movie.”

Respectfully, I would like to disagree. Or at least, insist that we stop using the word dumb. Simple? Sure. Uncomplicated? Absolutely. Spectacular, in the truest sense of the word? Hell yes. But none of these things are dumb.

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You want to know what’s a dumb movie? The Transformers movies are dumb movies. Each one is a repellent, overloaded spectacle trying to cluster-bomb every conceivable market quadrant with hyperviolent action scenes, decorative girls, scatological jokes, the occasional dollop of racism, and intense military fetishism, all the while exhibiting the most staggering contempt for its audience that I’ve ever seen. Cowboys and Aliens, bless it, is a dumb movie—it takes what should have been some good campy genre-blending fun and turns it into an impossible-to-follow, po-faced melodrama. These are dumb movies, and if you insist on filing Pacific Rim alongside the likes of that, I will fight you.

And I’m not saying Pacific Rim is an intellectual masterpiece on the order of Tarkovsky’s Stalker either. Let’s face it: some of the dialogue falls flat; the characters are often more like Characters In a Movie rather than well-rounded people; and Charlie Hunnam was not, for me, the most charismatic of leading men. But these things do not a “dumb movie” make.

When people say that Pacific Rim is a “dumb movie,” what exactly do they mean? Is it code for “I liked a movie about mechas fighting monsters, but I’m kind of embarrassed about it, so I’ll say it’s dumb to prove that I’m smart”? Is it a reaction to the fact that the plot wasn’t some convoluted mess that you had to “figure out” á la Inception or the later Matrix movies? Is it discomfort with the absence of an Important Life Lesson neatly spelled out over the closing credits? Is it just that it wasn’t dark enough? It’s probably one or more of all of the above.

To the embarrassed, I say this: come on. You propelled The Avengers to the top of the box office charts, and that’s a movie about superteam that includes the following: a guy who flies around in a mechanical suit, a super-soldier from the 1940s, a Norse god, a dude who turns big and green when he gets angry, a spy who can springboard-vault onto a moving space scooter, and an archer who fights aliens with trick arrows.

Let’s go back even further and peel off the gloss of nostalgia that covers those glorious touchstones of our youth. Star Wars? You have a boy named Luke Skywalker fighting an evil galactic empire, and the main bad guy—toweringly huge, clad entirely in black, and with a name that screams “villain”—is practically a caricature of movie evil. Raiders of the Lost Ark? The hero is trying to stop Nazis from stealing the Ark of the Covenant and the hero’s name is Indiana Jones. If you have a problem with a name like “Stacker Pentecost” and not with that, I can’t help you.

Point being, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. And yes, the plot of Pacific Rim is the simplest thing in the world—alien monsters from another dimension want to kill us all, and our heroes are going to stop it—but Star Wars and Raiders aren’t significantly more complex either. There’s been this tendency in genre film of late to layer plot upon plot, twist upon twist, in pursuit of a complexity that is unfortunately not synonymous with intelligent filmmaking. Take Cowboys and Aliens, maligned above—what ought to be a fairly straightforward Man With No Name sort of story turns into a messy affair with aliens in pursuit of gold for reasons that are never entirely clear, and I still have no idea what the ruined steamboat was doing there.

Over the years, audiences have been trained to believe that significance and maturity in genre filmmaking is equivalent to the darkness and grittiness therein. With Watchmen, Sucker Punch, and now Man of Steel, Zac Snyder is becoming the king of this trope; Star Trek: Into Darkness is similarly troublesome. And even though Iron Man 3 comes by its darkness honestly, it does contribute, however unwittingly, to the misperception that Dark = Serious. This has happened in comics, too—Warren Ellis memorably spoofed this tendency in issue #7 of Planetary, “To Be in England, In the Summertime.” This send-up of the Vertigo golden age and the Frank Miller-ization of superhero comics featured a washed-up superhero who wails, “I should have been noble! Clean! Single! I didn’t want to wake up in Soho with twelve valiumed-up Thai rentboys and terrible stains on my tights!”

There’s no cynical, gratuitous grimness or ugliness in Pacific Rim. True, the scale of the destruction, when you think about it, dwarfs the much-decried ruination of Metropolis in Man of Steel, but the movie makes a point of showing Stacker ordering the evacuation of Hong Kong and of showing people retreating to shelters, and when Raleigh and Mako take Gipsy Danger through the streets in pursuit of the kaiju, they step neatly over an elevated walkway rather than barging right through it. It’s a small gesture, but a telling one.

Pacific Rim, for all the visceral excitement of titans in fistfights, is at its heart a sweetly optimistic film about heroism in the face of near-certain defeat, and about overcoming one’s demons not through solitary angst and lonely self-sacrifice, but through loving and caring for one another. No one actually spells this out in small words, but it’s there in Mako’s defeat of her childhood trauma in slaying a kaiju with a giant sword that Raleigh didn’t know their Jaeger had. It’s there in the way that Raleigh saving Mako’s life is personal redemption for his inability to save his brother. It’s in Striker Eureka’s last stand at the Breach, when Chuck overcomes his egocentric hunger for glory and Stacker makes the ultimate sacrifice for his adopted daughter. It’s even there in Geiszler and Gottlieb overcoming their rivalry to enter the Drift with the kaiju brain.

All this and I haven’t even gotten to the exquisite visual storytelling at work, of which Guillermo del Toro is one of our contemporary masters. Visual storytelling of all kinds gets a bad rap; comics aren’t “real books,” and Pacific Rim is derided as “spectacle.” But is that really a terrible thing, especially in a movie, which is a visual medium before it’s anything else? There’s a moment in the Hong Kong battle where Gipsy Danger pauses in front of an enormous glass skyscraper, in which are reflected blue neon lights from another building across the way, and on my second viewing I realized that it tied directly to the glowing blue stripes on the kaiju that comes bursting out of the skyscraper seconds later. Details like that don’t happen in dumb movies. And for more on this, allow me to direct you to Sam Keeper’s “The Visual Intelligence of Pacific Rim,” because almost anything I could say on this subject, he’s done very well in his post. And as you can see, I’m absolutely in agreement with Sam when he writes:

We have reached a point, and really let this one sink in because it gets more flooring the more you think about it, where it’s more radical and unacceptable to say, ‘Humans can accomplish amazing things when we set aside our differences and disagreements and work together to make the world a better place,’ than to say something sour and bitter and cynical.

As thrilling as the kaiju fights are, the greatest pleasures of Pacific Rim are, dare I say, simple, old-fashioned, and humane. A lot of people don’t seem to know how to deal with this anymore, or accept it without irony. But spend a little time on the #pacific rim tag on Tumblr, and you’ll find a multitude of fans who have been touched by it, deeply and profoundly moved by it; not just by the main characters, but by the simplest gestures of the “background” characters as well—the Kaidanovskys have a big following all their own, and it’s completely adorable. Del Toro has created a world that fans have moved into wholesale, loving every bit of it and wanting more. And that’s something a genuinely “dumb” movie could never accomplish.

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Karin Kross lives and writes in Austin, TX. She can be found elsewhere on Tumblr and Twitter.

Wonder Festival is in full swing at last! We'll have lots of news from Kristina as she'll actually be there. For now, though, you can take a look at all the goodies at Good Smile Company's booth thanks to Mamitan!

Shingeki no Kyojin fans should get excited as there are several major announcements for that license. You'll also see Madoka Magica, Monogatari, and Gargantia on the Vedurous Planet figures. Click through for more info!

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Your eyes do not deceive you: Nendoroid Luigi and Wind Waker Link art is in that header image. They're coming. We have no other info at this time, but Link should have been obvious: I mentioned it was the most likely non-Mario Nintendo Nendoroid in a feature I wrote in May.

As for why not Mario first? It truly must be the Year of Luigi ... or at least the year of the New Super Luigi U tie-ins.

[via AkibaHobby]

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Cast, staff from Banpresto/Toei collaborative project return for 13-episode series

Dear Prudence, 18 July 2013:

Dear Prudence, A few days ago I caught my Muslim co-worker sneaking some bites of an orange. Our company and our client are very accepting of the fact that it is Ramadan and have made accommodations to help him out. I don’t know how the client will react if they ever found out that he’s not sticking with the Ramadan fast. Since this client represents our largest billings, we can’t afford to lose them. Should I mention it to my company or ignore it? On top of this, some co-workers are resentful that he gets to take it easy for a month.— Don’t Want to Get Anyone Fired

Dear Don’t Want to Get Anyone Fired,

I don’t know what “accommodations” your company has made for this guy, but this is the United States of Amerifuckingca, and if the guy still has a damned job after having the gall to not go out to lunch with his cubicle buddies for a whole month because something something shabat shalom, I think we can call that more than generous, don’t you?

Nobody wants to get anyone fired, here, but let’s be honest: how is your company’s performance supposed to not suffer while you’re forced to police this man’s personal religious practices for him because he can’t observe his own fast thingymadooger like any normal grown-ass sole Muslim employee at a firm being closely observed by coworkers driven exclusively by a sense of altruism and honor?  

Here you and your buddies are, stuck drinking the same old office coffee and eating the same old T.G.I. Friday’s Pick 2 for $10 menu at lunch and hitting up the same old Patty McShea’s for six pints of boring old Guinness at happy hour, and your coworker is living it the fuck up sneaking oranges from his desk drawer all month like he’s some kind of tribal chief duder person or whatever they have in Japan or wherever it is this guy is originally from, I mean seriously.

Absolutely mention your coworker’s religious failings to your boss, documented in detail to show how much of your work day you’ve had to dedicate to tracking this guy’s calorie intake. I am sure your boss will not hesitate to fire someone under these circumstances.

On the Saturday night of Con I was walking back from the Hilton Bayfront to the Manchester Grand Hyatt and happened upon the end of a line of campers. While once the madness of Hall H—where the biggest show biz spectacles are held—fell poignantly silent on Sunday, now it was a titanic blockbuster—Sunday’s line-up included the final appearance of Breaking Bad, the final appearance of Matt Smith as Doctor Who and the appearance of Supernatural in the fulsomeness of its midlife.

I hadn’t taken this particular route at night before, and so was stunned to see the size of the tent city of overnight campers for the Hall H activities the next day. It extended as far as the eye could see, halfway down the marina. People were lounging on concrete walls, some as well prepared as Edmund Hillary with sleeping bags, pillows, Nooks, and snacks. Some were just winging it, clad in jeans and shirts, Con badges hanging around their necks. It was only midnight and they had six hours on the chilly concrete to go, only their thoughts and their linemates to see them through the darkest hours.

As I like to do, I struck up a conversation with the fellow at the end of the line. I wish I’d grabbed his name, as he wasn’t what I was expecting—a 17-year-con going veteran who had a clear-eyed view of what he was doing and why. Let’s call him Bill. He explained that he was there for all of the Hall H activities the next day. Despite being camped out 12 hours ahead of time, he wasn’t even certain that he would get in to Hall H although based on where he’d camped last year it was looking good.

“Why camp out, though?” I asked.

“It’s how it is,” he replied. “Twilight ruined Comic-Con.”

Of course, that ruffled my feathers, as this seems to have become the watchword of the anti “geek girl” faction at Con. “Hey they’re fans too!” I protested.

“That’s not what I mean,” Bill explained. “They were the first ones who were so rabid you had to camp out. Before you might have to wait but it wasn’t this crazy. Now everyone is afraid of missing out, so they line up as early as they can.”

“But if it wasn’t Twilight, it would have been Doctor Who,” I offered.

“But if it wasn’t for Twilight they wouldn’t have brought Doctor Who to Comic-Con,” he countered.

At this I just sighed. For the first time, I began to understand why so many protested Twilight—it wasn’t just the demographics of the fandom but the rabid devotion to the source material that had made the lines longer and earlier, a fandom so devoted that last year a woman died for it.

Just at this moment, a security guard came up and announced that a line move was under way. Backpacks and gear were shouldered, and the Army of the North was on the march. I tried to keep up with my new friends but they were a fast moving, though orderly bunch. On we went past Min Rimmon and Eisenach, otherwise known as the special services VIP tent behind Hall H, the Pirate ship—”I heard it was a disappointment,” one woman scoffed—past the TV Guide Yacht and the Freeman portal, halfway to the Marriott, where finally this section of the line settled in for the long night of waiting.

“This looks good, I think we’ll get in,” said Bill, getting out his sleeping bag. I looked at the hundreds or possibly thousands of people out on the concrete and imagined them all waking groggy in the dawn to file in to Hall H, unshowered, brushing of the teeth maybe a finger and toothpaste or some Dentyne. Many people at the Con had mentioned to me that the bathrooms of Hall H are a horrible mess by the end of the day and given the outdoorsy nature of the inhabitants, I could understand why.

“So tomorrow Hall H will be full of 6000 unshowered people?”I asked Bill.

“No, there’s a lot of line waiters here,” he said.

“Isn’t that against the rules?”

“It is but we all do it. I have a wife and two kids, but I wouldn’t want them to go through this.”

Some generations of men brought home the bacon for their families, others fought wars to keep them safe. And now they hold their spot in the Hall H line.

I may be thick, but I finally was getting it. This wasn’t about celebrities. It was about adventure. It was about a shared experience. As I left he line I chatted up the security guard tasked to keep watch over the end of it. He had a smile on his face at the ludicrous nature of what was happening. “These people are crazy?” I suggested. “No argument with that,” he laughed. “Job security for me.”

As I left the eerily quiet line, I wondered again, could Hall H possibly be worth it? When you can read it live tweeted and reblogged and even on video much of the time?

I haven’t been into Hall H since the year of Scott Pilgrim. The year after that I got to moderate a panel in the big Indigo Ballroom—the Legendary comics panel of 2011. And here’s what I can tell you: the presentations in the big rooms are getting more and more theatrical. Producers and performers know that they are on stage and aim to present something that is live and in person that no one will forget.

Marvel—who else—has become a master of this. In 2013 it was Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Let’s think about this for a moment. Did Hiddleston just happen to have his Loki costume in his bag and decide it would be fun to come out? Even though the fast paced, chaotic nature of Con makes everything seem spontaneous, obviously it was all planned well in advance. Whoever did it, knew what they were doing. (When I moderated the Legendary panel we had a meeting, a pre-meeting meeting, and I think a pre-meeting pre-meeting.) Likewise Andrew Garfield and his Spidey costume, and Bryan Cranston and his Heisenberg mask. I dunno if actors now get a “comic-con promotion clause” in their contracts, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

From what I’ve heard and read, Hall H/Ballroom 20 and the Indigo Ballroom are not natural environments for many actors. Appearing in front of 6000 people is a bigger crowd than they might ever have been in front of, (the theater where the Oscars are held holds only 3,401 people.) It’s clear the stakes of the big panels have been drilled into them all.

But reading the details of the stars’ interactions and outbursts, you can see why Being There is still something that can never be replicated. For instance, the ultra-star studded debut of the X-Men Days of Future Past cast, with multiple Oscar winning and nominated actors. And this when Hugh Jackman—who is absolutely without question one of the most charismatic and obliging stars around—was asked, as he always is, if Wolverine would ever sing:

After the cheering died down, he sang, “I’m gonna slice her! I’m gonna dice her!” to wild applause.

Who wouldn’t want to be there for that? Or to be with 6500 of your fellow Game of Thrones fans to see the “Boys 2 Men” tribute video for the first time?

Or to see nearly the entire Dexter cast—even those long dead—together live one more time?

I mean, it’s obvious. This is the crowning moment of fandom. It’s fellowship with your peers and the dreammakers themselves.

Now, I do believe, as someone who is, as Jonathan Ross said of Neil Gaiman, “comics through and through,” that it is far better to walk up to Chris Claremont, or Len Wein or Herb Trimpe or even John Byrne or Scott Lobdell—let alone Mike Mignola, Geoff Darrow, Jill Thompson or any other IP mastermind— and be able to have a civil, one on one conversation with them, perhaps buy them a drink in the bar later. A true experience. At this year’s Comic-Con you could have met Kazuo Koike or Dave McKean or Bob Burden or Steven Grant. You could meet just about anyone who ever cerated something a comic book movie was based on who is still alive except Neil Gaiman or Mark Millar, who have different levels of access. But yeah, accessibility. We have it. Hall H-ers don’t…unless they get into Hall H.

So yeah, I get it. It’s important for those of us who are jaded by experience and access not to shit on the lawns of those who are just trying to have an adventure.

I don’t think Bill is right. I think even if Twilight hadn’t ratcheted up the stakes, some other property would have. And I don’t think the lines will ever get shorter.

(BTW I know the above is old news to those who go to Comic-Con for Hall H, but I am writing from he perspective of one who remembers the COMIC in Comic-Con.)

I formulated a few other theories about “Who attends Comic-Con?” and I came up with a few broad categories:

* Hall H-ers—fans of the material who are looking to get as close as they can. At the high end they may crash a party or know someone who can get them in.

* Tchtchke Fanatics—I know these folks cross over with the above, but I got the feeling that they were what Hall H-ers become when they get too old to sleep on cold concrete for three nights. Standing in line hours for a poster or a poster tube. Bitching when they aren’t as good as last year. They spend their time on the con floor.

* Collectors—these people are the lifeblood of Comic-Con as far as the original comics folks go. SDCC is still the greatest marketplace of the year for toys, prints and limited edition comics. People line up to buy them and to see their favorite artists. (Sunday, I saw Brit chat show icon Jonathan Ross, unmolested on Sunday in Eton red trousers, standing at an art dealers going over the choicest offerings.) These people are into pop culture on an artistic level and are interested in comics…or maybe comics are their primary interest. These guys are A-okay and spend a ton of money and make Comic-Con okay for the rest of us. And shopping is a key Comic-Con experience—the last hour of the show on Sunday was a frantic scramble and the show floor was packed well after the 5 pm deadline.

* Cosplayers. Might be any of the above groups when not in war paint. Noticeably fewer this year, alas.

• Lookie-loos and douchebags—locals without badges and Hollywood types who come down to party or hang out and get autographs. Kind of part of the same eco-system , DNA wise.

Of the above groups, I think the first two are the most motivated to attend Comic-Con. I hate to say it but Hall H seems to be a life-changing experience for a lot of people. Although I’ve seen reports on this year’s Con that sales were good, and business was booming, I think that’s a far more problematic statement than in past years. Yes, Top Shelf sold more copies of Rep. John Lewis’s memoir March than any book they ever brought to Comic-Con before. Yes IDW sold out of everything. Yes, Fanta sold out and D&Q had strong sales. But elsewhere I heard too many times that crowds were smaller and sales were down. A lot of people mentioned that panels were not jammed, even for Marvel or DC. Whether it was just people stuck in lines for poster tubes, or people outside visiting the interactive Adult Swim house of horrors, these people were not on the show floor. The video game pavilion was moved to Hall A to improve traffic flow but I think people know what they want and know where to go to get it. I think it’s just harder for comics fans to get in to Comic-Con any more, and many have just given up trying.

There was a lot of talk from different parts of the floor about the low traffic. I think there were lots of collectors who were willing to pay for the new offerings like March and get it signed by a legend alike Lewis, but the casual con goer is not at the show any more.

Comics aren’t leaving Comic-Con of course. but their presentation will continue to evolve. That’s proven by all the companies that made their announcements ahead of con like Image and Dynamite, as well. It isn’t a PR lollapalooza for everyone, not when Hugh Jackman is crooning and Loki is declaiming.

One thing that did cross my mind though: the long planned for expansion of the convention center just means that instead of having 130,000 people standing in line for poster tubes it will have 160,000 people standing in line for posters tubes. The con will still sell out in minutes, thousands will still sleep out for Hall H. It will allow more exhibit space and net the show more money and that is a good thing, however, there aren’t any attendee “problems” that will be solved by it. When you consider that the price of the expansion is the charming wasteland at the back of the Hilton Bayfront, it seems a high cost, but so it goes.

A few more observations:

OFFSITES: Offsites have of course been getting bigger and bigger over the last few years. I didn’t get to go to all of them this year, but the ones I did see were genuinely impressive. I’ve written about the Godzilla Experience—an interview with the head designer Barnaby Legg reveals that it took between 50 and 100 people to set up (and I heard elsewhere it took three weeks). For all that effort, you couldn’t help but think it was the dry run for a Universal ride, esp. since Legendary Pictures is now set up at Universal.

Barnaby the experience guy, is probably as key a person at Comic-Con as any. As he told me, “I’ve done several experiences,” while remaining coy about them. I’d be very interested in following an “experience” from brainstorm to execution if any PR people out there want to make that story happen.

I never got to see the Vikings but the Teen Titans balloons from Warner Bros. impressed me as did the Lego hobbits. Last year’s Warner’s area outside the Hilton was kind of gloomy and Batmanesque; this was more life affirming and I liked it. Sadly the grassy knoll where this display is set up will fall prey to the planned convention center expansion so next year it will all be a memory.

I do think there were more people than ever at Comic-Con for several reasons. At the end of each day, the townies looked wan and sweaty, that glossy look that only the truly exhausted can achieve. And on Sunday I did the same thing I’ve done every Sunday at con for the last 10 years or so–had dinner in the Gaslamp and walked to Bob Chapman’s Dead Dog party. But never before on this journey did I have a packed restaurant or did I see people with their badges on staggering down the street at 9 pm on a Sunday. Con had come to stay.

NERD HQ: One thing that did impress me this year was Nerd HQ, the minicon organized by Chuck star Zack Levi. It’s gradually been creeping closer and closer to the con itself —this year it was held in Petco Park, and it offered interactive areas for sponsors like cars and drinks, a FREE lounge where you could see, in the hour I was there, the director and minor cast members of Kick-Ass 2, and a ticketed room to see stars like Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, Evangeline Lilly and again in the hour I was there, True Blood/Magic Mike’s Joe Manganiello. Holy shit, that guy is hot. Of Nerd HQ I can only say that it seemed quite chill. (I was there late in the day, however.) Drinks were ballpark prices—$9.50 for a beer—so no one was hanging out to get drunk, and most importantly…everyone had a ticket. Selling tickets to individual Nerd HQ events remains as much of a meltdown as Comic-Con badges itself, so it’s actually a lottery, but the fact that everyone who was going knew they were going without additional lines or anxieties created a relatively mellow vibe very different from other parts of the show. The zen of the attendees was not achieved by the PR people, who seemed totally exhausted with the glassy look alluded to above. Maybe I just arrived at a slow moment, but it seemed like a pretty good time.

TR!CKSTER: and here is where my tale becomes sad. Each year Nerd HQ gets closer and closer to the con. Each year Tr!ckster, the indie comics pavilion, gets farther and farther away. Although some people told me it was just fine this year, several people I talked to mentioned sparse crowds and a listless environment. Also, I was told by several credible sources that Tr!ckster and the Con don’t exactly get along, and that’s part of the reason why it keeps getting less and less desirable locations. I think Comic-Con badly needs a “SlamCon” that is comics and not a fun time for nerdlebrities who can’t get into the EW party. Tr!ckster this year did minimal PR and seemed to be coasting on previous goodwill, not a good combination. Don’t get me wrong, I want it to succeed, but the first two years it was the go to place, this time it wasn’t.

THE OLD CON’S COELACANTH: Now here is an oddity. For those of you who want to go back to con the way it was, the good old days, there is a living fossil right on the con floor, which I hadn’t really noticed before. The area around the DC booth is known as Old Con—mostly publishers and self-publishers of the Spirits era—people drop out but only upon death or retirement and its been mostly the same folks for many many years. There’s the DC booth and next to it Slave Labor in a prime spot they’ve held for 20 years, back when Comic-Con was all about comics. Dan Vado may not be publishing many comics these days but he runs a local bookstore and he knows that giving up this spot would be deadly.

But there across the hall lies the living throwback, the New England Comics booth. On set-up night I was standing with a few people chatting near the DC booth, and without the rush of the fans it was evident just what a throwback the NEC booth is. Indeed, it IS the exact same booth that was set up 15 years ago or so. Talking to a booth worker it was explained that the booth is stored locally in San Diego and brought out, in the fashion of a box of Christmas ornaments, every year. Breakage will inevitably cause some freshening up of the Christmas tree and perhaps New England Comics should take a cue from it. They’ve been offered money to give up their booth—and after talking to a few people, a rumor emerged that it’s considered an “eye sore”. Which it is. Why on earth would you hold one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in the biggest pop culture event of the year and resist updating or improving it? It was the 25th anniversary of The Tick, the only comic anyone has ever heard of that NEC published, and even with this marquee event, the booth remained unupdated except for an out of date QR code on a sign that looked 15 years old. It is a puzzlement.

BAR-CON: I stayed at the Hyatt this year which I was dreading but I though at least I’d be in the bar every night with pals. To my surprise the hotel rooms were the highlight—great update!—but the bar kinda sucked. (Okay I saw a bunch of people I adore there every night, so it wasn’t a total loss.) After years of people saying they didn’t want to hang out at the Hyatt, they actually did it. The Hilton Bayfront was the new bar of choice for most folks, but the one night I hung out there (the one night that the Hyatt was the highlight, natch) it was marred by horrible loud music to make people drink more and ghastly prices. Don’t get me wrong, next year I’ll pitch a tent there, but there was no there there for BarCon this year.

Thursday’s Scholastic and CBLDF parties were the only times that I saw a lot of comics people in that crazy “ohmigod you’re here!” way. They were great bashes, as always. I somehow got invited to the Kick-Ass 2/Playboy party and it was pretty wild and decadent and fun, and I got to hang out with Rob Liefeld there, but I missed my comic-con buddies there, even with all the incredibly strong top shelf drinks.

OKEE DOKE there is a lot more I could say about Marvel and DC and retailers and tea and panels and blah blah, but I’ve made my 4000 word minimum. I want to give a HUGE HUGE SHOUT OUT to sometimes Beat writer

Kate Fitzsimons

who produced the PW Comics World podcast while Calvin and I were on the road, and most importantly, packed four individual bags of trail mix for the con. I cannot tell you how many times racing here or there I reached into these bags and didn’t collapse in hunger and low blood sugar. They were literal lifesavers, and Kate saved my con.

Also, wow what can you say about

Steve Morris

OHMIGOD, Steve did a better job running the news during con than I ever did. This guy is a star people. Someone HIRE THIS MAN.

Also, the Beat’s writing crew—Henry Barajas, Bob Calhoun, Bruce Lidl, Shannon O’Leary, Carolina Cooksey, Nicholas Estey, Dave Nieves, Benjamin Villarreal, and the wonderful photographer Megan Byrd—did an amazing job. Seriously, I could not have asked for a better crew, and you’ll (i hope) be seeing more of them here and elsewhere.

Thanks to Ben, Mike Geszel, Christiana, Zena, Neal Pozner, Josh Frankel, Calvin and Jody, Alexa, Tom Spurgeon for moderating the blogging panel, Graeme and Albert, all the great folks on my Library panel, Chip, Alex, and the Comic-Con staffers David Glanzer, Eddie Ibrahim and Karen Mayugba. All of these people helped out endlessly and I am extremely, incredibly grateful for their help and generosity.

A couple of links and we’re out:

Rob Salkowicz, who wrote the book on Comic-Con, thinks it jumped the Sharknado this year.

Maybe I am jaded, but much of Comic-Con 2013 seemed like, at best, an incremental step forward from 2011 and 2012.  Having maxed out the carrying capacity of both the Convention Center and the Gaslamp District, Comic-Con no longer has room to grow exponentially in scale; it can only grow in intensity, like the contents of a pressure cooker.  And I’m not sure it did this year.

Things I heard comic-con compared to: a yearly wedding, the Superbowl ads, and my own image: a video game.

I’ll leave the final final word to Tony Isabella, who returned to Comic-Con after a decade and had the time of his life. Because that’s what you do or try to do.

I cannot and will not speak to the business end of Comic-Con.  It’s not my area of expertise.  Just as a rule of thumb, I’m sure there will always be room for improvement in Comic-Con…just as there is room for improvement in, well, everything else. 

However, speaking as a guest and a fan myself, I loved Comic-Con so much that we should probably get a room.  I saw the con through the eyes of my loved ones and those eyes were ridiculously wide with astonishment and excitement.  Mine were, too.

And so say we all.

Just when I think I've seen all that you can do with LEGO bricks, something like this comes along. Here is an entire castle built and assembled from over 20,000 pieces. Called Steam Castle Falls, this was shown as a diorama at the Fana' Briques expo in Rosheim, France. 

Made by Arnaud Besson, Olivier Curto, and Jimmy Fortel, it took each builder over four months to make this. There's just so much detail to this, you have to take time to notice it all. There's a hot air ballon, a moat, cannons, elevators, trees, so much! Steam Castle Falls looks like a high adventure play land, I bet everyone would want a castle like this to build. 

[via The Brothers Brick]

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Kick-Ass 2 may be about normal people becoming superheroes, but the idea was taken to a whole new level at San Diego Comic-Con last Friday. A planned stunt to promote Kick-Ass 2 during a San Diego Comic-Con related party turned into a real-life emergency situation when the hired stuntmen (from the aptly named Stunts 911) were preparing to light one of their number on fire in promotion of the new film, but witnessed a women in a nearby building preparing to jump from her balcony.

Abandoning the fire stunt, Gregg Sergeant, Scott Schecter, and Amus Carver headed towards the building’s locked security office, and then quickly changed tactics, jumping over the building’s fence and receiving help from security guards in the building to reach the woman. The three stunt men rushed through the unlocked door of the apartment and successfully snuck out onto the balcony. Once outside, they wasted no time in attaching a harness to the woman’s torso and in pulling her over the balcony railing and away from harm, to cheers from onlookers below.

According to Sergeant, a professional stunt coordinator, the woman ”seemed like she was very drunk. She was crying and hysterical.” Fortunately, the Stunts 911 employees not only had a harness for the fire-filled Kick-Ass 2 stunt, set 30 feet in the air, but had experience with such dangerous situations. Police Lt. Kevin Mayer, of the San Diego Police Department talked to the San Diego Union Tribune about the dangers of the situation, highlighting that had the rescuers not been stuntman, the close call could have ended differently.

They were the perfect guys to be there at that time…It was very dangerous. I’ve seen attempted suicides when someone grabs them and is pulled over.

Police arrived soon after the stuntmen took action, and no one was hurt in the incident. When asked if he and his colleagues felt like real life superheroes, along the lines of the vigilante superheroes in Kick-Ass, Sergeant simply replied that such dangerous situations are part of the everyday job of a stuntman, and that,

When police came, we left. Everybody’s OK — that’s the important thing.

The woman in question, who has remained nameless, has been hospitalized, and none of the stuntmen or spectators were hurt. Fans expecting to see the Kick-Ass 2 stunt quickly went from believing the woman on the balcony was part of the event to urging her not to jump from the 14 story high ledge, and some recorded the event, which can be seen at Yahoo! Movies.

(via Yahoo! Movies, San Diego Union Tribune, image via Stunts 911)

Previously in San Diego Comic-Con

• Comic-Con: While You Were Sleeping, Day 4
• Comic-Con: While You Were Sleeping, Day 3
• Comic-Con: While You Were Sleeping, Day 2
• Comic-Con: While You Were Sleeping, Day 1

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If you were thinking about donating some money to help Spike Lee get back on his feet, maybe think twice: this guy just raised over $120,000 to make a game, and then just walked away with all the money. Contrary to what The Crowd Economy preaches, strangers can still screw you.

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by Bruce Lidl

 

If nobody cares about DRM on digital comics, why does everybody keep bringing it up?

San Diego 2013 was unquestionably a triumph for digital comics heavyweight comiXology, with a stream of announcements of new initiatives and new partnerships. Chip Mosher may have been one of the busiest men at the Con this year, pumping out press releases right and left. Currently, comiXology stands with seemingly no credible comics-focused competitors any longer.

Nonetheless, there was one issue that seemed to continually vex the comiXology spokespeople, as CEO David Steinberger and co-founder John D. Roberts found themselves having to answer the dreaded “DRM question” at all of the many panels I saw them speak at. To their visible frustration, Steinberger and Roberts repeated the comiXology case for Digital Rights Management on digital comics. According to them, DRM is not only still needed, but is in fact a “value add,” by helping them create a compelling experience for their customers. The current comiXology system underscores their “cloud” philosophy of buying comics, that allows readers access to their entire collection from any approved device that can connect online. A “seamless experience,” that avoids any “frustrating” or “complicated” need for readers to manage their own files, or to deal with what Roberts referred to as a “pile of hard drives” in order to have a digital comic library. Steinberger was particularly dismissive of the critics of DRM, characterizing them as a “tiny minority” of “tech-enthusiasts” whose outspokenness and passion on the subject does not accurately reflect its real relevance.

Unquestionably, though, the recent announcement by Image comics that they would be offering some future digital comics for sale without DRM has brought the topic to fore again. Every publisher I spoke to at the Con expressed real surprise about what Image was doing. Topher Alford from Dark Horse told me his first thought when he heard about Image’s DRM decision was simply “crazy,” and that he was still trying to process it. Chris Ross from Top Shelf had a different perspective, as he reminded me that Top Shelf had released their own title Double Barrel without DRM back in January, expecting it to cause a lot of discussion, but that never really materialized.

Everybody is definitely keeping an eye on what Image is doing, but Ron Richards, Image’s Director of Business Development, did not see the DRM issue in black and white. For him, providing DRM-free comic purchases was mostly about “total choice” as Image will continue to work with protected formats on iBooks, Google Books, Amazon, Nook and comiXology. DRM-free is just another option for those customers who do demand full control over their purchases. According to Richards, the feedback has been great “from both customers and creators” and he is bullish on digital going forward, predicting that revenue from that sector will rise from 12% of Image in 2012 to 15% in 2013, while not “cannibalizing” print sales. And he’s excited about the trend of digital first publications coming to print, especially as it gives fans a special or archival book that can fulfill the, often important, role of “fetish object” for fans.

Richards and Image are unmoved by the traditional argument of publishers that without DRM, digital purchases will be pirated all too easily, ultimately reducing revenue. There are, of course, even more outspoken voices denying the impact of comics piracy, like Mark Waid, who has maintained consistently that DRM is essentially pointless, and he in fact ended his participation on the Digital versus Print panel by yelling “Viva piracy!” But Waid is not the only lauded creator to question the logic of DRM schemes in San Diego. Ironically, it was the Eisner Award winning Becky Cloonan who revealed at the comiXology Submit panel that her digital comics only started appearing on piracy sites after they were published in a protected form by comiXology. Since she really considers digital comics, even her critically acclaimed Ink and Thunder line, to be more of an awareness generating tool for her more expensive print publications, piracy was “unpleasant, but not a big deal, really.”

Original anime is based on "Baka Ja Katenai no yo" story in the manga's 5th book volume

Last week SyFy premiered their soon to be classic movie, Sharknado. That movie was the best unintentional comedy I've seen in a while. Shark attacks, Tara Reid, and that guy from 90210 who's now a Chippendales dancer; it was fun!

It was so much fun that LEGO artist, Iain Heath of The Living Brick, created this LEGO bricks interpretation of Sharknado's movie poster. With red bricks he spelled out "Sharknado" and then created the tornado using grey pieces in different sizes. It also wouldn't be a Sharknado if there wasn't at least one shark, so you can see one violent shark popping out of the tornado at the side.

You can check out Heath's Flickr account to see more of his awesome LEGO brick creations and keep up to date with his current work on his blog.

[via Geeks Are Sexy]

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On Monday, a federal judge temporarily blcked enforcement of a North Dakota abortion law that is considered to be the most restrictive in the nation. The so-called “fetal heartbeat” law would have gone into effect on August 1st and outlawed abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, which is before some women even know they’re pregnant.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland questioned the abortion ban’s constitutional merits, writing, “There is no question that (the North Dakota law) is in direct contradiction to a litany of United States Supreme Court cases addressing restraints on abortion… [It] is clearly an invalid and unconstitutional law based on the United States Supreme Court precedent in Roe v. Wade from 1973 … and the progeny of cases that have followed.” A federal judge struck down Arkansas’ less restrictive 12-week abortion ban in May for similar reasons.

Anti-choice lawmakers in Texas filed an anti-abortion bill with a “fetal heartbeat” measure like North Dakota’s on the same day that Gov. Rick Perry (R) signed a law banning abortions after 20 weeks. Texas legislators seem to be aware that the provision is unconstitutional, since they included it as a “trigger” provision that will only go into effect if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Conservative anti-choice activists hope that multiple state abortion laws making their way to the Court will produce that very result.

Halfway through 2013, states have already enacted over 100 provisions relating to reproductive health and women’s medical rights. That makes this one of the worst years on record for reproductive freedom.

I was at my local Target the other day, and as I was passing down the cereal aisle, I came across this. General Mills is doing a “retro” promotion for its more popular cereals, like Lucky Charms and Cocoa Puffs, complete with the old designs of their mascots on the boxes.

There’s something undeniably charming about some of these old designs. Although seemingly crude on the surface, the simplicity of it all, from the geometric-like bodies down to the poses the characters are standing in make them more iconic than their current Disney-like proportioned, iris-eyed incarnations. And seeing them literally side by side on store shelves made it all the more jarring to me.

Nearly all advertising mascots have changed over the years: Tony the Tiger, the Vlasic Pickle stork, Scrubbing Bubbles, even a design so deceivingly simple as the Kool-Aid Man has had an overhaul:

Of course, most of these character’s designs evolved over the course of a few decades. Watch a Trix Rabbit commercial from the early 1960s and compare it to one from the 1970s, 80s, 90s and today, and you’ll notice how gradual the changes have been over the course of half a century. Larger commercial budgets, different ad agencies and animation studios, as well as graphic trends and the advent of digital animation have been contributing factors to these alterations.

A lot of characters, like the Keebler Elves and Toucan Sam, have even made the big leap from 2D to 3D. While many people have collectively poo-pooed the CG makeovers of some of these classic characters, I personally find that most of them still retain their traditional charm. Take this new Froot Loops commercial for example:

Some makeovers are a bit harder to digest:

But in this day and age, we seem to be embracing the past more than ever. Childhood nostalgia has become a new marketing strategy for advertising companies, and consumers are eating it up (no pun intended). Why else would General Mills revert to utilizing these vintage designs on their boxes? Some companies are even “re-aging” their mascots, making them look like their former selves, while still refurbishing them for the 21st century.

Who’s your favorite advertising mascot and what do you think of their modern makeovers? Share your thoughts!

I don’t if there’s ever been an movie that’s divided the voices in my social media feeds so thoroughly as Pacific Rim. Over the past couple of weeks, its been roughly a 50/50 split between “this is the best movie this summer” and “this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.” I won’t write off [...]

Joseph Kyle Schmidt writes for Bleeding Cool:

The Axe Cop panel began in earnest with co-creators and brothers Ethan (29) and Malachi Nicolle (7) greeting the crowd. Malachi, of course, was dressed as Axe Cop. They immediately began plugging their new merchandise from Mezco, including Axe Cop riding a T-Rex and Baby Man.

“And Baby Man is doing his dance: the Baby Man,” said Malachi. Yes, a 7-year-old pretty much moderated the panel. And it was glorious.

Ethan then talked about Malachi’s suggestions to Mezco for the toys, including the ability to breathe fire and be made out of diamond.

“It’s a weapon and a toy!” Malachi said.

They then showed stills from the show, complete with narration from Malachi which consisted of him making strange noises and groans. Unfortunately, staff prohibited taking photos of the slides. Shortly after the introductions, they played an episode of the show in which Axe Cop babysits Flute Cop’s child, Unicorn Baby, so he can take his wife to Hawaii. The plot was typically Axe Cop in humor and plot, adapting a story from the comic called ‘Axe Cop Babysits Unicorn Baby.’ It jumped around faster than one could blink, throwing in evil cyborgs, Magic Police, a baby-powered poop cannon and more.

After the show ended, they asked Malachi what he thought, as he hadn’t seen the show yet. He expressed disappointment that Dinosaur Soldier was replaced with Sockarang.

The panel introduced their mystery guest, Malachi’s puppet of character Ralph Wrinkles.

“I got Ralph Wrinkles when I was six,” Ethan said, “And I gave it to Malachi.”

After Ethan announced his middle initial was ‘M,’ an impromptu contest began for fans to make up Ralph’s middle name.

They then went over the laws of Axe Cop’s world, which include:

“If you say a bad word, you get slapped.

If you say a REALLY bad word, you get kicked.

If you steal candy, you will go to jail for 21 years.

If you vandalize a wall with spray paint, you have to lick it off.

If you kill someone, you will be fed to Wexter. Murderers are his favorite food.

If you abuse a child, Axe Cop will summon a giant baby to stomp on you.

Most important, you must give Axe Cop any game or game console WITHOUT question or he’ll chop your head off.”

The panel then turned to Q&A, where he was asked about Axe Cop versus Iron Man.

“Axe Cop is the smartest person in the world so he’ll invent a better suit,” Malachi said. “There’s no one who can defeat Axe Cop. He’s too strong, too smart, and too wise.”

He was then asked if there is a speeding law, and Malachi made it up on the spot. “Axe Cop has his own demolition derby that he traps guys in but gives them air so they can breathe, then he pops their tires, does all sorts of damage to it, and once it catches on fire they leave to their garages and then it blows up. And if it doesn’t blow up then Axe Cop uses the TNT he put under the car. Because Axe Cop seems to love explosions.”

When asked if the show would be on overseas, they recommended to steal it instead.

They were only supposed to make six episodes, but they made 12 instead.

Malachi then said if Axe Cop doesn’t like Fox, he will sue them and chop their heads off.

“But there’s just one thing, there IS NO REAL AXE COP,” Malachi revealed, much to the chagrin of everyone.

Next, Ethan’s son toddler son Ezra was brought to the microphone, where he said simply “Santa. DIE.”

Ezra’s young uncle responded that Axe Cop will save Santa and not to worry.

The next question was about his favorite character, to which he replied Wexter.

An Axe Cop cosplayer was asked his favorite character, and he said Ralph. Malachi chided him, “Why wouldn’t it be Axe Cop?!? You’re the main character.”

Malachi then proposed all the cosplayers in the room fight each other, a battle that he said he’d take part in. Ethan chose Malachi’s first opponent, someone dressed as Waldo from Where’s Waldo. After exchanging blows, Waldo attempted to hide (as he’s wont to do) but Malachi chased after him. Waldo was tackled by another cosplayer dressed as raccoon Mario, after which Axe Cop claimed victory.

Next up, Protoman from Mega Man fought a hobbit girl while Malachi and Ethan narrated the action.

The next battle saw the Axe Cop cosplayed team with Ethan’s son Ezra battling two Doctor Who’s (or is that Doctor Whose?).

A werewolf battled a young girl next, who described herself as “a martial artist who fights.”

Chaos all over the meeting room floor, the Nicolle brothers guided the fighters with their inventive, imaginative ad-libbing to the amusement of everyone in the audience.

With the cosplay battle over, they thanked the fans.

“You all may now leave,” Malachi said. The manners on that kid!

Does That Kid Have A Mustache? – The Axe Cop SDCC Panel Recap

The buzz on this issue has been rocketing around for the past couple hours, and now here in an official Marvel video interview, we have Joss Whedon discussing Avengers: Age Of Ultron details, the (lack of) direct relationship to Age of Ultron in the comics, and the absense of Hank Pym:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Joss Whedon Video Interview: Details On Avengers: Age Of Ultron Film, Relationship To Comics… And No Hank Pym