The fine folks at Video Games Live are teaming up with streaming service Twitch to give those who can't make it to Comic-Con in San Diego the chance to experience just how wonderful a Video Games Live concert can be. The concert will air on twitch.tv/twitch on July 20th, beginning at 8PM PT. A pre-show begins at 6PM offering interviews with various composers including Journey composer Austin Wintory and Destiny composer Marty O'Donnell.
(Credit: AP)
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-NY) announced Wednesday that the city will spend $18 million on adult education classes and GED programs specifically for undocumented immigrants. In order to be eligible for DACA, an applicant must either have or be working toward a high school diploma or a GED. Existing adult education programs are already at capacity, so the new funding is necessary to accommodate thousands of new students.
According to the New York Daily News, roughly 79,000 New York City residents qualify for the age and immigration requirements for DACA, but 16,000 do not meet the educational criteria. DACA grants work permits and Social Security cards to undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. before age 16 and were younger than 31 on June 15, 2012.
Besides DACA’s strict education requirements, application fees are steep at $495. Many eligible students are also concerned that they will expose their parents’ legal status if they apply for DACA. As a result, New Yorkers have been slow to take advantage of the program; one year after its inception, less than 30 percent of eligible young people are enrolled. Through June, just 28,338 applications were submitted by New Yorkers.
Undocumented immigrants especially struggle with finishing high school, with a dropout rate hovering around 50 percent. Mexican immigrants, the fastest growing demographic in New York, have by far the highest dropout rate of any immigrant group. Because these students can’t access federal loans, scholarships, or in-state tuition to go to college, many are discouraged from finishing high school and end up in low-wage, dead-end jobs. One study found that undocumented students’ grades tanked after they found out that their immigration status was a barrier to college.
Many states and university systems have started offering in-state tuition and even financial aid to undocumented students in order to bring higher education within grasp of these students. Public high school teachers in Brooklyn are currently raising money for an undocumented scholarship fund to help their students get to college.
    
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I’ll be honest, I think having a troll Navi would have made The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time even more fun. Couldn’t have made her anymore annoying. And if she ragged on other characters you encounter too, that would have made her even better.
kateOkay then.
Let’s face it: if the spring season were compared to cars, Attack on Titan would be a friggin’ Ferrari. So it makes sense that the official Attack on Titan itasha would actually be a Ferrari 458 Spider. As far as itashas go, this one certainly is impressive. The Ferrari, which costs an estimated $400,000, will cruise around Akihabara, Shinjuku, Shibuya and Ikebukuro to promote the release of volume one on DVD and Blu-ray. The transformation into itasha cost another $6,000, making it one expensive sports car.
Kyojin-kun - the leader of the Titan Sales Promotion Corps. - is sporting some mighty fine crocs. They might be the best part of this next picture.
The itasha is sponsored by Newtype Drugstore AKIBA Drug & café, which, according to their official site, is a drugstore and café merged with a dollar shop and an event space.
Aww, he found himself on a package.
Via Sokudoku! AKIBA Drug&Cafe Official Twitter Attack On Titan Anime Official Twitter MANTANweb
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Amanda Rush is the Associate Editor for Ani.Me and contributor for OtakuCollectionDX. She swears in the middle of the night on Twitter as @TheAnimaven.
Zainab brought this Kickstarter to my attention a little while back, which seeks to bring the webcomic Not Enough Rings to print. Drawn by Veronica Vera and edited by Oliver Bareham, Not Enough Rings follows the story of Sonic The Hedgehog, affectionately poking fun at the characters and game design. Each new strip of the series takes place in an act of the game series (every level of Sonic is broken into three acts), meaning over the course of time new characters like Tails and Knuckles have shown up, and the slightly repetitive nature of Sega’s later level design gets a few jabs.
It’s a fun, silly, comic, and each new strip brings back memories of how alternately fun and frustrating the original games can be. The kickstarter has already achieved the target with only a few hours left to go, but that leaves plenty of time to push that total up further! I spoke to both Veronica and Oliver about their project.
Steve: What made you decide to create a comic series about Sonic The Hedgehog in the first place?
Veronica: I used to draw Sonic comics when I was around fifteen years old and had I a lot of fun representing Sonic and his friends my own way. As an example, many other fancomics would illustrate Knuckles as clueless and gullible. That’s a pretty clear trait you see in the new games, but the old ones? He was such a snarky jerk! That’s how I wanted to portray Knuckles, and it came out in Not Enough Rings.
So I wanted to make a comic series purely based on the old games. It was an idea I’d never really seen done before!
Steve: Once you had the idea, how did you plan it? You’ve structured it in a very specific way [each strip takes place during a different ’act’ of the Sonic game series] – was that always the idea?
Veronica: I wanted to challenge myself! I wanted to see what I could come up with if I had to make a joke or observation for every act. It required that I replay the game for hours and hours trying to conjure up memories of how I felt playing the game when I was younger.
Oliver: I loved Veronica’s idea to structure it this way. I think it keeps the comic grounded in actual commentary. It’s a constraint that helps the whole project focus. I can’t remember when we were first talking about it, but as soon as the idea of doing it “act-by-act” came out my heart was set on making it happen.
Steve: Artistically it’s very different to your other comic, Bittersweet Candy Bowl. What do you use to draw Not Enough Rings, and how have you found the process?
Veronica: Bittersweet Candy Bowl went through many visual transformations, but I think there are only one or two comics in the entire archive that use the same Copic markers I used for Not Enough Rings. I accumulated the full collection of Copic markers and wanted to push myself to figure them out. You obviously learn a few things along the way — I should have worked on larger paper since the markers bleed a bit in the fine details, for example.
It’s a method I wouldn’t mind using again (though maybe at a larger scale next time!) but I don’t know how if that will happen as I’m still in love with watercolours.
Steve: Obviously the star of your series is Sonic. How did you build up your own version of the character? When writing, did you find his voice came naturally to you?
Veronica: When you play as Sonic, he assumes a lot of your voice — at least that’s how I felt about as I applied my experiences of playing the game. My own frustrations in certain parts of the game were reflected in Sonic’s attitude. So that’s kind of how the Not Enough Rings version of Sonic turned out – a little neurotic along with the typical confidence\arrogance. He seems to come off as a bit more of a tryhard. I don’t know if that was fully intentional!
Oliver: Veronica seemed pretty determined to give Sonic a consistent personality from day one, though it really was honed through her pre-“Not Enough Rings” comics that shared a bunch of the same ideas on how he and the other characters interacted.
I also think the structure defined it pretty well. The rhythm of 2 acts, a boss, 2 acts, a boss, final boss, etc gave it a kind of feeling from the start that this is Sonic’s mundane little life and Eggman\Knuckles are just irritants in the way of getting the job done. I think it was inevitable that the jokes would develop in a lighthearted direction without much of the grave seriousness that you see in modern Sonic games and the official Sonic comics. It’d feel too contrived to jam all that into the gamey framework of doing it all act-by-act.
Steve: How’s your writing process in general? How do you find the collaborative process?
Oliver: It was novel to write and edit a series of strips that aren’t really much more than one joke after another. It’s a very different experience than when working with a multi-page narrative. It’s a lot easier to conceptualise, and it meant that we could work on scripts in arbitrary chunks (“let’s finish off the first half of Sonic 2 today!”)
Veronica: At the same time, the format forced me to deal with the reality that certain acts just didn’t inspire many ideas. There were times I played through an act multiple times and simply couldn’t come up with anything that was both clever and original. And then, at other times an act would hit you with so many ideas you have the luxury of picking out the best one.
It was also pretty challenging to keep it consistent with the rules and physics of the game. There were several instances where I had joke ideas where Sonic had to do something the games didn’t allow.
Oliver: Which would usually result in me immediately pushing as many gameplay-related ideas I could think of on you, so you could replace it.
Veronica: Yeah, there were times I wanted badniks or the environment to do something out-of-character for the sake of a joke, but that became a little risky! It starts losing its focus, so we had to keep it centred.
Steve: Do you have a particular favourite strip? Was there a moment which solidified the project for you, where you felt you’d really managed to nail a distinct voice for the series?
Veronica: I had the most fun when later characters like Tails and Knuckles were introduced. Especially Knuckles. I really enjoy the comics where Sonic plays off the other characters. A lot of those are in later strips yet to be published online, but they’ll be in the book.
Oliver: My fondest memories are of Sonic 2, so I’m naturally inclined to look at those ones for favourites. I think the best ones vocalise the kind of private thoughts you have while playing the game — standing on a dead body, running against a fan, “PUNG!”. They’re making fun of some of the 16-bit gamey limitations but in the most affectionate way.
Steve: What made you decide to take the comic to Kickstarter?
Oliver: I wanted to use Kickstarter for its most genuine purpose — the idea of proposing a project that won’t be made without an audience to support it. I wasn’t sure it’d make the goal, and if it didn’t work out we’d just.. not make it. Not Enough Rings didn’t have a huge audience, so we were counting on new people coming across it to make it happen. But they did, and it all worked out!
Steve: How have you found the crowdfunding process as a whole? How has the response been from people?
Oliver: Knowing that it was a small side-project for a limited audience (yes, a lot of internet people like Sonic, but you’d be surprised how many of those people aren’t particularly attached to the original games) I’ve been surprised by the project’s success. Not only did we meet the goal extremely quickly, we got to that stretchgoal which I thought would have been a bit of a long shot! My expectation was that we’d scrape by with the softcover version, but it’s been great. Of course, a few more backers wouldn’t hurt!
Veronica: We’ve had people interviewing us about the comic and plugging it on their sites, which was something the BCB Kickstarter didn’t really achieve, which was a pleasant surprise! I’m also really looking forward to drawing the custom level comics for a couple of backers!
Steve: Bittersweet Candy Bowl has been going since 2006. What’s the series about? What inspired you to start it?
Oliver: For the introduction page, we distilled the description down to “Bittersweet Candy Bowl is a funny, sweet and sad comic about cats and dogs in high school.”
Veronica: Yeah, it’s very slice-of-life. It’s just a bunch of kids making mistakes and growing up, except they’re cats. I kind of grew up on Garfield, Mafalda, and Condorito, and you’ll find different elements of those comics in what I do.
Bittersweet Candy Bowl was such an accident, haha. I used to draw some of the characters as a child as a way to vent about things that happened to me in school (bullies, teachers, tests) where the characters would react for me. Then I didn’t use them for most of my teenage years, but when I was studying for a final exam at university, I decided to draw them to keep myself awake. I posted them on deviantART, people wanted more, and before I knew it BCB was my main source of income!
Oliver: I am not sure if there’s a lot of crossover for Sonic people, because while it’s sometimes comedic and has talking animals, it’s not a gag comic and it’s very much a long-form, character-driven story. It’s coming up to 80 chapters now. But as nice as it is to finish Not Enough Rings, I think I’m happier that Bittersweet Candy Bowl exists. I really like how it’s coming along, especially each time we clean up the rough parts and publish a new volume of it.
Steve: What are your future plans? Do you have any other projects in the works?
Oliver: That’s it for Sonic. While I think a Sonic project was inevitable, it’s done now. Vero is now working like crazy to post 5 new pages of BCB a week, and anything after that is going to be one of the original ideas we’ve been talking about .
Veronica: I don’t want to say I’ll never draw Sonic comics again, but Not Enough Rings was always meant to be self-contained and end at Sonic & Knuckles. Sorry, Sonic CD! Though I love you.
I have an idea for another comic to post online, but since BCB is so demanding on my time, I might have to wait until I wrap that up. The graphic novel is still in my head for now, and while I designed the main characters, it’s still far from the point I can reveal it. I might start posting it before BCB ends, but I think I want to be sure I’ve planned everything before that point. It’s one of the biggest lessons I learned from BCB and tested with Not Enough Rings — the experience of actually planning a project from start to finish, and how useful it can be to have it all worked out in advance.
Oliver: Although, when it comes to our next Kickstarter project, we might be doing something sooner rather than later. We’re wrapping up work on Volume Three right now and given how our first project went, we are definitely considering a third Kickstarter project to support it. We’re just stuck on ideas for a funny project video!
Many thanks to both Oliver and Veronica for their time! The Kickstarter is entering final phase right now, and can be found here. You can also find their series Bittersweet Candy Bowl by following through this link here.
One thing I feel really strongly about is the position of artists in comics. I talked about it last year and I’m sure I’ve tweeted about it a lot. Artists are, thanks to a wide variety of factors both intentional and incidental, often devalued in comics, especially when we’re talking mainstream fare, corporate or otherwise. I honestly, earnestly believe that the best comics happen when the writer, artist, and the rest of the creative team are on the same page and into the work and each other.
If you swap out everyone on a creative team but the writer like aftermarket car parts, then the only stable figure in the equation is the writer, then the writer will be viewed as the prime mover, the “creator” of the story. The truth is that a comic isn’t a comic until an artists puts pen to pad, and the relationship between writer and artist isn’t as simple as “This guy tells this lady what to do and she does it.”
But that’s the perception. I’ve talked about it again and again, but let me reiterate: the most common formula for a comics review is a bunch of paragraphs about what happens, followed by one paragraph about the art, followed by a conclusion. I know why it happens–cape comics in particular are about “what happens” as opposed to “how it happens” in marketing and reviewing–but I hate it. It’s aesthetically ugly, intellectually lazy, and it serves to devalue the artist. They’re always an afterthought, an “Oh by the way,” if that, and that contributes to our perception of artists.
Jack Kirby didn’t draw Stan Lee’s Fantastic Four. They created it together. The same is true of the dumbest movie tie-in comic and the greatest pop comics single issue. Collaboration is key.
I put a lot of thought into this last year in particular. I made the conscious decision to swap how I credited comics, both in headlines and normal conversation. The normal way of doing things is writer/artist, like Stan Lee/Jack Kirby. (I didn’t realize it until just now, but even the term “writer/artist” is tilted in favor of writing, not drawing.) Instead, I force myself to think for a second and type “Kirby/Lee.”
I don’t do it to suggest that the writer is less important than the artist. It’s a mental device that keeps me in mind of the facts: comics are collaborative, and each link in the chain is vital. You can’t talk about comics without talking about art. You can’t make comics without art. Going from writer/artist to artist/writer forces me to reconsider how I talk about comics and who I credit for what.
I used to empathize with reviewers who did the one short paragraph-about-art thing. It’s hard to talk about art if you aren’t an artist, the story’s really what interests you, you lack the confidence to speak as authoritatively on art as you would on story. Nowadays, though, I think they’re scared, or maybe just too soft to do the legwork required to talk about comics intelligently.
I’m a dummy. I dropped out of college, turned away from art school in high school, and I couldn’t tell you the difference an inker using a brush and a pen if I tried. (I would hazard a guess, though.) But I can look at art, figure out what it means to me or what it brings to mind, and express that in a critical manner.
If you aren’t doing that, you ain’t doing your job. And if you don’t know, figure it out. Ask someone, think about it really hard (I like this one), or just mull it over until it coalesces in your head. You can do it. I talk about my dumb emotions until I’m comfortable enough to talk about the art itself, as opposed to my reaction to it, though those are often tend to merge into the same thing once you start talking about them.
Darryl Ayo‘s review of Sam Alden’s Backyard (print) reignited these thoughts for me. It’s a review-via-numbered list, a technique I’ve enjoyed and used myself, but I haven’t seen it in a while. Darryl snaps from observations about the atmosphere, tone, characterization, art, and back again because he understands a fundamental truth of comics: the art is the story.
I enjoyed this piece from Andy Khouri on valuing and devaluing artists in comics, too. He lays out a lot of plain truths I agree with 2013%. I like this especially: “Story is art. Style is substance. A comic is not a comic until it is drawn.”
Gospel truth.
Dennis Culver, artist and co-creator of Edison Rex (print
We agree on a lot of things, but often in different ways. He collected a bunch of his tweets on the subject and reposted them on tumblr. I asked if I could repost them here and he said sure, so here we are:
You’re not writing about comics if you’re not talking/thinking about the art.
I think the trap a lot of critics fall into is giving sole credit for the story visuals to the writer.
And if any credit is given to the artist it’s usually for style. Ie Cartoony, realistic etc.
But if you give 6 different artists a panel description you will get 6 different images.
And each of those images can make you feel different things. Things the writer may not have initially intended.
That synergy is the magic of comics and it’s why artists are really co-writers.
The production line method of making comics is just an imperfect emulation of a single cartoonist.
Every part of the comics production line requires choices that affect the storytelling.
While the comics production line is great for speed, it’s created a lot of false boundaries that when strictly adhered to make bad comics
If you’re not directly communicating with your collaborators then you’re not collaborating. You’re playing telephone.
Don’t have time to read many comics but 2 books I look forward to the most are Daredevil by Waid and Samnee and Hawkeye by Fraction and Aja
Neither book singles out credit for writing or art and in the case of Daredevil, Waid and Samnee are just credited as “Storytellers.”
Both go beyond the normal production line collaboration and I think that is why the books are of such high quality.
I want to see more of this! I think it makes for better comics. And it shows that both writers value their artists as storytellers.
Because frankly when you’re an artist it’s easy to feel undervalued as a storyteller in this industry.
When a review only focuses on and gives all story credit to the writer while only mentioning the artist in passing if at all. I feel undervalued as a storyteller.
When a publisher puts out a press release that only talks about the writer, I feel undervalued as a storyteller.
When a publisher holds a story conference and only invites their writers, i feel undervalued as a storyteller.
It’s certainly not the writer’s fault but hey if you’re doing an interview about a book and the art is not being talked about. Bring it up.
The only way reviewers and the comics press can figure out how to talk about art is by talking about art.
When a writer refers to “his artists” I feel undervalued as a storyteller.
In comics I do think drawing is co-writing but I will also add in the best instances writers are co-directing the art with the artist
I have an excellent collaboration with @chris_roberson on Edison Rex and if you could see out process, I think you’d be hard pressed to say where the writing ends and the art begins. Ask Chris, I am OPINIONATED about the story but Chris is the same about page layout and design. And I think that makes for a better comic.
It’s frustrating to read a review or tweet or whatever that glosses over my role as a storyteller.
You learn to do things by doing them. I’d rather see a reviewer clumsily talk about art than not at all.
I use undervalued specifically because this industry is built on undervaluing its creators. Creators that feel valued make better comics!
Here I was talking with a reviewer:
The art IS the story. Even if you don’t care for the style or don’t think it’s dynamicThe presentation by the artist of the images in sequence is how the story is being told. The art IS the story.
If you get rid of the art and are only left with the balloons, you will have no idea what’s going on. Comics IS art
When a reviewer only credits a writer with the story it is inarguably wrong. That’s just not how the process works.
Chris and I are credited for each others ideas in Edison Rex reviews all the time. Often we’re not sure who did what. If we don’t know how can you?
I want to have this conversation. I want to be better. I want reviewers, fans, and companies to listen and consider how they view comics and the role of each creator. The only way I know how to do that is to talk about it whenever I can and pray people pay attention.Similar Posts:
kateI have to say, I was surprised how good this list is. These are all my favs too with the exception of Blood Lad.
Every season Japan turns out a fresh crop of anime TV series. With accessible (and legal) simulcasts becoming increasingly common on sites like Hulu and Crunchyroll, it’s now easier than ever to watch almost any new anime only hours after the Japanese broadcast. So why wait? Here are our five top picks for the summer season.
[Read more]
The Eccentric Family/Uchouten Kazoku
In an alternate Kyoto, humans live together with two mythical races, tanuki (shape-shifting raccoon dogs) and tengu (long-nosed, winged creatures). The Eccentric Family follows the antics of Yasaburo Shimogamo (voiced by Takahiro Sakurai), the third son of a tanuki family, as he interacts with tengu, other tanuki, and a mysterious human girl.
Much excitement about this project has come from the fact that this show is an adaptation of a novel by the author of The Tatami Galaxy, which was itself adapted into an award-winning anime in 2010. The Eccentric Family has a bright, distinctive visual style, and character designs by the creator of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei contribute to the whimsical, slightly offbeat aesthetic of the show. Add a colorful cast of characters, some barbed dialogue, and hints of dark family mysteries lurking in the background, and you get a show that’s definitely worth keeping an eye on this season.
For fans of: The Tatami Galaxy, Kyousogiga, Yozakura Quartet
Watch it streaming on Crunchyroll
Silver Spoon/Gin no Saji
Silver Spoon’s protagonist is Yuugo Hachiken (Ryohei Kimura), a freshman at an agricultural high school. Although he has no interest in agriculture, he figures his new school has two advantages: first, it’ll get him away from his family, and second, he’s sure to be top of his class, because how smart can farmers be anyway? City-raised Hachiken soon discovers that farming isn’t the cake walk he expected, but makes a bevy of new friends sure to keep his high school life interesting.
Silver Spoon is based on an award-winning manga by Hiromu Arakawa, whom many will know as the author of Fullmetal Alchemist. If it seems odd that the author of a bestselling fantasy manga would be writing about farming, it may make a little more sense when you learn that Arakawa grew up on a dairy farm in Hokkaido and has based the manga partially on her childhood experiences. And if Arakawa alone isn’t enough reason to check out this series, it’s also worth noting that Silver Spoon is airing in Fuji TV’s noitaminA block, a TV time slot that has historically produced such quality series as Nodame Cantabile, Mononoke, The Tatami Galaxy, and Bunny Drop/Usagi Drop.
Hachiken’s fish-out-of-water flailing provides ample opportunity for comedy in the first episode, but the large, diverse cast as well as questions about Hachiken’s reasons for his choice of school are likely to pay some narrative and dramatic dividends down the line—and as a second season is already scheduled for winter 2014, it looks like this series will be given plenty of time to deliver on any promises it makes.
For fans of: Moyashimon, Fullmetal Alchemist
Watch it streaming on Crunchyroll
Free!
This show about a high school boys’ swimming club revolves around Nanase Haruka (Nobunaga Shimazaki). After winning a swimming tournament in elementary school with his teammates Makoto (Tatsuhisa Suzuki), Nagisa (Tsubasa Yonaga), and Rin (Mamoru Miyano), the boys buried their trophy in a time capsule and went off to different middle schools. When Haruka, Makoto, and Nagisa are reunited in high school, they return to their old swim club to dig up their prize, only to run into Rin, now swimming for a rival school.
Co-produced by Animation Do and Kyoto Animation (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, K-ON!), Free! may be worth watching if only for the splash (pun obviously intended) it made on the internet a few months ago, when Kyoto Animation (known colloquially as KyoAni) released a commercial based on the concept. Popularized on 4chan and Tumblr before it was even confirmed as a TV series, the subsequent uproar when the show was announced led many to claim (wrongly) that Free!’s internet popularity had been responsible for the show’s production. The announcement also made waves among some KyoAni fans who felt that the studio, known for soft slice-of-life shows featuring adorable high school girls, was betraying fans’ expectations in making a show targeted at a female audience.
That said, this one’s a KyoAni show through and through. Free! combines the trappings of sports anime (friendships, rivalry, and taking your sport extremely seriously) with the slice-of-life interactions and fluid character animation that KyoAni has displayed in shows like K-ON! and Hyouka. The visuals are top shelf, and although the sports plot is just getting off the ground, KyoAni rarely misses the mark with their characters and storytelling.
For fans of: Kuroko’s Basketball/Kuroko no Basuke, K-ON!
Watch it streaming on Crunchyroll
Gatchaman Crowds
Gatchaman Crowds follows Hajime Ichinose (Maaya Uchida), an obliviously cheerful and relentlessly odd high school girl who is recruited as a Gatchman—a warrior who fights to protect humanity from alien criminals—by a cryptic man who appears to her one day at school. Accompanied by fellow Gatchaman Sugane Tachibana (Ryota Ohsaka) and Joe Hibiki (Daisuke Namikawa), Hajime must use a high tech notebook and shiny new power suit to defend the citizenry against mysterious enemies known as MESS.
First a little context: Gatchaman (a.k.a. Science Ninja Team Gatchaman) is a superhero anime franchise from the 1970s. While Gatchaman Crowds takes place in the Gatchaman universe, no prior knowledge is required to watch this standalone series. In fact, it’s doubtful that fans of the original Gatchaman would even recognize this as part of the same franchise.
Now onto the show: Gatchaman Crowds reunites the creative team from Tsuritama, helmed by director Kenji Nakamura. Nakamura’s presence virtually guarantees a visual and creative treat, and that’s exactly what we’ve gotten with Gatchaman Crowds: gorgeous and unique art, brightly colored (though a tad over-designed) power suits, and enemies that resemble nothing so much as Rubik’s Cubes with tentacles. This series is definitely an odd one, but it jumps into its fairly campy premise and superhero-style action with such a ridiculous sense of all-in fun that it’s hard to resist.
For fans of: Tsuritama, Tiger & Bunny
Watch it streaming on Crunchyroll
Blood Lad
Blood Lad follows a vampire named Staz (Ryota Ohsaka). Though the boss of a sizable territory in the demon world, Staz has no interest in lording over demons or drinking human blood—he’s more interested in his collection of Japanese manga and games. When a human girl, Yanagi Fuyumi (Iori Nomizu), accidentally wanders into the demon world, he rushes to interrogate her about Final [redacted] and Dra-Gunboll, but is stymied when she is rather abruptly devoured by a rampaging monster and turned into a ghost. Not to be deterred, Staz vows to do whatever it takes to restore Fuyumi to her pre-ghost state... including traveling to the human world.
Sporting some stylish neon visuals and a fun, if not terribly original, scenario, Blood Lad hits the ground running with a quirky, spazzy protagonist and pop-culture-driven humor. The opening sequence promises a large cast of characters to add to the undead shenanigans, but with a rumored run of only ten episodes, it remains to be seen if this adaptation can successfully pull a satisfying supernatural comedy out of the manga source material.
For fans of: Sankarea, The Devil is a Part-Timer!/Hataraku Maou-sama!, Nyaruko-san: Another Crawling Chaos/Haiyore! Nyaruko-san
Watch it streaming on Hulu
Kelly Quinn is an assistant editor at Tor Books. She can also be found on Twitter.
kateSeriously 1 and 2 are why I go to the gym.
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The Daily Show's John Oliver was back from vacation and opened this Monday's show by first going through a few highlights they missed while they were gone for the last two weeks, and then proceeded to lay into Florida after the "truly depressing" not guilty verdict of George Zimmerman.
As Oliver reminded the audience, what makes this case so horrid is not that the system broke down, but that it worked exactly the way it was meant to given Florida's laws that seem "cut and pasted from 1881 Tombstone.”
OLIVER: Because, let's be clear here. According to current Florida law, you can get a gun, follow an unarmed minor, call the police, have them explicitly tell you to stop following them, then choose to ignore that, keep following the minor, get into a confrontation with them. and if at any point during that process, you get scared, you can shoot the minor to death, and the state of Florida will say, "Well, look, you did what you could."
You know what? I think it might honestly be time for the Sunshine state to officially change its motto.
Oliver went after Zimmerman's attorney Mark O'Mara for the ridiculous and callous remark that if George Zimmerman were black, "he never would've been charged with a crime."
OLIVER: Yes, I suppose the one thing that our justice system is notorious for is how lenient it is on black people.
After slamming Zimmerman's brother for the cognitive dissonance it must have taken to be able to appear on television and complain about his brother having to worry about armed vigilantes, Oliver wrapped things up pointing out that Florida's self defense laws aren't exactly applied equally if you're unfortunate enough to be black.
kateOkay that Wolverine "Labbit" caught me off guard. Loooove the GoT shield.
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From: Mezco Toys
I still have my old Snarf from the 80s but I never had a Cheetarah so this is a match made in heaven. It's actually a 14-inch mega scale figure offering of my favorite ThunderCats character, which is even better. This set is considered a "Summer Exclusive" so I might have a better chance of a non-SDCC purchase happening.
Selling for: $50
From: Hasbro
This amazing Baroness & Ravage pairing is only available as a larger set of GI Joe meets the Transformers. So, you know, if anyone gets the set and feels like parting with these guys, you know where to find me.
Selling for: $99.99
From: Hasbro
Hasbro have been seriously impressing me with their new collectible line of Jem and the Holograms dolls. I still own my originals but these are just SO PRETTY. However, this particular doll is truly outrageous.
Selling for: $140.00
From: Bif Bang Pow!
For the record, the lack of Brock on The Venture Bros. this season is killing me. While anatomically incorrect toys have always been a thing, there's something about the blood splatter that does it for me here. But if I manage to get this one, I might put him in a kilt.
Selling for: $14.99
From: Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse has a number of awesome Game of Thrones merchandise for sale in their store but for the big convention this year, they're featuring a seven-inch Stark shield with a hook for wall mounting. The only thing that would make this better would if it was a real shield, for real protection.
Selling for: $30
From: Factory Entertainment
I can never have enough Game of Thrones stuff but I could also use more throw pillows in my life. Particularly ones with dragons on them.
Selling for: $29.99
From: Super7
These Alien action figures are based on a set of prototypes never made back in 1979. Four different sets will be for sale at SDCC but this is the one that called to me the most. I mean, just look at them.
Selling for: $100
From: DC Collectibles/Graphitti Designs
While DC has an official Zazzle store with select Super Best Friends Forever merch, this is the only figures of the group we're likely to get. And to be honest, we here at The Mary Sue have been freaking out about this set since they first announced it in May. If I had to choose just one SDCC exclusive to get, this would be it.
Selling for: $49.95
From: LEGO
This little guy is one of four limited-edition superhero minifigs at the LEGO booth. But guess what? You can't buy them. Why? Because they're giving them away. There's also going to be a Spider-Woman, Spider-Man, and an alternate costume Superman.
Selling for: $0
From: Kidrobot
His claws come out of nowhere. I don't care.
Selling for: $49.99
From: Gentle Giant
Everyone needs one of these in their homes if you ask me.
Selling for: $175
As a nerd, I’ve collected a few things through the years. Some fans obsess over amassing an entire series of one particular thing, I just like what I like. So you can imagine when San Diego Comic-Con rolls around. While some of these SDCC exclusives might be offered online by the respective companies after the show, most won’t be, and that’s unfortunate considering I won’t be attending the convention this week. So here is my ultimate wish-list of SDCC exclusives. Here’s hoping I can convince a few friends to do me a solid.
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COSPA revealed their four new Attack on Titan character goods for this summer today. They will release "Training Corps" and "Recon Corps" T-shirts, and caps and mugs featuring the emblem of "Recon Corps." The pre-sales for the mugs will be held at Wonder Festival on July 28 and other big events in this summer. Which good do you want to have?
Attack on Titan is now available to Crunchyroll viewers in the following territories: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Ireland.
Training Corps T-shirts (July 3,045 yen/US$30.57)
Recon Corps T-shirts (July 3,045 yen/US$30.57)
Recon Corps mugs (August 840 yen/US$8.43)
Recon Corps embroidery caps (September 3,885 yen/US$39)
Source: Comic Natalie
© Hajime Isayama/Kodansha/Attack on Titan Production Committee
Because there is not enough to do today, the nominations for the 2013 Harvey Awards have just been announced.
Voting is taking place online—nominees are selected via online balloting as well. The winners will be announced at the Baltimore Comic-Con on September 7th.
There is always some agita about this or that voting block in the Harveys, and this year Archie seems to have gotten quite a few—as did Image’s THE REVIVAL—so no comment there.
There is also something called THE POSSUMS AT LARGE 10TH ANNIVERSARY CRAPTACULAR nominated, whose creator, Chad Lambert, has only a MySpace page to promote his Old School Comics. That is very, very old school.
But in a few categories the picks are more reflective of the most generally acclaimed books in a category than the Eisners. HAWKEYE and SAGA got seven each, and Fiona Staples even got nominated for Best Artist and Best Cover Artist.
And also, CURSED PIRATE GIRL got nominated for Special Award for Excellence in Presentation, which it richly, richly deserved.
BEST LETTERER
Chris Eliopoulos, COW BOY: A BOY AND HIS HORSE, Archaia
Joe Caramagna, DAREDEVIL, Marvel Comics
Todd Klein, FABLES, DC Comics
Jack Morelli, ARCHIE, Archie Comics
Chris Ware, BUILDING STORIES, Pantheon
BEST COLORIST
Laura Allred, FF , Marvel Comics
Matt Hollingsworth, HAWKEYE, Marvel Comics
Tito Pena, ARCHIE, Archie Comics
Ed Ryzowski, GUTTERS, http://www.the-gutters.com/
Fiona Staples, SAGA, Image Comics
BEST SYNDICATED STRIP or PANEL
CUL DE SAC, Richard Thompson, Universal Press Syndicate
DICK TRACY, Joe Staton and Mike Curtis, Tribune Media Services
GET FUZZY, Darby Conley, United Feature Syndicate
MUTTS, Patrick McDonnell, King Features
PEARLS BEFORE SWINE, Stephen Pastis, United Feature Syndicate
BEST ONLINE COMICS WORK
BANDETTE, Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover,www.monkeybraincomics.com/titles/bandette/
BATTLEPUG, Mike Norton, www.battlepug.com
THE DREAMER, Lora Innes, www.thedreamercomic.com
NIMONA, Noelle Stevenson, gingerhaze.com/nimona
SHELDON, Dave Kellett, sheldoncomics.com
BEST AMERICAN EDITION of FOREIGN MATERIAL
ABELARD, NBM
BLACKSAD: A SILENT HELL, Dark Horse
NEW YORK MON AMOUR, Fantagraphics Books
SHARAZ-DE: TALES FROM THE ARABIAN NIGHTS, Archaia
NAOKI URASAWA’S 20TH CENTURY BOYS, VOL. 22, VIZ Media
BEST INKER
Steve Ellis, ONLY LIVING BOY, Bottled Lightning
Jonathan Glapion, BATMAN, DC Comics
Klaus Janson, CAPTAIN AMERICA, Marvel Comics
Mark Morales, AVENGERS VS. X-MEN, Marvel Comics
Bob Smith, LIFE WITH ARCHIE, Archie Comics
BEST NEW SERIES
ADVENTURE TIME, KaBOOM! Studios
HAWKEYE, Marvel Comics
NEW CRUSADERS: RISE OF THE HEROES, Red Circle Comics
REVIVAL, Image Comics
SAGA, Image Comics
MOST PROMISING NEW TALENT
Jerry Gaylord, FANBOYS VS. ZOMBIES, BOOM! Studios
Dennis Hopeless, AVENGERS ARENA, Marvel Comics
Ryan Jampole, MEGA MAN, Archie Comics
Mark Mariano, Happyloo, MyPalMark.com
David Nytra, THE SECRET OF THE STONE FROG, Toon Books
SPECIAL AWARD FOR HUMOR IN COMICS
Chad Lambert, THE POSSUMS AT LARGE 10TH ANNIVERSARY CRAPTACULAR, Old School Comics
Ryan North, ADVENTURE TIME, KaBOOM!Studios
Dan Parent, KEVIN KELLER, Archie Comics
Chris Sparks, TEAM CUL DE SAC – CARTOONISTS DRAW THE LINE AT PARKINSON’S, Andrews McMeel
Jim Zub, SKULLKICKERS, Image Comics
BEST ORIGINAL GRAPHIC PUBLICATION FOR YOUNGER READERS
ADVENTURE TIME, KaBOOM! Studios
AMELIA RULES: HER PERMANENT RECORD, Simon and Schuster
COW BOY: A BOY AND HIS HORSE, Archaica
DRAMA, Scholastic
SUPERMAN FAMILY ADVENTURES, DC Comics
THE SHARK KING, Toon Books
BEST GRAPHIC ALBUM PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED
ALIEN: THE ILLUSTRATED STORY, Titan Books
ARCHIE: THE MARRIED LIFE, BOOK 2, Archie Comics
CURSED PIRATE GIRL, Archaia
HEADS OR TAILES, Fantagraphics
Gah, not fair. When I went to Floresta, they didn’t have any animal donuts ;_; Clearly I’ll need to go to Koenji next time.
My hunch is that many folk reading this have a pretty meaningful personal relationship with Bill Watterson‘s Calvin & Hobbes strips. I certainly do.
Enough of the strip’s fans are interesting enough – either because they’ve got a good anecdote to tell, or because they’re professionals that were influenced by Watterson – that Joel Allen Schroeder has been able to compose a documentary from their testimony.
The film was a Kickstarter project but it’s now going to break out wider, with Deadline reporting a November 15th release date, both in certain cinemas and on VOD across North America.
Here’s a trailer for the film, from its official YouTube channel.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Of course, the title Dear Mr. Watterson acknowledges the format, but there’s no sight nor sound of Calvin and Hobbes‘ creator anywhere in there – unless you count the caricature. He’s a famously reclusive man. Or, perhaps more properly, a very private man.
I find these films a very easy watch, myself, but they do tend to be a bit light. Maybe Schroeder will have found the right interview subjects to get a little more substance here – it’s certainly encouraging that his film will get a decently generous release.
Trailer: New Calvin And Hobbes Documentary Gets Set For Release
Oh man this is real HOORAY THIS LIFE.
This morning intrepid beach-goers in Dorset discovered a 40 foot long dragon skull seemingly washed up onto the shore. So either this has something to do with Game of Thrones or our world has changed forever.
[Okay, it has something to do with Game of Thrones]
The skull turns out to be a marketing event for Blinkbox, a UK streaming video service that is offering Game of Thrones season 3 soon. According to their site the skull, situated on Charmouth beach on Dorset’s Jurassic coast, took “a team of three sculptors took over two months to design, construct and paint.” Not mentioned is how awesome it is that things like this are happening in real life.
The inspiration for creating the skull came from a scene in A Game of Thrones where Arya stumbles upon the massive skulls of dragons long gone. More info and pictures can be found on Blinkbox’s blog.
Perhaps the little girl in the above picture is creating King’s Landing? We can only speculate. And wish we were in the UK so we could climb on the dragon.
Stubby the Rocket is the mascot of Tor.com and can be found washed up on beaches after Margarita Mondays at Tiki Tom’s.
McDonalds has partnered with Visa to launch a website to help its low-wage workers making an average $8.25 an hour to budget. But while the site is clearly meant to illustrate that McDonalds workers should be able to live on their meager wages, it actually underscores exactly how hard it is for a low-paid fast food worker to get by.
The site includes a sample”‘budget journal” for McDonalds’ employees that offers a laughably inaccurate view of what it’s like to budget on a minimum wage job. Not only does the budget leave a spot open for “second job,” it also gives wholly unreasonable estimates for employees’ costs: $20 a month for health care, $0 for heating, and $600 a month for rent. It does not include any budgeted money for food or clothing.
Basically every facet of this budget is unachievable. For an uninsured person to independently buy health care, he or she must shell out on average $215 a month — just for an individual plan. While some full-time McDonald’s workers do qualify for the company’s $14 a week health plan, that offer caps coverage at $10,000 a year and is often insufficient. If that person wants to eat, “moderate” spending will run them $32 a week for themselves, and $867 a month to feed a family of four. And if a fast food worker is living in a city? Well, New York City rents just reached an average of $3,000 a month.
The sample budget is also available in Spanish. On another section of the site, it concludes, “You can have almost anything you want as long as you plan ahead and save for it.”
Neither McDonalds nor Visa returned requests for comment by the time of publication.
Last year, Bloomberg News found that it would take the average McDonalds employee one million hours of work to earn as much money as the company’s CEO. This immense wage disparity in the fast food industry has sparked a series of protests and walk-outs by low-wage workers working at fast food chains around the country — in New York, Chicago, Washington, and Seattle, to name a few cities, workers from chains including KFC, McDonalds, Burger King, and Taco Bell have spoken publicly about the need for serious wage increases across the industry.
(HT: Low Pay Is Not Okay)
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Vintage/Anchor Books recently announced that it will be publishing a series of novels set after the forthcoming Veronica Mars movie! The plot of the first book in the series will begin where events of the upcoming film ends, and will feature an adult Veronica Mars. Rob Thomas, the show’s creator (and the author of several novels prior to his television career), will develop and co-write the book series.
[More info]
“I started my career as a novelist. Veronica Mars was first imagined as a novel. I’m thrilled that I’m going to get the opportunity to continue telling Veronica Mars stories in a form I’ve loved and missed,” Thomas said.
With Thomas at the helm, the books will be considered “canon” tales of Veronica, her friends and family, and the sunny/seedy town of Neptune. The first book is slated to be out in the spring of 2014, which is also currently when Warner Bros. is slated to release the film. The books will reportedly pick up on threads left dangling from the film.
“Veronica Mars has always been a one-of-a-kind character, and, as a longtime fan of the series, I’ve always thought there is an immense amount of story left to be told,“ said acquiring editor Andrea Robinson. ”Our goal for the book series is to appeal to fans of the show, but also to appeal to mystery readers and lovers of series featuring strong, intriguing female protagonist."
katePLEASEBETRUEPLEASEBETRUEPLEASEBETRUE.
According to a report at Latino Review, there has been discussion amongst Marvel execs about the possibility of Joseph Gordon Levitt playing Doctor Strange.
Tasty. But you might want to add a few pinches of salt.
This is after all rumours about who Marvel execs want and not about meetings actually taking place or deals being made. Still, it’s interesting to hear who Marvel may have in mind for the role and the direction they may be heading in. Levitt’s certainly a great actor with a reasonably wide range of performances under his belt so far and I would certainly be more than happy to see him take on the Doctor Strange role.
Levitt has appeared in an interesting mixture of high and low budget films in the past, with films such as GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra sitting alongside other films like Hesher, and it’ll be interesting if he continues this trend, with bigger films perhaps helping prop up the smaller ones a little.
His role in The Dark Knight Rises, and in particular the big reveal in the final moments, has led to a great deal of speculation about whether Levitt wold be in a future Batman film but if he makes the jump to a Marvel film it seems unlikely that we’ll see him donning a cowl or moving to Blüdhaven. On the other hand, Ryan Reynolds seems keen to play for both teams, so perhaps it can’t be entirely ruled out.
Levitt will next be seen in his directorial debut, Don Jon, in September and then in 2014, in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.
Rumour: Marvel Want Joseph Gordon Levitt To Be Their Doctor Strange
Platform: iOS
Price: $0.99
Episode 1 – The Big Hollow Princess
The Ice King has frozen Hot Dog Princess, Slime Princess and Princess Bubblegum with a powerful new magic. To save them, Finn and Jake will need a little help from their friends and YOU! Find clues, solve puzzles and build a Big Hollow Princess to break the Ice King’s spell. Now featuring voiceover by your favorite characters, recorded exclusively for the mobile game!
Bonus Content: LSP Mode!
Follow the adventure from Lumpy Space Princess’ unique perspective as she narrates the adventure and gives you… uhm… insider information!
I was already a pretty big fan of The Devastator, the quarterly comedy mag that's featured CA favorites like Michael Kupperman, but now, they have turned their attention to doing something truly altruistic. With San Diego's Comic-Con International coming up next week, they've released a mobile game for iOS called Comic-Con Star Stalker, a free time-waster designed to give you something to do in those long, long panel lines.
kateI have no idea what this is but lol!
Glico, the company behind pocky, has teamed up with Lucasfilm to create a very logical product mashup, Giant Lightsaber Pocky. Let’s be honest, how many of us have pretended that strawberry pocky is the lightsaber of a very tiny Darth Vader anyway? The icing covered biscuits sticks already look like lightsabers, after all. Plus, Glico has added the Star Wars theme to some of their other products.
(via That’s Nerdalicious)
Previously in Star Wars
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Kumar Ramanathan is an intern at ThinkProgress.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren questions a witness after a Senate Banking Committee Hearing on March 7. (Credit: AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
Enacted during the Great Depression, the Glass-Steagall Act prevented commercial deposit banks, which are insured by taxpayer money through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC), from engaging in insurance and risky investment activities. These restrictions were repealed in 1999. The new bill would reinstate and update the separation between commercial and investment banking, giving financial conglomerates a five-year transitional period to split up their businesses to come into adherence with the firewall.
“Banks should be boring,” Warren argued in her initial public push for the bill, her first major banking measure in the Senate. The bill is more than a mere a reinstatement of the original 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, however. It would also bar commercial banks from some of the newer, more complex practices that they became infamous for in the wake of the recession, including trading complex derivatives and swaps or engaging in hedge fund and private equity activities. Warren explained in a conference call with reporters on Thursday that the new bill also seeks to close loopholes created by regulators’ interpretation of the original bill in the 1980s and 90s preceding its repeal.
The repeal of Glass-Steagall allowed banks to expand rapidly in size, to a stage where the top 0.2 percent of banks control nearly 70 percent of all banking assets. Even after the 2008 financial crisis, the biggest banks continued to grow. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have criticized these banks for being not only too big to fail, but also too big for jail or for trial.
Support for restoring the banking firewalll has come from various corners since the 2008 financial crisis. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz argued at the height of the recession, that the repeal created a “high-risk gambling mentality.” Two former chairman of Citigroup, Richard Parsons and Sanford Weill — who once had a portrait of himself in his office called “The Shatterer of Glass-Steagall,” have endorsed restoring the firewall. Citigroup, which was bailed out during in 2008, was the first big beneficiary of the firewall’s repeal. Even Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has said that he agrees with reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act.
“Americans want safe banks,” Warren said when asked how she would respond to opponents of Glass-Steagall. “The banks that handle their checking and savings accounts should be rock-solid secure, and they should not be juicing their profits by taking those insured deposits and insuring them in wild financial schemes.” McCain echoed those comments in a statement, adding, “If enacted, the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act would not end Too-Big-to-Fail. But, it would rebuild the wall between commercial and investment banking that was in place for over 60 years, restore confidence in the system, and reduce risk for the American taxpayer.”
McCain voted for the bill that repealed Glass-Steagall in 1999, and one if its primary authors was a close economic advisor to his 2008 presidential campaign. But he changed his tune in 2009, when he and Cantwell began a similar effort to reinstate Glass-Steagall. The bill never made it out of committee. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced a basic Glass-Steagall reinstatement bill in May on the 80th anniversary of the original bill, but it was overshadowed by other banking measures being considered at the time. Restoring Glass-Steagall has also historically not enjoyed White House support.
Warren said that she believed this bill would succeed where others failed because a bipartisan group of senators are willing to fight for it publicly. “People said we could never get the consumer protection bureau. But we fought for it, and now we have an agency protecting consumers from credit card and mortgage scams,” she said on the press call. “I’ve lived in this world where people say to me ‘You can’t do this,’ and when they say that, I just say to them, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We have done it.”
“I’ll be out there fighting, and here’ll be the fun part,” she added. “I’ll be fighting right next to John McCain.”
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One of the arguments about Edward Snowden that I've occasionally gotten caught up in is: What difference has he made? Has he really told us very much we didn't know before?
In a broad sense, you can argue that he hasn't. We knew (or certainly suspected) that NSA was collecting enormous streams of telephone metadata. We knew they were issuing subpoenas for data from companies like Google and Microsoft. We knew that Section 702 
warrants were very broad. We knew that domestic data sometimes got inadvertently collected. We knew that massive amounts of foreign phone and email traffic were monitored.
As it happens, we've learned more than just this from the documents on Snowden's four laptops. Still, even if you accept this argument in general terms—and I've made it myself—Snowden still matters. It's one thing to know about this stuff in broad strokes. It's quite another to have specific, documented details. That's what Snowden has given us, and it makes a big difference in public debate. A Quinnipiac University poll released this week demonstrates this vividly. Three years ago, only 25 percent of Americans thought the government had gone too far in its anti-terrorism efforts. Policywise, nothing much has changed since then, but in 2013 that number has shot up to 45 percent.
This is how change happens. The public gets hit over the head with something, lawmakers are forced to take notice, and maybe, just maybe, Congress holds oversight hearings and decides to change the law. There's no guarantee that will happen this time, but it might. And regardless of how "new" Edward Snowden's revelations have been, we have him to thank for this.
