kate

“I’ve been fumbling with your zip for a while now, but to no avail. Could you please undo it for me so that I can see the beauty behind it?”

The Crunchyroll additions continue with another series preparing to join the summer anime lineup. The latest is ALDNOAH.ZERO, which kicks off for premium members on July 5 at 10:00am Pacific Time, with free members able to watch episodes one week after they debut.

 

Written by Gen Urobuchi (Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero) and directed by Ei Aoki (Fate/Zero, the Garden of sinners), ALDNOAH.ZERO will be available in the following territories: North America, Central and South America, Australia, New Zealand, UK, Ireland, Europe excluding German-speaking territories.

 

 

Crunchyroll's synopsis: 

The story features inhabitants of Earth and Mars waging in an interplanetary war. The story touches upon the effects wars have on a country’s government and its people.

 

Popular voice actor Kensho Ono, Tetsuya Kuroko from Kuroko’s Basketball, stars as Saline Troyard, with Natsuki Hanae, Hikari Sakishima from Nagi no Asukara, as Inaho Kaiduka, and Sora Amamiya, Liliana from Log Horizon, as Asseylum Vers Allusia. The talented trio of Kalafina sings the opening song “heavenly blue”, and composer Hiroyuki Sawano of Kill la Kill and Attack on Titan fame performs the ending song, “A/Z.” 

 

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Joseph Luster is the Games and Web editor at Otaku USA Magazine. His blog can be found at subhumanzoids. Follow him on Twitter at @Moldilox.

Yes, if renting Lego sets is something you'd like to do, then you'd best bookmark Pley.com immediately. The site allows you to rent your choice of Lego sets on a monthly basis, and then return them. Yes, really.

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Based on Michael Bond’s 1958 children’s book "A Bear Called Paddington," the live-action/CG hybrid "Paddington" tells the story of a Peruvian bear who finds himself living in London. The film will be released on November 28, 2014 in the Uk, followed by a Christmas Day release in the United States by the Weinstein Company/ Dimension Films. Based on Michael Bond’s 1958 children’s book A Bear Called Paddington, the live-action/CG hybrid Paddington tells the story of a Peruvian bear who finds himself living in London. The film will be released on November 28, 2014 in the Uk, followed by a Christmas Day release in the United States by the Weinstein Company/ Dimension Films.

It could be worse. Just be thankful you only had to sit on it, while you were visiting.



See more: Take a Seat

It’s a good thing Disney bought Lucasfilm, because otherwise we wouldn’t have a Star Wars themed episode of Phineas and Ferb.

Sadly, this may be the last new episode we see from the gang for a long while. Regular production has shut down for the year and word is that this was the last season.

Update: series creator promises show will return.

Phineas and Ferb Star Wars premieres Saturday, July 26th at 9p, part of Out of This World Weekend, on Disney Channel

Phineas and Ferb Star Wars Episode Coming to The Disney Channel originally posted on
The Disney Blog - Disney News and Information -- by fans, for fans . If you're reading this on a different site, please click the above link to read the original story. Thank you.

World No. 13 Grigor Dimitrov reached his first Grand Slam semi-final on Wednesday as he ended defending champion Andy Murray’s Wimbledon reign with a straight-sets victory.

[[More Tennis News on ATPWorldTour.com]]

Silly, Link. You're just adding saliva to the connectors which will inevitably corrode your connections. Either uses a Q-tip with some isopropyl rubbing alcohol or find a different, more creative, solution.



See more: Cartridge Of Time

You can tell that the artist was paying homage to Norman Rockwell's famous 'Triple Self-Portrait' cover for the The Saturday Evening Post. Actually, I made a parody of the same cover a while back in one of the installments of Games that I am glad were never made....



See more: The Hyrule Evening Post

Pretty damn accurate Final Fantasy VII video game trailer. Though I do think that Egoraptor nicely summed up Final Fantasy VII in his Awesome Fantasy VII parody video.

Still, as a huge fan of anime, I can honestly say that there is not a more accurate line in that entire video than:

"Barrett, who's what Japanese people think black people are like."

See more: An Honest Final Fantasy VII Game Trailer

This is awesome, even if 99.9% of the people who read it will have no idea that Dr. Mario is a parody of Black Jack in this or even WHO Black Jack is. That doesn't mean you cannot still enjoy this epic comic, nonetheless.



See more: Super Smash Bros. Medical Drama

Kurobas Festival to be held to celebrate new season

A great comic book cover has a lot of work to do. It’s both an advertisement and a work of art; both a statement and an invitation. Sometimes they convey character, sometimes mood, sometimes moment. Sometimes they pastiche the classics or pay tribute to the past; sometimes they strive to show us something entirely new. Always they show us a glimpse of somewhere else through a canvas no bigger than a window pane. In Best Comic Book Covers Ever (This Month), we look back over some of the most eye-catching, original and exceptional covers of the month that was.

Bloodbaths, glowing hands, and sinister animal silhouettes; these are a few of comics' favorite things, judging by the comic book covers from June 2014. Read on for great covers from Riley Rossmo, Christian Ward, Russell Dauterman, Jerome Opeña, and more.

Continue reading…

We saw him in scans last month, but now Nendoroid Armin has full burst onto the scene, showing up in a very charming Kahotan preview and going up for pre-order at all the major stores.

I like Armin's character design - his blonde boyishness is a nice break from a succession of dark haired grim faced heroes - and the included faces are excellent as always, particularly the fantastic 'shocked' expression. Still, as cool as it is I'm getting pretty weary of seeing a billion figures in the Attack On Titan uniform and this doesn't really do much to change that. If you can't get enough though, know that he'll cost you ¥3,889 and be out this October. Hit the links below to get your pre-orders in.

[ Pre-order at HobbyLink Japan | Hobby Search | AmiAmi | CD Japan | J-List | Big in Japan | Good Smile Online Shop (w/exclusive grass stand) ]

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The European Court of Human Rights dealt a blow to France’s Muslim population Tuesday, when it upheld the country’s ban on full-face veils.

The decision was handed down four years after France outlawed almost all clothing covering the face, such as the burqa and niqab, in any public space. In 2010, then-President Nicolas Sarkozy and leaders in both houses of the French Parliament overwhelmingly favored the ban, reasoning that face veils threatened France’s secularism, women’s rights, and public safety.

After the law was implemented in 2011, a Muslim woman known only by her initials, SAS, challenged the decision in front of the European Court, the highest court in the European Union with regards to human rights claims. SAS claimed that the law violated Articles 8-10 and Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the “right to respect for private and family life,” “freedom of thought, conscience and religion,” “freedom of of expression,” and “prohibition of discrimination.” She also told the Court that she personally chose to wear the burqa and niqab, and was not pressured by her husband or family to do so.

But earlier today, the Court decided that the ban does not explicitly target Muslims, siding with the French government on a ban of any clothing covering the face, with few exceptions. “[The] European Court of Human Rights held, by a majority, that there had been no violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights, and no violation of Article 9 (right to respect for freedom of thought, conscience and religion); unanimously, that there had been no violation of Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the European Convention combined with Articles 8 or 9,” the Court explained in a release accompanying its decision.

Those in violation of the law will have to pay up to €105 or attend a citizenship class.

Over the past decade, France has drawn worldwide criticism for discriminating against minority religious groups, including its 5 million Muslims. In 2012, for example, the U.N. Human Rights Committee found the country in contempt of religious freedom for its crackdown in 2004. That year, Act No. 2004-228 stated that “[in] public primary schools, secondary schools and lycées, the wearing of symbols or clothing by which pupils manifest their religious affiliation in a conspicuous manner is forbidden.” The Act disproportionately affected members of minority religions, opponents argue, including Jews, Sikhs, and Muslims, who traditionally don yarmulkes, turbans, and headscarves — “conspicuous” clothing. Christians, on the other hand, were allowed to wear crosses in public.

The country has also struggled with a rising anti-immigrant sentiment, pushed by far-right political parties. A recent Pew poll showed that 40 percent of France’s right-wing held unfavorable views towards Muslims, compared to 27 percent overall. In one instance gaining international attention, the town of Nice recently banned the display of foreign flags during the World Cup, after soccer fans of Algerian heritage flew the Algerian flag last week.

The post French Muslims Lose Their Fight To Overturn France’s Veil Ban appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Discussing Hillary Clinton’s reaction to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on Hobby Lobby, Fox News host Jesse Watters suggested the presumptive presidential candidate is simply attempting to win over single female voters who want the government to pay for their birth control. He referred to that voting bloc as the “Beyoncé voters.”

Appearing as the male guest on Outnumbered, the new daytime talk show on Fox News that pits a group of female hosts against one man, Watters dismissed the concerns that Clinton raised about the low-wage workers at Hobby Lobby who will now have to foot the full cost of some types of contraception. “She’s acting like Hobby Lobby all of a sudden is telling these women that work for them to wear a burka or something like that,” he said.

“But I’m not surprised — this is her bread and butter, how she’ll try to win the White House,” Watters continued, in comments that were first reported by Buzzfeed. “She needs the single ladies vote. I call them ‘the Beyoncé voters’ — the single ladies. Obama won single ladies by 76 percent last time, and made up about a quarter of the electorate. They depend on government because they’re not depending on their husbands. They need contraception, health care, and they love to talk about equal pay.”

Watch it:

Watters is relying on the common conservative assumption that insurance coverage for contraception is a frivolous government handout for promiscuous women. At the beginning of this year, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) made headlines for distilling this argument into a comparison between the government and a sugar daddy, saying Democrats want women to think they’re “helpless” without access to copay-free birth control.

Linking Beyoncé to sex is nothing new for right-wing pundits, either. In April, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said that the singer’s “raunchy” new album is encouraging black girls to get pregnant out of wedlock. Of course, Beyoncé is responsible for the chart topper “Single Ladies,” and that may be why Watters used her name — but conservatives’ constant fixation on her sexual morals still doesn’t make much sense, considering the fact that she’s half of one of pop culture’s most famous marriages.

Although Watters suggests that women could simply get married and rely on their husbands to pay for birth control, one of the goals of the Affordable Care Act is to eliminate this gender imbalance in health costs altogether. By requiring employers to offer birth control coverage without charging an extra co-pay, the health law is trying to prevent women from paying substantially more for their preventative health care simply because of their gender. If birth control costs are no longer a burden on female employees, there will be no need for either them or their spouse to pick up that extra tab.

The post Fox News Host: Hillary Clinton Needs Support From ‘Beyoncé Voters’ Who Want Free Birth Control appeared first on ThinkProgress.

We heard rumors of layoffs at DreamWorks last week, but they weren't confirmed by a reputable source until yesterday evening when the animator's union, The Animation Guild, posted an item about it on their blog.

Has your excitement died down yet from playing the new Mario Kart for the WiiU? No? Alright, McDonalds wants your business! Their next Happy Meal toys will be coming straight from Mario Kart 8.

I’m not even going to call these the boys toys, and gripe again about how the boys get all the good stuff. Forget it! I’m just going to say that they’re giving kids two options for toys.

So, if you don’t want these Mario toys, you can get Ty Teenie Beanie Boos. Hey, look at that, Beanie Babies are still a thing. Anyway, there will be seven Mario toys and a Mario hat visor.

You can get racing toys of Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Bowser, Donkey Kong, Toad, and Yoshi. Daisy is clearly better, but whatever. Not sure if any of these cars can do anything aside from moving, but hey, it’s Mario!

[via Kotaku]

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HAPPY CANADA DAY! For Canada Day, read this short Superhero Girl comic I made last year for the True Patriot anthology! It was based on a true experience I had when someone asked me “what makes Superhero Girl a Canadian superhero?” and I was like uhhhhh?

The League of Villainous Canadian Stereotypes was my boyfriend Tim’s idea. He is a great idea man! 

Enjoy my Canadian comic and have a great Canada Day! I am celebrating by working a lot. ;)

Locust Moon Comics in Philadelphia has been putting together ran all-star anthology celebrating Winsor McCay’s LIttle Nemo with contemporary artists going nuts artistically. The above strip by David “Mouse Guard” Petersen is but one example of many jaw-droppers. The Kickstarter for the book launched Monday and has already been funded, but you will probably want a copy of it, anyway. Here some more art just to add to the persuasion.

YOu can read more about the project at the Locust Moon blog.

Roger Langridge and Jeremy Bastien



Gerhard

The Supreme Court on Monday blew a hole in an Obamacare provision that required employers to provide employees with contraceptive coverage. Specifically, companies whose owners have religious objections to covering contraception are now off the hook—regardless of whether their objections are based in reality.

So what does this mean for women who work for Hobby Lobby—or one of the 70 other companies that challenged Obamacare's contraception mandate? The White House is considering whether President Obama can take unilateral action to ensure that they are covered. Health care experts say his administration can cover woman affected by today's ruling similar to how it currently covers women working for nonprofit, religiously affiliated organizations.

Under the accommodation the federal government has worked out with religious nonprofits, the government waives fines for organizations that do not wish to cover contraception; the organization's insurer or a third-party plan administrator provides the coverage instead. The cost is borne by the insurer, or in the latter case, the government.

"The obligation to provide [contraception] is technically on the insurers," explains Timothy Jost, who runs Health Affairs Blog. "It's just the government's preference that the employers administer the coverage."

Using the same workaround, the government can ensure that employees of companies such as Hobby Lobby still get the contraception coverage they are entitled to under the Affordable Care Act, says Sara Rosenbaum, chair of the health policy school at George Washington University. "The only difference is that the employer is not exposed to the cost," she says.

Jost notes: "I don't see any reason why [the Obama administration] couldn't do it this way. The Supreme Court more or less told them to do it, or strongly suggested they do it."

Indeed, the five justices who ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby made the accommodation a key piece of their decision. "HHS has…effectively exempted religious nonprofit organizations with religious objections to providing coverage for contraceptive services," the court noted in its opinion. The justices suggested extending that exemption, which "does not impinge on the plaintiff's religious beliefs."

Continue Reading »

On Monday, the Supreme Court issued its decision on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. Hobby Lobby's owners had objected to a provision in Obamacare that forced the the craft supply store chain to provide its employees with health insurance that covers birth control or pay a fine. In a 5-4 ruling, the conservative justices on the court said that the government can't force Hobby Lobby—or any closely held corporation—to pay for birth control and emergency contraception if doing so would offend the religious beliefs of the company's owners.

Justice Samuel Alito, the George W. Bush appointee who penned the majority opinion, went to great lengths to write a limited decision, stressing that the ruling should only apply to Obamacare's contraception regulations, and that other employers shouldn't cite Hobby Lobby to justify opposing other laws. "This decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate," Alito wrote, "and should not be understood to hold that all insurance-coverage mandates, e.g., for vaccinations or blood transfusions, must necessarily fall if they conflict with an employer’s religious beliefs. Nor does it provide a shield for employers who might cloak illegal discrimination as a religious practice."

As Alito no doubt knows, that's not how Supreme Court jurisprudence works. The justices often try to limit their decisions to a narrow set of facts. But they're still setting legal precedent, and their logic is certain to be used in future cases in lower courts—often in unintended ways. There are no take-backsies for Supreme Court decisions.

Continue Reading »

Recent Commissions.

More info & Process: http://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2014/06/recent-commissions.html

Chiwa Saito plays princess in Pierrot anime of story by Mugen Spiral's Kusanagi

First ever complete English release slated for this year

Multiversity recently put out a call for new writers, with the caveat that they cannot pay you and revelation that their entire staff is unpaid, from the editors on down. They’re offering exposure—they have a platform, they have inroads with creators and publishers, and you can use that platform to “to help spread the gospel of comics, as that is — to us — the main reason we do this ourselves.” It’s a familiar song, and here’s some lunchbreak thoughts on writers working for free. I should probably say “No disrespect to Multiversity.” here.

I’ve worked for free and for pay. I’ve written for PopCultureShock, CBR, ComicsAlliance, my own 4thletter!, and a wide variety of video game sites. I wrote for and later ran PopCultureShock for free, and in so doing, got a few friends to write for free, as well. I wrote about my time working for ComicsAlliance for Spurgeon after I left the site. CBR syndicated a few of my Black History Month pieces some years back. It was a favor for a friend. I don’t think payment was part of the conversation, but hindsight says it should have been.

Nobody gets paid at 4l!, not even me. We ran Project Wonderful ads for a while, and that made the site break even for a good while, but didn’t make it profitable. I eventually got rid of them because ads are ugly and started using Amazon Affiliates to generate money for the site. That’s much, much less effective, but it helps and it’s unobtrusive, so fine. But 4l! is basically a two-man operation. It’s two Old Friends talking about whatever they want at their leisure. If Gavin told me, “Hey, thanks for the time and friendship, but I’m only doing paying work from now on,” I wouldn’t feel bad at all. I’ve done the same thing.

I say that not to brag but to set the stage—I’ve been a writer and a site-runner, I’ve worked for free and for pay, I’ve had a site that makes money and one that is a bottomless pit of expenses. I’ve gotten people paid and I’ve gotten work out of them for free. I know a little bit about a little bit, and I’m at a point in my life where I “don’t” work for free. I say “don’t” because I sometimes do, depending on how much I like you. I’m working on something with someone now, and it’s entirely because I’m curious to see what she is gonna say about our subject.

If you write for someone else, if you create anything for someone else, then you should be compensated for it in a way that’s acceptable to you and your employer. On a small scale, a favor is fine payment. I did a big semi-holistic comics culture Inkstuds project for Robin McConnell that seemed to go over pretty well. Having me do something was his idea, the structure and focus was mine, and he didn’t give me any notes. I didn’t take money for it for a variety of reasons, but Robin hooked me up with some frankly incredible stuff at a con in exchange. I felt good about it.

If you feel good about it, you should write for whoever you want, however you want, for whatever you want. I’ve done it for comics, video games, movies, hugs, whatever. Are you okay with it? Then do it.

But, as a guy who has been in the position of looking for work, of trying to get a leg up, of watching people profit off the back of his work for years—you gotta think as hard as you possibly can before taking any type of exposure deal. There are no big leagues in writing about comics. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up on a site that pays between 10 and 50 a post. If you’re really lucky, you’ll be one of the precious few people who make a living wage from “comics journalism.” (They’re like high-level billionaires: they all know of each other and there aren’t that many of them.) But odds are you aren’t gonna get called up to the majors.

Websites cost money. Hosting costs, overage costs, domain registration costs. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but there is a cost. And if there is a cost, you can bet somebody’s getting paid. But the thing about comics journo is the money’s crap. And in the exposure/platform equation, paying for the existence of the site has priority over paying writers. It is what it is. This is the situation we have to live with.

But while we’re living with it, think about it. Think about whether servicing someone else’s success—and make no mistake, any site that offers you work for free is going to use you to increase their profile or maintain their success, same as any paying job would—also serves your own needs. What do you get out of it? Is it the platform? The audience? The access? The platform is nice, talking to people whose work you enjoy is great, and someone asking you to write things for them is intensely flattering and confidence-building. I understand and agree wholeheartedly.

But, ask yourself these questions: What can they do for you that you can’t do for yourself? What do they have that’s worth trading your voice, time, talent, and copyright?

Before recommending anyone write for any site for free, I would suggest that they find a few friends, pool their money, register a website, and go wild for a year. Or do it on Tumblr or another free platform. This way, you own it, you can choose how and where to exploit it. It has your name on it, front and center. Use that year to sharpen your craft and find your voice, if you haven’t already. There might not be any money in it, and you might have to buy your own comics, but odds are you want to write about comics because the comics you’re already reading excite you anyway.

Don’t give your stuff away for free, or a crappy rate, just because it’ll make you “legitimate.” You can make yourself legitimate. Or maybe you’ll belly-flop. It’s hard to tell when it comes to this stuff, but think real hard about what you’re doing before you give your voice to someone else. It’s fine to be an employee, but make sure you’re getting something of value if anybody else is getting paid.

If you run a site, make sure the perks are on par with the work being given to you. Take your folks out to dinner, buy them movies, hook them up off their Amazon wishlist—do something, because if most comics sites aren’t paying despite being parts of ad networks and affiliate programs and all the other subtle ways websites make money, you’re disrespecting your staff, who objectively deserve more than you are willing to give. If you’re going to ask for people to work for you for free, make sure there aren’t any ads on the site. Ads mean money, and if there’s money, why can’t you pay? If there’s not enough money to pay for anything but hosting, what are you doing to drum up money for the people who make the site a destination?

There’s not a lot of money in comics, or so people tell me. There’s even less in comics journalism, and if you’re offering people a choice between free, $10 a piece, and going their own way, you’re going to find more and more people wanting to go their own way.

Basically: make sure you’re compensated. Make sure you’re compensating. Free isn’t fair.

sketchshark:

These are some Astrid outfit designs I did that can be seen in the Art of How to Train Your Dragon 2 book.

I can’t believe the movie is finally coming out this weekend!! We’re all super proud of the film, and we’re super excited about its release!

Please go check it out HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 this weekend!  :D

these are SO COOL. I’m really looking forward to HTTYD2, but can Astrid have her own spin-off movie too? She is awesome.

"No homo" is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard come out of the mouth of a human. This is my second favorite way to reply - the first, bloody retribution.

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