kate

YAAAY!

Also on Tapastic~

I’m on the official countdown to May! If you’re wondering why, wonder no more. I just found out that the next gourmet apple set to debut at the Disneyland Resort has been covered in peanut butter and chocolate. I’m pretty sure life as I know it is complete. See for yourself!

So allow me to tempt your taste buds further, here’s what you can expect. Tart green apples will be covered in creamy caramel and milk chocolate and topped with pieces of peanut butter cup filled chocolates. If you’re sold on what I just shared with you, it gets better. Our candy makers have taken it one step further, drizzling melted peanut butter and sweet milk chocolate over the top.

I don’t know about all of you, but I can’t wait to try it! Spoiler alert Mom, this will be headed your way for Mother’s Day! Where can you find this delicious dream come true? Look for it at Candy Palace on Main Street, U.S.A., in Disneyland park; Trolley Treats on Buena Vista Street in Disney California Adventure park; and Marceline’s Confectionery in the Downtown Disney District.

Do you plan to add this to your list of things to try?

The Gourmet Apple for May at the Disneyland Resort is a Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cup Dream by Michelle Harker: Originally posted on the Disney Parks Blog

Welcome to the latest episode of ComicsAlliance Presents “Kate or Die,” a series of exclusive comic strips created by one of our favorite cartoonists, Kate Leth! In this episode, Kate assuages your fears that your'e being creepy when approaching your favorite comic book creators at conventions. Don't worry, you're not!

Unless you are.

Continue reading…

Story goes, she found a way into the machine and handed out toys to passers-by. Can’t blame her for thinking outside the box. Or, in this case, inside the box. (image credit Palmbchgrl; via The Daily Dot)

• If you like comparing your favorite stories to works with similar themes, you’ll enjoy this look at Orphan Black’s science fiction lineage. (via Ars Technica)
• Guild Wars is turning nine on April 22. In-game festivities will be underway until the 29th. (via Polygon)

The only hoodie suitable for wear in Hyrule. Pre-order ‘em here. (via So Geek Chic)

• Earth Day’s this week, and in celebration, NASA is making a mosaic image of our planet. All they need are your selfies. (via NASA)
• In typical fashion, Emma Thompson says some smart things about female representation in film. (via Women and Hollywood)

“A Woman’s Courage,” by artist Nicolas Delort. (via Geek Art)

The Ikebukuro Animate is famous as fujoshi central so imagine our surprise when we turned the corner and ran into a face full of boobies!

The walls along the stairwell are currently plastered with the weirdo aliens from Space Dandy. Each episode featured designs from guest creators including game developer Nitro+, illustrator Katsuya Terada and animators such as Yuka Koiso and Yoshiyuki Itoh. Personally I'm a big fan of the Deathgerian from Episode 3 by Namaniku ATK. Props to Dandy for getting exposed nipples past the censors, even if they were attached to a man-eating flesh behemoth.

Yessss! The Art of the Venture Brothers will be a huge collection of original artwork, character designs, storyboards, painted backgrounds, and props from every episode of The Venture Bros. with accompanying commentary on the development of the series from cocreators Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer. And as you know, those guys can commentate with the best of them. If you clicked the above link, you will have seen the list price is $39.99. Patton Oswalt pens a foreword. 

In addition to Publick and Hammer, artists we can think of who have worked on the show (off the top of our head—there are lots)—include Stephen DeStefano, Carly Monardo, Esao Andrews, Bill Sienkiewicz and so on…so it will be sweet. The book, which was rumored at SDCC 2013, will be out in October 2014.

As for Venture Brothers Season Six? That’s due in January 2015, last we heard, although a one hour special is planned to air this fall.

Push through your wince at the fact that former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers suggested that there are so few women in scientific fields because of genetic differences between the sexes. Set aside the inner pain you feel at knowing that Summers used to be the President of Harvard University, too. Instead, bask in Neil deGrasse Tyson’s on point response, which starts with “I’ve never been female. But I have been black my whole life.”

(via Upworthy, thanks to tipster Travis)

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1. 1.Leon: The Professional
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4. 4.Skyfall
5. 5.2001: A Space Odyssey
6. 6.Cool Runnings
7. 7.Captain America: The First Avenger
8. 8.Fargo
9. 9.Labyrinth
10. 10.Alien
11. 11.Battle Royale
12. 12.Mean Girls
13. 13.Iron Man
14. 14.District 9
15. 15.The Avengers

The Tumblr Awful Reviews is a brilliant idea. When you hate a movie, you can be amused by a quip taking it down. When you don’t, you can be amused by feeling superior to the sort of person who could watch The Professional and not be totally into Gary Oldman‘s performance as another scene stealing villain. I mean, everyone loves him in that movie.

Everyone.

(via lots of places, including BuzzFeed and The Daily Dot.)

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Even if you don’t watch Game of Thrones, you’re probably at least vaguely familiar with the controversy surrounding the most recent episode, “Breaker of Chains.” Tl;dr—a sex scene that is widely read as consensual in the books was changed to be rape. It’s all the entertainment corner of the Internet’s been able to talk about so far this week, and rightfully so: Aside from being messed up on its own, the scene serves as a crystallization of this extremely popular, critically lauded show’s problem with using sexual violence against women for shock value.

Since “Breaker of Chains” came out, director Alex Graves, co-showrunner David Benioff (who also wrote the episode with D.B. Weiss), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and George R.R. Martin himself have all spoken out about the scene. What they have to say will probably make you angrier. Fair warning.

The scene was read by pretty much everyone who watched it as rape, probably because of the way Cersei said “No, no” all the way through it and Jaime responded to her “It’s not right” with “I don’t care.” Which, y’know… that’s pretty rapey. But Graves doesn’t see it that way; he told HitFix that the scene “becomes consensual by the end, because anything for them ultimately results in a turn-on, especially a power struggle.”

He elaborated in an interview with Vulture, clarifying where the hell we were supposed to get Cersei’s consent from:

The consensual part of it was that she wraps her legs around him, and she’s holding on to the table, clearly not to escape but to get some grounding in what’s going on. And also, the other thing that I think is clear before they hit the ground is she starts to make out with him. The big things to us that were so important, and that hopefully were not missed, is that before he rips her undergarment, she’s way into kissing him back. She’s kissing him aplenty.

OK. So going by these two statements it could—could—be read as a case of Graves genuinely intending to film consensual sex but just screwing it up royally. He needed to get some outside eyes on that incredibly sensitive scene and ask their owners “Hey, just curious, you’re getting that Cersei’s consenting, right? No? Crap, back to the editing room.” It’s not like he walked into work that day thinking “I’m going to film one of the show’s fan-favorite characters raping his sister.”

But wait.

In another interview Graves refers to that scene as “forced sex.” And Benioff, in the episode’s video diary, had this to say:

It becomes a really kind of horrifying scene, because you see, obviously, Joffrey’s body right there, and you see that Cersei is resisting this. She’s saying no, and he’s forcing himself on her. So it was a really uncomfortable scene, and a tricky scene to shoot.

“Uncomfortable.” “Tricky.” And rape. Benioff, what you’ve described is pretty much the definition of it. No one was asking that you take the altar scene at it was in the books—depraved and uncomfortable, as it is happening right next to the body of their assassinated son, after all—and turn it into a hallmark of emotional stability. But did you have to make it so whenever, throughout the rest of the show, Jaime has good character moments, you’re asking us to cheer for a rapist? To sympathize with a rapist? Did you have to trivialize rape—which a lot of people in the real world don’t think is a big deal, going by (among many other things) the amount of rape threats that get thrown around online—by including it as a point of character development?

Here’s Martin’s response to the scene:

I think the “butterfly effect” that I have spoken of so often was at work here. In the novels, Jaime is not present at Joffrey’s death, and indeed, Cersei has been fearful that he is dead himself, that she has lost both the son and the father/ lover/ brother. And then suddenly Jaime is there before her. Maimed and changed, but Jaime nonetheless. Though the time and place is wildly inappropriate and Cersei is fearful of discovery, she is as hungry for him as he is for her.
The whole dynamic is different in the show, where Jaime has been back for weeks at the least, maybe longer, and he and Cersei have been in each other’s company on numerous occasions, often quarreling. The setting is the same, but neither character is in the same place as in the books, which may be why Dan & David played the sept out differently. But that’s just my surmise; we never discussed this scene, to the best of my recollection.

Also, I was writing the scene from Jaime’s POV, so the reader is inside his head, hearing his thoughts. On the TV show, the camera is necessarily external. You don’t know what anyone is thinking or feeling, just what they are saying and doing.

If the show had retained some of Cersei’s dialogue from the books, it might have left a somewhat different impression — but that dialogue was very much shaped by the circumstances of the books, delivered by a woman who is seeing her lover again for the first time after a long while apart during which she feared he was dead. I am not sure it would have worked with the new timeline.

Well, that’s… diplomatic.

Coster-Waldau, who plays Jaime, acknowledged in an interview with The Daily Beast that “for some people, it’s just going to look like rape,” but “the intention is that it’s not just that; it’s about two people who’ve had this connection for so many years, and much of it is physical, and much of it has had to be kept secret, and this is almost the last thing left now. It’s him trying to force her back and make him whole again because of his stupid hand.”

So, is it rape? “Yes, and no. There are moments where she gives in, and moments where she pushes him away. But it’s not pretty.”

Just my opinion here, but if your answer to “Is it rape?” is “yes and no,” then it’s probably rape.

(via: io9, The Hollywood Reporter, Vulture, HitFix, Winter Is Coming)

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1. 1.ketchupize
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Ketchupize is a design studio based in Athens, Greece.  Their work immediately caught my eye while surfing Etsy recently and since I’m both a nerd and have a sunglasses obsession, I basically want them all. Items range from about $40-85 depending on the style of headphones or glasses/sunglasses and feature designs from Doctor Who, Adventure Time, The Walking Dead, My Little Pony, and more!

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Or, I should say, HBO shows will finally be available online legally to non-HBO subscribers. Because, while it’s technically illegal for someone who doesn’t get HBO to log into someone else’s HBO GO account, it’s not like that ever stopped anyone. But HBO GO isn’t the subject of this news. Nope. HBO’s getting in bed with the Overlord of the Internet: Amazon.

Edit: This just in: According to Variety HBO’s Amazon deal does not include Game of Thrones. Ditto Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Sex and the City, which have other U.S. syndication deals. And “new and future shows,” including True Detective and Silicon Valley, are excluded under the current deal as well. Thanks, HBO.

HBO and Amazon have entered into a licensing deal that will allow Amazon Prime Instant Video to be the exclusive online-only (HBO GO is cable and online, so that doesn’t count) streaming service for classic HBO shows and miniseries like The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under, John Adams, and Angels in America.

Great news for Amazon Prime subscribers who finally want to get around to Band of Brothers. Not-so-great news for people who were chomping at the bit for a way to get legal streaming access to currently airing shows like Game of Thrones. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Previous seasons of newer shows including Veep, The Newsroom, and Girls will become available approximately three years after airing on HBO.” HBO GO, with all its shows, new and old, will also be available on Amazon’s streaming media player Fire TV by the end of the year.

It’s not exactly the $10/month a la carte subscription to HBO GO that many people wanted, but honestly, that was never going to happen. As a premium cable network, HBO makes the vast majority of their moolah, not from advertising like basic cable networks do, but from subscription fees. Keeping those fees rolling in depends on maintaining amicable relationships with cable companies like Time Warner, which, to put it lightly, don’t want current subscribers to have the option to downgrade to a less-expensive plan. There’s no financial reason for HBO to offer an HBO GO-only model.

So the Amazon Prime deal is a compromise. At $99/year, I can’t imagine all that many people will ditch cable for it when doing so won’t even get them the new stuff until it’s old. The cable companies keep their iron grip on the metaphorical testicles of the nation. Amazon gets content. Amazon Prime subscribers get more shows to binge watch. HBO gets viewers. And for the happy pirates of the Internet who want to watch Game of Thrones the night it airs without having to pony up for a costly cable subscription, well, nothing’s changed. They’ll sail off into the sunset clutching their “borrowed” HBO GO passwords in their raised fists.

(via: Geekosystem)

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The Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai blog does a fine job of posting Japanese ghost stories and related creepy tales.

(thanks to Randy McCall)

The much loved, but forgotten by Konami RPG series is coming back and this time it isn’t a slot machine. Suikoden II is on deck to be re-released as a PsOne Classic. A rating for Suikoden II popped up on the ESRB as a PlayStation 3 game with Sony Computer Entertainment America listed as the publisher.

 

 

Originally released in 1998, Suikoden II follows a hero caught in the middle of a war. The story isn’t just about the protagonist, it’s about all of the Stars of Destiny you meet in the game. One of the neat features is you could load save data from Suikoden into Suikoden II. The first Suikoden is currently on PlayStation Network in case you want to start leveling characters up for the sequel.

Read Looks Like Suikoden II Will Be Re-Released On PlayStation Network on Siliconera!

This went out last week but I haven’t seen it noted too much in comics circles: Kickstarter has added subcategories to the various main categories for projects. 94 subcategories were added, to aid both creators and backers in finding suitable projects.

There are five subcategories in comics:

Anthologies
Comic Books
Events
Graphic Novels
Webcomics

You can access the new categories by going here and clicking on comics.

Clicking around, I found 15 anthologies, 19 comic books, 10 events, 19 graphic novels and 10 webcomics. This only reflects the projects tat have been categorized however, as there are dozens of currents comics Kickstarters running, including the successful Study Group one I nabbed the illo from.

While writing the previous item, I played around with the Kickstarter stat page, to see how comics are doing—and they are doing very well! While comics crowdfunding projects have the second lowest number of projects—3,944. one tenth that of the top category, film and video with 34,985—they have the fourth highest success rate! Here’s the top four:

Dance — 1,856 projects 70.35% funded
Theater — 5,933 projects 64.37% funded
Music – 28,939 projects 55.24% funded
Comics — 3,944 projects 49.64% funded

Other states: Comics have raised $27.40 million in total dollars, $24.31 million going towards successful projects, $2.06 million to unsuccessful ones.

These stats are about the same as the last time we looked at this, so I think you could say this is a pretty stable pattern by now.

You can play around with all the other stats on the page (Todd? Torsten?) involving money levels and more. For instance here’s a tough one: there are 18 comics projects that made it to the last percentile — 80-99% funded— but still missed out. Close but no vape pen!

Another few previews of comics coming up for Free Comic Book Day on Saturday May the third. And here are some classic kids comics – even if some of them have never been published in the US before.

Don Rosa’s Uncle Scrooge And Donald Duck

Publisher: FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS

(W/A/CA) Don Rosa

In “A Matter of Some Gravity” by fan-favorite Don Rosa, saucy sorceress Magica De Spell turns Scrooge’s life sideways – literally! – when she distorts the forces of gravity! Then, in “The Sign of the Triple Distelfink”, Lucky Gladstone Gander faces a 24-hour luck jinx – and battles to hide it from a gloating Cousin Donald! Only ever published in the USA in under-printed mid-1990′s editions, these Rosa classics are back like you’ve never seen them before!

Smurfs

Publisher: Papercutz

The Smurfs return to Free Comic Book Day! This year’s offering features never-before-seen comic stories from Péyo starring everyone’s favorite blue bombshell: the Smurfette! It’s Smurftastically Free!

Buck Rogers

Publisher: HERMES PRESS

(W) Howard Chaykin, Russell Keaton (A) Howard Chaykin & Various

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, the first, best and original sci-fi hero, is supporting Free Comic Book day with a special re-print of one complete Sunday story, “Prophet of the Fire Demon,” by fabled artist Russell Keaton! This story has been painstakingly digitally-reconstructed to perfection, and looks better than the original newspaper Sundays! Hermes Press’ Buck Rogers FCBD issue will also offer bonus material and tons of surprises!

Free Comic Book Day Preview: Ducks, Smurfs And Buck Rogers

Another few previews of comics coming up for Free Comic Book Day on Saturday May the third, this time with a mature readers edge. Apparently comics aren’t just for kids any more.

Hip Hop Family Tree Two-In-One

Publisher: FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS (W/A/CA)Ed Piskor

Hip Hop Family Tree Two-In-One by Ed Piskor is the perfect introduction and bridge to Piskor’s fun and crtitically acclaimed 5 volume book series! This full-color comic book offers two self-contained stories form Hip Hop Family Tree Volumes 1 & 2 as well as new guest pin-ups and content just for FCBD! Lovingly produced and designed in homage to Marvel Comic’s beloved Marvel Two-In-One-Make mine Hip Hop!

Ipso Facto

Publisher: AUTOMATIC PICTURES
(W) J.R. Rothenberg (A/CA) Jason Badower, Annette Kwok
A peaceful alien race secretly inhabiting Earth suddenly begins to flee when a satellite intended to eliminate nuclear war is launched. Meanwhile, a boy in Colorado, a lovestruck rebel without a cause, believes he’s going insane; his mind replaying a single message: “remember who you are… or this world ends.”

FUBAR: Ace Of Spades

Publisher: ALTERNA COMICS INC
(W) Chuck Dixon (A) Jeff McComsey, Steve Becker (CA) Steve Becker
It’s 2003 and the hunt is on for Saddam Hussein. The men of Operation Urgent Surprise think they’ve found the Butcher of Baghdad but instead uncover weapons of mass destruction in the form of ZOMBIES! Shock and awe turns to bite and claw on the bloody sands of Iraq in this full-length FUBAR Spec-Ops spectacular.

Mature Readers Free Comic Book Day Preview: Hip Hop, Ipso Facto And Fubar

Another few previews of comics coming up for Free Comic Book Day on Saturday May the fourth.

Dumbest Idea Ever

Publisher: SCHOLASTIC INC.
Graphix (publishers of Bone, Smile, and the Amulet series) makes its FCBD debut with this stand-alone excerpt from The Dumbest Idea Ever! Renowned comics creator Jimmy Gownley (Amelia Rules!) shares his real life adventures of becoming a teenage comic book artist! Called “an inspirational book that could help launch the next great cartoonist” by Jeff Kinney (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) this is the perfect book for anyone who loves comics . . . and any kid who dreams of someday making comics of their own.

Magic Wind

Publisher: EPICENTER COMICS
(W) Gianfranco Manfredi (A/CA) Pasquale Frisenda
With a shard of metal in his brain allowing him limited access to his past memories, and only being left with an astonishing ability to foresee the future through visions and premonitions, Ned Ellis is no ordinary man. Once a U.S soldier, he is now a Sioux Shaman who goes by the name of Magic Wind. This FCBD edition will give you an exciting extended preview of the thrilling upcoming graphic novel!

Intrinsic Vol 2

Publisher: ARCANA STUDIO
(W) Sean O’Reilly, Chris “Doc” Wyatt (A/CA) TBD
THE PHILOSOPHERS are an ancient secret order of magic-users who protect Earth. One of their number, ISHMAEL STONE, known as PHILOSOPHER REX, has assembled an elite team, called THE INTRINSIC to deal with the most serious threats from the outer realms. The team includes: KADE – the immortal warrior, KORE – the massive Demon-spawn, KINETIC – master of mental powers, JAS – a young spiritual warrior monk, and CANDICE CROW – the living embodiment of heat. But how will the Intrinsic react when they are called not to protect the Earth, but to protect themselves from it?

Free Comic Book Day Preview: Is Magic Wind Intrinsically The Dumbest Idea Ever?

DVD, magazine celebrates 30 years since the broadcast of Hokuto no Ken TV anime

Good afternoon, gentlefolks of the internet. Some of you might know The Mary Sue is always open to new contributors, but we thought it was time to make sure everybody knows.

You can find all the information on how to become a contributor right here, at our Contributors page. But here’s some more info!

You should apply to be a contributor if… you are well-informed on areas of geek culture (or areas of geek culture as they intersect with issues of representation and diversity), have a passion for writing, and enjoy working creatively. We do hire professional journalists on a case by case basis, as they apply through our submissions@themarysue.com address, but this is for folks with a passion about a topic or a post they’d like to republish!

“Is there anything you’re looking for in particular?” I hear somebody shouting from the back of the room. I’m glad you asked, audience plant. Allow me to list some things:

[Update: We are now also looking for:

• Contributors who have a background in writing about science and tech, and who can report, provide commentary, or produce creative pieces that make STEM and space relatable and enjoyable for a wider audience.
• Contributors with access to next-gen consoles (Wii U, PS4, Xbox One) who are interested in game reviews.]
• Contributors who can report, provide commentary, or produce creative pieces related to news in the anime and manga communities.
• Contributors who can report, provide commentary, or produce creative pieces related to news in the video and tabletop gaming communities.
• Contributors interested in creating, discovering, and/or showcasing geek crafting and cosplay techniques and guides.
• A geek sex columnist, who is up for interviewing creators at the nexus of geek and the erotic, and can talk easily about geeks and kink, erotic comics and fiction (fan or otherwise), dating sims, sex bots, mythical animal dildos, you know, the usual.

But even if you don’t fit into one of those niches, we still want to hear from you! Just head right over to our Contributors Page.

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We got front-row seats to the match of the century--Masked Man M VS Lady S at the Tokyo Anime Center! The animated short Kick-Heart has been popping up recently at screening events and small theaters so we were excited to be close enough to the production materials to see the sweat fly.  

Director Masaaki Yuasa is no stranger to the psychedelic and he takes us along on one of his acid flashbacks with these design boards. His style takes your brain to strange places that put anime into a warped perspective--how can Kick-Heart be part of the same visual medium as Gundam Wing? 

The staff at Production I.G have been extremely open about the project ever since announcing it on Kickstarter and the exhibit is equally generous with behind-the-scenes goodies. There's hand-painted backgrounds, flip books, storyboards and of course row after row of awesome key frames. Take a minute to appreciate that pencil work!

Will Kickstarter save the anime industry? Well, I'm no Nostradamus but I can say that it's a promising option for people looking for content that's not planned by a production committee. Big thanks to everyone who pledged to help them hit their $150,000 goal! I've already got a wad of cash tucked away to donate to the next round of creative craziness.

Event dates: April 15th-April 27th
Address: 4-14-1 Soto Kanda, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo
Akihabara UDX Building 4F
Hours: 11:00-19:00
Closed Monday
Official homepage: http://www.animecenter.jp/

Home Put On Your Best Kissy Face about 3 days agoMekakucity Actors Hijack Marui Annex about a week ago

Organizers of GaymerX say that this year's event in San Francisco, GaymerX2 will very like be the last event they organize. Speaking to Polygon, GaymerConnect's Matt Conn told Polygon that the cost of securing the venue and other things related to the event were just too high and the successfully funded Kickstarter campaign did not generate enough money.

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A drawing running in today’s edition of The Washington Post, highlighting this weekend’s Awesome Con. The brief mentioned that this year’s Awesome Con was expected to break the Guinness World Record for most superhero cosplayers in one convention. 

I had a lot of fun figuring out which superheroes to put in, and how to do it. Thanks to AD Allie Ghaman.

Created by Chuya Koyama, translated by William Flanagan, serialized on Crunchyroll. Space Brothers.

Not even humans can defeat the weather.

I like Space Brothers a lot. I’m ninety-some chapters in at this point and it’s managed to be funny, thrilling, sad, poignant, and good without really being anything but a low stakes slow motion kind of comic. There may be death or failure or tragedy, but it’s not really a comic that trades on those. Koyama is telling a story about triumph more than tragedy, so any setback is put into a greater context that ameliorates it some.

Space Bros is good because its two lead characters are a remarkably motivated and successful astronaut and his unlucky older brother, who is attempting to become an astronaut. He’s a dummy, but he’s not dumb, like an adult version of a shonen protagonist, so the series is constantly walking this line between comedy, motivational speaking, and amazing and meaningful coincidences from the past reflecting in the present day. It’s all very unbelievable, but it makes me feel good/sad/good, so I’m into it.

It’s facile, but it reminds me a lot of Twin Spica, one of my favorite comics from a few years back. Twin Spica had a cast of mostly underdogs knocking down obstacles left and right on their way to the top. It was sweet, it was earnest, it was very good. Space Brothers is very similar, though with sibling rivalry and friendship at its core instead of cute stubbornness. Space Brothers is astronomically less melancholy than Twin Spica, but they both share a certain amount of bittersweet sentiment, which in turns makes the triumphs better.

Or the jokes, like this one, where the dummy older brother gets ready to train to become an astronaut, sees the weather, and thinks twice.

(Vertical’s begun releasing Twin Spica in ebook format. You should read it. I wrote about it a little.)Similar Posts:

• Fourcast! 84: Just Leave Gotham Underground
• Best of 2010: Two Surprises
• Kou Yaginuma’s Twin Spica and the comfort of nostalgia
• Best of 2010: Two Love Stories
• Ultimatum Edit Week 1: Day Two

Musical to open in Japan, Korea in 2015

xombiedirge:

Lego Ghost in the Shell 2 - The Doll by The Arvo Brothers / Flickr

I wasn’t super keen on the second movie, but damn if I wouldn’t pay good money for this set regardless.

While there were more great comics than you could count at this weekend’s MoCCA Fest one that got a little notice was Kris Mukai’s Commuter (available for sale here) which captures real life moments of subway horror (rats, puke, bums, vandals, peoples selling batteries, mariachi bands) in comics form.

And lest you think she made the whole thing up, here’s a photo posted today on NY Magazine’s Daily Intelligencer blog that shows that THE TRUTH IS MORE HORRIFYING THAN ANY FICTION

This is why I use gloves on the subway even in summer. Do not touch!

At the same time, you need to admire the strength of the grip of that woman’s butt cheeks.

PAX East, the hugely successful Boston version of the gaming show created by Penny Arcade, wrapped up last weekend. PAX Prime is held in Seattle, and they just announced PAX South, to be held Jan. 23-25 in San Antonio, Texas. There’s also a PAX Australia—all the shows are run by ReedPOP, which also throws a bunch of comic-cons worldwide, as you may be aware.

Eventbrite is a ticketing agency that helps sell tickets for gaming events and they teamed with social media analysts Mashworks to analyze all posts from Twitter, Facebook, forums, and blogs about PAX East during the three-day convention. Eventbrite sent us the above infographic after using social media analysis to see what people were socialing about the show. Eventbrite provided the following bullet points:   

• PAX East created a bit of a social media frenzy: the event drove a whopping 193,000+ social media posts, driving 500+ more posts than PAX Prime 2013 and 25% more social volume than PAX East 2013!

• There were more women in the mix than ever: 28% of people talking about PAX East were women, up from 25% at PAX East 2013 and 26% at PAX Prime 2013, indicating that female attendance and social sharing at gaming events is steadily growing.

• Move over, Nintendo! Indie games drove big buzz: Over a third of all discussion around game announcements and demos centered on indie games — great to see new names breaking through. Conversations studied ran the gamut, and general excitement about PAX East dominated social discussion (48%), followed by chatter about gaming tournaments, like the Towerfall tournament and the 25K Infinite Crisis Event (15%). Other discussion topics included cosplay (12%), game announcements and demos (10%), Panels (9%), and parties and concerts (6%). The biggest social spike of the convention was the announcement of PAX South, driving over 5,500 posts from excited gamers.

Now why are we highlighting this press release? It seemed to have several interesting aspects, not least of which the integration of more women into the PAX culture. In the past, there were some ugly incidents, but hopefully more mixed participation will help change that.

It also seems that Eventbrite is getting more involved in the pop culture event arena — well, heck everyone is. This kind of data mining could turn out to be quite revealing.

And also, it’s a little scary how much people can figure out from social media, eh?

It grows.

Yesterday was the day when Travel Planners sent out hotel notifications and it was joy for a few and grief for many more. I finished my own entry at 2:20 and got my first choice. Ben, who had the same hotel list, finished 20 second later and got nothing. Why? Well, I chose a single room and he chose double. Looking at the time stamps of others, it seems that asking for more beds may have been a harder order to fill than a single bed, which is more flexible.

There isn’t too much to say about this. As we all know there are mote people who want to stay downtown than there are hotels downtown. I got the Hyatt, which the older I get, doesn’t seem all that close, as it’s about a mile to Hall H. Supposedly if the convention center expansion is ever approved, the Bayside Hilton will also double its number of rooms. And add a whopping 500. Still only a drop in the bucket.

A few tricks and tips:

• For next year, I recommend hiring a youthful gamer to enter the lottery for you. Seriously, this is the Hunger Games for complimentary turndown service. I know I hit submit once and had to go back and fix something…in the micro seconds it took to do that everyone was getting the Omni.

• It’s better to click on the “give me anything” option than get nothing. A hotel on the shuttle route is better than throwing yourself on the mercy of the secondary market.

• Room swapping is going on in this Subreddit thread

• There is another thread here.

• The second bite at the apple for official hotel reservations—probably rooms shucked due to being extras or what not and not wanting to pony up $600+ for the deposit—opens on April 23, 2014

• The Unofficial SDCC Blog has a good round-up here. It looks like all hotel rooms were gone within five minutes. Getting in under a minute and you got your room. UNDER 60 seconds.

• Lots and lots of cartoonists, journalists and Important People Who Make Comic-Con What It Is did not get hotel rooms. I know just because you actually make comics or interview Benedict Cumberbatch doesn’t mean you should get a good hotel room. It would be totally against the egalitarian spirit of Comic-Con to give special dispensation to any group like this. However, when Hoteloween first began, exhibitors complained that they needed to be at booths early and a 30 minute shuttle ride was a major problem. Thus began the ultra secret exhibitor hotel room lottery which takes place early in the year and gives exhibitors a well deserved crack at the rooms of their choice. I’m sure there is a limit on how many rooms you can get for your booth—otherwise some enterprising soul would get a booth just to get hotel rooms for his other friends. And yes I know there is a year long wait list for booths, as well, but they eventually come through. Unlike a room with balcony at the Horton Grand.

• What is true is that big exhibitors always book extra rooms and creative types can throw themselves on the mercy of their publisher for that. So now the bargaining begins. May the odds be ever in your favor!