A peaceful rally over the presumed massacre of 43 missing students ended with violence and destruction in Mexico City, with protesters calling for the president to stand down.
Thousands marched along Mexico City’s main boulevard, chanting for Enrique Pena Nieto to resign and waving blackened flags of the country in anger over the case of the missing students. They echoed ‘you are not alone’ to parents of the missing who joined the rally at the Angel of Independence Monument.
Dec2 2014
Reuters/AFP/AP/BBC
The next major entry in the Assassin's Creed series will reportedly be set in London. According to sources close to Kotaku, the game will take place in the Victorian era, which makes some sense of the reported codename for the next rooftop-leaping ga...
'The new identity is being introduced via a global campaign featuring Magda Sayeg, a young, independent urban knitter-slash-yarn bomber.'
Feels Good to Have Bubbles
In January of 2011 we wrote about a new logo for 7up — the global lemon-lime soda — that was only launching in Germany at the time. It then propagated to the rest of Europe and other international markets. In the U.S., the logo hasn't changed in decades, give or take a few gradients and bevels. The reason for the discrepancy is that 7up in the U.S. is owned and managed by Dr Pepper Snapple Group while PepsiCo runs 7up in the rest of the world. To further confuse things, although I'm sure the goal is to clarify them, PepsiCo announced last week a global campaign and refreshed visual identity designed in-house by PepsiCo's Design and Innovation Centre, as reported by DesignWeek.
Update: The new logo and packaging were designed by New York, NY-based Sterling Brands, NOT in-house as originally reported.
Update 2: Here is the official credit line from 7up's press liaison: "New logo and packaging was designed by PepsiCo Design & Innovation Center, with support from Sterling Brands in NYC."
"7up believes that everyone is naturally unique and original — and they should be able to bring out their originality to keep the world fresh and diverse," said Kristin Patrick, SVP, Chief Marketing Officer, PepsiCo Global Beverage Brands (@kristinpatrickmusings). "There is an amazing correlation between our consumers, our product and our brand. From the exciting new visual identity, to the clear, crisp taste that can only be 7up, our brand is as unique as the people who drink it. And it's this uniqueness that the new campaign celebrates as 7up becomes a companion to originals around the world and provides a genuine platform to share their diversity of interests."
Rolling out in more than 140 countries, the multi-channel campaign and rejuvenated visual identity, including logo design and packaging, builds on the brand's authentic equity and history, while staying true to its witty, naturally confident character.
Logo detail.Vintage 7up logo referenced in the new identity. More Google Image results here.Logos with lemons, limes, and bubbles.
It's hard to argue against a retro-inspired logo as long as it's done well as is the case here. The new "7" is a very nicely done "7". It's not perfect and perhaps it could use a tiny more flair and exaggeration in its curves but it's definitely the best rendition of the brand in years. The "up" typography is fine, a tad distant in style to the "7" but that has typically been the case in all incarnations. I appreciate that it's a serif when used big but it turns into a sans serif when used small, maintaining readability. As seen in the chart above it seems that PepsiCo couldn't resist itself and had to add bubbles to the logo because fizz.
Visual /lifestyle photography.Some unglamorous shots of the new packaging as found on Tesco.
It's always fun to see glamorous prototype shots and unglamorous real-life shots as above. The print ad shows a glass bottle with a minimal design that is more Heineken than Mountain Dew. A good thing. It looks great. The product shots taken from Tesco's website show another reality, one where where additional ugly bubbles have invaded the packaging and a lemon and a lime have set up camp in the logo. The new tagline proclaims that it "Feels Good to be You" but when it comes to global soda packaging "It Sucks to be You" as someone, somewhere in the cog machine (design or corporate) will find a way to make it tacky.
Two global television commercials — and several digital vignettes — feature not celebrities, but truly original everyday personalities who exemplify the 7up brand. The first television creative shares the story of Magda Sayeg — a woman with knitting needles and a desire to yarn the world with her color and fresh outlook. Magda energizes a forgotten square in Santiago, Chile, where her bright, beautiful knitted creations take over a fountain, benches, trees, bicycles, a guitar and more — with 7up the companion that refreshes Magda so she can reveal her true self and flair to the world.
First global spot for 7up Free, featuring urban knitter Magda Sayeg.Unraveling the new look.7up Free free of yarn.Some kind of promo related to this bus-wrapping event. (Source: Instagram)Another kind of promo related to aforementioned bus-wrapping event. (Source: Instagram)
The new identity is being introduced via a global campaign featuring Magda Sayeg, a young, independent urban knitter-slash-yarn bomber. As weird as that may sound it's remarkably refreshing to see 7up rely on a non-celebrity and instead associate itself with a more rebellious, artistic culture centered around actual makers. The next spot will focus on the quirky stop motion cel animations of Marty Cooper (aka Hombre McSteez). Overall, it's a step in the right direction for 7up and if they were able to reign in the unnecessary adornments in the packaging it could be one of the nicest sodas around, although it's too bad that there will never be a single, consistent, and defining identity for 7up because of its two mommys and daddys.
Please for the love of god, do not have a scene where Chris Pratt takes his shirt off. These films were never about any of that kind of shit, they’re in a class all their own..keep it that way..dont throw any modern sexual under passes in this damn film..we know he’s buff we dont need to see that shit. He plays a stone faced Raptor Handler..keep it that way.
More evidence has emerged that makes the Sony Pictures hack look similar to a suspected attack on South Korean companies over a year ago. And a spokesperson for the North Korean government, rather than denying his country’s involvement, is playing coy as the damage to Sony appears to be growing daily.
When contacted by the BBC, a spokesperson for North Korea’s mission to the United Nations said, "The hostile forces are relating everything to [North Korea]. I kindly advise you to just wait and see."
Sony Pictures’ computers were reportedly the victim of wiper malware which erased all the data on infected PCs and the servers they were connected to. As Ars reported yesterday, this is similar to the attack on two South Korean broadcasters and a bank that was launched in 2013. As security reporter Brian Krebs reports, the FBI sent out a “Flash Alert” to law enforcement warning of a cyber attacker using “wiper” malware this week—malicious software that erases the entire contents of the infected machine’s hard drives as well as the contents of the master boot record of the computer. The FBI shared a Snort intrusion detection signature for the malware file, and as Krebs noted, "the language pack referenced by the malicious files is Korean."
The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) warns in a new report that Internet service providers could use data caps to impose higher prices on consumers, especially in markets where ISPs face little competition. But the GAO’s recommendations to the Federal Communications Commission are already meeting resistance.
ISPs have argued that consumers could benefit from caps or “usage-based pricing,” because consumers who use small amounts of data would pay less than customers who use a lot more, similar to how the cellular market works. But there isn’t enough competition in all cities or towns to prevent ISPs from abusing data caps, the GAO wrote.
“Although few fixed Internet customers are affected by UBP [usage-based pricing] at this time, the number could grow to the extent that fixed Internet providers increase their use of UBP and data use grows,” the GAO wrote. “Providers could implement UBP in a way that benefits consumers—for example, by offering low-data, low-cost plans for customers who do not want to pay for an unlimited data plan they do not need. However, providers—especially those facing limited competition—could use UBP as a means to increase their profits which could result in UBP having negative effects, including increased prices paid by consumers, reductions in content and applications accessed by consumers, and increased threats to network security.”
speaking of "ghost was too busy making a decent record"
Ghostface Killah isn’t just one of the world’s most acclaimed rappers, he’s also well versed in all manner of geek media – he famously titled his debut album Ironman, adopted “Tony Starks” as one of his multiple nom de plumes, and appeared in a deleted scene from the first Iron Man film; his music (both solo and as a member of the legendary Wu-Tang Clan) draws on influences from kung fu movies to Speed Racer; and in 2013, he released 12 Reasons To Die, an album that tied into a six-issue limited series from Black Mask Studios.
And on December 9th, his latest cross-media project is being released: 36 Seasons, a new album on Salvation/Tommy Boy Records that’s accompanied by a 24-page comic book. The record and comic tell the had-boiled tale of Ghostface returning to his hometown of Staten Island after nine years (or “36 seasons”), seeking solace and peace, and instead finding double-crosses, revenge, and unchecked violence around every corner.
The disc’s storyline and packaging are the brainchild of indie comics veteran Matthew Rosenberg, who also wrote the aforementioned 12 Reasons To Die mini-series. We recently got a few minutes to speak with Rosenberg about his work assembling the album art, the creators he enlisted to contribute, and his experiences straddling the line between the music and comic industries – and we’re excited to premiere a trio of illustrations from the project by Michael Walsh, Palle Schmidt, and Chris Pyrate, as well as showcasing some roughs and behind-the scenes material.
ComicsAlliance: You wrote Ghostface’s ’12 Reasons To Die’ series for Black Mask Studios. Did Ghost’s management just come to you and ask you to curate and assemble the art for this album? And did they have any specific requests, or were you given pretty much free reign?
Matthew Rosenberg: RZA and Bob Perry, who executive produced all this stuff, brought me on board for the 12 Reasons To Die comic in the beginning. They had seen some of my comics and dug them enough to give me a shot on writing and putting that whole thing together. I came in very early and I worked closely with both of them to make sure the comic matched the story Adrian Younge & Ghostface were assembling for that record. After we finished the comic Bob asked me to start pitching ideas for other records. I probably ended up pitching thirty things over six months for a few different rappers that ended up not working for various reasons. But my pitch for 36 Seasons kept coming up. We passed it on to Ghostface and he was into it so that is actually where my involvement began. I am credited as “based on the story by” or something to the effect.
As for the art, as soon as Ghost agreed to doing the record I got to work on assembling the art. Everyone was really pleased with the reaction to the 12 Reasons comics so they just told me I could do what I wanted for it. They had great suggestions along the way, but mostly I have worked with them enough that they trust me. And since the story was mine to begin with, the idea of translating it into comics was always something I had in the back of my head anyway. Even when co-writing records, I am still thinking of them as comics first.
art by Michael Walsh, colors by Lee Loughridge
CA: Was it an easy collaboration? Were there many changes between your original concept and the finished product?
MR: It was about as easy a collaboration as I’ve ever had. Everyone is so pro and good at what they do that things tend to run pretty smoothly. They have a lot of respect for my writing and my artistic ideas so there is a lot of trust there. For the music I mostly just get out of the way. They had me come into the studio a few times and give story notes on what some verses need to be getting across for the plot, but guys like Ghost, AZ, Pharoahe Monch, and Kool G Rap are all master storytellers and they know what needs to be done on a track better than I ever will.
For the art, after we got the initial look of the characters down it was a breeze. Other than the really tight deadlines meaning I made a bunch of illustrators weeks really hellish it was the easiest project I have ever worked on. Long nights but really straightforward.
CA: How did you go about selecting the artists you wanted to include? Did you approach them, did they come to you, or a bit of both?
MR: I picked everyone myself. The project was a secret for more than half a year so I just had to discreetly email a lot of people. First we needed the look of the characters. I hit up a lot of illustrators I know who are great character designers – Chris Hunt, Wilson Tanner, and Anthony Marques all designed little elements of the characters in the book. The three of them together came up with enough awesome designs for four whole comics so we were in good shape.
From there the awesome Rich Wojcicki really made the stuff come to life. It was Rich’s take on the characters in action that made everyone realize this was going to work.
We also had my buddy Chris Pyrate do a standalone image we could sort of use as a target point. Chris’ piece is fun and weird and I think sort of captures the record as a whole. It was actually going to go in the LP but we ran out of room for it which sucks. I hope he makes prints of it because I want one for my wall.
From there everyone’s biggest concern was making sure the cover art really stood out on shelves. I have worked with David Murdoch in the past on various comic things and he contributed a bunch of stuff to the 12 Reasons To Die comic which we all loved so I asked if he would take a stab at the cover. What he sent back is basically the cover for the record. He is a true superstar and I am always shocked more people aren’t giving him cover work in comics.
After that, filling the interior pages just involved me making a wish list of people I think are doing truly amazing things in comics right now. Getting a piece from David Lapham was a huge high point for me. Stray Bullets is one of the reasons I write comics and he was amazing to work with. I don’t think it’s crazy to say people will look back on Stray Bullets the same way they do about Love & Rockets, Eightball, or Black Hole.
Garry Brown and Ming Doyle are both consistently doing amazing, beautiful comics and I think people are just starting to pick up on how good they actually are. If people aren’t reading The Kitchen or The Massive, they’re f***ing up.
Michael Walsh is one of my favorite artists in comics. Whether he is doing Marvel work or his own books like Comeback, his stuff is unique without sacrificing storytelling at all. That’s really rare. He just has a great head for making pages look good no matter what.
There is a whole crew of upcoming comic artists who are doing books that not nearly enough people are paying attention to. Folks like Ramon Villalobos, Aaron Conley, and Artyom Trakhanov put out some of the best comic work in the past few years, bar none. LP,Sabertooth Swordsman, and Undertow are really tutorials in how to be a young creator who has their own voice and style. These guys don’t draw like anyone else, they are eager to do weird and cool things, and they are a big part of what gets me excited about the next generation of creators. All three of them are starting to get the attention they deserve, and I was lucky that all three are also great people who are willing to take on weird projects.
Angelica Alzona and I used to actually work together at the same day job before she left to draw and I left to write. She is a good buddy and an even better illustrator. She floats between all these different styles really well and manages to make them all her own really easily.
For this project, making sure that it felt New York was really important to me. Oddly, the most New York feeling comic I have read in a while is made in part by Danish penciller Palle Schmidt. Thomas Alsop is such an amazing book, maybe the best of Boom’s new slate of really great creator owned titled. And Thomas Alsop works so well in part because Palle’s New York is at once both oppressive and expansive, it is lonely and busy, claustrophobic and haunted. It just feels really New York to me so I was so happy he agreed to do a page.
And finally Tyler Boss. I think Tyler is going to be a major voice in comics. He is very young, but speaks and understands sequential storytelling in ways creators 40 years older than him can only hope to. He can breakdown why early Anders Nilsen work is so effective as easily as he can discuss Samnee’s Daredevil. He gets the history of comics and he wants to see where they go next, which is exciting to be around. He is Michael Lark’s inker on Lazarus now but he really should have his own book too. Luckily him and I are working together on a new comic called 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank so hopefully someone will realize he is brilliant and let me ride his coattails on that one.
art by Palle Schmidt, colors by Lee Loughridge
CA: How closely are these pieces tied to the music? Are the visuals meant to depict the story of the album, or do they act more as accompaniment/compliment to the songs?
MR: Each spread in the book corresponds directly to a section of the album. Initially we were doing a piece per track, but things kept getting shifted so we have the story in 10 spreads. At first I wanted to make it more like a comic, but Ghost is maybe the best storyteller in all of hip-hop, so the idea of telling the same story he was telling as part of the packaging didn’t seem appealing to me. He killed it on the record and there is nothing retelling that story as a comic was going to add to that. So we made it more like a storybook. When I was little I had those read along books for Star Wars and The Muppets where you would play an album and look at the corresponding pictures. That is sort of what I wanted to do with this. Ghost tells the story and we provide a visual companion to take it to the next level.
CA: In what format will this “comic” be presented? Is it just a CD-sized booklet?
MR: The first pressing of the LP has the whole thing printed out in a beautiful 12″ booklet. I think you can only get that from GetOnDown.com and those are going to sell out fast. It looks amazing blown up that big but it’s a limited edition piece at that size. It’s also the lyric booklet to the CD, but it’s obviously a lot smaller.
concept art by Chris Pyrate
CA: Do you have more audio-visual projects of this style planned?
MR: Yeah, I really like any chance to do crossover stuff with comics and other mediums. Comics is my first love, but things that will get outsiders thinking about comics is so important. That should be every creator’s goal- finding new readers. So I am working on the concepts for two new rap LPs with two of my favorite MC’s and those will both have comic elements in some way. I am writing a graphic novel for a major label rock band that sort of adapts the stories of their music into this crazy sci-fi tale.
I also have this insanely ambitious music/comic series mashup that I have been working on for a year with all of these amazing indie and hardcore bands but so far every publisher has been a little freaked out by the scope of it. We’ll see. I just want to try and get comics into record stores and get new people buying comics.
And other than that, I have two creator owned books at Black Mask next year that having nothing to do with any of this stuff. We Can Never Go Home with Patrick Kindlon & Josh Hood will be out starting in March. And Our Work Fills The Pews with Vita Ayala and Yasmin Liang will be out in the summer… I am really proud of both books, and hope people give them a chance!
Ghostface character design by Chris Hunt cover sketch by David Murdoch rough pencils by Palle Schmidt Ghostface character study by Rich Wojcicki Ghostface designs by Rich Wojcicki
This photo comes via Reddit's TheLinksOfAdventure whose wife apparently received this shirt after catering a party for Jerry Jones:
Who knows if this is legit, but that does appear to say "I am LOVE COWBOYS," which would either mean Jerry Jones is sneakily handing out Cowboys merchandising misprint ... or that he just gives foreign knockoff shirts as presents. A shirt's a shirt, though. Gift-giving is always nice.
In any event, I think a lot of people would buy "I am HATE COWBOYS" shirts.
Director Spike Lee raised $1.4 million on Kickstarter to help him make Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, a film about a high-society scholar who becomes cursed by an artifact and develops a relentless craving for blood. And the first trailer hints at the movie's themes of social status, violence, and addiction.
"once I saw Tilda at JFK at the baggage claim, and her just standing there was one of the most beautiful, powerful sights I have ever seen. I just plainly stared at her. It looked like she was on an ice slab, just, like, leading soldiers into a battle. She was waiting for her Tumi bag to come around. ... She can scare the shit out of you and break your heart and give you a boner all at the same time."
The lovely, otherwordly being called Tilda Swinton just took home the Gotham Acting Tribute and has been named Woman of the Year by GQ. All in the last 24 hours. So, it seems like the time is just right to openly obsess over the Oscar winner. At least comedienne Amy Schumer thinks so: 'Tilda Fucking Swinton. Why am I even allowed to say her name? This is ridiculous. I wrote a movie last year, and one of the roles was for my fiercely powerful and elegant boss, and in the character description, I just wrote, “Diana, a goddess, like Tilda Swinton waiting at a baggage claim.” ‘Cause once I saw Tilda at JFK at the baggage claim, and her just standing there was one of the most beautiful, powerful sights I have ever seen. I just plainly stared at her. It looked like she was on an ice slab, just, like, leading soldiers into a battle. She was waiting for her Tumi bag to come around. ... She can scare the shit out of you and break your heart and give you a boner all at the same time."
Warner Bros. announced Tuesday that Oscar winner Jared Leto will star as Batman's arch-nemesis in the upcoming action movie Suicide Squad, written and directed by David Ayer (Fury). Based on the DC Comics series Suicide Squad, which follows a group of powerful convicts on missions for the government, the movie features Tom Hardy as group leader Rick Flagg, Will Smith as the lethal assassin Deadshot, Margot Robbie as the Joker's psychotic girlfriend Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang and British fashion model Cara Delevingne as Enchantress.
The issue has defied the typical partisan divisions that tend to muddle most issues on Capitol Hill. That was evident on Tuesday when Ms. Gillibrand stood beside colleagues who rarely vote with her on anything — including Tea Party favorites like Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky — at a news conference in the Capitol.
“I don’t understand any argument why we shouldn’t be doing this,” Mr. Paul said.
But supporters of changing the way the military oversees sexual assault cases face opposition from the Pentagon and members of both parties on Capitol Hill who agree that more should be done, but that breaking the chain of command is the wrong approach.
the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun and a history of firearms offenses
A West Virginia man who fatally shot four people and then himself had been imprisoned twice for firearms violations, Monongalia County Sheriff Kenneth "Al" Kisner told CNN on Tuesday.
On Monday, Jody Lee Hunt, 39, of Westover, killed his ex-girlfriend, a man she was having a relationship with, a rival tow truck company owner and Hunt's cousin, Kisner said.
Hunt shot himself to death in the woods, apparently using the same pistol, Kisner said.
When asked about Hunt's motive, Kisner said investigators looked at Hunt's Facebook page and found references to disappointments with people whom he considered friends.
Kisner said Hunt also referred to a text from Michael Frum in which Frum said he was now dating Sharon Berkshire, Hunt's former girlfriend.
"My dad is too busy posting songs on his FB hiding out for attention rather then getting his act together #dadstop," the younger Stapp tweeted. "To all tho confused, my father once again chose drugs over his family. He needs help, but refuses to get it. He's been on a 9 week binge."
“The song is about rage and fury and passion, and I had a lot of pain that I wanted to release,” the pop star said. “And I said to myself, ‘I want to sing this song while I'm ripping hard on a drum kit, and then I want to get on a mechanical bull’—which is probably one of the most demoralizing things that you can put a female on in her underwear—‘and I want this chick to throw up on me in front of the world so that I can tell them, you know what? You could never, ever degrade as much as I could degrade myself, and look how beautiful it is when I do.’”
Fans of HBO's 'The Wire' finally have a date for when the series will return to TV: December 26th. The day after Christmas a remastered HD cut of the show will be available in its entirety on HBO Go, and start airing (at the pace of one season per day) on HBO Signature. It's been said that series creator David Simon preferred the look of 4x3 aspect ratio, so how will the show look in widescreen HD? According to HBO, the process has been achieved by rescanning over 8,000 reels of original negatives, with extensive work to make sure it retains the feel of the original broadcast.
Super Opinionated.
The next major entry in the Assassin's Creed series will reportedly be set in London. According to sources close to Kotaku, the game will take place in the Victorian era, which makes some sense of the reported codename for the next rooftop-leaping ga...
art by Michael Walsh, colors by Lee Loughridge
art by Palle Schmidt, colors by Lee Loughridge
concept art by Chris Pyrate
Ghostface character design by Chris Hunt 
cover sketch by David Murdoch 
rough pencils by Palle Schmidt 
Ghostface character study by Rich Wojcicki 
Ghostface designs by Rich Wojcicki
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2512200/2XPzOX7.0.jpg)
