ArmzRace

mini reviews: Bumperboy (Part One)

2006-12-29T09:28:00.000-08:00

Bumperboy sets off to enter a marble competition, only to lose his marbles on the way, thanks to the machinations of a naughty bird. With story and art by Debbie Huey, Bumperboy is a lighthearted all-ages tale of adventure. On the Web at www.bumperboy.net.

mini reviews: Peop(le)s #3

2006-12-28T14:10:00.000-08:00

In PEOP(le)S #3 writer/artist Fly presents a series of portraits of people she's met and known. Providing an encapsulated back story on each person along with a stream-of-conscious narrative to accompany the often haunting expressions, Fly gives you the feeling that you too are part of her world.

Her website and work can be found at http://www.bway.net/~fly

Klezmer: Book One: Tales of the Wild East – Joann Sfar

2006-12-21T11:25:00.000-08:00

Three outcaste Jews and a Romi get together to form a klezmer band in pre-WWII Eastern Europe. Sfar presents a beautifully painted, somewhat rambling, tale of heartache and humor. While the characters still need developing and Sfar relies too strongly on internal monologue, there is great potential and emotion in this comic of a destroyed culture.

The Adventures of Mao on the Long March – Frederic Tuten

2006-12-21T11:09:00.000-08:00

I’ve known about this book since I first met Tuten and how he fictionally depicts Mao’s famous “Long March” by making a collage of historical information and quotes from unrelated literary works. I finally decided to read it and was disappointed. Tuten’s idea is so clever that it started his literary career, but the work feels sloppy, taking pages of text and pasting them within his parameters, rather than a careful incorporating of shorter quotes that I expected. Also, as John Updike would complain of one of Tuten’s later works (which is ironic because he praises this one), Tuten’s writing is imbedded in the art world. The tale ends with a mock interview with Mao that I found amusing only because the Chairman sounds exactly like the author.

Battlestar Galactica – season 3

2006-12-21T10:41:00.000-08:00

Let me be the one to say it: this season wasn’t very good. Galactica has been the poster child for the new face of sci-fi: intelligent, dramatic and relevant. It gained acclaim because it was about people, not spaceships. The trouble is that the latest episodes about the last human survivors fleeing from the genocidal mania of the religiously fanatical robots (Cylons), which people originally made, has brought to a head most of the dramatic character interactive plots that have been set up and the result has been nothing. What would the mad, traitor scientist Baltar do if he ever had to face the Cylon he once loved? How would she act in the reunion? If the sleeper agent, Sharon, ever got the chance to confront the people she unwillingly betrayed, how would she feel? Could Cylons and humans interact after the destruction of billions? How, exactly, do the Cylons intend to prove they can rule better than humans? The opening to every episode of Battlestar ends with the statement that the Cylons “have a plan.” Well, since they keep changing it, apparently they don’t. And neither do the writers.

The show has become so caught up in trying to be relevant and controversial by turning the series into a flawed statement about Iraq, where humans have became the terrorist insurgents, that it has forgot about the drama of characters. The few episodes that aren’t politically based are derived from Star Trek: TNG plots and all of them discount the trauma of a people losing at least 99% of their population and all their territory. Honestly, the show should look to the Holocaust survivors for inspiration and instruction. It took years to set up the dynamics Galactica had and the opportunity was squandered. When Battlestar gets cancelled the excuse will be that audiences just don’t watch sci-fi. Maybe, but they do watch drama about people. And that is what the show has stopped producing.

A Series of Unfortunate Events [movie]

2006-12-21T10:28:00.000-08:00

I avoided the movie version of the first three books of the series that bears its name because I thought it would be horrible and yet I was pleasantly surprised. The movie had great visuals and was true to the “unfortunate” nature of the plot about the orphaned Baudelaire siblings who must defend their inheritance from the greed of the murderous Count Olaf. The problems were that the movie was too heavy handed in the concept of bad things happening to good people, it didn’t capture the dynamics of the two older siblings (instead simply going for physical beauty, which neither of those children were suppose to have), and gave away far too many of the book’s secrets.

The People of the Mist – H. Rider Haggard

2006-12-21T10:14:00.000-08:00

I’ve always wanted to read something from this legend of the pulp era who brought us King Solomon’s Mines and was loved by such diverse authors as the literary Henry James to the cult favorite Lin Carter, yet after two hundred pages of this ridiculous racist rant with flat characters smothering the mundane action-adventure plot of the heroic Englishman questing to restore his honor by braving the savagery of Africa—and getting the girl—I couldn’t take it any longer.

Veronica Mars

2006-12-21T10:01:00.000-08:00

The actress who plays the character Veronica is very pretty. There, I said something nice about this show about a high school girl who is an ostracized, stylish genius who works as a private detective. That was the best I could do considering that the plot is trite, characters ridiculous, and acting pathetic with insane amounts of voice over exposition. I watched the first three episodes and hated it. Proponents of the show tell me that it doesn’t become good until the sixth one and I should give it a chance. I’d sooner give suicide a chance. There is nothing redeeming about this abomination. Well, except the lead actress’s looks. But she’s supposed to be seventeen and therefore underage, which makes me an abomination. Wow, the show is worse than I thought.

Star Trek: Voyager

2006-12-21T09:48:00.000-08:00

Lost in Space—I mean, Voyager, came from the success of Star Trek: TNG. The show puts the crew of the star ship Voyager and a band of rebels tens of thousands of light years from a home they desperately wish to return to. I recently caught a few episodes on a marathon and remembered just why this show was canceled. The series is filled with flat characters pathetically attempting to bond (usually the female Capt. Janeway and some other hot, female, humanoid crewmate) and a barrage of episodes dedicated to temporal paradoxes. All the people I know that cared for this show agreed with my assessment and couldn’t explain why they kept watching. Perhaps it is akin to a traffic accident.

How Did You Make That Christmas Card?

2006-12-20T08:03:00.000-08:00

Welcome! Thanks for asking.

STEP 1: THE IDEA
Step one is probably the hardest step. How do you come up with an idea that will be fun and fit on a card? Some people get paid for that kind of thing--and here I am doing it for free. I had several ideas this year.

STEP 2: THE SKETCH
Next comes the sketch. I doodle around to try to figure out what works and what doesn't. Step 2 is really just an extension of Step 1. You can see some of the ideas I had here:

A gift from the Dem

Friends are difficult to find…

Geting goosed

I had some others, but I may need them for next year.

STEP 3: THE DRAWING
Next comes the actual drawing. I take an 11" x 14" sheet of Bristol (a heavy paper), and using a mechanical pencil, I sketch out the drawing. I draw everything out in pencil, trying to make as few mistakes as possible. I use a very hard lead so that the image is very faint if I need to erase. In this case, one of my sketches was pretty close to what I wanted, so I used a light box to trace the sketch onto the Bristol paper.

Sketch

Light box

STEP 4: INKING
Next I go over all of the pencils with ink. Some people think this means "tracing," but it's not. Inking adds a whole different character to the image. I use a brush to vary the line weights (compare Bush's chin line to his nose line) and to add some depth to the image.

Ink & brushes

Once all the ink is dry, I erase all the left over pencil lines. In this case, the inked copy looked like this:

Inked version

STEP 5: SCANNING
Next I scan the picture into my computer. This process turns the image into a digital computer file.

STEP 6: USING PHOTOSHOP and ILLUSTRATOR
I take the scanned image and open it in a software program called Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. These program allows me to manipulate the image and make it ready for printing. With Photoshop I added some gray tones and resized the image to make it card-ready. With Illustrator I created the word bubble and the text.

If you look closely at both the original and the finished product, you can see some of the changes I made:

Filled in dress with black
Made some black lines into white lines (dress)
Drew a few sprigs of holly, scanned them, and then copied them multiple times to create the top and bottom border
Used several different gray tones on the goose to give it additional depth
Copied the goose and put it on the back of the card

STEP 7: PRINTING
Then it's off to the copy store to print the card. I had them print 2 images on a page of card stock and then cut the page in half.

Click for larger view

STEP 8: MAILING
Then JoAnn and I just address, stamp, add something witty like "Merry Christmas," and drop the cards in the mail. See how easy it is! Anyone can do it!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Visions of Christmas Cards Past:

2005:

2004: 2003: 2001:

2000: 1999: 1998:

Two Billion Years Ago

2006-12-16T21:02:00.000-08:00

Click image for full size.

This comic was completely created on a computer using my new Wacom tablet. No physical art exists (if you don't count the original idea sketch). The tablet is basically like a mouse, but in the form of a pen and pad. It seems like it would be more natural than using a mouse, but I've trained my brain to match using a mouse with looking at the screen, while using a pen with the screen is still pretty awkward. Try writing without looking at what you're writing and you'll get the sensation.

So that's why I chose an easy drawing for the first time out. Plus, I'm still pretty awkward with Adobe Illustrator as well. So this "simple" cartoon took several hours. Remind me again how computers are making my life easier...

That said, in the long run, the tablet (with practice) should make many aspects of cartoon creation go more quickly. We'll see...

My Life as Literature: The Great Gatsby - Mark Alpert

2006-12-16T06:25:00.000-08:00

The Sandman: Endless Nights – Neil Gaiman

2006-12-12T09:19:00.000-08:00

Cashing in on the completed Sandman series, Gaiman writes a tale for each of his Endless characters (The Endless are universal forces such as Dream, Desire, Death and Destiny.). Unfortunately, the stories are rather uninteresting and do little to flesh-out the characters they are about.

Supergirl – Peter David

2006-12-11T08:04:00.000-08:00

I often liked David’s work and wanted to see what he would do with the ultimate Barbie AKA Supergirl. Be aware, as far as I knew, Supergirl was the cousin of Superman, so I was in for a surprise when I learned that she was some sort of inhuman construct (after the first six issues of this comic, I’m still not sure what her deal is) that merged with a dieing woman in order to gain a soul. Too bad that woman was a psycho murderer whose boyfriend was in league with all sorts of supervillians. There is a lot to work with here and his team for art, letters and colors are great (Gary Frank’s art gives plenty of up-the miniskirt-shots that you know you want), yet after half a year worth of issues, I know nothing about the characters and honestly don’t care.

Age of Apocalypse

2006-12-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

Imagine a world where Charles Xavier never lived to attempt to have mutants and humans live in harmony. Now imagine that Marvel comics actually made a comic book event that made sense or was any good. This series of crossover X-men titles is unreadable. The premise is that Xavier dies, his would-be archenemy takes over his dream and a powerful mutant named Apocalypse takes over America and starts genocide again humans. In this new reality, most bad guys are good guys, the rest of the non-mutant Marvel universe is ignored and we all know that all this will be rectified anyway (I never found out how as I couldn’t bring myself to finish the story). The writing sucks and the plot’s ridiculous (it’s not so much a world without Xavier, so much as a world where Magneto is the new Xavier, other superheroes are gone and there is Apocalypse) and it is a shame that Marvel hasn’t clue about quality.

The Squirrel # 1 Ships at Last!

2006-12-07T23:06:00.000-08:00

I received my copies, both covers, of The Squirrel #1 today. My name appears on the credits page. Awesome. I get editor status. Thanks to the talented Kevin McVeigh.

Alas, on the Publisher Introduction page (which was added way after I worked on the book), I am called Peter. Yes. Peter. All we need now is Mary and we've got a band (I am sure, or I hope, that Ian said D'oh when he caught it). Luckily though, Kevin's lettering came through preserved. Then again, Kevin may be messing with me by having done that on purpose...! He is a cruel bastard, but talented.

• ORDER NOW! Only 19 regular covers in stock, it seems. They will go quickly.

Price: $3.50

28 page Full Size Comic, B+W w/color cover. First Printing, October 2006. By Kevin McVeigh

In this issue we learn the fantastic origin of "The Worlds Nuttiest Super-hero." From his early days living amongst the squirrels in the trees, to his high flying days in the circus as "The Spectacular Squirrel-Boy." Plus the shocking secret behind "The Squirrels'" amazing tail!! This is one issue you cant miss!!

When ordering, make sure you create an account FIRST and then add items to your cart.

I think they may accept Paypal only and ask them to make sure your books are well packed, so they don't get damaged.

The Manhattan Guardian – Gant Morrison

2006-12-06T05:59:00.000-08:00

Morrison starts off his Seven Soldiers series with a newspaper’s personal superhero (paper and hero share the name of this comic title). Jake Jordan is down on his luck, but has the potential to be a hero and fight against various unusual threats to New York City and the world. Typical of Morrison, the story has some very interesting and bizarre ideas in it, yet he never bothers to fully develop any of it, so the reader simply jumps around from event to event without purpose. The four issue miniseries is only a primer plot for the ongoing series; too bad it didn’t sell me.

Robin: A Hero Reborn – Alan Grant and Chuck Dixon

2006-12-05T10:00:00.000-08:00

The writers do a reasonable job giving life to the new (third) Robin in order to avoid the disdain readers had for the last one. The new boy wonder globetrots around the world and after a blind, billionaire, master killer in order to gain skills and develop a personality. Dixon, who writes most of this comic, tries to incorporate various characters (mostly new one) into the story to teach Robin various tricks of the trade and moral lessons. The tale wasn’t bad done, but all the secondary characters were.

Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying – Marv Wolfman

2006-12-05T09:58:00.000-08:00

These five comics won best story (1989) by CBG fan award, which shows how poor the competition was. It takes place after the second Robin was killed and Batman is having trouble keeping himself together. DC comics spent a lot of energy re-introducing a reader friendly Robin, sidekick to the Dark Knight, but other than Batman and Two-Face trying to outthink each other, the story is mediocre and it is painfully obvious DC wants this Robin to be liked.

Catwoman: Her Sister’s Keeper – Mindy Newell

2006-12-04T18:46:00.000-08:00

Inspired by Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One, this Catwoman comic unfolds the early adventures of Selina Kyle as she learns to fight and well, not a whole lot else. The book uses some of Miller’s work (entire pages of the above story are inserted) and it is a good idea; however, despite playing off the ward Holly, Kyle’s sister the sister and the Batman himself, little is learned about Catwoman.

Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall – Bill Willingham

2006-12-04T06:22:00.000-08:00

The Fables comic title follows the lives of fairy tale characters that are living in exile in our world after the tyrannical Adversary has overrun their homelands. So far the refuges are all from European fairy tales, and so the group sends an ambassador to the fables of the Middle East in order to warn them of the Adversary and propose an alliance. This ambassador, Snow White, gets caught up in the machinations of Arabian politics and, in order to save her neck, distracts the sultan who holds her life in his hands with various tales about her fellow refugees. The set-up should sound familiar, but the tales are new and relate the tragedy of Willingham’s world with graceful profundity. This is a welcomed addition to the Fables storyline.

Hellboy: Sword of Storms

2006-12-02T13:25:00.000-08:00

It seemed like a good idea: A cartoon movie about the demon paranormal investigator wherein he must stop a couple of demons (nasty ones, not like him) from destroying Earth. Did I mention he was trapped in Japan’s feudal past? The problem was that the animation was anime-lite (not at all like Mignola’s bizarre style), nothing was done with the characters, and the plot wasn’t very gripping.

The Prestige

2006-12-01T06:14:00.000-08:00

Two rival magicians go to extremes to destroy each other in this movie adaptation of the novel. I should have liked it more. It was intelligent and filled with twists and surprises. The trouble was that it didn’t really work. The inciting incident (which is different from the book) should never have been a mystery to the characters who become fabulously wealthy in their low paying careers and are both utterly repulsive. In addition to unsympathetic protagonists, the plot itself, especially early on, was disjointed and rushed. After the opening night showing I had to clarify the events to a member of the audience who had just attempted to explain it to another.

Flushed Away

2006-11-30T08:13:00.000-08:00

All is well in the British upper-class world of the pet rat, Roddy, until an intruder flushes him down the toilet and into an underground world filled with oddball denizens. With the help of fellow rat, Rita, Roddy attempts to return to his surface world and escapes the evil machinations of a diabolical toad. I was concerned that this film would be flush with toilet humor and was pleasantly surprised that the animation and humor was well done, highly entertaining and very clever.

Casino Royale

2006-11-29T06:47:00.000-08:00

A new world needs a new James Bond and this inchoate, flawed, more realistic/human British secret agent is better than most even if he fluctuates between being superhuman and oblivious. The plot has too many false stops and is heavy handed with the clues, yet it is the most enjoyment I’ve had with 007 in at least a decade. So if you like to watch Bond struggle (that’s right) to outwit the card shark/investment banker (who is a cripple as all villains obviously are) to the world’s terrorists and his assorted goons, then this is the movie for you (as long as you ignore some of the sloppy plot points). Don’t worry, despite the update to the secret agent, there are hot women with ridiculously large breasts who want to have sex with Bond.