Geeking Out About.com – Design Previews

Desert Bus for Hope 4 rolls out… for the children!

Posted on 20 November 2010 by admin 1 Comment

As a liberal-minded geek, I try and donate to charity whenever I can because I believe that helping other people and being altruistic is a pretty cool thing. Also as a kid, I spent almost an entire week strapped to a bed at the Childrens Hospital of Orange County in California after a kidney surgery.

As a result, every year since Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik from Penny Arcade started their annual toy drive called Child’s Play, I’ve tried to buy a toy from the list that I know will be used to help a kid just like the one I was. Whole groups of people have created satellite organizations to help raise more money for the charity, and my favorite out of all of them is Desert Bus.

Two years have passed since I originally blogged about their efforts, and I thought that this time, I could recap a little bit about the typical things you could see the Desert Bus Crew doing if you happen to tune into the live driver cam at 4:00 am local time in Victoria, B.C. for about an hour:

0400 – The crew is dancing along to an instrumental section of a song from the Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World soundtrack, to which they’ve been challenged to sing.

0408 – Jeremy “Jer” Petter narrates as everyone in the room comes up with their own very personalized types of dinosaur and walks across the room.

0411 – The chat room has been challenged to take the total from $15,839 to $16,000 in the next 10 minutes. If that happens, they will sing a Barry White song.

0421 – Matt Wiggins sings “Soft Kitty” from “The Big Bang Theory” while stroking the head of James Turner, who is driving the bus. Also, since the total is now only $15,914, the chat challenge failed.

0427 – Alex Steacy makes an appearance while dressed from head to toe in orange rain gear and a Flavor Flav-style clock around his neck. I do not immediately recall why. Afterwards, the group sings “Little Lion Man” by Mumford and Sons.

0433 – The official total is now $16,010, which they’ve confirmed took too long to get to in order for them to sing a Barry White song. However, they are now singing “Polka Power” by Weird Al because someone paid $50 for them to do so. Someone who is only being identified in the accompanying chatroom as “Red Bandana Man” is the most energetic. Afterwards, he identifies himself as Andre, he’s a member of the Loading Ready Run forums, and he decided to stop by and hang out.

0441 – Turner reminds everyone to send in drawings of him driving the bus with pants on his head for a challenge. Chat member lgladdy reminds the chat audience about the real-time graph he made which shows the donation totals.

0446 – Tally Heilke tortures Turner by hiding in their costume rack and pretending to be a monster in exchange for a donation. Afterward, in response to another $50 donation, the entire room chants “Hail C’thulu!” in a rising monotone crescendo, while reacting in terror as the Old One (played by Andre) rises. However, as the tentacled one rampages across the room, the controller gets unplugged from the Sega CD, resulting in a bus crash and the need to restart the game (and their point total) and start their run from Tucson to Las Vegas again. As a result, they update the overlay to read 1 point, 1 crash, and 6 Bothan spies who died to bring us this information.

0457 – Petter, Wiggins, and Turner re-enact the scene from Clerks 2 where Randall goes off on the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

As seen in the screen shot above, as of this writing $17,000 has been raised for Child’s Play, which brings their four-year total to $233,677. Judging from the aforementioned graph, the group is well on their way to being responsible for raising a quarter of a million dollars during year’s event.

I can’t wait until they do.

How Padme Amidala, Yoda, and the Internet are standing up to bullies for a Star Wars-loving mini-geekette

Posted on 19 November 2010 by admin 27 Comments

SWGeekette Katie-CatTaber — Katie and Catherine Taber are proud that they love Star Wars (c) Carrie Goldman and Dana Patrick

No matter what kind of geek you are, there’s something that all of us share in common which makes us different from aficionados, hobbyists, and dabblers.

When we were younger, we got teased and bullied. A lot.

In his book The Happiest Days of Our Lives, writer/actor Wil Wheaton wrote extensively of how being a little smarter and a little more shy than other kids in his elementary school classes lead to his taking one in the face during an “innocent” game of dodgeball. The fact that Wheaton went on to star as an actor in such geek-centric TV series like “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Eureka” doesn’t completely obscure the fact that he still feels and remembers that pain from over 25 years ago.

Katie, a first-grader in the metro Chicago area, had her own “dodgeball moment” recently. See, Katie really loves the Star Wars franchise. In fact, she loves it so much that according to her mother Carrie Goldman, a blogger at ChicagoNow.com, she asked for a Star Wars water bottle to go with her backpack when they went shopping for school supplies at the beginning of this school year. However, four days ago, Katie changed her mind about her special find:

Katie loves Star Wars, and she was very excited about her new items. For the first few months of school, she proudly filled her water bottle herself and helped me pack her lunch each morning.

But a week ago, as we were packing her lunch, Katie said, “My Star Wars water bottle is too small. It doesn’t hold enough water. Can I take a different one?” She searched through the cupboard until she found a pink water bottle and said, “I’ll bring this.”

I was perplexed. “Katie, that water bottle is no bigger than your Star Wars one. I think it is actually smaller.”

“It’s fine, I’ll just take it,” she insisted.

I kept pushing the issue, because it didn’t make sense to me. Suddenly, Katie burst into tears.

She wailed, “The first grade boys are teasing me at lunch because I have a Star Wars water bottle. They say it’s only for boys. Every day they make fun of me for drinking out of it. I want them to stop, so I’ll just bring a pink water bottle.”

And that’s how it begins.

The feeling that you’re different, and that if you want to be liked by the other kids in your class, you have to step in line with what they think you should do and who they think you should be. It’s the kind of feeling which, if left unchecked or unacknowledged, could cause a lot of damage to a growing kid’s psyche.

When faced with this kind of bullying, Goldman did what any caring parent should do. She spoke to her daughter about how it was okay to be a little different, and encouraged her to be brave enough to continue bringing the water bottle to school. She then went a step further and asked her readers—and especially her female Star Wars-loving readers—to chime in to let Katie know that it was okay to be female and to like Star Wars

The response was overwhelming, and tons of female Star Wars fans braved the login requirements to write to Katie about how much they like the franchise and—more importantly, that she shouldn’t be ashamed of liking it, too.

Just yesterday, it went viral, thanks to Twitter updates from folks like Alyssa Milano and Felicia Day. In the 30 minutes it took me to take the subway home from downtown Manhattan to my apartment in Brooklyn, the number of people who commented on the original story went from about 150 to 584 (and counting). Earlier in the day, Cake Wrecks and Epbot blogger Jen re-broadcast the story and invited those who didn’t want to subscribe to leave comments in her blog post, and there are currently over 1,700 over there as well, up from the 600 or so I saw earlier.

My favorite response on the original post, though, comes from another “Katie” — Catherine Taber, the voice of Padme Amidala in the CG-animated “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”:

I am an actress who has the great honor of being Padme Amidala on “Star Wars: the Clone Wars”! I just wanted to tell Katie that she is in VERY good company being a female Star Wars fan! I get to meet the coolest girls from all over the WORLD who love Star Wars — and they are the smartest, most creative, beautiful and nicest people you will ever meet!

Not to mention I am a big Star Wars fan myself and have quite a nice collection — including 2 water bottles that I proudly carry!

I am so sorry you had a bad experience with some of the boys at school. They are truthfully probably jealous of your cool water bottle, but there is no excuse for not being kind and it is not a good representation of a Star Wars fan!!

I know that Padme would tell you to be proud of who YOU are and know that you are not ALONE!
Please have your mom get in touch with me so I can send you something for YOUR Star Wars collection!

Much Love and Admiration — and THE FORCE is with you Katie!
Catherine, Padme

When I reached out to Goldman last night, she and her husband were still amazed by the overwhelming response from the Star Wars fans all over the world as well as from other people associated with the franchise.

“Katie has not yet reacted because she goes to bed at 7 pm, and we had not yet read the comment by Catherine! But when my husband and I found out, we were amazed,” she wrote in an email. “We kept looking at each other and laughing and saying, ‘Oh My God!’ We were also contacted by Tom Kane, who voices Yoda, and Katie does not know about that yet either! He invited us to be his guests at a Clone Wars movie premiere in Chicago. Scott Zirkel, who is an artist for Star Wars sketch cards, drew Katie her own card tonight with a picture of her holding a light saber.”

Goldman added, “Many people have offered to send Katie Star Wars toys. Since it is the holiday season, please suggest that they donate toys in her honor to local shelters and hospitals instead of sending them to us. The positive comments are gift enough.”

Taber found out about Katie from the Epbot.com post, and immediately took action. “I felt I had to comment and try to reach out to the family,” she wrote by email. “The story really touched me for a lot of reasons. I felt for Katie’s mom and wanted to make sure she had support in teaching Katie it is okay to be a little different. And the thought of this lovely little Star Wars fan having the wind and the joy taken out of her sails, just made me mad! If I had lived in her area, I probably would have tried to show up and give her a hug—dressed as Padme no less.”

Taber’s responsible for having reached out to Kane and other “Clone Wars” cast and crew members, and she did it for a very important reason. “Maybe it’s because I play one of the good guys,” she said, “but to me Star Wars is about good conquering out over evil in the end, and the inherent power of good in general. The fact that so many people from all over, immediately came together to support Katie is proof of that power and just made me so happy.”

Not a bad way to end Anti-Bullying Week, eh?

Trisha’s Quote of the Day: How Angelina Jolie gets around the Bechdel Test

Posted on 12 November 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

I felt it was a weird thing that every time you ask for a strong female role, it’s written in this strange way where it uses sexuality far too much. Or it’s all about being a woman and beating a man. So it wasn’t a surprise to me that the only way to do a strong female role properly was to not have originally written for a woman.

—The agent-and-publicist-less Angelina Jolie on why she decided to star in Salt, courtesy of the December issue of Vogue.

(Many thanks to indie blogger Anne Thompson for the link.)

Trailer Watch: “Top Gear” USA

Posted on 12 November 2010 by admin 4 Comments

Oh dear.

Mentioned during the “60 Minutes” segment on the original U.K. show, the U.S.-based version of the show will feature these three guys:

Adam Ferrara: A comedian and actor, his biggest credit to date is starring as Chief Nelson on “Rescue Me.”
Tanner Foust: A stunt driver whose credits include two of the The Fast and the Furious movies, he’s also a rally driver and has competed in the X Games.
Rutledge Wood: He’s the dark horse of the trio, having no major mainstream screen credits to his name, other than appearing on SPEED in a show called “NASCAR Smarts.” This show is so off the radar it doesn’t have its own Wikipedia page.

Now, I’m not the most car-obsessed person in the world and I love original-flavor “Top Gear.” I also loved “Initial D” when I first saw it. And yet something really bothers me about the approach they’re taking in the trailer.

Lemme backtrack a second: German race car driver Sabine Schmitz has been featured on the original “Top Gear” several times; the most recent appearance was in 2008 when she and her two “D Motor” co-presenters took on the lads in a series of crazy races, one of which involved the removal of a prosthetic arm.

The thing I noticed about the German team was that Schmitz seemed to have the most personality and charisma out of the three (and I am willing to concede that perhaps I like her a lot because she’s a female racer). However, all three were pretty fun to watch during the double-decker race because they were as aggressive and crazy as Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May.

These three guys? I don’t get a sense of that kind of craziness, and that’s what keeps people watching “Top Gear.”

However, Jalopnik.com’s Ray Wert is on board after having been given a peek at the show’s segments and offers this perspective on one of the guys:

But, [Tanner Foust] rocks because he wears his heart on his sleeve. While riding shotgun in a Lamborghini with him around the Las Vegas Convention Center, I told him that fan-boys of the UK series were rooting for this version of “Top Gear” to fail. His first response was viscerally physical. His jaw set, his eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses and he gripped the steering wheel more tightly. For a split second I had a vision of him letting go of the steering wheel and lunging at my neck. Then he explained just how much the concept of Top Gear meant to him.

It was at that moment that I realized he looked so hurt by the comment because the guy’s just like us — a fan-boy.

Anyway, this is going into my DVR, and if all things go right, you may even be able to either read or hear a commentary of the show between me and our U.K. TV expert Kara Dennison.

“Top Gear USA” premieres on the History Channel on Sunday, November 21 at 10:00 pm Eastern/9:00 pm Central and will likely repeat.

Geekly Speaking About… the Original Saw movie

Posted on 5 November 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

In a wonderful bit of synergy, the last movie in the Saw franchise was released in 3D right before Halloween. Having never seen any of the movies before, Lyssa Spero and I decided to watch the first one a while ago and recorded the results for all of you to hear.

I must warn you that the audio in this is terribly NSFW if you don’t have headphones on because there were just that many moments of WTF going on. Also, it goes without saying that this commentary is full of spoilers for not only the first Saw, but a few of the others, and has casting spoilers for Saw 3D.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy listening to this as much as we enjoyed recording it.

http://www.geekingoutabout.com/wp-includes/Podcasts/GSA_Saw-1_Commentary.mp3

Trisha’s Quote of the Day: When Webber pulled a Lucas

Posted on 4 November 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Let me also point out that the Phantom sounds like a petulant child. Let’s compare some of his lines from the original: “Floating, falling, sweet intoxication/Touch me, trust me, savor each sensation.” Yeah, it’s a bit Chester the Molester, but at least he’s trying to be sexy. (And he could be pretty funny, too, especially at the expense of the managers and Piangi.) His new verbal pyrotechnics? “I don’t see the problem/This is ancient history!” I mean, I can hear a cheating husband say that on Springer any day of the week, though possibly not in song.

–LiveJournal user brouhaha, illustrating precisely why Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber never should have created Love Never Dies

(And now, I wonder if she’ll take requests to recap Jerry Springer: The Opera.)

Trisha’s Take: How to get the most out of one day at a convention, part 2

Posted on 2 November 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

rsz_lxd — What does dance have to do with comic books? Plenty, says LXD creator Jon Chu

Picking up where I left off, I didn’t stay very long in the southern end of the Javitz Center because the one panel I’d RSVP’d for was in the northern end of the hall with the majority of the large publishers, game companies, and stores.

When I registered as a member of the Press, I had to supply my email address, presumably so that I could receive a confirmation that they received my information. What also happened is that as the convention grew new, my Inbox became flooded with press releases from those same publishers, game companies, stores, and individuals who wished to promote their panels and get members of the Press to write about their work.

I’m not sure if that’s how they operate over at Comic Con in San Diego, but I will say that it was a very smart thing for Reed to do because if it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have known about the panel featuring Jon Chu from the LXD.

Yes, I’m talking about the dance group which blew everyone away with their exhibition dance during last year’s run of “So You Think You Can Dance,” were invited to do a TED talk/performance (after which Madd Chadd allegedly did the robot with Bill Gates), and brought interpretive dance back to the Academy Awards ceremony. I’d heard about their web series before but didn’t watch any of the episodes for one reason or another, so I thought that it would be great to see what it was all about. The panel didn’t disappoint, and I was even able to speak to creator Jon Chu about the comic book story elements in the web series and how they’d like to tell their story in other mediums.

Listen to the interview with Jon M. Chu (and I apologize for getting the seasons numbers wrong!)

Now, I’d had an expensive hot dog and a medium-sized lemonade before the panel started, which meant by the time the panel was over, I had to use the bathroom. One of the things I remember from my days as a Sequential Tart was often joking about the way one could tell that women had successfully infiltrated the “boys-only” club of comics conventions is that the line for the women’s room was longer than the men’s. Over the years, this “joke” has become a reality, and while I feel great about that in terms of achieving parity, my bladder was not feeling the same way when I encountered the line outside of Hall A.

Despite an amendment to the building code requiring more women’s stalls than men’s in New York City public buildings (PDF), I still feel that if I have to go, I have to go, especially since I’ve had kidney problems ever since I was born. Thus, it was with a little bit of bravado and a whole lot of chutzpah that I turned right around and walked over to the other side of the hall to get in line for the men’s room. Another female attendee had the same idea I did, and as we waited for the one stall, we talked about what we were there at the convention to see, while encouraging the poor confused men who entered and saw us in line to go ahead and use the urinals.

The funniest part of all was catching a glimpse of Brooklyn-based comics artist Dean Haspiel out of the corner of my eye, and saying hello to him… after he washed his hands, of course. He was naturally very surprised to see me, and when I found out that he was on his way to the Vertigo panel, I decided to make that my next stop as well. I got there in time to hear Haspiel speak about his most recent work called Cuba: My Revolution, a collaboration with writer/painter Inverna Lockpez. I attempted to catch Haspiel after the panel for a brief interview, but he said that he had to do a signing at a booth with writer/collaborator Jonathan Ames (The Alcoholic, HBO’s “Bored to Death”) and to try to catch him there.

That was just perfect for me, because by that time, I had started receiving text messages and Speed McNeil and let me know that she was in row F of the Artist’s Alley, which I had completely skipped over during my initial pass. Armed with this information and knowing that I had about an hour or so to kill before Haspiel was free, I wandered back through the Hall A throng and was surprised to find Evil Inc. creator Brad Guigar sitting with Scott Kurtz at the Webcomics.com booth.

I have a special place in my heart for Guigar because he was the first creator whom I’d interviewed the weekend after I left Anime Insider and I’ve followed almost all of his projects with great interest since then. I figured that now was as good a time as any to talk to him about Webcomics.com, and exactly why any and all webcomics creators should join up.

Listen to Brad Guigar’s Webcomics.com pitch, which was successful enough to convince me that our own Kara Dennison needed a 1-year membership

…to be concluded next week

Anime convention to send condolences to surviving members of Satoshi Kon’s family

Posted on 28 October 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

One of the things I love about the Otakon anime convention is that the people who run it not only have a great love of the medium, they care about people in the industry as well. After director Satoshi Kon’s passing two months ago, the members of the non-profit responsible for running the Baltimore, Md. convention decided to do something for the family members and colleagues he left behind.

“There was such an outpouring of shock when he died, and so many fans expressed appreciation and gratitude—we wanted some way to let his family see, firsthand, how much of an impact Kon had,” wrote former con chair and current Otakorp. member-at-large Jim Vowles in a post to the Anime Cons ML.

Fans can visit the website (located at http://www.otakon.com/satoshikonfarewell.asp) and they can either send a message to a Gmail account that has been set up for this purpose, send a letter or condolences card to a U.S. physical address, donate money to an accredited charity which helps fight life-threatening cancers—or most importantly, purchase DVDs of works by Satoshi Kon.

From the website:

First, strong sales may increase the likelihood that Kon’s final project [The Dream Machine] will be completed. Second, like most in the animation industry, Satoshi Kon was not a wealthy man, but unlike many, he held some intellectual property that he hoped would continue to provide for his family after his death.

Me, I’m up for purchasing Perfect Blue when payday hits on Saturday, and I urge you to pick something out as well.

Trisha’s Take: How to get the most out of one day at a convention, part 1

Posted on 13 October 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Approximately 10 years ago, I used to go to a lot of conventions, like the San Diego Comic Con (aka “Nerd Prom”) and Anime Expo. In fact, in 2001, I think I went to six different conventions on two different U.S. coasts.

My most traveled year was 2003 when I was working for the now-defunct Anime Insider as an associate editor and went to the Wizard World conventions in Chicago, Arlington (Texas), and Philadelphia; my busiest year was when I was an assistant editor for Sequential Tart and covered Anime Expo all by myself.

Being such an old hat at attending conventions, I knew what my preparations would be when I made the decision to attend only one day out of three for the New York Comic Con/New York Anime Fest mega-con which was held on October 8 through October 10 at the Javitz Center:

Make sure you have your badge and that your new digital voice recorder and your cell phone has a full battery.

Eat at least once in the middle of the day.

Stay hydrated.

Sit down if and when you need to do so.

One of the nifty things that Reed Expositions did for everyone who doesn’t have an iPhone or an Android phone to download their apps was to not only post their schedule online, but for the “cost” of signing in with your email address, you could create your own schedule of panel events and save them to your Microsoft Outlook calendar. Because my work Outlook calendar is synched up with my Windows Moblie phone, I did just that, and was able to cherry-pick the panels I wanted to attend. It was difficult to make choices, but in the end, I ended up choosing a few things that were different enough in scope to be interesting to me but familiar enough to where I’d be able to hang out with old friends.

Because I’m a wuss, after exiting the subway at 34th Street and Eighth Avenue, I hailed a cab and paid $5 plus tip to get to the Javitz on Eleventh Avenue, which was closed to cabs dropping people off. My cabbie had to make an illegal U-turn and dropped me off outside the concrete barricades. All during the trip, he kept asking me about why so many people were going there, so I helpfully explained.

Unlike our esteemed gaming expert Adrienne Ryan, I had been to the Javitz for a previous NYCC and NYAF and so finding the press room wasn’t that difficult for me. I would find out later that they were charging something like $5.95 an hour for wifi access in the press room, where several people were already camped out with laptops and a few more were conducting interviews.

Had I more time, I probably would have investigated the press options more, but I was running late to the first panel on my schedule. As I walked towards the room, I saw voice actor/director Mike Sinterniklaas (Dean Venture of “The Venture Bros.”, Leonard from “TMNT”) chatting with a cosplayer. I gave him a hug and helped him by holding his smoothie and Danish while he got her contact information, for she wanted some more information about voice acting for his studio. Just as we were chatting, Rachel Lillis, another voice actor appeared and I walked with them to the panel room.

The title of the panel was “East Meets West” but as more American voice actors appeared (including Stephanie Sheh and Tom Wayland), they started to wonder if they were supposed to be on the panel or if it was a panel for Japanese voice actor Minori Chihara and maybe only one or two other people, for there were only three microphones on stage. Sinterniklaas volunteered to be the group’s spokesperson and after a quick conversation with the staff, another table and three more microphones came out. I was only able to stay for the first half of the panel, but one of the things I was glad to learn was that when Chihara-san records her audition tapes at home, she uses an Sony IC Digital Voice Recorder, just like the one I just bought in preparation for this weekend.

As I made my way through NYAF’s Artist Alley/panels area/Maid Cafe-and-stage, I remarked that the average age of the attendees seemed to be college-aged. For the most part, they were very rambunctious and giddy, and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to linger to find out how the artists were faring in the basement. I also ran into Japanator editor Brad Rice, who took great pains to explain to everyone who asked that no, he wasn’t cosplaying as Harry Potter, thankyouverymuch.

Upstairs, I wandered through the Autograph area section, waving hello to some friends staffing the Otakon booth as well as Eisner-award winning editor Adam P. Knave (Popgun) and Attila Adorjany, two friends who joined forces to form Voltron purchase some booth space in the small press area. They were located next to Chris Hastings (The Adventures of Dr. McNinja). I would find out later on that the ended up co-opting booth space from Flaming Carrot creator Bob Burden, who himself traded up to a corner booth in the Alley and then later on Sunday would move into the larger Exhibit Hall on the north side, proving that even in the comic book trade it’s all about “location, location, location!”

Just beyond that was the comics Artist Alley section, and I was on a mission to find Finder creator Carla Speed McNeil, because in addition to being one of my favorite artists ever, she’s also a real good friend whom I hadn’t seen in about five years. My plan was to hang out with her at her booth for a while to tease her about “selling out” to Dark Horse… except, I had no idea how to find her.

This was a problem earlier on the NYCC website, where when you clicked on an Artist Alley name and a large graphic of their came up, but no biographical information or location information. However, I thought by the time the show came around, there’s be some information in the program book, but no dice. I would find out later on that there was one sign in the Artist Alley area that had a list of creators and their booth numbers. Not good, Reed. Not good.

Instead, I decided to wander the AA to see who else had shown up that I knew and remembered from my comics-peddling days and ran into Kevin Bolk from Interrobang Studios, who had no idea that Kara Dennison had written about him for this very website. As I wandered about, trying to find Speed McNeil, I found children’s book author and illustrator Nick Bell who was giving out free mini-buttons which read “i am great” to promote his new book Brian the Great and his existing book Mary the Tooth Fairy.

Listen to the interview with Nick Bell

Ever since I became the aunt to two very adorable nieces, I’ve become fascinated with the idea of finding children’s books which are smart and encourage young girls to grow up to become strong women. Since I had it on me at the time, I decided to do a quickie interview with Bell on my new recorder, and the results will go up in a few days.

A person could spend hours wandering the AA, but I couldn’t linger, for I had to get over to the north end of the convention hall to attend the only panel to whose press release I responded favorably.

To be continued…

Trisha’s Link of the Day: iPhone + 24-hours without sleep = awesome comics story

Posted on 10 October 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

As a writer, I love the concept and the results which come from the annual 24-Hour Comics Day events; this year’s batch was no exception.

For the non-comics geeks reading this, I’ll explain briefly: Back in 1990, comics author, theorist, and now-luminary Scott McCloud dared his fellow comics artist friend Steve Bissette to draw a 24-page story in 24 hours. The aim of the exercise was for Bissette to become a faster artist, because as anyone who wants to break into the comics business as an artist knows, nobody likes to work with someone who can’t meet a deadline. And just because McCloud is the kind of man who puts his drawing tools where his mouth is, he decided to create a story under the same constraints.

The results can be viewed here, and over the last two decades, many other comics creators have taken up the gauntlet of the challenge. With the advent of the Internet, creators have also begun blogging about their process and it has now truly become a worldwide event which drawn in new participants every year and spawned a book or two.

When it comes to innovation in comics creation, though, I think that this year San Antonio, Texas artist Lea Hernandez took home the prize in coolest and most tech-savvy comic, with an entry that I think she’s calling “Jackwagon,” which she created entirely on her iPhone, courtesy of an application called Brushes.

To read it in its entirety, click here (and note that it’s not entirely safe for work).

Trisha’s Take: Life as We Know It review

Posted on 8 October 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Life As We Know It (2010)

Directed by: Greg Berlanti
Starring: Katherine Heigl, Josh Duhamel, Josh Lucas
Rated PG-13 for sexual material, language and some drug content

There are a lot of things that can make me cry while watching a movie. When I saw Return of the Jedi for the first time in the theaters, the climactic battle between the Ewoks and the Imperial soldiers traumatized me because the little innocent fuzzy creatures who didn’t really undertand about war were dying. (Of course as an adult, I have to wonder exactly what that very large net was supposed to catch, and what the Ewoks were gonna do with whatever they usually catch.)

Now that I understand what real pain, heartbreak and loss are, whenever I sense the real thing in a movie, it will instantly reduce me to tears even faster than before. One such moment came early during the preview screening of Life As We Know It, and it affected how I viewed the whole movie.

Directed by TV producer Greg Berlanti (“Everwood,” “Brothers & Sisters,” and “No Ordinary Family,” amongst others), the the plot behind Life is that singletons Holly (Katherine Heigl) and Messer (Josh Duhamel) who were originally set up by their engaged best friends have a hate-hate relationship which begain on that disastrous blind date. Even as we watch them get thrown together at various social gatherings which revolve around Peter and Alison Novak (played by Hayes MacArthur and Christina Hendricks), it’s clear that they will never like each other, and will only tolerate the other’s presence because of the people in their lives that they share.

Of course, all of this changes when the Novaks die in a horrible car accident while they’re on a date and their one-year old daughter Sophie is at home. Now, as the baby’s godparents and her legal guardian, Holly and Messer both have to learn about what it’s like to be parents and perhaps get along a little in the meantime.

For their first time on the big screen, writing partners Ian Deitchman and Kristin Rusk Robinson had their work cut out for them. How do you make a romantic comedy out of a movie which kills two of its more likable cast members to end the first act? How do you portray the loss of two people who were very important to your protagonist characters without wallowing too much into melodrama?

It is in answering this second question that I recognize the veracity of the emotions portrayed in their scripting. The scene I’m speaking of in particular revolves around Holly, who in a panic when Sophie is sick, takes her to the pediatrician, who also happens to be a cute bakery customer of hers. I forget the question he asked, but her response was pretty dead-on (to me, at least) to the amount of pure pain that envelops you when someone you loved is dead.

Her feelings come out in a torrent, overwhelming her and causing her to say things that she probably wouldn’t say in front of someone on whom she wants to impress (which she does). She feels guilt over their deaths, and I sensed some anger that they were dead, and more than a little bit of angst over the fact that she was alive to raise their child and they were not.

Guilt mixed with grief is something with which I’m intimately familiar, and Heigl hit all the notes so well that I found myself welling up with sympathetic pain. And thinking of my deceased friend, I started to attempt to place myself in Holly’s shoes throughout the rest of the movie, and the character never again found those sympathetic notes.

As for Josh Duhamel’s Messer, I found myself siding with him in this battle of the genders, especially towards the end of the movie when he has to make a decision between advancing his career and maintaining his relationships with Sophie and Holly. (If you can’t guess that he eventually repairs those relationships, you probably don’t watch many standard romantic comedies.) That, too, is perhaps the only time I felt a bit of real sympathy for the character because the one time he was allowed to show the same kind of grief as Heigl’s scene in the pediatrician’s office, it was expressed in such a ham-handed way, complete with the “sad piano” in the background to underscore the moment.

I can’t talk about MacArthur and Hendricks as the Novaks because they’re not in the film long enough for me to get a sense of who they were and exactly why they thought that Holly and Messer should get together. (No, I don’t agree with the in-movie reasoning, either.) I can’t talk about Holly and Messer’s other friends because it doesn’t appear as if they have any friends other than their neighbors-with-kidswho are there to act as a funny Greek chorus.

Whatever props I am giving to writers Deitchman and Robinson for including a gay couple raising a child in that Greek chorus due to the fact that Atlanta has the third largest LGBT population in the U.S. is immediately taken away by the fact that for a city whose population is over 55% black, there are no African-Americans amongst Holly and Messer’s friends. Sure, there’s the guy who works for Holly as her sous-chef, but he’s given such little personality that he doesn’t count, and neither does Messer’s African-American cab driver and reluctant nanny.

It’s because of these flaws and the fact that for some reason, I just couldn’t commit to liking either Holly or Messer that I have to say that this was only a mediocre movie, not even worth the amount of time it would take you to download it.

According to Life as We Know It the only times adults should watch “The Wiggles” are when they have kids or are stoned. Maybe even both.

Trisha’s Link of the Day: Well played, Rob Liefeld

Posted on 4 October 2010 by admin 1 Comment

When I was a nascent comics fan in the mid-1990s, one of the most important things I learned about the art was that Rob Liefeld can’t draw feet.

Since then, I’ve learned that the former Marvel Comics wunderkind who created X-Force and one of the founding members of Image Comics also can’t draw women, men, guns, pouches, and quite a few other things. In addition, by not fixing these kinds of errors, I always got the impression that he didn’t seem to care that he was a bad artist; one family friend of his told me back then that he was “laughing all the way to the bank.”

Even now, after all these years, my impression of Liefeld and his work has never been a positive one… until now.

Last week, the lads at Penny Arcade revealed that they’d been asked (or even possibly hired) to produce two pieces of art to promote a new Xbox game called Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley from indie game studio Twisted Pixel. The premise of the game is that you play a comic book character who has to battle villains through different genres and comic book styles.

The part that caught PA artist Mike Krahulik’s eye is that as the character jumps into another genre, the art style of the game changes as well. He agreed to do the artwork provided that he could choose the style he would illustrate and he chose the Modern era.

Krahulik has said before at PAX panels and elsewhere that he loved comic books when he was younger and wanted to create his own work. In the news post announcing the debut of the artwork and a subsequent contest to win the Xbox pictured at left, he wrote:

The result [of my work for Twisted Pixel] was a project heavily inspired by one Mr. Rob Liefeld. Obviously you can look back on that stuff now and it’s pretty silly but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being heavily inspired by it at the time. Rob may not have had the best grasp of anatomy, storytelling, perspective, or composition but his shit was fucking dynamic and as a young man I ate it up.

This isn’t the first time the guys have picked on Liefeld, either, as you can see from this comic from 2004, posted right after they’d returned from that year’s San Diego Comic Con.

When I returned to the PA website the day after the contest ended, in addition to the winning entry, we were greeted with Liefeld’s own entry into the contest:

Again… well played, Mr. Liefeld.

Trisha’s Take: The Social Network review

Posted on 1 October 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

[Editor’s Note: We’re trying something a little new here where more than one person writes a review of a given thing. Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated. – TL]

The Social Network

Directed by David Fincher
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Armie Hammer, and more
Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language

Before I write this review, I am obliged to tell you that one of the reasons why I was excited when I first heard about this movie was that Aaron Sorkin (The American President, “The West Wing”) would be writing the screenplay, and that he’d started a Facebook page to do research.

Back then, I’d called it a documentary, and boy was I wrong. The story of The Social Network is based on a not-completely factual non-fiction book by Ben Mezrich called The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal and it was Sorkin and director David Fincher’s job to turn the story within that book into a movie.

For those who aren’t familiar with Facebook‘s history, the first 20 minutes or so of the movie reveal part of its source via a common story trope, although tweaked a bit for the 21st century. Girl (Rooney Mara) breaks up with Guy (Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg) because he’s a tremendous ass, Guy gets drunk and starts writing computer code, and almost overnight, he has alienated almost everyone on his campus… and planted the seeds for an even greater invention.

Though I am a geek, it is not of the computer science flavor and so a lot of the jargon Zuckerberg threw out as he was drunk-coding went completely over my head. What did ring true for me was that he had been hurt by what he perceived to be an unfairness, and he took it out on innocent bystanders while performing an Allen Ginsberg-like howl into the electronic void on his LiveJournal. And perhaps that blend of new technology with age-old human behavior and conflicts is what makes The Social Network a compelling story.

(In a curious burst of synergy, though there is a Zuckonit user on LiveJournal, the account was created approximately two weeks ago and the journal is devoid of content. That’s a real shame because couldn’t you imagine what fun it would have been to be the PR copywriter assigned to simulate what Zuckerberg’s “real” LiveJournal entries would have been?)

The other curious effect of the story presented in Social Network is that it humanizes Zuckerberg by presenting him as a “sexually insecure computer nerd,” according to The Guardian‘s James Robinson. And perhaps this observation is the direct opposition of what Robinson writes about in the rest of his article which described a growing disillusionment with Zuckerberg’s disregard for privacy, but it’s a testament to Sorkin’s words, Fincher’s direction, and Eisenberg’s acting ability that even when he’s ignoring the safe and sane approach to business espoused by his best friend Eduardo Savarin (played very well by Andrew Garfield) and behaving like the most reprehensible businessman ever, the audience in my preview screening never wanted to see Zuckerberg fail miserably.

The antagonists in this story include twin pretty-boy athletes Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (both played by Armie Hammer) and computing bad boy entrepreneur Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake, in an Oscar-bait worthy performance); it’s Parker who is given the shortest shrift by being portrayed as a paranoid druggie has-been.

As I write this review, I’m struck by the fact that I could talk for ages about how great the dialogue is, how disappointed I was that there weren’t any extensive pedeconferences, how cool the music was (except for the last nightclub scene in California, where it was turned up so loud that you almost couldn’t hear the dialogue–just as it would happen in a real nightclub), and still I really only think this movie was just good, but not great.

I have a suspicion that my ultimate dissatisfaction with this movie is that in attempting to humanize Zuckerberg and create a protagonist whose journey you really wanted to follow, Sorkin pulled a lot of hackneyed ideas out of his overnight bag and sprinkled the film liberally with them. The worst offender is the last scene of the movie which ends with Zuckerberg at his computer all alone… just as he had been when he first began his journey towards being the youngest billionnaire in the world.

And life just isn’t as “neat” as all that.

The Social Network is gathering friends for its U.S. release on October 1. Could you help by going to your nearest theater and purchasing a ticket?

RIP: Stuart E. Hample, cartoonist and humorist

Posted on 24 September 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Last Sunday, a humorist and cartoonist named Stuart Hample died. He was 84, and according to the obituary that ran in the New York Times, it was due to cancer.

Perusing the obituary, the thing that jumped out at me the most is that Hample collaborated with famed New York director Woody Allen on a comics strip:

From 1976 to 1984 [Hample] wrote and illustrated the syndicated comic strip “Inside Woody Allen,” a series of panels that purported to reveal the mind of that famous comedian and film director in all its self-analytical, overly worried, oversexed, death-obsessed glory. (Early on he used the pen name Joe Marthen.) Mr. Allen gave his permission for the strip and consulted with Mr. Hample frequently. A collection of selected strips was published as a book, Dread & Superficiality, last fall.

I know of Hample’s work through his son Zack who runs a writer’s group in New York City which has a roving meeting location. And all at once, I am saddened that I didn’t know about Stuart Hample’s work sooner. It makes me wonder about all the other cartoonists and “lost” projects out there which didn’t get to be seen by a wider audience or enjoy the kind of fame which comes from having a celebrity tie-in.

A more in-depth explanation of his comics-cred can be found via the Comics Reporter obit.

In any case, rest in peace, Mr. Hample, and my thoughts are with your family right now.

Trisha’s Take: My response to the Moon Manifesto

Posted on 24 September 2010 by admin 1 Comment

I had a very busy day at work yesterday and so at the end of the day when I heard about the latest case of “writer-fail” to move through the sci-fi/fantasy fandom, I gave it a quick read and then moved on.

For some brief background, sci-fi/fantasy author Elizabeth Moon (the Planet Pirates series, the Familias Regnant series) wrote a blog entry on September 11 expressing her thoughts about what it means to be a U.S. citizen and how the group of developers behind the Park51 community center are a big wrong-headed.

Several people took issue with some of her statements, most notably editor Cat Valente, who decreed that the upcoming November issue of Apex magazine will be dedicated to showcasing the works of “writers of Arab descent and Muslim writers.” Valente’s response was re-blogged by British author Warren Ellis, and it all went viral from there.

Now that I finally have a chance to sit down and write (and I’m also attempting to get my writers’ muscles back), here’s my pure reaction to what Moon had to say, without glancing at other peoples’ reactions:

Had the signers of the Declaration been as wedded to personal liberty as the right wing today, there would have been no successful Revolution.

Okay, here she’s proving that she’s no Tea Partier, and in fact, I’ll bet that she’s saying that she doesn’t think that the TP movement is really actually true to its own cause. Nevertheless, any time anyone brings up what they think the “founding fathers” thought in such a declarative manner, my hackles are raised. You can only infer what they believed through their writings and make guesses by their actions.

[They] did not demand that others bear the burdens so they could ride in the well-sprung coach.

My flip response is that some of them owned slaves just so that they could ride in coaches. However, I get what she’s saying in that they personally put their own lives and reputations on the line when they signed the document. I totally grok that part.

When a President’s wife (Laura Bush) publicly announces that she and her husband have suffered more from the war than anyone else–a statement I’m sure most brain-injured and amputee vets and their families would take issue with–and then retire to a cushy Dallas home and a cushy central Texas ranch–with a big estate in Patagonia waiting should they wish–we have an excellent example of citizenship failure right at the top.

I don’t see here where she’s being painted as a Fox News-spouting bigot. I wish she had provided sources, though. Alas, she’s a writer and not a journalist and not a blogger.

When an Islamic group decided to build a memorial center at/near the site of the 9/11 attack, they should have been able to predict that this would upset a lot of people.

Oh boy…. there’s a lot of wrong in this entire paragraph. So much wrong that I’m not going to go into it, but just mark the entire paragraph with a red X and move on.

But Muslims fail to recognize how much forbearance they’ve had.

This “forbearance” came out of the civil rights movement, and is a good thing. Perhaps it’s created its own problem where now people are hyper-vigilant about remaining politically correct, but then again it’s not a bad thing when people who just.don’t.get.it. don’t understand why people are upset about what they say in public and think it’s okay (see: Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s outburst).

But yeah… there’s one whole paragraph of “fail” and unless she’s made a follow-up statement or concessions, it’s not looking good for Elizabeth Moon.

I can’t speak for the other writers of this blog, but I believe that an upcoming issue of a fantasy mag with Arab or Muslim-writers in it would be awesome, I would totally read and buy that or donate to the website, and I hope you do, too.

If you’re a writer of Arab descent or you are a member of the Muslim faith (or both!) and are interested in submitting to Apex magazine, the submission guidelines can be found here.

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