Sep02
More Radicals sketches for the upcoming special “Invasion of the Furries”.
Comment
Aug12
Working hard on getting the site up and running so be patient and it should really shape up in the next few weeks.
Dec09
Related Posts ¬
| Sep 19, 2007 | Gilgamesh and Enkidu |
| Aug 29, 2007 | After 23 Years, All Are One |
Dec04
This past summer, being a tremendous and lifelong fan of the Transformers, I was caught up in the Movie merchandise frenzy and by the time the movie came out, I had bought figures of every character in the movie except for Megatron. When I finally saw the movie, I was hit with a sense of buyers regret I hadn’t felt since… well, Beast Machines, probably. As you can tell by looking back at this post, I didn’t much care for the movie. I mean most of the toys are outstanding, but some of the characters never even spoke.
A few weeks ago I finished the first six volumes of the “classic” Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, and though the experience left me stupified, it also left me nostalgic. So, I started collecting the movie figures, and they’re pretty outstanding, with the possible exception of April. The face is great and will eventually serve as the basis of a Hailey Kitson custom, but the body lacks poseability. That is fine on a female figure if poseability is sacrificed to keep the lines more feminine and sexy, but April is a stick. I had heard good things about the summer’s hit CGI movie TMNT, from which the figures hailed, but I heard good things about Transformers, too. Was I setting myself up for another disappointment?
As it turns out, no.
This movie was pretty outstanding. I usually don’t like CGI movies, either. Including the Final Fantasy movies. But Turtles was well-animated. 3d enough to give you a feeling of depth, but still cartoony enough to feel like you’re watching… well, a cartoon. It’s rare that an animated movie (short of most Disney-Pixar releases) can be action-packed and funny enough to entertain a kid without annoying the piss out of parents, but TMNT achieves it. This is a much more grown-up “real-world” version of Turtles than most people are used to seeing in the mass media, with real feelings and real problems. With the possible exception of the original Mirage Comics, this is probably the first version of Turtles to not insult my intelligence. Yet it achieves this more grown-up feel with out a single curse word or a drop of blood and without sparing humor and lighthearted moments. While much of the conflict in the movie is actually between Leonardo and Raphael, more than any other version you also feel the Turtles and Splinter are a true, if somewhat dysfunctional family. Highlander fans will probably find the twist of the “repentent villain weary of immortality” a bit familiar, but it was a welcome surprise in a family-targeted mass release, especially with Patrick Stewart voicing. Sweet.
When was a kid, Michelangelo was my favorite Turtle, with Donatello a close second. This movie gained Raph a lot of respect in my eyes, but while a lot of the movie focused on his conflict with Leo, I would say all the Turtles go a pretty fair share of screentime. Leo, is however, still my LEAST favorite. (Of course the leader guy usually sucks. At least he isn’t Cyclops.)
All in all I give it an A+, two thumbs up, and a 9.95. Anyone who gets the Spunkadelic reference should be euthanised.
Related Posts ¬
| Sep 19, 2007 | Gilgamesh and Enkidu |
| Aug 29, 2007 | After 23 Years, All Are One |
| Jul 18, 2007 | Transformers Movie |
Oct15
Double Holy Crap! I got an email from David House, artist/author of the Wizard of Time the other day! He’s still around and writing sci-fi! I wanted to wait until I had the presence of mind to formulate a proper response and ask for permission to post it, or I would have had it up much sooner, but here it is:
“I ran across your Aug. 19, 2007, post asking for information about The Wizard of Time and its creator, David House. Well, that’s me. I wrote, drew and published the comic book. I did it all, from working with the printers to boxing and shipping orders to distributors. I ended up needing a small second printing of the first issue – distinguished by the letter “TIME” in blue instead of red on the cover. The covers of the first two issues were only black plus spot color, but the third issue had a full-color cover.
The venture collapsed just as I got started with what they came to call the “black and white boom-bust” of 1986. Suddenly, I wasn’t getting paid for orders for No. 3, and my capital was gone. I had to quit.
I attempted to start an anthology title called “Animal Universe” with two other funny-animal cartoonists in late 1986. I intended to continue The Wizard of Time story that way. We produced a preview edition and distributed over a thousand to comic shops through distributors. But by this time, the industry was buried in unsold independent comics. We got zero orders.
So in 1987 I did produce about 40 copies of a photocopied edition of The Wizard of Time No. 4 that was 5.5 by 8.5 inches. It had only six additional pages of the story. On the flip side it had an unrelated 8-page story. I have only one copy, and it’s part of my portfolio.
What’s ironic is that The Wizard of Time was not the story I wanted to write. It’s an alternate-reality story with the same villain as in my main story. The story I really wanted to write is about an Oregon boy who goes on amazing adventures across the galaxy under a secret get-to-know-humans program with advanced aliens. I developed the story and individual episodes during college from 1981 to 1985. The title would be Space-Worthy with the main character a teenager named Jess Worthy.
But as you can see, I don’t draw very well! I could do OK with animal
characters, but not people. So I figured that if I wrote a related, alternate-universe story with animal characters, and made money at it, I could then pay an artist to do the main story. Hoping to push on even with the failure of The Wizard of Time, I penciled out a sample opening page and gave it to one of the cartoonists from the Animal Universe fiasco in 1987. But he wasn’t interested. He moved on to the computer game industry. And I moved into journalism and public affairs.
Amazingly, When I visited him in 2006, he gave back that penciled page untouched. He’d kept it all these years!
And I kept Space-Worthy in the back of my mind all these years but never got any new project launched. Until 2004, that is. At that time, I decided I’d write and self-publish the main story as a series of novels instead of comic book format. The result is much better than the comic book in so many ways. As you saw in the comic book, the expansive story line in The Wizard of Time didn’t work well spread out over many, many issues, as I’d envisioned. The novel format is much, much better for an epic-length story.
I published The Key to Space, Book 1 of the Space-Worthy Chronicles, in March 2006, and a short novella that goes with the series called Survivor Planet in March 2007. I’m now working on Book 2, The UFO and the Wizard, as well as other short stories for the chronicles. It’s a thousand times better than The Wizard of Time, in my opinion.
You can learn all about it, read sample chapters and order the books at www.space-worthy.com. Both books are also available at Amazon.com.
David”
That’s awesome! I never really expected my blog to get anyone’s attention, let alone an actual reply from the author. Anyway, this guy was a HUGE influence on me and you should at least take the time to go check out his site space-worthy.com. This I command!
Related Posts ¬
| Sep 3, 2007 | Nemu-Nemu is good, clean fun for everyone! |
| Dec 9, 2007 | Radicals – Guest Art |
| Aug 26, 2007 | Tuttles Collections on the Way! |
| Aug 29, 2007 | After 23 Years, All Are One |
| Aug 19, 2007 | Wizard of Time by David House |
Sep19
I hate Todd MacFarlane, but I love the action figure sculpts his people crank out.
Here you see Mr. Eko and John Locke from Lost together. If I didn’t remember taking the picture, I’d have to question if it was a photo of the figures or the real Terry O’Quinn and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. At last, the two warrior survivors of 815 are together in my collection.
I was both saddened and angry at Mr. Eko’s sudden death and departure from the show, whith his storyline seemingly unresolved. Not that death is a certain end to a Lost character. Ethan Rom has appeared more since he died than before. But it seems the Locke/Eko-Gilgamesh/Enkidu path the characters seemed to be following got discarded before it was even very clear.
Oh, well still supergreat sculpts! Only disappointment is that Eko does not have the story about the boy and the dog as one of his phrases.
Related Posts ¬
| Oct 15, 2007 | Update: David House and the Wizard of Time! |
| Dec 4, 2007 | Movie Review – TMNT |
| Dec 9, 2007 | Radicals – Guest Art |
| Aug 29, 2007 | After 23 Years, All Are One |
