Monday, July 28, 2008

What you can expect from Monday


When I started this Blog I intended regular themes:

Biblical scaled epics, political salmon,
Video Game walkthroughs from a secret UFO defense bunker,
17th century pyrates, and dangerous animals.

I have decided to stay clear of politics excepting Darwin politics, which has generated the most comments, interestingly enough. I have been thinking about blogging-up the ideas behind the deeply emotional politics, I am not incendiary enough to unload all my politics, but I hope that everyone can agree on some things. I think that this is a very cool development for example: Obama and McCain.

My revised list of expectations after one year:
You can expect more of the same, these themes seem pretty good:

The 2 entertainment themes – “all ages” and “over-served immature adults”
Talk Like a Pirate Day of September 19th.
Dangerous Animals
Projects that I may start working on with greater diligence
That “fish to ape” evolution is harder to believe than “ape to man” and no one likes to admit it
Themes on my favorite storytellers like Aaron Williams, the Foglios, and other superior independent comics.
Cartoonists NW, Illustration Fridays and animation
Shakespeare
Random thoughts on life and culture
Sketches
Similar ideas to mine on other Blogs

For example; Khylov the storyboard artist. I have been meaning to reply to Khylov who left such good comments the other day. He seems much more professional than I and has a good style to his art. He has blogged far more effectively than I on the overall hard-to-believeness of fish-to-ape. (May 12th - the fish "fin" needs to dump the lepidotrichia)

I wonder if I will ever get around to blogging big epics… with sketch illustrations…

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Batman of Bruce Timm and Lego Batman


Looking at my last post- I did not communicate the 2 “all ages” themes that I would like to come back to from time to time. The latest Dark Night gives a significant challenge to my proposition: the best comics/ stories are all ages.

Since I have been examining my own thoughts on this I have noticed that some “all ages” rating standards are awful, but some encourage creative people to streamline the story as they should and present a worthy story to the largest audience possible.

My other proposition is that an over-served small audience is unfairly over-catered to. The immature adults and older teens compose the group that is way over-targeted for comics and films.

To balance what may be misconstrued as prudish un-funism, I present Bruce Timm’s tribute to the censors of his 90’s Batman.

I hold up the Bruce Timm Batman as the best example of all-ages story well told. The image above shows some of the reasonable and unreasonable limits to Batman the Animated Series. From Upper Left to Lower Right: child endangerment, open wounds, gun violence, strangle/ neck grab, religion, alcohol, nudity, and smoking. This is one of the many good reason’s to check out the Bruce Timm Art of Batman book.

The commentary for the DVD seasons are interesting too. I cracked up at how Batman had to restrain himself for the sensors while fighting people, but could literally rip the head off of a robot human.

Lego Batman is the next big thing that my capture my ideal all-ages:

Collider has Lego Batman images.
Traveler’s Tales Lego games make the fun happen.

The superherohype.com / comingsoon.net link to the best image of the game’s cover to date. Apparently from the San Diego wish-I-were there fest.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Looking forward to Lego Batman



Records were broken this weekend. This has been a good summer for superheroes.
I saw many kids at all the movies this summer.
My rating from most “all ages” to least:

Kung Fu Panda – Most “all ages”
Hancock
Hulk
Iron Man
Batman - Least “all ages”

The huge numbers of kids at all these films says to me that the parent’s current standard “all ages” in for my area includes the racy bits in Iron Man and the Murderous bits in Batman. I have to think about this sometime.
Lego toys seem to be aimed at the least kid-friendly kid movie of the summer.
The Batman Lego game is less tied to the look of “Dark Night”. At the lego Batman site- many new things can be found including several fun short films of the Batman.

As a result of villain choices in the Batman relaunch, I have revisited my favorite Chuck Dixon Ras Al Ghul / Joker story. If anyone knows of a better Batman storyline from Chuck Dixon (or anyone in the last 10 years), I would like to see it! I doubt that Bruce Timm and Paul Dini will make any new Batman soon, so it would seem that all the good new comics are going to come from Mr. Dixon? The Demon Laughs was inspired.

Monday, July 14, 2008

This is what she ate



This is the first of the regular Monday updates!

My significant Mother celebrated this weekend. While eating out we reminisced about dad (gone 3 years now) and a poem he put to music. I did not know that the tune was made up and I wasted hours looking for A WW2 top 40 title that I thought would be called “She said she wasn’t hungry”. The poem is found in a book of collected American poetry.

That Anonymous guy can sure write well. I shortened it and added my bits.

I have a pretty good mom.

I had but 50 cent

She said she was not hungry but this is what she ate:
A dozen raw, a plate of slaw,
A chicken and a roast,
Some applesass, and sparagrass,
And soft-shell crabs on toast.
A big box of stew, and crackers too;
Her appetite was immense!
When she called for pie,
I thought I’d die,
For I had but fifty cents.

She said she wasn’t hungry
And didn’t care to eat,
But I’ve got money in my clothes
To bet she can’t be beat;

She took it in so cozy,
She had an awful tank;
She said she wasn’t thirsty but this is what she drank:

A ginger pop with foam on top
Some coffee down her throat
A malted shake washed down some cake
And a root beer ice cream float

When she called for more,
I fell on the floor,
For I had but fifty cents.

Take my advice, don’t try it twice
If you’ve got but fifty cents!