Remember Blokhedz? I reviewed it a couple years ago after NYCC2007, shortly after its animated series was announced. The animated series is here, and it’s coming courtesy of Mission G. Click here to watch it, or just check it out right here on 4l!.
I watched it, I dug it, and I’m gonna keep watching. It’s a short start, but a good one. I recognized a few voices (Talib Kweli, Bobbito the Barber, Charlie Murphy maybe) and caught a lot of references. The Dungeon of Rap should be familiar to any Nas fan, for example.
This week, I talk about why we don’t really need books like Green Lantern: Rebirth, One More Day, or Infinite Crisis. It comes complete with audio/visual aids.
I’m way too fond of Anti-Backpack, too. It’s self-conscious as all get out.
Anyway, I’m still working on the sound mix. I’ve heard that the backing music is a little too loud, so I’ll work that out. I’ve also been told that I should get a green screen so that I can report live from the Daily Planet, but one thing at a time, right? I’ll fix the sound first, then some bitrate issues, and then move on from there.
You can catch my page on Vimeo. I’ll look into other distribution methods later on.
The weekend of chunky guys dressed like Colossus and hot women dressed as Slave Leia has come to an end. I myself had a great time, spent with hermanos from this very site and a whole bunch of guys from Funnybook Babylon. Sadly, Thomas “Wanderer” Wilde deemed himself “too broke” to consider joining us and Hoatzin would have probably involved a gigantic plane ticket paid in rare diamonds, since he’s from Europe. I don’t know. I really have no grasp on how that type of thing works. Besides, Hoatzin seems to have vanished from our planet. What happened to that guy?
This one movie sent the other movie into space.
Day One
Last year I got to New York the day before the con started, which allowed me enough rest and whatnot. This year I had to come in the first day of the event and kill time until David Uzumeri came in from Canada, since he was in charge of dealing with the hotel. I walked straight from the Port Authority bus terminal to the Javits Center, which tired me the hell out.
After getting my swanktastical press pass, I met up with hermanos and Joseph of FBB. They were at a panel starting up that was a screening for a new Will Eisner documentary. Since I was tired from all that walking, I decided to stick around and watch it. I found it interesting in the sense that I honestly didn’t know all that much about Eisner, which is almost a sin if you’re a comic fan. The four of us (David U. showed up towards the end) mostly agreed that while it had some fantastic stuff in there, such as taped conversations between Eisner and guys like Kirby, the sum of it was incredibly dry.
Shortly after, we went to the panel on online journalism, with guys from Newsarama and CBR there. It wasn’t as good as the comic blogging panel from last year and mostly focused on arguing over criticism vs. getting press releases. Once that was done with, I was rested up enough to do some wandering.
I’m going to have a big post about Comic Con later in the day, but something caught my eye today and I felt I needed to make mention of it. Back in the mid-90’s, DC released a commercial to the masses about their comics. It was well-produced and even though at that age I couldn’t name half the characters shown, I still thought it was pretty badass.
It would show character art of heroes from that era and morph them into other characters as the announcer went on. Here’s a quick transcript, minus the echoing female voice:
Announcer: DC. Incredible action. Astonishing adventure. The coolest heroes. The hottest heroines. And the most outrageous villains…
Darkseid: TOO TOUGH FOR TEE VEE!
Announcer: …in the universe!
Lobo (with an animated mouth and a voice that tries way too hard to be animated Wolverine): This ain’t yer daddy’s comic book, fanboy!
Announcer: DC Comics!
I never got the whole “too tough for TV” thing. Didn’t they have Batman: The Animated Series around that time?
Maybe you remember this. The only reason I still do is because a fairly local comic shop, Zapp Comics, used the same commercial. After DC decided to stop using the ad, Zapp just took the same commercial and added their store’s information to the last few seconds. It’s weird that they would do a commercial that doesn’t even mention Marvel in any capacity, but like I said, it’s a well-produced commercial.
They aren’t the only ones who do this. A quick search on YouTube helped me find the same commercial, only with information from Humungo Comics in Pennsylvania tacked on.
Why do I remember this commercial and bring it up? Because they still play it! I just saw the damned thing on TV less than an hour ago!
Yes, it’s a nice ad, but it’s been like 12-14 years. Look at all the dated stuff in that commercial. Murderous Hooded Green Arrow, Yellow-Ringed Guy Gardner with the G jacket, Deathstroke shown as one of the “coolest heroes”, Matrix Supergirl, Catwoman with her huge curly hair as one of the first villains shown, MOTHERFUCKING LEX LUTHOR JUNIOR! I could have sworn I saw Evil Raven in the commercial I saw on TV, but she’s not on the YouTube video.
I know comic shops may not have the revenue necessary to make a flashy new commercial every few years, but at this rate, some kid will be watching this and Lobo’s one-liner will be wrong. Those actually were that kid’s daddy’s comic books.
I should be getting some rest for this weekend or catching up on relevant comics that have slipped me by, but then the internet has to go and toss a curve ball right my way.
Years ago, Capcom and Marvel had their guys fight each other. It was weird, but it fit better than it had any right to.
Over time, Namco has had their Soul Calibur crew fight Spawn, Link and soon Darth Vader and Yoda.
Just recently, Nintendo gave us the dream match of Mario vs. Sonic, while tossing Solid Snake in there.
With all that having gone on, not once did I expect to hear this announcement on a day that wasn’t April 1st. It’s still not April 1st anymore, right? Right?
MORTAL KOMBAT VERSUS DC COMICS?!
My reaction to this is simply the Li’l John reaction: What? WHAT?! …Okay. Because to be honest, no matter how bad it turns out to be, it’ll still be one of the better DC videogames. And as a fighting game it’ll be head and shoulders above Justice League Task Force. This is going to be really stupid, but really interesting.
Hey, maybe they’ll have Geoff Johns design the fatalities!
I love Duck Down Records, man. It’s always fun. Black Moon is composed of a rapper name 5 Ft., who is in fact five feet tall, Buckshot Shorty da BDI Thug, who is also like five feet tall, and Evil Dee, who looks eight feet tall when he hangs around with his buddies.
I have been loafing off while David and Gavok are keeping the site afloat with substantial articles, but here’s just a little thing I’ve been wondering: Is there, let’s say, a fan community for movies or television shows dedicated to discussions about out of context clips uploaded by others, without actually watching the movie or show the clips are from? How about communities for book excerpts, scenes from plays, videogame demos or music samples? If not, why is this behaviour exclusive to the medium of (superhero) comics? Is it the nature of DC and Marvel’s shared universes? The sense of entitlement some people feel towards the characters? Is it the relative ease with which one can put comic book scans on the internet? I’m just curious.
Simon & Schuster is running a Create a Comic Book for 6 Sacred Stones Contest. You can create a comic (of no more than 20 pages) based on chapter 1 of the book via the free excerpt online. The winner gets to be included in the mass market edition of 6 Sacred Stones in 01/2009.
If you don’t know, mass market paperbacks are the small sized ones, what you generally think of as paperbacks. Trade paperbacks are taller.
