And wow, was there a lot of stuff to absorb! In addition to the aforementioned Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, there is a new episode of Defenders of Stan, just click on the picture and follow the buttons. It's actually a few days old, but I just found it today, and it is great! One of the best episodes yet. If you don't know, the show revolves around Stan, one of the last people on earth NOT to have superpowers, and his oafish pig of a brother, Captain Ultra, the world's most popular hero. It is simply wonderful and not to be missed.There are a number of new cartoon shows coming our way in the next year or so, one of which is the Iron Man: Armored Adventures series. The first trailer was released a day or two ago. It's going to be 3d animation, cel-shady and all that. I'm sure I'll watch it, but my hopes aren't too high. It's nice to see the Mandarin playing a big role, but kid Tony Stark? If he's not old enough to drink, he's not old enough to fly that suit. But hey, prove me wrong kid. Prove me wrong.
There was also the release of a gameplay trailer for the upcoming DC Universe Online. It's being developed by Sony Online Entertainment, who were involved in the wonderful Superhero MMORPG City of Heroes and City of Villains. There is no release date yet, and that's a good thing, because this trailer was unimpressive. First of all, the appeal seems to be that you can make your own hero or villain, and team up with DC Characters. And that is huge appeal! That sounds awesome! Yet there was nothing, not even a hint about character creation. It was just vaguely implied. Not only that, but some of the animations look downright awful. I mean, it's great that Jim Lee is working on it, but I don't want to play a game if it isn't any fun, no matter how much I want to be on the Justice League. However, this is an early trailer, so I'm sure we'll see more soon, and hopefully some improvements. I'll admit that the first shot of Green Lantern flying around was really cool, so it's still one to watch for.
E3 also saw the release of a teaser trailer for Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2. The characters look great, and they've been making these games long enough that if they keep the gameplay everybody likes, have sweet graphics, and even more characters, I'm sold. And though I'll probably get it for the Wii, those tasty polygons definitely won't be showing up on my favorite little white box. *sniff*
I've been picking up the side issues to Secret Invasion, and I'm really glad I did. Hercules and the God Squad may be my favorite so far, but I read Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four today, and I'm liking that story too. Basically the Thing, the Human Torch, and Reed and Sue's kids are stuck in the Negative Zone thanks to a Skrull attack. Now to get home, they have to find Mister Fantastic's Super Villain prison in the the Neg-Zone, and break someone out that can fix Reed's machine. Sweet. The event is a lot of fun when you really get a picture of everything that's going on. The Skrull's didn't pull any punches. This is an invasion from every angle you can imagine.
I proofed a lot of books today. Probably five or six, ranging from Marvel MAX titles to kiddie Spider-Manga. It's difficult not to read them, not so much because I want to (which is true for the most part), but because I'm not used to looking at words without reading them. However, when you have 500 pages of Man-Thing to check, you figure out how to get over that difficulty. Today, while I was quickly scanning over these books, I was thinking about silence in comics. I've done a little more writing, and I have a number of spaces where there's no dialogue. I realized though, that not writing anything is very different silence then the silence of crickets or city sounds. I found it fascinating that not only do comics play with the visual and the textual, but there's almost a vocal element as well. We all know about "Kapow" and "Krrrnch", but what does it mean if a panel has no audio cues, sound effects or speech? It's an element that can profoundly affect the way a comic is absorbed.
Today a bunch of the interns were talking about useless super-powers. They were presented in a "would you rather" format. I should have written them down, but here's what I can recall:
Would you rather be able to:
1) summon any condiment you want in bottle form OR change the color of people's teeth?
2) be unable to fall, but then have to tap dance for 5 minutes OR flap your abnormally large eyebrows to hover 2 feet above the ground?
3) remove your feet and detect them with a "foot sense" OR flush any toilet in a 30 mile radius?
Whew! That was a meaty one. Enjoy it well, my friends. I'll check in at the end of the next patrol. Starbuck out.
P.S. Did I mention that one the assistant editors in my department is named Alex Starbuck? Awesome, huh!
2 comments:
We'll go backwards for this. For number 3, I'd go with the flushing toilets, as then I could give my enemies really scaldingly hot showers, or waste their water till their water bill goes through the roof!
For number 2, the tap dancing is better because, well, tap dancing is cool and large eyebrows are lamezorx.
Finally, for number 1, my new favorite weird power is summoning any condiment in bottled form. Think about it- maple syrup or honey mustard sauce at a whim! Or even exotic, possibly made up condiments... does nitroglycerine count as a condiment?
Well, as long as you would consider eating it, I think it would count.
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