Anyone who reads the various things I write knows two things. I love digital comics, and I love sharing all ages comics with the younger people in my family. Now, thanks to comiXology, I can combine those two passions thanks to the Comics4Kids App! Teaming up with a plethora of publishers, comiXology has created a one-stop app where you can easily find age-appropriate material. This way, you can feel safe handing your child you iDevice and not having to worry they’re going to accidentally see your digital copy of Eviscerate Man #12. David Steinberger, comiXology’s CEO says it more succinctly.
“Comics4Kids is specifically designed for a new generation of tech-savvy kids and teens. We have parents writing us all the time that they love our apps, and want to share comics with their kids, but they’re afraid they’ll pick up one of our mature titles. I couldn’t even hand my iPad off to my own young niece so I knew we needed to make an app for the kids who want to explore comics in an environment that makes their parents comfortable.”
It’s no surprise that Archie Comics is headlining the app. They are, after all, known for their all-ages appropriate material. The full list of companies contributing books to the app is nothing to sneeze at either. You’ll be seeing titles like Atomic Robo (a personal favorite), Secret of Kells, and Sonic the Hedgehog. Take a look at the list of publishers already on board for a general idea of what you’ll be seeing.
Alterna Comics
Antarctic Press
Arcana Comics
Archie
Bluewater Comics
GKids (Secret of Kells)
Devil’s Due
Dunamite
Eigo Manga
Image
Keenspot
Markosia
NBM
Red 5
Shadowline
That’s pretty impressive already, and I am sure once the word gets out, other publishers will be adding their age-appropriate books as well.
So now you’ve been given the pitch, where can you find the app? We’ve got you covered with the iTunes store link, as well as a QR code (if you want to be fancy).
In honor of the fifth and final season being released on DVD yesterday I now present my thoughts on the entire series of Friday Night Lights.
Now I know what many of you are saying who haven’t seen the show, “What are you doing reviewing a show about Texas football on a geek review site?” Now I have to answer it with a preface, people who know me know that if there is one state I never want to live in it’s Texas, and I never grew up on football so believe me I understood the criticism. But then I started to watch the show, and I continued to watch the show and now I have finished watching the show, and it is about Texas football but it’s about much more then that.
What Friday Night Lights has done is it created incredibly good characters, well written and well thought out characters that make you love the show. The show looks past just football and creates a world full of human beings with lives that you care about. The show made some mistakes but then so do people in general and this show is one of the first shows that I think truly understood this. You can never predict where a character is going to go, whether they will be successful or not because they’re all human beings and some people become successful and others don’t. As one of the members of the crew says in the bonus features, “There’s a lot of dream crushing on this show.” And to me that is incredibly refreshing.
Friday Night Lights did not have it easy, they went through possible cancellation many times and yet still pushed through it and created a product which I can’t speak more fondly of. After watching the show I still don’t want to move to Texas but I do now realize that there are real people in Texas even if I don’t ever want to live there.
The fifth season started with Coach Taylor and the East Dillon Lions starting up their next season after a dismal year in season 4. Some of their bigger characters have gone on to college and there are even some brand new characters in season 5. The funny thing is, this was always a show where even if the character was loved there was no guarantee you’d ever see them again and still today that is unheard of, for a show to be so dedicated to the story that some characters really would move away and never be seen again. And even in the final episode I was still left guessing at where these characters would end up.
If you haven’t watched this show go back and pick up the first season, I know the idea of a show about football doesn’t strike those who haven’t watched it yet, but instead understand that this show has some of the best character writing in television today. Coach Taylor says something in the second episode of the fifth season which is especially applicable, when talking to someone he wants to get on the team he says, “You live in Texas, you love the game of football, you just don’t know it yet.” I’m going to say the same thing, “You watch Television, you love Friday Night Lights, you just don’t know it yet.”
This Top Shelf title comes to us from Robert Venditti, the author of The Surrogates which you may remember as the Bruce Willis movie of the same name. Art duties are taken by Mike Huddleston who has drawn for about every big comic company. Heres a quick example of his work. Put together these two give a compelling story with a very interesting artistic style. Here is the description from Top Shelf to tell you what to expect:
As a leading researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Laura Regan is one of the world’s foremost authorities on viral and bacteriological study. Having dedicated her career to halting the spread of infectious disease, she has always considered herself one of the good guys. But when her research partner is murdered and Laura is blamed for the crime, she finds herself at the heart of a vast and deadly conspiracy.
Aided by three rogue federal agents who believe the government is behind the frame-up, Laura must evade law enforcement, mercenaries, and a team of cyber-detectives who know more about her life than she does—all while trying to expose a sinister plot that will impact the lives of every American.
Set in the Orwellian present, The Homeland Directive confronts one of the vital questions of our time: In an era when technology can either doom or save us, is it possible for personal privacy and national security to coexist?
I’m pretty sure this book was written specifically for me. I work for the government, in fact I work for one of the big alphabet agencies so I was immediately interested. Add in my library of old Tom Clancy books and I was drooling. Rogue Agents and conspiracy books make for great thrillers and this book didn’t let down. What I really liked was the art, each distinct scene had its own distinct background that gave the book a very different feel as I went through the pages. The plot is fast paced and had me eagerly awaiting the next page and setting.
If you like conspiracy thrillers or have ever thought about privacy and technology in our current world I would definitely pick up with book. Its $14.99 and comes out May 2011.
I’d like to introduce you to our newest robot, Miss Mecha! She’s going to be covering mainly the anime beat, so please, welcome her and check out her stuff. Without further ado:
American viewers will either Love…or Hate the new X Men Anime
Greetings BSR readers! Allow me to introduce myself as Miss Mecha, here to bring you anime news from Japan. Nippon has been my second home since 2006. I’ve lived in Tokyo and Saitama and spent many days wandering through the streets of Akihabara and the lesser known Nakano Broadway. Though I’m currently living in the United States, my job allows me to travel back and forth between the US and Japan so I’m lucky enough to venture back to my favorite places in Tokyo every now and again.
I’m here today to tell you about the new X Men Anime on Japan’s Animax satellite network. I managed to get a hold of the first episode that premiered on April 1st and decided to give it a go. I want to let you know going into this article that I tried to watch it with as open a mind as possible. Why do I need an open mind for this? Well, let me explain.
I’ve been an X Men fan since I was about six or seven years old. I started watching the 90s cartoon and reading the comics when I was very young, and my subsequent love of comics and geeky things in general probably directly stemmed from my early watching of X Men (along with heavy influence from Star Wars and the Power Rangers, of course).
Since I really care about the characters, I knew it would be really important to go into this with an open mind, because I suspected they would really take regional liberties with the characters to make them more appealing in the Japanese market. Honestly, I couldn’t have been more spot on with my guess. It’s a decent conversion to anime, but fans of the original comic and characters (especially those who don’t like anime) will probably want to steer clear of this series. G4’s Attack of the Blog reports that they’ll be airing the series later this year (presumably with their own subtitling or dubbing). I’m thinking, however, that they may want to reconsider their decision to bring the series over later this year if enough people catch wind of just how regionalized the series is. Honestly, I don’t think the US ratings would be that good.
Here’s why:
DETAILED SPOILERS BELOW!!!
The episode opens with your fairly typical anime scene of gripping action and excitement. Brilliant colors and sharp stylization that are characteristic of any anime are very apparent. In general, Madhouse animation company has produced some absolutely stunning series and films, so I wasn’t surprised that the quality of animation is great. The screen pans up and across the faces of our newly anime-ized X Men….and Wolverine looks like a complete psycho, might I add. He looks a little too strange and different from the Logan I prefer…but it works for this series. The women have shining eyes and huge breasts – again, this is no different from what you’d expect in any anime (and to be fair, Jim Lee had em drawn pretty big back in the day as well, so this is not really a “change” per se).
Pan further up and there’s Jean Grey turned into The Phoenix and ready to explode everything in her path. She starts flinging objects at our heroes and Wolverine slices through a big chunk of rock – so far pretty typical showcasing of the X Men Powers, but with that slightly shiny “glow around the edges” that you see in many action anime series.
Professor X fails to make contact with Jean, and explains that this must be the work of Mastermind. Scott, who loves Jean in any universe, jumps in to risk his life in an attempt to save her. Here’s where we have the first really obvious sign of Japanese influence. The scene cuts to the clouds, where an “innocent” Jean pleads with Scott to kill her before she hurts anyone else. Here we see the inner innocence of Jean, which is a common element associated with blue sky and clouds in anime. As expected, it’s too late to save her, and Scott must suffer as he watches his love be torn away from him. Now, this is ridiculous, but I honestly can’t help but laugh during this scene because Cyclops looks like a pretty-boy, muscly, Japanese-cool-guy while he’s obviously supposed to be suffering and making me sad. His shiny hair flicks back as he cries out, “I LOVE YOU!”
Okay, so here is where I’ve probably lost any of you that don’t enjoy anime, and to be honest, I totally understand why you wouldn’t be crazy about this. It’s very much the kind of show that will do well in Japan…which means that it might not do very well with the masses in the US. The dialogue is especially rough for those who aren’t used to Japanese speech patterns. It’s fun to translate from a “learning Japanese point of view,” but American fans will miss the things that you’d get from prior, established X Men cartoons. Familiar phrases and coined trademarks of the X Men franchise will not be found in these scripts, because the slang and emotion need to be conveyed in a way that makes them accessible and enjoyable to a Japanese audience – AKA: tons of their slang, none of ours. Alas, no “Hey Bub!” from Wolverine here. Admittedly though, the writers do make him a bit snarky in their own way. At one point he sarcastically asks Cyclops if he’s renewed his license since he hasn’t flown the X-jet in a year…and this feels like a truly Wolverine moment. Cyclops assures him that he’s always been a more stable pilot, anyways. After that scene I felt a bit more assured that they’re trying to keep the inner core of these characters intact.
Throughout the episode, characters are introduced in a jumbling manner that is a bit rushed. Again, I have seen this before in so many anime. This haphazard-speedy-introduction of characters is something I always complain about when I watch the first couple of episodes of an anime, so I’m going to give the show a few more chances to prove itself. Beast is thus far my favorite in this version of X Men. He teaches a squid to communicate with humans..and it’s kind of neat.
The weakest character so far – Storm. They just haven’t made her a strong, second-in-command type like they have in other series. New to the series we’ll see Hisako Ichiki, a young Japanese girl from the Tohoku region of Japan. The X Men need to save her from mysterious kidnappers, and her mutant powers have not yet been revealed.
In the end, my assessment of the show is that it’s pretty average so far. It does have some cool action sequences, and the plot shows promise as they begin to talk about “mutant hunting” but I have to admit I’m a bit skeptical about the outlook of this show. Come on Madhouse animation company! Don’t let me down!
You can see the trailer here:
For more info, stay tuned. I’ll be watching each week as more episodes are released.
Tom Hodges, that lovable scamp you might remember from The Clone Wars comics on www.StarWars.com or from the “Why We Love the Prequels” Panel I moderated at Star Wars Celebration V, will be appearing in Salt Lake City a couple of weeks from now at two different events you simply HAVE to come to if you’re in the area.
His Facebook bio reads, “Best known for his work in the Star Wars Universe (and various other Lucasfilm properties), Tom also is Co-Creator of MidKnight (Red 5 Comic) and “m” a comic series coming soon.”
Then on Saturday, April 16th from 12:00-3:00pm he will be signing books and doing sketches at Dr. Volts Comic Connection. You can get the complete event details on the Facebook page for that event here.
I will be at both events and hope to see you all there, too.
There was a big WonderCon presentation for The Clone Wars in San Francisco over the weekend with quite a few teases and hints dropped for Season 4.
There was also a video shown (now on StarWars.Com) that is pretty impressive. The three highlights, in my opinion, are General Grievous killing Gungans, Admiral Ackbar, and a Besalisk Jedi with a pair of double-bladed lightsabers. And there was the underwater battles with clones… Actually, all the imagery made me happy.
The EUCantina did a pretty comprehensive tweet up of the WonderCon panel as they were present (sadly I was not.) Some of the biggest bits of news:
Lighting/FX supervisor Joel Aron and my good friend and TCW lighting artist Jesse Hildreth then took to twitter to tease me about what they know on Season 4. (here, here, and here.) They’re far too good at keeping secrets, publicly and privately. It’s maddening.
I expect this will be as detailed as any information about Season Four until its release draws closer. I will be at Comic-Con and most likely Dragon*Con, so I’ll be live tweeting those events for you.
Something that has been poking around in the media the last week or so is that Stan Lee & Arnold Schwarzenegger are teaming up to bring you The Governator, the adventures of Arnold’s post-political career as a superhero. What you may not have known though, is that the Governator is going for a four-pronged media blitz, with a 3D movie, merchandising, cartoon and comic in the works. It was just announced today that Archie Comics will be publishing the Governator comic series.
The premise behind the series is this: Arnold decides to take on villainy that no one else can. He uses his vast resources to create a secret hideout beneath his home, hire a team of techy teens to act as support. He then uses his vast array of technology, including a state of the art motorcycle, various “super suits” and cutting edge weaponry to take the good fight to the streets. Now, if you’re like me, at first glance you might be thinking to yourself how ridiculous the concept is. Then the trailer came out and my opinion changed from “ridiculous” to “ridiculously awesome”! Take a look for yourself.
So yeah, aside from the music used, I’m kind of excited to see this. I’m not all in yet, but I am extremely curious to see what comes out of it. Let us know what you think, and watch for The Governator’s media blitz in 2012!
UPDATE: Here’s the full teaser image from the folks at Archie Comics!
It was bound to happen sooner or later! Superhero of the Month and Big Shiny Robot are teaming up to bring you SHotM’s April Redesign contest!
If you aren’t familiar with Superhero of the Month (despite the numerous times we have rained down praise on our good friend), it’s a website founded by Alex Getts who runs monthly contests for all of you artistically inclined people out there to redesign your favorite superheroes, villains, and sidekicks! SHotM just wrapped up their March Aquaman contest, and you can see the finalists and the winner by following the links.
For the month of April, Superhero of the Month is asking you to redesign Atom Eve from the fantastic Invincible series, and BSR! is sponsoring it! And by “sponsoring” it, we mean Alex does all the hard work like he usually does, and we just keep you folks up to date on the contest and provide the prize for the winner . . . but it is an awesome prize! We are offering up to the winner Volumes 5 & 6 of Invincible! Hold on, it gets better . . . these volumes will be signed by ridiculously awesome comic book artist, Ryan Ottley!
We know there are a lot of you Big Shiny Robot readers out there who have great artistic ability, so get to work on coming up with your take on Atom Eve! Get out your pencils, pens, markers, paints, computers – hell, grab your camera and take a picture of a willing female model in a homemade Atom Eve costume – and get to brain storming! I promise, Alex over at SHotM will not be upset if his inbox get flooded with submissions from all of you lovely BSR! readers out there! Our own Kill-tacular-tron will be helping out with the judging, and he is just a horrible, crooked man, so briberies will be accepted (HINT: He loves all things Ghostbusters). “LOL”, “J/K”
Atom Eve entries are due by 6:00 p.m. MST on April 22. Voting will take place between April 26-29, and the winner will be announced April 30. Be sure to bookmark Superhero of the Month and follow the site on Twitter and Facebook to follow all the great contests and great art that is the result!
It’s my turn this week to display the contents of my bag. I carry plenty with me, some might say far too much. And to not clutter the image I didn’t include any of the cables or power cords I’ve got, but I’ll list the most pertinent ones afterwards.
First we have the bag itself. It’s a Solo brand laptop bag. I honestly have no recollection of where I bought it or how much I paid for it, but you can snag them on Amazon for like $30. I’ve had it for about two years now, longer than I’ve ever had a bag before. I’m really hard on it, but this one has stood the test of time and doesn’t look too bad for all the wear and tear I put on it.
Starting at the top right and moving clockwise: At the bottom of that pile is a legal pad. I’m mainly a writer, so I’ve always got tons of paper on me in various shapes in sizes. Sometimes I love to write on a legal pad, so I try to have one on me all the time.
Next in the pile is a few comic books. I’m so stupidly busy and I’m so far behind on my comics, I try to keep a few issues on me so that if a few minutes of free time make themselves available I can try to keep up. Right now, I’m catching up on my Batman comics, post Bruce Wayne’s return.
On top of those is a folder. It’s got a whole bunch of pertinent papers that I need for various things, both work related. Right now it’s mostly consumed with Mark Dago’s novel, which I’m reading and taking notes on for him. I’ve found that putting a single sheet of paper in my bag is the best way to lose it. It’ll get crumpled up and I’ll find it a year from now when I finally do a cleaning. Keeping this old folder (that I paid .99 cents for and bought for obvious reasons) is a good way to make sure all the papers I need stay put.
The bottom right corner: My lucky mousepad and a mouse. As some of you may know I produce a lot of video and movies. I edit a lot on my laptop and using Final Cut Pro is not easy with the trackpad on my computer. So I try to always keep a mouse and my lucky Darth Maul mousepad with me all the time. They don’t take up that much room, but I find I use them constantly.
Bottom Center: Obviously the main purpose of my bag is to keep my computer. I just bought a new 13″ Macbook Pro. It’s not one of the brand new ones, I literally ordered this badboy two weeks before they announced this year’s model. I use it mainly for writing and editing. I use Final Cut Pro for editing, and I’m rocking Microsoft Word and Final Draft 8 for my writing software.
Bottom Left Corner: Like I said, I’m a writer and if I’m caught without my leather notebook, chances are I’m dead or something. I’ve always got this thing on me. The best part of these is that they’re refillable and I refill this one once every two or three months. I use it for everything, work notes, snippets of ideas, short stories, anything.
Under that is a book. I usually have a book on me. Right now I’m going through Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. A must for anyone interested in writing.
Top left: Next is my Kindle. I couldn’t live without this thing. I read the newspaper on it every morning and I love reading books on it. For one, I read a lot of books that are digital only, or manuscripts for friends and this cuts down on copying. And I use it for books I want to read but don’t exactly need a physical copy of the book. And it’s got tons of free reading… Lovecraft, Sherlock Holmes, Mark Twain…. It’s invaluable. I highly recommend it. It’s the wi-fi only version, which I’ve not had any problems with. It just makes you think a little bit more about what you want before you leave the house or the coffee shop.
Then I have a Seagate: Freeagent GO 1TB harddrive. I’m editing a lot and these things are very reliable and work great on the go. This one only has about 20 gigs left on it, though, so I’m going to be buying a new one pretty soon and I really like these, so I don’t think I’ll be switching brands.
Top Center: Last but not least, my headphones. I am not the biggest fan of earbud headphones, I don’t like things in my ear. I’ll use earbuds when I’m driving and need to talk on the phone, but when I’m cutting audio or listening to music I prefer cans. These are the Star Wars DJ Headphones from Funko and I’m in love with them. They’re comfortable, adjustable and the sound quality is clean and precise. They’re better than any earbuds I’ve used and I even like them almost as much as my Sennheiser studio headphones I use when I’m recording audio at the studio.
Not pictured: Obviously, I’ve got my iPhone 3GS, that I took these pictures with. And I have cords to charge my kindle, phone, and computer. I also have a pair of Skull Candy earbuds with a microphone for use with my phone, like I said when I’m driving.
I also have a pair of firewire cables. My computer runs Firewire 800, and so I have connectors from Firewire 4 to 800, and 6 to 800. I run a lot of cameras that are all firewire and harddrives that are firewire and I need that cable constantly.
In my pockets: I always have at least one pen, usually more, in my pocket. A small pocket-sized Moleskin notebook (I am totally OCD and if I don’t have the ability to write an idea down if one strikes me, I’ll pull over and buy instruments to do so.) I also have a pocket watch. My wife got me the pocket watch with the thinking that if I had a watch, I’d reach into my pocket for that to check the time instead of my phone. Because let’s be honest, if I pull out my phone to check the time, I also check my email, twitter, and my Words With Friends games (swankmotron).
I think that’s it for me. I carry a lot more stuff than I thought I did.
WonderCon had a good amount of news coming out of it, but sometimes there is so much that some really cool stuff can get passed over pretty easily. One of those thing in my opinion is the full Thundercats trailer that came out of the convention. I was a bit iffy on the show as a whole, but after seeing this, I’d say it’s a good (Sword of) Omen(s)! Yeah, that was terrible, you’ll forgive me after you watch it though.
Pretty good, eh? In fact, the only thing I still can’t wrap my head around is Lion-O’s character design. I am drinking the Kool-Aid though. Thundercats will be airing later this year on Cartoon Network. Watch for it!
