Miscellaneous Rant

Joss Whedon, creative mind behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly is once again out to entertain with this mini web series “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog”. I enjoyed the three part story but I am unsure whether the sad ending truly matched the funny tone of the rest of it or if it was even necessary.

I belive it was a very interesting experiment on the part of “Mutant Enemy” the creative company. Sadly after today, the 20th of July, the site won’t be showing the story for free anymore (or so they say in the Master plan part of their website). If you’re still interested the site can be found here.

While visiting The Book Den I happened to come across two books by Diana Wynne Jones called The Chronicles of the Chrestomanci. For those of you who don’t know Diana is the writter of the very popular Howl’s Moving Castle which was adapted into an animated movie by Studio Gibli.

These two books were a delight The Title of “Chrestomanci” is given to the most powerful enchanter in the many worlds. This Enchanter always starts off with nine lives. It is their job to monitor and stop the misuse of magic. The Chrestomanci these four tales center around is Chistopher Chant. In the first two stories contained in Volume 1 we get know about the Chrestomanci and his family through the eyes of Eric Chant, after he and his sister are orphaned and Chrestomanci adopts them.

In the second story we get to now of Eric’s child hood and how he came to be the Chresomanci. The next two stories also follow child protagonist but this time Chrestomanci plays the roll of Deus ExMachina. He arrives near the end of the story to help solve the problem.

I fond both books to be enjoyable reads and a welcome distracrion from drawing for a week. If you get the chance to read “The Chronicles of Chrestomanci” don’t pass it up.

P.S I added two new sketches.

I went to check out this movie last week man it was fun, Robert Downey Jr’s portral of Tony Stark was much less angst ridden than the comic book verson was and I loved that.

When I was growing up Ironman was one of the few characters I could truly wrap my mind around, he wasn’t beyond mortals like Superman or Thor, he wasn’t the peak in human perfection like Captain America and in some ways Batman, he was a guy wearing a high tech armor.
Sure he was a genius to have perfected that technology but once created, technology can be used by any layman. I can neither design nor construct a car but I can drive one.

Anybody could have been Ironman, in fact that was the basis of Tony Stark’s sectret identity for many years. All of the other characters are beyond me but when I look at Ironman I always think “This is someone I could be.”

All in all the movie was a feel good shoot ‘em up flick leaning towards action over adventure. But don’t take my word for it, check it out for yourself.

P.S. two new sketches.

Sadly My entry into the Zuda competition didn’t make it to the final round so don’t look for it on their website. I have no idea which area(s) i fell down in. It could be my art work, or that my story lacked originality, or that the pages I submitted lacked the “oomph!” to distinguish them from the pile.

As a rule rejection letters have to be ambiguous so that with a name change it can be sent to a whole bunch of people. I’ve gotten a few of them over the years and its always along the line of; “Your submission is not what we are looking for at this time”; but they never say what they are looking for at this time.

I guess I’m just being miserable. I have no idea if I’m going to enter again with a different story, or if I’m just going to focus on this one until its done.

If you are curious and wish to see my entry “The Chronicles of Ohm” click here.

Well my vacation officially ends today, It was a quiet one for a change, no complaints.
I was happy to walk into a local book store and come across a collection of “Tin Tin” books created by Herge. Growing up he and Albert Uderzo, the artist for “Asterix” were great influences on me. I hope to collect all of their works but it may be difficult to track all the stories down. That same book store was already missing some, but what I can’t find I’ll order online.

Well A Day in My Life has been updated.
I’m taking a week off from work starting Monday and hope to push my other comic “Chronicles of Ohm”. Hopefully I’ll get that appendix to my story up and running by the end of this week.

A better blogging system, where people can actually comment has been implemented thanks to Word Press.

Well It has been quite a while since I last updated. I’m proud to report I got my Zuda entries in about 2wks ago. You had not heard back from me because I was feeling to lazy to update my site. I have no idea when, or even if my entry will show up on their site, but when I know I’ll post something here.

After all the long talk I’ve finally put up another strip, this will not be a weekly Strip like “the Yard” was. So allow me to apologize in advance for the lack of updates. lol.

,’=)

Well in Barbados’ news we changed government and enjoyed a fabulous four day weekend. I have no opinion about the government switch; lets just see what the new guys do.  Readers outside of Barbados please note that BLP and DLP are Barbados’ two political parties and that I am not affiliated with either.

About the weekend; I say it was fabulous. I was easily distracted so I didn’t get an abundance of work done but I only feel guilty in hindsight.

Last week I had to do a rough update thanks to Windows crashing. I ended up replacing one political comic with another, with the first being lost in the either, I promise to re-upload it at some point for prosperity.

I got windows and most of my programs reinstalled and even got the chance to upload a new sketch on Saturday.
The year has just started and January is already gone :)

Okay I have not posted in a while, so hello to whomever is still reading.

2007 Ended rather badly with the sudden passing of Winston Jordan, the father of one of my closest friends and a mentor to myself and countless others. There is nothing I can say here that has not already been said. So I’ll just say that he will be missed.

In other news I have finally decided to ad another comic to my website to keep my few readers happy. I’m going to call it “ A Day in the Life ” (please note this has nothing to do with the Beatles album of the same name). It’s just a re-titling of The Java Bean strip I was working on. I think every cartoonist should chronicle their lives, the funniest things happen everyday.

Went to watch Beowulf last Sunday with one of my friends, and I was definitely impressed.

The Screenplay written by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary took the hero out his perfection and cast him as a braggart with the brawn to back up his boasts but with a tendency for recklessness and exaggeration, as well as an all to mortal weakness to the pleasures of the flesh.

Director Robert Zemeckis takes that foundation and created a larger than life film with sprawling vistas and swift and seamless transitions as well as daring angles that could never be achieved except through special effects.

Most of all I am impressed with the concepts behind the design of the monsters. When I found out that Doug Chiang was leading this section I raised both hands in the air and shouted “YES!” I had first come across his work in the last star wars films where he worked as a matte painter and concept artist. When it comes to concept art he may be one of the best. Check out his personal site here.
And go watch Beowulf.

Well I played through the single player version of COD 4 a week or so ago and I have to tell you the game is beautiful, the story compelling and the game play riveting. Those fellows over at Infinity Ward sure know their stuff, but then again the first three games already proved that. The single player is all fun but the multi player is where the action is. If you’re ever on and a guy named “TJB_Agony” gives you a head shot, just remember, “It wasn’t personal” }:)