Archive for March, 2009

Watchman Saturday Morning Cartoon!

March 26th, 2009 by Susie

I saw the movie this week and I wil write about eventualy, but I had to post this video I just ran into on you tube.
Watchmen cartoon

It is brilliant! And not that implausible, I recall cartoons being made from innapropriate source material pretty regularly, although none of them spring to mind just this second.

Also It’s Just Some Random Guy has been doing a Watchmen series as well.
Random guy watchmen #1
random guy watchmen #2
random guy watchmen #3

Regardless of how I felt of the movie, the release has wrought these and that is good.

ReadComics Podcast #031

March 25th, 2009 by Martin

Tonight’s podcast was just Marty Florence and Jason when we began, but then Susie joins us about ten minutes in. It’s a shorter one, but we manage to at least mention offhandedly the following topics: The Muppet Show Comic Book #1, Boom Studios new Pixar licensing, DC’s After Watchmen …what next? campaign, Ex Machina TPB #7, Batman RIP, old standby topics: Grant Morrison and Walking Dead, Angel: After The Fall, Blank It webcomic, Menage A 3, Piperka, Sister Claire, Promethia, and all female comic book podcasts: Comic Racks and Birds of Geek.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #031 (18 MB, 38 minutes)

I have issues

March 16th, 2009 by jason

Comics read since last time:

Justice League of America 17-21
Marvel Boy 1-6 (Morrison series)
Titans East Special #1
The Titans 1-6
Iron Man: Director of SHIELD 29-32
Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four 1-3
Hedge Knight II: Sworn Sword 1-6

Man, I’m so far behind on these. I probably can’t legitimately write too much about my thoughts on the above, since it’s been weeks now since I’ve read them, and so much has been read between then and now. Let’s see what I can remember…

Morrison’s Marvel Boy. Dig that kooky retcon, man. He’s been brought into the main Marvel continuity as part of the Dark Avengers, but when did he move from whatever earth this six-issue mini took place in to the regular Marvel Earth?

The Titans relaunch…nothing too exciting. It’s basically getting the band back together, isn’t it? Have they become the Rolling Stones of superhero teams? And it just seems wrong to have it not drawn by Perez. Trigon’s new look works for him. Did I say Rolling Stones? Trigon was definitely modelled after Ozzy.

Iron Man’s art was a little disturbing. I got kind of an uncanny valley experience looking at the people’s faces and how their bodies were positioned. How many stories can we have that are about Tony dealing with the unintended consequences of his actions regarding technology?

I like these Hedge Knight stories. Who knows, maybe I’d actually enjoy Martin’s series about pageantry and heraldry. Mike has been recommending it again and again.

ReadComics Podcast #030 – Bookclub #8 – Thor #1-600

March 14th, 2009 by Martin

This bookclub podcast was all about Thor, issues #1-600 (all 13 issues). BRAKKA-DOOOOOOM! We have Florence, Marty, Jason, Mike, Susie (actually present!), and Jason Johnston with us for this lively discussion of Straczynski’s run of Thor.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #030 (26 MB, 57 minutes)

Sex, Blasphemy, and Gay Marriage, Oh My!

March 14th, 2009 by Susie

It’s time for me to finally do the post about webcomics I have meant to do since Christmas.

Here are three I don’t think have been mentioned on this site yet.

Anders Loves Maria

I love this strip!  It is about a young Swedish couple who are having a baby, and probably shouldn’t be.  Given that Anders can’t stop getting involved with other women, and Maria can’t seem to grow up.  It is wickedly funny and terribly authentic.  The art work some how manages to be simplified, and sophisticated at the same time.  I was really tempted to buy an original page, but unfortunately the I did not get my tax return before the half off sale ended.  It should be mentioned that even though the people are drawn in a very non photo realistic manner, 60% of the strips have included extremely explicit sex, that is probably not safe for work.

Sister Claire

This strip is only a few months old.  It follows the adventures of a very naive young girl who was raised by nuns.  It is drawn in the style of  kwai(cutesy) anime.  Claire  wants nothing more in life than to be the best nun ever, while still getting to indulge in all things sweet and cuddly.  Unfortunately for her a sexy messenger from God disrupts her cloistered existence.  I am totally digging it!

Finally we have Finn and Charlie are Hitched

It is a slice of life styled strip centered around a gay male couple and their circle of friends.  It is not as serialized as the previous two I mentioned, going with the more traditional 3 to 4 panels leading to a gag format.  It is consistently funny and done by local Chicago artist.

MarsCon Webcomics Panel

March 10th, 2009 by Martin

picture-1Thanks to Jason, I actually knew when MarsCon was this year (for the first time). I went to a few panels, and the highlight of the ones I made it to was the WebComics Panel, with Rob Balder. Rob is the writer for Partially Clips, which I had seen before, and Erfworld, which I hadn’t. I hadn’t been particularly interested in Partially Clips when I discovered it the first time, and a re-visit today confirmed that it’s amusing, but again holds very little interest for me. Erfworld, on the other hand, is now something I’m totally going to devour in little chunks until I catch up to the 131 pages they’ve got in the archives thus far.

Once I do catch up (and even before), I’ll be using the awesome Piperka to keep track of my progress! Rob mentioned Piperka in the panel, and it’s basically a very light-weight site designed to do nothing more than keep track of your progress in all the webcomics you read. The sweet thing is that it lets you know which comics have new entries since you last visited, making it a perfect one-stop location for webcomic reading.

Rob (and the other panelists) also mentioned a bunch of other webcomics, including Menage a 3 (which florence and I just read all the way from the beginning–contains mild nudity). If I find more good ones, maybe I’ll post them here also.

Comic Book Club: Thor #1-600

March 9th, 2009 by florence

Thor #1We’re having our next book club this Saturday, March 14th, at 3PM at Florence & Marty’s apartment with our special guest, Susie!

This month we’ll be reading’s Mike’s selection: Thor #1-600 (it actually covers only 13 issues because of their crazy numbering logic).

Thor #1-600, J. Michael Straczynski
Saturday, March 14th 3PM
Florence & Marty’s apartment

Julie Taymor’s Spider-Man

March 5th, 2009 by florence

Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark Check out this awesome and unlikely combination: Spider-Man + Broadway musical+ Julie Taymor directing + U2 composing = Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark.

I adore Julie Taymor and her entirely unique twisted dynamic view, so I can’t wait to see this show. They have cast Evan Rachel Wood as Mary Jane. I loved her as a young lesbian on ‘Once and Again’, and I thought she did a decent job in Julie Taymor’s ‘Across the Universe’.  No casting for Peter Parker yet, but they’re supposed to start rehearsing in the fall and debut in January 2010.

ReadComics Podcast #029

March 4th, 2009 by Martin

In this episode of the ReadComics podcast, Marty, Florence, Jason and Susie talk about the biggest comic book event of the week: the Watchmen movie. Marty and Florence saw a sneak preview of the movie last night, but we took pains not to spoil anything. (Short review: It’s AWESOME, go see it!!!) We also discussed the following topics: Marty and Florence’s visitor Flat Stanley, movie special effects and CGI (at length, including Watchmen, Star Wars, Hellboy II, Pans Labyrinth, the Oscars and Batman), Dr. Manhattan’s BIG BLUE PENIS, other movies we want to see this summer (Super Capers, Wolverine, Harry Potter, Year One), the possibility of an Elfquest movie, Johnny Hiro, Scott Pilgrim, a bunch of comics we have read recently (Wonder Woman, Tek Jensen, Ender’s Game, Batman), Kevin Smith’s batman, the trend toward comic book continuations of TV shows (Farscape, Buffy, Veronica Mars, Pushing Daisies), and Jason gives a shout-out to the GridCycle GeekCast, a new video game podcast.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #029 (30 MB, 66 minutes)

Watchmen iPhone Game (MMO)

March 3rd, 2009 by Martin

Those who know me realize that I haven’t been posting much on here because I’ve been focusing most of my extra-curricular efforts on developing a puzzle game for the iPhone. But that’s not why I’m writing today! I actually just read over at massively.com that there is going to be a Watchmen game for the iPhone released at the same time as the movie (this Friday). As far as I know, this is also going to be the first MMO (massively multiplayer online) game for the iPhone. There is also a video of some interviews with the developers, and it shows some of the gameplay too. Interesting stuff.