Ryorin's Ramblings

Favorites of 2011

2012-01-29T23:57:00.000-05:00

Hello there, Internet. It's been a while.

Since we last spoke, I had surgery, discovered that I did not have a nasty, life-changing disease, moved to another country while still recovering from aforementioned surgery, began graduate school, and discovered the joys of David Weber's Honor Harrington books. Oh, and a universe was destroyed and remade, but we'll save that discussion for another time when I can discuss it more fully.

Anyway, as it is not yet February, a quick post about some of my personal favorites of the year 2011 seems appropriate. Let us begin!

Favorite Album of 2011: Something Fierce by Marian Call. (Available for listening and purchase here). I love this album. I really, really do. Marian Call is an Anchorage based singer/songwriter (which may or may not make me biased) with a folk/ blues style. This album flows very well and has a variety of sort of song in it. Some of my favorite songs from it: "Coffee by Numbers," "E.S.B," "Dear Mister Darcy," and "Anchorage." And let me add, this was a year in which both Kamelot and Nightwish came out with great new albums. Two of my favorite bands. And this one was my favorite.
Favorite Book of 2011: Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson.
First off, let me say that a lot of amazing books in series that I love came out this year: Goliath by Scott Westerfeld, One Salt Sea by Seanan McGuire, I Shall Wear Midnight (paperback) by Terry Pratchett, Across the Great Barrier by Patricia C. Wrede, multiple books by Timothy Zahn... I highly recommend all of those as well as this one. They made this a tough choice. Go read them. This is an incredibly fun book. Set three hundred years after the conclusion of the Mistborn trilogy, Alloy of Law has a Western-adventure-meets-steampunk-meets-magic feel and requires no previous knowledge of the world. If you are familiar with any of Sanderson's previous works, you know that the world is going to be well thought out, and this book doesn't disappoint. Nor does it disappoint with interesting characters. This book must be read by every fantasy fan. Every. Single. One. Happily, there is plenty of material for sequels, so hopefully we'll see more.
Favorite Superhero Film of 2011: Captain America: The First Avenger. Like good books and good albums, several good superhero movies came out last year. My runner-up is probably Thor, but Cap, silly scenes included, was my personal favorite. Chris Evans did an amazing job and this was a really well made movie.
Favorite Video Game of 2011: Portal 2. Portal was an amazing puzzle game with an unexpectedly dark plot and background and this sequel is a great follow up. While Aperture Science's benign facade is gone from the very beginning of this game, there are still secrets to uncover and witty robots to face. And a great ending.
Favorite Anime of 2011: My Ordinary Life
Super-geniuses drink milk!
(also known as Nichijou and available for completely legal viewing here). Based on the yonkoma comedy manga by Keiichi Araw, this is basically a slice of life series about people going about their normal lives in a world that's just a tad... completely bonkers. This series has a unique sense of humor that may not suite everyone, but I say check it out in case it is your thing. The animation style(s) are gorgeous and the ridiculousness (a seven-year-old mad scientist! who acts like a real seven-year-old!) is fantastic. This series is made of sparkles, rocket ships, and pure joy. Runner-up series: Hanasaku Iroha.
Favorite Amazing Conclusion to a Long Running Manga Series of 2011: Fullmetal Alchemist volume 27. Okay, this is practically cheating but I must mention it. Fullmetal Alchemist is an amazing, amazing series and this is a wonderful conclusion to it. If you like comics and/or fantasy, go read this series. My favorite (non-spoilery) part of this volume: the train station scene. It's just so perfect.

That's all for now! Have some favorites of your own to share? Feel free to leave a comment!

Three Top Star Wars Book Covers (Out of Books I Own)

2011-08-09T17:36:00.001-04:00

What happens when you combine the end of a planned break with a computer's decision to stop working? Apparently an even longer break concluding in the use of someone else's computer with an unfamiliar OS and an unfamiliar browser. Without dwelling too much on the details, I've recently had the ....pleasure to discover this first hand. Thus this is is the first of this week's multiple updates.

.... Anyway! Timothy Zahn's latest Star Wars book Choices of One was released not long ago and, being the massive Zahn fan that I am, I eagerly snagged a copy from the book store. However, doing so forced me to come face-to-face with something I knew was coming. I had scene the press releases for the book. I knew it was a victim to the horror that has been plaguing Star Wars books both good and bad since Heir to the Empire hit the shelves twenty years ago: terrible covers.

Help! A computer game ate Mara!

There a few problems I have with this cover, but, honestly, it's far from the worst cover a Star Wars book has had to bear. There are without a doubt far more terrible than good covers and even more blandly mediocre covers. Instead of wading through the slew of book covers that repel people from Star Wars books, let's look at some of the better art that has graced these books. This list is in no particular order and is restricted to books I own, largely because of the shear number of Star Wars books ad the fact that it's much easier to look through the books I own.

I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole, published by Bantam Spectra, 1998.

One of the major problems with Star Wars book covers from the '90s is the reliance on stills from the movies. They would often be a hodgepodge of characters painted straight from the stills onto a generic background. If there were any characters on the cover that weren't from the films, they had a flat look due to the lack of photo reference and were often shoved to the Unknown Regions of the cover. This cover does not do that at all. The central figure is Corran Horn, a character first appearing in the X-Wing book series and the viewpoint character of this novel, shown here in disguise as Keiran Halcyon. While there is a close up of Luke's face, it's very clearly in the background. The cover has a sense of cohesion that was rare for Star Wars covers of the day and, most shocking of all, Corran is well-painted. When I think of Corran, I picture this cover.

X-Wing: Iron Fist by Aaron Allston, published by Bantam Spectra, 1998.

Ah, the X-Wing books, the bastion of light and hope during the time of poorly painted character stills. While I, Jedi deviated from other covers of its time by focusing on the original character, the X-Wing books took a different route, choosing instead to shown no characters and to focus on vehicles, most notably snub fighters. Each cover in the series depicts one scene from the books with some difference and each cover each has a sense of both cohesion and drama. As the covers are all excellent and rather similar, I chose Iron Fist to represent the nine-book series because it's my favorite of the covers.

Allegiance by Timothy Zahn, published by Del Rey, 2007.

And now for the last of my short list, the real reason I was so disappointed with the cover of Choices of One. Choices of One is the sequel to Allegiance, the cover of which I actually like. While most of Del Rey's Star Wars books carry blandly unmemorable covers featuring heavily photoshopped characters for that mass-produced look, this cover combines CGI with brush strokes (either real or generated) to give the stormtroopers a rough feel. However, this is only effective because they are storm troopers; put someone without armor on this cover and you get another mediocre photoshopped image with added element of it looking like a screenshot from a seven-year-old computer game. Thus, the Choices of One cover.

That is my subjective little list of the top three covers for Star Wars book I own. Please comment and let me know how you agree and/or disagree and what other books you think have good covers.

Next time: Ryorin discusses comics and reboots. Again.

The End of an Era and an Animated Gift

2011-05-20T21:45:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow, May 21, 2011 A.D., will be the end of an era.

Tomorrow, things will change forever.

Tomorrow I graduate.

...oh, and apparently it's the Rapture, too.

Anyway, since I'll be using my amazing new powers as a Bachelor of Arts to fight off the apocalypse,* I will not be writing a normal post this weekend. So, to celebrate my graduating, here are some links for watching free and legal anime! Sadly, I can't guarantee that these links will work outside of the U.S., but if I find any I'll do my best to post them.

Funimation: Full episodes of anime licensed by Funimation; I think most of the videos are dubbed in English, but there are also some in Japanese with English subtitles.

Viz Anime: Full episodes of anime licensed by Viz; also a mix of subtitled and dubbed videos. I recommend Cross Game, if you don't mind something a little slower than most licensed anime.

Crunchyroll: Full episodes of a variety of shows, mostly in Japanese with English subtitles, but with some English dubbing as well. They also have some Korean live-action dramas, if your into that.

And, because I'm feeling so generous:

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes episodes 1 -19 at Marvel.com! Yes, I know this isn't an anime, but it is a fun show about superheroes that you can watch the first nineteen episodes of legally and for free. That just needs to be shared.

*Undergraduate degrees totally work like that. So do apocalypses.

The Fantastic Adventures of H.G. Wells: A Warehouse 13 Spin Off in the Works

2011-05-15T01:40:00.002-04:00

This past week marked the end of an era. Stargate, the science fiction franchise that began as a spin-off to a movie and spawned North America's longest running science fiction television series came to an end on Monday with the last episode of Stargate Universe, the franchise' third live-action series. While there will be no more Stargate in the foreseeable future (and the release of the Series 5 SG-1 action figures is even less likely now), there may still be some ray of joy in the the dark, Stargate-less future:

"Syfy Prepping 'Warehouse 13' Spinoff Centered on H.G. Wells Character (Exclusive)"

On Thursday, The Hollywood Reporter published an exclusive made of flowers, puppies, and steampunk Tesla guns. While the franchise of my favorite live-action series of all time has ended, there's a chance that one of my favorite currently airing shows will get a spin off of its own and be the start of a quirky, steam-and-Tesla-powered franchise. Not only that, but this spin-off would be centered around the amazing and complex character of H.G. Wells (portrayed by Jaime Murray), a morally ambiguous time-traveling, inventor-super-agent. Who is a woman.

She's the one with the gun. Note the lack of mustache.

In case you're wondering: yes, she is that H.G. Wells, but the "H" stands for Helena instead of Herbert and she leads an active life-style of inventing and crime-fighting. No, really. In the wonderfully wacky world of Warehouse, H.G. Wells' stories are written by her brother but based on her life and inventions.

The spin-off would follow Helena's crime-fighting adventures in the 1890's. According to the article:

"In this incarnation, she would enlist the help of a mechanical engineer and utilize her relationship with the police commissioner to solve what appear to be unsolvable cases. Both the skills and style she employs will become the framework for the well-known stories of H.G. Wells, as written by her brother."

I love this idea. Last season, H.G.'s complexity, intelligence, back story, style, moral ambiguity, and jet-pack (as well as Murray's fantastic acting) made her one of my favorite characters in the series (I have twitter proof). She was a good character, whose motivations you could never be completely sure you understood until the end. She kept you guessing and was just fun to watch.

While this announcement about the development of a new series is more detailed than many initial press releases (Buffy, Spidey, I'm looking at you), that doesn't prevent me from speculating about it. So, because I love bullet points, here's a list of questions about the spin-off:

WARNING: There may be spoilers about the second season of Warehouse 13, so you should go watch all of it now. This post won't go anywhere.

Will the real reason that H.G. was bronzed be explained? The explanation we got last season in Warehouse seemed more like a deflection than the actual reason. It didn't explain Artie's reaction to her or why MacPherson de-bronzed her in the first place. What really happened?
The article reveals that in the spin-off, H.G. would be working as a free agent instead of being part of Warehouse 12. Will she still encounter artifacts regularly, or will the show focus more on her inventions?
Will she encounter the creators of Warehouse 13's artifacts?
As mentioned above, she'll be a free agent. Could this series take place in an alternate timeline from Warehouse 13? The series shares a universe with Eureka, so we know that there are alternate timelines. Is this one? If so, maybe Helena will never take the dark turn that caused her to be bronzed, kill MacPherson, and nearly destroy civilization. The darker aspects of her character could still be explored, but perhaps she would end up as a hero at the end of the day rather than an anti-hero or villain. Perhaps she could see what she might become and that would cause her to make different choices.
Will there be a young Mrs. Frederic? Please?
Will the police commissioner make a Helena-signal ala Batman?
Could she use her time-machine to go back to the 1830's to team-up with Babbage and Lovelace and form the ultimate nerdy steampunk crime-fighting team?

Hopefully, the series will get a green light and all of these questions and more will be answered soon. Even as I mourn the ending of one franchise, I shall a wait the birth of another.

Interview: Josh Uitvlugt of Just Add Water, Part 2 of 2

2011-05-07T22:35:00.002-04:00

Previously on Ryorin's Ramblings, I talked to my friend and fellow student Josh Uitvlugt, creator of the science fiction webcomic Just Add Water (updating Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) about the creation of the comic, the characters, the many uses of paperclips, coffee versus tea, the evil mechanisms of squirrels, and his own thoughts on how science and science fiction should interact.

Josh was kind enough to provide a self-introduction:

"My name is Josh Uitvlugt, and I am the author of a webcomic called 'Just Add Water'. I am having a lot of fun doing the comic, and it acts as a great outlet for the creativity that I am proud to have. I am an engineer, and while that may conjure up ideas about people with a rigid application of rules and mathematics, engineering requires more creative input than almost any other occupation. Creative problem solving is the very basis of engineering, and it is what defines me as a person. I like to feel that the insight that I have to offer contributes to the world around me, and I hope that this interview will convince you that I can be an interesting person."

In this installment, Josh discusses time travel, Star Trek, his characters, superpowers, webcomics in general, webcomic-drama in specific, and the creation of his comic.

And now for the exciting conclusion!

S: If you could travel to any previous time period, what would it be?

J: I'm not quite sure. I think it would probably be pretty interesting to got to cave man times and just be like, "Hey. I wow you with my knowledge," but I'm pretty sure that every single person I would encounter back then would not actually speak English. I wouldn't be able to communicate with tham and they'd probably kill me for being a witch or something.

S: But if you were a Humanities major you could take linguistics classes...

J: I don't really want to ba an anthropologist. And I think if I was an anthropologist I wouldn't want to mess with these people, I'd want to hide off in the bushes and study them. "'Ere we see a Cro-Magnon man in his native environment. Let's watch." It'd also be kinda interesting to go back to ancient China. That's be pretty cool.

S: Oh, that'd be pretty awesome. Han dynasty, you're thinking?

J: I don't know. Ancient China. Probably when there's not a bunch of wars or Huns invading or whatever.

S: A prosperous time?

J: A prosperous time, when they've got this nice big trade empire. That would be pretty cool.

S: Like Han Dynasty during its peak?

J: I don't know much about Chinese history, but that sounds like a decent time.

S: It was around two thousand years ago.

J: China's got old history. They've been around for quite a while.

S: Yeah. Chinese history is lots of fun.

J: Mm hmm.

S: Are you secretly a time traveler, sent from the future to prevent some horrible catastrophe and just pretending to make up stuff about time travel?

J: If I was, I would say that I'm not. But I'm not. So I'm only going to say that I'm not. I think if I wasn't one, I'm probably more likely to say that I am one, just because it's a more amusing answer and I'm the kind of person who occasionally likes to give amusing answers more than the right one. But I'm actually gonna give the correct one and say that I am not. Along those lines, I think that if time travel was possible, which I don't think the laws of our universe would permit, there's a lot of different sci-fi models of how time travel works and I think that if it was possible it would probably be more like how I've done it in my comic, where there's one time line. You can go back and change things, but in the time you came from, those changes have already taken place. You go back and take part in events, but you're not changing anything because that's already how it unfolded in the past of your future.

S: Like in that episode of original Star Trek, when because of their actions while time traveling the missile goes off at the exact same time it did?

J: I haven't seen too much original Star Trek, but it sort of happens in Voyager, where there's this time ship that comes out of nowhere and is like "I don;t like you because you blew up the entire Solar System in the future," and it shoots them into the past and follows along with them. and then--

S: Cell phones get invented?

J: Yeah, that stuff too. And then they take off later and the time ship explodes on take-off, which sets off the explosion in the future. The explosion wouldn't have happened in the future if the guy hadn't tried to kill the Voyager, which drove them back into the past. Which eventually led them to fly into the future, and so on.

S: Stuff like that happens a few times in Stargate, too.

J: Another model of time travel is the multi-verse, where there's an infinite number of universes...

S: ...and if you travel back and change anything, another universe branches off.

J: Yeah. Or you don't actually travel back, you just travel to another universe that is occurring simultaneously that just happens to be in the past. That way you can't have time paradoxes. Say you go back in time and, say, you kill your grandfather, for example, and you travel beck to a universe where you don;t exist. You would still exist, because you didn't come from that universe. You came from a universe where you did exist.

S: So it was a different you who was kept from existing.

J: Yeah. If that kind of thing would be real, then there's an infinite number of time travelers messing with an infinite number of universes, but there's also an infinite number of universes that time travelers have never encountered. Someone would ask, "If there's time travelers, how come we aren't seeing them all over the place?" and it may be that this universe has never encountered any time travelers, but there's another universe that's almost identical except for the fact that time travelers have come. But I think that's a little silly. That's an awful lot of universes. An infinite number is a very high number, and with that kind of thing, if all points in time exist simultaneously, then it seems to me one universe will cease to exist because it reaches its final moment and another will exist at the start of time and theoretically all of the universes would just be on an infinate loop. I think with how the world exists, there's probably just one universe, or at least one universe that's the main universe and there might be other, parallel realities, but I don't think that they would be as important. There could be some weird way to enter a new universe, or a way to travel to a type of place that we have no conventional means of which to travel to. It wouldn't be a whole different parallel universe. It seems like it would cheapen the uniqueness and value of humanity if there's an infinite number of other, almost identical human civilizations out there that don't really interact with us at all. That just seems dumb.

S: It also kind of defeats the purpose of the term "universe," which means "everything." Jumping back a little bit to character questions: if your characters had super powers, what would they be or what would they want them to be?

J: I think Ben would probably want his to be telekinesis, because that's the coolest super power. You can do anything with that. I've heard people who, when they're asked about that, say flight, but that's a really stupid answer, because guess what you can do when you can move matter with your mind? You can fly. There's just a bunch of different powers that let you fly that aren't just restricted to flight. I think Charlie would have super-speed or something. That would be pretty cool. He's a small skinny guy and he's just a little bit hyper and I feel like super-speed would probably just fit him. I feel like Katie would probably want flight, just because she probably doesn't think about it very much. That's the kind of question that if you ask it to an engineer like Ben, they've thought about that question. They have an answer ready, just like if you ask Charlie what he thinks about the zombie apocalypse. He's thought about it. He's prepared for it. I'm not sure about Sam. She'd probably have control over fire or something.

S: She seems like a pyromaniac.

J: Yeah. A "pyromancer" or whatever you call it. An elemental control over fire. That would be a really cool ability. I think that also is one that lets you fly.

S: Like the Human Torch.

J: The Human Torch can fly, yeah.

S: What powers do you think they would have?

J: Probably what those ones were. Ben would almost certainly have telekinesis or some kind of weird psychic thing, like Professor X. He'd move stuff with his mind and invade people's minds. I think that Sam probably would have the fire thing. Charlie would probably have speed or teleportation of something cool like that. Katie... I think if I was going to make her into a superhero, she'd probably have indestructibility or something and super-strength. She'd be the team tank. "Hey, yeah, you shot me in the face, but it didn't do anything, so I'm gonna punch you." Boom. Unstoppable force and immovable object in one superhero.

S: That's be pretty entertaining to watch.

J: Yeah. A lot of superheroes have power-suites. Super Man's the obvious example, but I don't want to use him because he has like every power and that's just cheating, but like the Flash. He has super-speed, but he has a lot of secondary things he can do. He can create tornadoes or whatever and I think that he can vibrate through walls. I don't read any comic books, but a lot of superheroes have a power and different things they can do depend on how creative they are with it, like the Flash being able to do all those things. That's a creative use of super-speed. A lot of superheroes who have telekinesis or something like that should be unstoppable, because if you have enough creativity with those powers, you can do anything. Usually they don't, and that's kind of lame. With pyrokinesis, you could totally do awesome things, like...

S: Heat up your cup of tea...

J: Yeah, you could have real fine control of things or you could make giant lakes of fire and epic stuff, but usually they're just restricted to turning themselves into fire and shooting fireballs, which is kind of lame. And telekinesis people are usually like, "I will pick up things with my brain and throw them at the enemy," when they could just--

S: Be moving the enemy.

J: Yes, or like, "Hey, you see those neurons in your brain? They're not connected to each other anymore. Because it only take a small amount of force to do that. So you're dead." With telekinesis, you could do anything. You could probably spontaneously ignite the air, if you make the molecules in the air vibrate really fast, and you can kill someone instantly, but a super-villain with telekinesis is more likely to use it creatively than a superhero.

S: Like how Magneto sometimes uses his magnetic powers to make people move while Professor X just communicates with people.

J: I'm not sure his power's telekinetic. Not as much as Magneto's. Magneto's power is specifically telekinetic over metal.

S: Yeah, fair enough.

J: That scene in, I forget which X-men movie, I think it was 2, where Magneto's escaping and that guard has iron filings injected into his blood or mercury particles, and he sucks it all out of that guy through his skin, and then he's floating on a super-thin sheet of metal and simultaneously controlling those ball bearing to pepper those people-- that's how you should use telekinesis. Doing awesome things with limited resources. Usually, if the heroes have a car, they'll pick up the car and throw it at somebody, but if you used the level of control Magneto used on those balls but on a larger scale, you could take the car and melt it into a solid blob and turn it into a huge number of ball bearings and hurl it at your opponent, or you could turn it into a giant metal monster thing, or do real cool stuff like that. But usually they're just like: "Car. Throw."

S: Do you read any webcomics?

J: I do read several. I read Questionable Content and Doctor McNinja is a good one. Doctor McNinja's how I'd like mine to turn out to be, where I could have a totally ridiculous sci-fi situation and people respond, "okay, that's just how this comic is." Doctor McNinja's pretty awesome. I also read a bunch of other ones. Questionable Content is all about drama and stuff, relationships; that's the kind of thing I don't want my comic to turn into. Most comics that I've seen with male and female characters the same age, they end up getting into relationships and everything becomes about drama and... well, having relationships. There's enough webcomics out there like that. I want mine to be about four people who are connected, but not in a romantic way, and they go on adventures and do cool stuff. They might be in relationships with other people, but I'm not going to bring it up or mention those people much, if ever. They're a group of four people who see each other as siblings as opposed to romantic interests.

S: Friends of different genders who don't necessarily have romantic interactions.

J: Uh huh. That way it's just less complicated. That way I can do more science fiction story things as opposed to romantic story based things.

S: Do you think any of your characters read webcomics?

J: Probably. I would assume that at least Ben and Charlie would read a bunch. I don't know if Katie does. Maybe one or two.

S: Maybe Hark! A Vagrant? History jokes...

J: Probably. I like that one. It doesn't update as often as I would like, but that's also one that does ridiculous things in a sort of serious way. It's got a history person acting in a way that you wouldn't expect them to. A lot of those ones has a history person talking or something and someone's like, "Oh, Mr. History Person, don't you want to do this?" And they're like, "No, I don;t want to do that. I want to do this other silly thing." "But that thing's silly!" "I WANT TO DO IT!" It's funny. That's one that I like. Some of the jokes don't seem to history linked, they just involve a history person and they happen to be doing the silly things, but a lot of them are history jokes, and it's like "That's kind of funny, 'cause I know that history thing."

S: Or it's an obscure piece of Canadian history and it's like "I need to Wikipedia that now, so I understand the joke."

J: Yes.

S: Do you think Sam read any webcomics?

J: I think so. I think most college age people probably do read at least one or two webcomics, so she probably reads some. I don't know which ones she would, but I assume that she does.

S: How about Frank.

J: I don't think that he does. He probably has a computer, but he doesn't really need it for that much. He probably does need it for whatever stuff he's doing, like secret communications from the U.S. government or whatever, because he was like Indiana Jones, and he probably still does some stuff occasionally, but I don't think he surf the internet very much or wastes time with webcomics. How I've envisioned him is that he's semi-retired and the reasons why he's superintendent of this apartment complex are unclear, because he's not really the kind of person you would expect to do that, so this might be sort of his mild-mannered alter-ego or his semi-retirement thing that's kind of out of the way and not too conspicuous.

S: What tools do you employ in making a comic?

Josh's tools of the trade

J: I have a drawing board thing, that's just a flat wood thing. I do the normal drawing on that. I just us standard eight-and-a-half by eleven printing paper and I have a cardboard stencil that I do the basic shape of the frame in. I draw the comic out in pencil and I usually get the details pretty much finalized and then I trace it with pen. Once I have it in pen, I erase all the pencil. Then I scan it into my computer. Once it's scanned, I clean it up in PaintDotNet, which is the image editing software I use. How I do that is I make the lines pure black and the background pure white, and then I edit it with my drawing tablet. The reason I have the lines pure black and pure white is because that way it's easier to do colors. If it's black in the middle and fades to grey near the edge, say with someone's face, when I try to fill it in with a skin tone color, there's going to be a halo around it of grey color. If I keep it pure black, it will be the right color right up to the edge. PaintDotNet has an anti-aliasing tool, which means if I take a circle drawing tool, where it's horizontal and vertical it will be pretty much black and white, but on the edge where it curves, there will be pixels that are grey to smooth the transition, which makes it look a lot less digital, but I work at a high enough resolution that I can use those pixelated edges without them looking pixelated when I scale it down. Once it's a black and white line picture, I'll take out all the white and I'll put a layer on the bottom that's pure white and I have two layers: the lines with no fill and the middle layer, and I use the paint bucket to put in the color there. Because there's a layer on top with the lines, I can use the drawing tablet and, for the shadows at least, sometimes there's narrow areas and I can do the pen right up to the edge. that way I don't have to be careful to preserve the edge and I can fill in shapes without worrying about messing up the lines. Then I flatten the layers and scale it down, and then I use Adobe Dreamweaver to put it on the internet.

S: What are some problems you encountered when you started making the comic?

Josh's tablet

J: One thing, why I have the pen tablet now, is that sometimes the lines that I draw don't really... I use a ballpoint pen, which is harder to control than a felt tip pen, but it just happens to be the finest pen I have that isn't out of ink, so with the comics that I currently do I have to do a significant amount of cleaning up with the pen tablet. Earlier on they looked a little bit better because I had a different pen, but I had to use a mouse to clear it up and that's a lot harder. It's really hard to draw a circle or a smooth curve with a mouse, but it's effortless with a pen tablet or an actual pen. Before I would just scan them in and get rid of big smudgy areas by painting them white, but I would leave the libes as grey with fuzzy edges. If I turn everything to black by taking the paint tool and dumping it on a darker thing, that gets most of the darker black stuff, and then I delete everything that doesn't turn black from that, but sometimes that leaves jagged edges or gaps because the lines had lots of color variation. It's a lot easier to fix with a pen tablet, but sometimes if I don't color it right it gets rid of a lot more than I want and I have to fix almost all of the lines, and that's kind of inconvinient, but in general I haven;t had too many problems.

S: Why do you call it "Just Add Water"?

J: When I was trying to think of names, I was trying to decide what's it's role was going to be. Was it going to be just a webcomic, or a webcomic and blog, or a game review site. I liked "Just Add Water" because it's a recognizable phrase. It doesn't really have very much to do with the characters or the story, but it's one of the instructions for making tea. I think anyone who actually drinks tea would tell you that you don't just add water, but it sort of fits, because how Ben approaches problems is like, "Hey, yeah, I will engineer a one-step solution that will solve all of the problems."

S: Fiddle with the time machine to figure out what happens.

J: Exactly.

That concludes the interview! Thanks for reading and don't forget to check out Just Add Water, updating Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Old Poll, New Poll, and May the Fourth

2011-05-04T14:47:00.000-04:00

First off: Happy May Fourth, Day of Bad Star Wars puns! Which is to say that StarWars.com has announced it "Star Wars Day" and is releasing information about the Star Wars Blu-ray set. Because it's May the Fourth. If you can't/don't want to dig through the official sight, Club Jade posted much of the info here.

My last poll asked which of this year's superhero movies you were most looking forward to, and the results were three votes for Captain America, one vote for Thor, and both Green Lantern and Green Hornet were unloved with zero votes. I personally was most looking forward to Cap's movie, but I have to admit, I'm getting pretty excited about Thor coming out later this week.

The new poll asks your favorite "Star" franchises. You may select more than one because, hey, I don't think I could choose between my favorite two. Let me know which are your favorites in the comments or, if your favorites aren't listed, let me know what they are, why you love them, and why you consider them a "Star" franchise. Just because I only listed science fiction franchises starting with "Star" doesn't there aren't others with legitimate claim to the designation.

Interview: Josh Uitvlugt of Just Add Water, Part 1 of 2

2011-04-30T21:42:00.002-04:00

As you can probably guess, I'm a big fan of both webcomics and science fiction. A little while ago, I was able to interview my friend and fellow student Josh Uitvlugt, creator of the science fiction webcomic Just Add Water, which updates Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Josh was kind enough to provide us with an introduction:

Josh
"My name is Josh Uitvlugt, and I am the author of a webcomic called 'Just Add Water'. I am having a lot of fun doing the comic, and it acts as a great outlet for the creativity that I am proud to have. I am an engineer, and while that may conjure up ideas about people with a rigid application of rules and mathematics, engineering requires more creative input than almost any other occupation. Creative problem solving is the very basis of engineering, and it is what defines me as a person. I like to feel that the insight that I have to offer contributes to the world around me, and I hope that this interview will convince you that I can be an interesting person."

Do to the interview's length, it will be posted in two parts. In this installment, Josh discusses the creation of the comic, the characters, the many uses of paperclips, coffee versus tea, the evil mechanisms of squirrels, and his own thoughts on how science and science fiction should interact.

With out further ado, part one of the interview:

S: So, let's start with the really obvious question to start this with: what inspired you to start a webcomic?

J: Well, a lot of it is I sort of doodle around a lot during classes and I like to draw things a lot and I like to think that I'm kind of a funny person and I often have weird thoughts about things that are funny, but I don't really have a way to tell everybody else about them. It's like, "hey, yeah, I just had this weird thought about this thing and it's hilarious and this is what it is," and people are just like, "Okay. Cool story, bro." Comics give me a chance to "hey, I had this funny thought" and now I can sit down and think about how to communicate it well enough. Also, part of it is just sort of a thing to do. I dunno, it's sort of made a little bit out of boredom. I have lots of free time, I might as well do some cool, comicky-internety-thing. That's sort of how it got started.

S: So would you say it's like a hobby?

J: It's kind of like a hobby, yeah.

S: How much planning did you put into the comic before going live with it?

J: I actually did quite a bit. I was sort of playing. I had the idea about "hey, maybe I should start a webcomic" sometime during Fall Semester last year, so I was just like doing doodles and stuff and I finally started doing it. I was just slowly drawing characters and stuff and deciding that I would start it in the summer, so I did put a significant amount of thought into it; mostly it was just drawing sketches of what the characters might look like and stuff like what the format would end up being. Most of the characters didn't change super much, like, Ben was pretty much always goofy like how he is now and Sam didn't change super-much, but Katie started out a completely different person, with a weird shaped head. I didn't think that that-- I don't know-- I changed her into into like a klutzy, Canadian person that's sort of like a comic-relief person. She's amusing.

S: As it is, she's probably the most normal character of them all.

J: Yeah. But that's just because, it's fun to make fun of her because she's Canadian.

S: [laughs]

J: Also, like, Frank went through a couple things. He was originally gonna be like this crazy, creepy old guy, like with a big, skeletal head and long, creepy fingers, but I changed him into an actual awesome person.

S: From Grand Moff Tarkin to Indiana Jones?

J: Yeah, pretty much. He wasn't going to so much creepy as crazy. He was just gonna be completely insane, but I made him less insane and more awesome just because that's more interesting, I think.

S: Yeah. With... I guess this would be the style of the comic, it starts off seeming like it was gonna be relatively slice-of-life, kind of about people going to college and, oh, they make things blow-up, but they're still just going to college, and then rapidly it... ascends into insanity and science fiction. Did you have that planned all along, or was that something that just kind of happened?

J: Yeah, I think I've always sort of been planning to do it sci-fi-y, it's just the beginning was sort of to establish the characters and that kind of thing. The point of it is, it's a group of four really nerdy people, and how I'm going to do it in the future is they're in the storyline right now it's near the end and once I wrap that up, on the site header it says "Just Add Water: Lost In Time." That's the name of the story right now, and once that's over the logo's going to turn normal. I guess... since it started black-and white, I'm gonna do a color of the logo and do that, but there's going to be other short storyline things. This one, it's probably drawn out a little longer than I would like, so I'm gonna make them shorter, and I didn't do an astonishing amount of planning fore how the plot's going before I started on the story, so the other ones I'll do more planning on how the plots go and that kind of thing, but I'm sort of imagining it to be kind of like an episodic structure, sort of like "Star Trek," where they're doing normal things and then all of a sudden, whoa! This weird stuff happens and now we're going on an adventure! And then they solve it and everything goes back to normal or whatever. Usually, in those kind of adventures people will get new things or learn stuff about people kinds of things.

S: Yeah, there will be character development, it will just be episodic.

J: Uh huh. I've sort of got ideas for other stories. One has a time loop where they're doing stuff and then they die at the end and then they start over. Um... I'm planning like a zombie story, just 'cause, zombies are awesome. And things like that.

S: Will there ever be a story where the other three characters go inside Katie's imaginary world?

J: There might be at some point. I mean, they're sort of, because they have projections of them, there, but I haven't really decided how that world is going to relate to reality. She goes there and she's conscious of being there and she remembers it afterwards, but it's still sort of just a weird dream/hallucination world that only she sees. It's not really that real, it's just a weird hallucination thing, so there might be a long storyline there, but it would probably only happen in her head. It's an interesting place.

S: Yep. So, what inspired your characters? Frank is pretty clearly inspired at least in part by Indiana Jones. Were there any other people or characters that inspired any of your other characters or..?

J: I've... well, with Ben and Charlie, at least, I try to make them sort of modeled after me a little bit. Ben's the engineer with curly hair and cargo pants and I usually wear cargo pants and I have really curly hair, and Charlie's this little skinny guy who plays computer games and is totally nerdy and that's like me, but the other people aren't really modeled after anybody else. I mean, Sam is sort of modeled after my sister a little bit, but, I don't know... my sister isn't quite as like... well, maybe she is a little as, like... I don't know how to describe it...

S: Spastic?

J: I'm thinking "sisterly".

S: [laughs]

J: "Sisterly" I don't think actually means anything, but sisters will say embarrassing, awkward things and act silly around their brothers. My sister and I tend to act weirder around each other than we usually do around other people, so that's kind of the model for that relationship there.

S: Yeah, my brother and I do that. That's probably a normal sibling thing.

J: Mm hmm. "Sibling-ly." I think I used that word, maybe. In the comic.

S: "Look at them being all sibling-ly on the moon."

J: Yeah, that.

S: If your characters were animals, what would they be and why?

J: Oo... that's an interesting one. Um... I think... I dunno. Katie would probably be like a beaver, because that's like the Canadian thing. They're sort of like a weird, awkward thing, but-- Beavers are real smart animals, but they just look weird and awkward. Katie is smart, but she's weird and awkward, so... I could probably just randomly assign some animal to the other people and find some connections, but... I don't know, maybe Ben is like a badger, because in my mind badgers are still connected to Redwall badgers, these big things. He's like a big guy, and he's good with his hands and stuff, and weren't they smiths or something?

S: I don't know, my first mental connection to badgers is Trufflehunter from the Chronicles of Narmia. A little bit different there.

J: Well, I don't remember. I think they made some fancy swords or something in those books. I read those really long ago, but he's... I don't know if badgers are necessarily prepared for every situation, but he just has those magic pockets that any amount of stuff can fit in... I don't know, I doubt he has magic pants, but...

S: Cargo pants. That's what they do.

J: Cargo pants. They hold lots of stuff, but not an infinite amount of stuff. But, yeah. He's just a rather big guy that if you just look at his appearance--- I don't know, maybe the glasses make him look like a big smart person, but usually someone who has wide shoulders and big, hairy arms, you don't immediately associate that with a nerdy physique, which is sort of why he has freckles and scraggly facial hair and, like...

S: Giant glasses?

J: Giant glasses. But I think that once they get back to civilization and aren't time-traveling anymore he's probably going to shave more regularly, 'cause it's inconvenient and gross to have scraggly facial hair.

S: He could just grow out a beard.

J: I don't want him to have a beard. I don't think he's a beard kind of person.

S: Yeah, that would look kind of odd.

J: It would probably make him look a lot older. In the comic he's like twenty-four, twenty-five or something. I don't know. You can have a beard at that young, but it makes you look forty or something. I don't want him looking like an old guy. Um... let's see... Charlie might be some kind of turtle--

S: [laughs]

J: --because he's just this weird looking guy with sort of a narrowy face and a weird beard thing-- I dunno, I don't think that turtles really have those beard-- Maybe it's like a-- I don't know, he's not like a big ugly snapping turtle. They have these... I guess that's on their tongue. It's like this appendage thing.

S: So the line thing Charlie has is a beard?

J: It's a little beard-thing, I don't know what that's called...

S: A something-patch?

J: A soul-patch or whatever.

S: Oh, I've been trying to figure that out...

J: Sometimes, the thing sticks below his chin, but, a lot of things with appearances started, like, with Charlie's hair I actually started off by just drawing a bunch of weird parallel lines and I didn't really imagine what actual, real-world hair-do would fit along with that. So, I've decided once I've started coloring it that he's gonna be a Chinese guy, so once everybody comes back to civilization and he has hair again, I'm gonna make his hair like that short, spiky Chinese style hair. It's straight, short, stiff hair that sort of sticks out in all directions.

S: Was that really common when you went to China?

J: Yeah, yeah, a lot of people had that. A lot of them also had it a little longer so that it was combed, but that short hair that is short enough that it's sticking in all directions but is still a whole kind of thing was pretty common, too. Let's see... I think Sam would probably have to be some kind of rodent. She's like... perky and excited. She's clever--

S: A squirrel?

J: I hate squirrels. Squirrels aren't--

S: Chipmunk?

J: Chipmunk... Maybe more squirrel. Squirrels are really smart. I mean, I hate squirrels. I don't really like them because they, like, they stuff...

S: They scheme.

J: They scheme. They're evil little rodents. Are they rodents? I think they're rodents... But they're real smart, but they're evil smart. They're like evil geniuses of the rodent world. I think it would be really cool to have a nice, trained squirrel that does whatever you want. I don't know if they're actually smart enough to be trained, but...

S: Yeah, they seem like they could be domesticated.

J: If you had one that's trained sit on your arm, you could just be like, "Hey! Go pick up that thing!" and it'd scamper over and--

S: Like trained monkeys.

J: Yeah, because they're real agile and they can, like, climb up brick walls and things.

S: They secretly rule the campus.

J: Yeah they do, actually. There's squirrels that I've seen that have been here the entire time that I've been here. One just looks distinctive because it's got like missing patches of fur. The squirrels will even stick to the same area. That one lives out in front of [a residence hall] and I haven't seen any living over here, but usually when I go out that direction I can see him just on the ground. It's just interesting. Big, fat, lazy squirrels all over the place here.

S: It's probably the secret God-father of the squirrels.

J: Uh huh, yeah.

S: Now, Ben and Charlie are both kind of based on you, but which character do you most identify with? Would that be Ben?

J: Probably Ben, yeah. He's an engineer and I'm an engineer and his main thing is that he's always got lots of gadgets and thinks on his feet. I don't know if I've shown this, but he likes to mess with things and has lots of ideas all the time and I actually do have paperclips in my wallet. I don't have all the other stuff, but...

S: In case you need to McGuyver something?

J: Paperclips are useful. I actually dis need to use a paperclip recently from my wallet for a purpose paperclips are not originally intended for.

S: ...was it legal?

J: It was legal, yeah. I have an art class and I was scratching off parts of the cover so I could etch my name into piece so I could use that and that worked. I think that I'm the most like him just because I've just tried to make him like, "Oh, in this situation what would I do? I'll make him do that."

S: Do any of your characters drink coffee?

J: I think so. I think that Charlie does.

S: He seems like he's always on caffeine.

J: Yeah, he's a Computer Science guy. I guess he's modeled after Brad a little bit.

S: He even looks a bit like Brad.

J: Yeah, I guess. He's short and stuff, but I think most of the characters probably drink coffee except for Ben, who's adamantly against coffee and for tea, like me. I think Charlie probably drinks coffee regularly and Sam and Katie probably don't drink it all the time, but they'll drink either tea or coffee if it presents itself. They don't really have that much of a preference. Probably they'll drink coffee more because it's easier? Maybe? I don't know if making a pot of coffee's easier. You probably need more equipment, but...

S: It kind of depends. Sometimes a cup of tea is just way easier.

One of Josh's many teapots

J: That's probably how they decide. "Meh. I'm too lazy to make a pot of coffee, so I'll have some tea" kind of thing, but Ben drinks tea all the time, but he won't drink coffee because coffee's gross, which is kind of how I feel about it. If I wanted something that tasted like burnt bleach I would realize that it's a stupid idea and then not have it.

S: Is Sheldon secretly an alien spy from a planet of tiny, turtle-like creatures?

J: No, he's just an angry turtle who doesn't like being picked up very much. He's just a turtle. There's nothing special about him. Ben found him on the road at some point and he just put him in a box. Ben doesn't approve of the name "Sheldon," because it's a dumb pun and he doesn't like dumb puns. And neither do I. I usually try to avoid putting dumb puns as the punchline.

S: Somehow I think it's less bad than "Michelle" would be.

J: Yeah, I guess because it is a male turtle, but "Sheldon" is much more immediately obvious than "Michelle." It's even sort of spelled the same.I mean, it doesn't have enough L's, but "Michelle" has all these weird other letters in there.

S: Like a C?

J: Yeah, that.

S: Do you think that you're being an engineering student has effected the comic?

J: I think so. When I'm writing plot-y things I have them do something that involves science and the the science behind it and I'm not like, "Oh, I'll do things and then just leave it unexplained." If I saw it and then this weird thing happened, I'd be like, "huh? Why's it doing that?" so I feel like I have to sort of explain the science behind it. That just make it a little more interesting to me. If it's just this weird "Oh, it's Science Fiction so we can do whatever we want!" then it doesn't really work. I think science fiction is better if it can sort of explain itself. I don;t really like the idea of "oh, this is some obscure scientific principle that no one really knows anything about," but it's an actual scientific principle that they're using wrong.

S: Like having someone play a symphony on string theory?

J: I don't really know what that means, but...

S: Somehow incorporate real science into the explanation?

J: Yes, somehow use real science, like tachyons or whatever. I don't know if tachyons are real science, but science fiction shows use those a lot to do time-travely things or weird things like faster than light travel. That kind of dumb stuff. I think it's better usually to make up some science-y thing and sort of explain it but not really explain how it exactly works, like...

S: Techno-babble?

J: Sort of. Not really techno-babble that's indecipherable, but like in Mass Effect, they have faster-than-light travel and they sort of explain it by there's this special magic element and you pass electricity through it and it generates either a increased mass field or a decreased mass field, so you can reduce the mass of something to zero or you can do weird things that project a field of negative mass around something and distorts the local speed of light, or whatever. They made up a complete science and they get to decide how it interacts with the universe. Like, how the time machine that [my characters] have works is that there's this little hand held device that's got two power core things in it. It's got a Time Core, which has a main function of teleportation and time travel and it's got another core that does everything else. It's the kind of thing where it has a Time Core and that's how I'm explaining it as be able to time travel, but I'm not really explaining what that is or what that means. I think having a time machine and saying, "Oh, this has a Time Core in it and that lets you do funny time stuff" but not explaining how that works is better than us having a time machine and accepting that it's a time machine, it works. It does time machine stuff. Or even worse: trying to fully explain how a time machine works with modern science, which modern science cannot possibly explain. You just have to do it correctly there. Also, the alien's probably a lot more humanoid than any actual alien intelligence would be. I think if there was a real alien intelligent being that come into contact with Earth, we would see it and it wouldn't look like something that could possibly be intelligent. It's the kind of thing that would be so alien that we just can't imagine what it would actually look like. It probably wouldn't even have the same body chemistry, it's almost certain that it wouldn't breathe the same air.

That's it for now! Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion! In the meantime, "Just Add Water" updates Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at http://www.jaw-comic.com. Go check it out!

Edit: Part 2 is now up!

Women, Fantasy, and the New York Times: A Response to Bellafante

2011-04-21T22:22:00.001-04:00

You may have heard of the now-infamous New York Times review of HBO's Game of Thrones, based on the fantasy series by George R.R. Martin. If you haven't, here's the part that has been causing most of the righteous rage at reviewer Ginia Bellafante:

The true perversion, though, is the sense you get that all of this illicitness has been tossed in as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise. While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first. “Game of Thrones” is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half.

I was going to add italics to emphasize the extremely offensive bits, but that would be the entire paragraph.

There's not a lot I can add to the responses of Amy Ratcliffe of Geeks With Curves, Alina Pete of Weregeek, and George R. R. Martin himself, so let me just share my personal response:

Dear Ms. Bellafante,

No.

Sincerely,
A Woman Who Adores Fantasy

Things To Look Forward to in 2011

2011-01-20T21:42:00.001-05:00

A lot of things are happening this year, so it seems appropriate to talk about them as my first post of 2011. In no particular order, here are some of the geeky things I'm looking forward to in 2011:

Lots of Superhero Movies: The Green Hornet came out in the US on January 12 and Thor, Green Lantern, and Captain America: The First Avenger are scheduled for release in May, June, and July respectively. Hopefully all of them will go well, and chances are at least one will be good.
The Last Harry Potter Film: Deathly Hallows Part One was possibly my favorite Harry Potter adaptation yet, and I am looking forward to Part Two knocking my socks off.

Not One, But Two New Zahn Books: Cobra Guardian, sequel to Cobra Alliance, and Star Wars: Choices of One, sequel to Allegiance are both set for release this year. As I may have mentioned before, I'm a big fan of Timothy Zahn's books, both Star Wars and non, so I am happy.
Heir to the Empire Strikes Back: Speaking of amazing books by Timothy Zahn, the twentieth anniversary re-release of Star Wars: Heir to the Empire comes out this June, with new cover art (at least for the jacket...), annotations and a new short story.
More Full Metal Panic! Novel Translations: I love giant robots and I love humor, so naturally one of my favorite anime series is Full Metal Panic!, based on the novels by Shoji Gatoh. After nearly three years, Tokyopop is finally translating the Ending Day By Day, the fourth Full Metal Panic novel. This is the book that FMP's third anime season, The Second Raid, is based on. Say what you will about Tokyopop's novel translations, I'll be happy to have this book available to read in English.
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya: The anime film based on the fourth book in Nagaru Tanigawa's Haruhi Suzumiya series is set for a US release this spring. I really enjoyed the book and the anime series, so the movie should be fun to see.
Television Continues Being Fun: While Syfy has canceled SGU, the shows Warehouse 13, Sanctuary, and Eureka have all been renewed for their third, fourth, and fifth seasons, respectively. Also, the psychic detective comedy Psych has been renewed for a sixth season, so I'll have a lot of TV to veg-out on, despite the sad lack of Stargate.
Veteran's Day/ Remembrance Day: November 11, 2011. AKA: 11/11/11 How can you not love that?

So, those are a few things I'm happily awaiting this year. Happy slightly-early Year of the Rabbit, and may you have plenty of good things to look forward to!

Once More With Movies: Buffy Gets A Reboot

2010-11-22T20:46:00.000-05:00

In case you didn't catch the Buzz of the Day, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has been confirmed for a reboot film. As I am typing this, thunder is booming ominously in the background. Whether it is a portent or merely an interestingly timed result of Michigan weather pattern, only time will tell.

That's right, you read that first sentence correctly. There will be a Buffy reboot. If that shocked you, than brace for impact: Joss Whedon is not involved. Buffy's new writer will be Whit Anderson, of whom I honestly don't know enough about to comment. Joss Whedon has already reacted to the news.

I really have mixed feelings about this. At this point, there just doesn't seem to be enough information for meaningful speculation. In her interview with the Los Angeles Times, Anderson says that "While this is not your high-school Buffy, she’ll be just as witty, tough and sexy as we all remember her to be." This could mean that Buffy won't be back in high school for the reboot, but in context with the rest of the article, it could also mean simply that it won't be the same Buffy you remember from when you were in high school. Not exactly a crammed full of information, are you quote? At least it says "just as" instead of "even more." That's a good sign.

The popular TV show ran for seven seasons and was itself a reboot of a far less successful 1992 film, so this film will actually be a reboot of a reboot and will be joining Spider-man in his tangled web of reboots. The TV series also spun-off a continuation in the form of the comic series Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight, so people who want more Buffy but not without Whedon ought to check that out if they haven't already.

So, because I love bullet-points so much, some things to speculate about despite my assertion that there's not enough info:

The Setting: I guess I already covered this above, but still. Will it be high school, college, or neither? While the original concept was based on the motif of "high school is hell," the TV series hit on all of these times in Buffy's life. I personally think high school would be the most logical choice, but, hey, you never know.
The Friends: will the Scoobies (Buffy's friends/side-kicks) be in the film, with new interpretations of Willow and Xander, or will Buffy have new friends? Over the course of the series, the Scoobies became extremely popular among fans in their own right, so will they be carried over?
The Cast: this one's pretty obvious. Since Whedon's not involved, we probably shouldn't expect any of the TV series' cast to return either. There's also the fact that the series ended seven years ago and the cast has continued aging regardless.
The Villains: will they be reinterpretations of villains from the series or all-new?
The Love-Interest: will there be one? Will he be undead? Will he be all-new or Angel? Or would they be so radical as to make it someone from the series who isn't Angel?
The Vampires: will they return to the campy masks, or-- wait, stupid question. Here's a better one: how will their appearances differ from their televised counter-parts? Will their abilities, weaknesses, and lore be different?
The Story: will it be new or from the series? While there are plenty of interesting story arcs in the series to choose from, I rather doubt they'll go that route. Many of them built up over a long period of time and would be difficult to introduce new viewers to, like the Dark Willow Saga.

Those are what I'm wondering about for now. I'd say more, but I need more time to process this and figure out whether I should be afraid, excited, or both. At this point, I really don't know how to react, which is probably the proper reaction.

Here are the relevent links once more:

Announcement!
Interview with a Writer!
The Creator's Response!

Remember When SG-1 did that Spoof Episode: SGU Season 1 Retrospective (Also: Guess Who Won The Hugo)

2010-10-21T19:29:00.001-04:00

First of all, the Hugo awards have come and gone and I never said anything so: congratuations on getting two "Best Graphic Story" Hugos in two years, Girl Genius! Keep up the amazing work! I sadly was unable to complete the Captain Britain and MI13 post before the winners were announced, and should apparently never mention what I'm planning on writing a post about in advance because it never happens. I am still going to write the point, but don't expect it soon.

Anyway, I've been wanting to compare Stargate Universe with the Stargate SG-1 episode "200" since the series premier, so I figured I may as well do this before I catch up on season two, which just recently started. "200" the two hundreth episode of Stargate SG-1 spoofs many different science-fiction cliches, tropes, and trends, and I shall be going through the episode looking for ones that have been used in season 1 of SGU, and some SG-1 and Atlantis as well (not all of those, though. that would make this way too long). This will be done completely from memory, so if I miss any, feel free to post a comment.

WARNING: There will be spoilers and I shall be poking gentle fun at series that I love. People who that everything seriously all the time be warned!

Let us begin!

Recap of previous episodes: Every episode of SGU starts with a recap. Every. Single. One.
Hi! We're one of the Great Races! Here, let us help you and -- *explosion*: Hasn't happened in SGU yet, but Atlantis totally did this when some Ancients return to Atlantis, fix some systems, and are wiped out in the beginning of the next episode. SG-1 also killed off a Great Race as a plot device at the beginning of Endless (after this episode), exploding planet and all.
Just throw up the title and get on with it: SGU. This post was inspired by me laughing at the lack of of strong opening sequence every episode.
This is Science Fiction, not Horror: SGU. More specifically the episode "Time," but there are horror elements in some other episodes as well.
How am I supposed to do this when my lead's backed out: SGU never did this, but SG-1 has done everything suggested at this point. For two different characters.
Body swapping: SGU. Who needs cell-phones when you can call home with alien body-switching rocks? Oh, and it happens in SG-1 occasionally, too.
"That was close", or not showing the escape: SGU, episode "Sabotage". How did Eli, Chloe, and Lt. ~~Cardboard~~ Scott get the Stargate to link with the ship, again? Weren't they stranded at the end of the last episode?
Technobabble: You mean there are shows that don't have it?
The Wizard of Oz: Isn't this basically the plot of SGU?
I can sing: Not yet, but can't you imagine an SGU musical episode? Yeah. I thought so.
Hang a lantern on it: SGU. I'm pretty sure they lampshade how the stranded team suddenly isn;t stranded anymore in "Sabotage."
That's Star Trek: SGU. (So they're stuck on a ship far, far from earth's corner of the galaxy, visiting new planets and meeting new aliens while trying to find their way home? And they can call earth despite the distance? No, that doesn't sound familiar at all.) Atlantis, too , to a lesser extent.
Younger, edgier version of the team: SGU; it was intentionally made to be edgier (or at least darker and grittier) than SG-1 and Atlantis and to appeal to younger audiences. Let's take a look:

Young O'Neil/ Mitchell and Young Teal'c: Lt. ~~Cardboard~~ Scott; he's leader-ish and he likes the ladies.
Young O'Neil/ Mitchell's girlfriend (is that supposed to be Sam? Really?): Chloe? Maybe?
Wonderbread (Young Daniel): Eli. So very, very Eli.
"I'm tired of being treated like some object to be worshiped": Didn't Chloe kind of make this speech about her friends back home? You know, about not being appreciated for who she is?
"I'm pregnant": TJ (SGU). Also, Vala (SG-1) and Teyla (Atlantis). At least two of the three times it was because of the actors' real-life pregnancies.

Gilligan's Island: The plots of SGU and Atlantis: a mix-matched group of people get stuck together for way longer than they planned. Wacky hi-jinks ensues.
If you're gonna rip something off, think of something a little more obscure: Eli's "origin story" in SGU. (The Last Starfighter? What Last Starfighter? I've never heard of any Last Starfighter.)
They're classified: By the time SGU rolls around, why do they even bother classifying anything? Half the countries civilians know about the Stargate program by then, anyway...
Puppets! No.
"Maybe, just maybe" = true: Happens all the time in SG-1, and sometimes in Atlantis. SGU hates optimism, so it doesn't do this so much.
"I feel so stupid": SGU. Mathboy makes everyone feel stupid. Even the super-geniuses. (So do Sam and McKay in SG-1 and Atlantis, but that's to be expected. No body suspects Eli... and then he solves what Sam and McKay could not.)
Bald, mysterious warrior type with lots of muscles: Teal'c in SG-1, Greer in SGU, and Ronon in Atlantis (as long as you ignore the "bald" bit)
"It'll be in the commercial" super special guest appearance: Michael Shanks in SGU's "Human."
Teal'c PI: all three series are spin-offs of a movie (or the spin-off), just like Teal'c PI would be a spin off of SG-1, so... Also, there should be an SGU spin-off about Eli's alter-ego Mathboy, helping people solve super-difficult math problems. He could wear a costume and everything.
An Air Force general with enormous responsibilities: ...and yet he still has time to pop by Eli's place to congratulate him for beating a computer game in the SGU pilot episode. Because he's O'Neil. He can do that.
"You need closure": everyone in SGU needs closure about something...
It'd be the perfect ending. After that, anything else would seem pointless: SG-1 violates this twice. SGU also almost has a happy ending filled with laughter and contentment in "Light"... and then they have one more scene.
Everyone loves a wedding: SG-1 has one or two and I think Atlantis might also have one, but weddings are too optimistic for SGU.
"We don't take ourselves too seriously": SG-1 and Atlantis. Thus the existence of this episode. SGU... well, the sheer amount of stuff from this episode that appears in SGU makes me wonder...
A boys' club: SG-1, at least at the start, but by SGU the genders a pretty balanced.
"I don't think they know what they want to do with my character": ...do any of these shows not give this sense at some point? (What do you mean archaeologists and astrophysicists don't usually deliver babies? They're doctors, aren't they?)

Thus concludes our SGU retrospective through the lens of "200." Feel free to leave a comment telling me what my memory forgot to catch!

Update Time: Read Comics in Public Day and More!

2010-09-02T21:21:00.001-04:00

Along time ago (April), and far, far away (Japan), I posted about how excited I was that both Captain Britain and MI13 and Girl Genius were nominated for Hugo awards and that I would ramble about both series "sometime in the near future." While I did do the Girl Genius post, I must shamefully admit to not having the Captain Britain post completed in a timely matter. Fortunately, the Hugo awards ceremony isn't until Sunday, so I'll hopefully have the post done by then.

Anyway...

You may of heard that Saturday was International Read Comics in Public Day, a day dedicated to, well, unashamedly reading comics in public. Despite being too lazy to blog about it (I was working on the Captain Britain thing, I swear!) I happily participated:

The website DC Women Kicking A** challenged women to participate and created a "Women Read Comics in Public" Tumblr "dedicated to showing off the passion and diversity of female comic readers." If you have any such pictures, they're currently accepting pictures taken anytime.

So, that's it for the quick update! I should probably get back to packing for tonight's flight back to ~~reality papers~~ school! Before I go, here are a few other geeky highlights from this past weekend:

A fifty-something-year-old lady walking towards the restrooms backpedals and exclaims "Oooh, Marvel!" She picks up a book and flips through it for about thirty seconds before putting it back, telling me that Marvel's her favorite, and completing her journey to the restroom.
A little boy carrying around his Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle happy meal toy and treating it as his Most Favored Toy of the hour. Aww...
Having a nice conversation with my nine-year-old brother about Godzilla movies. As in the old Japanese ones. His favorite is the original one. There is hope for the future!

Later, folks, and hopefully I'll have something more interesting to say next time!

What's That at the Top of the Screen?

2010-08-28T01:43:00.001-04:00

That's right, folks, we now have a banner! Thanks to the lovely Katie Cook for allowing me to use her artwork! Check out her stuff at http://katiecandraw.typepad.com.

Geeky News: Return of Wraith Squadron!

2010-08-27T20:14:00.001-04:00

Quick bit of news that has filled me with utter joy: Wraith Squadron is back! Aaron Allston is going to write another X-wing book focusing on the Wraiths and Del Rey is aiming for a 2012 release date.

This news fills me with glee. The X-wing books are the reason that Stackpole and Allston are two of my favorite Star Wars authors, and the Wraith books are some of my favorite in the series. Currently my only question about this book is when it will be set, but I'll be happy no matter what the answer.

Add this to the news that Timothy Zahn, my other favorite Star Wars author, is writing a sequel to Allegiance that's slated to come out next year, and Ryorin is a very, very happy geek.

I'm going to go do a few back-flips and burst into the Ewok celebration song now, if you don't mind.

Alas, Poor Mayday: The End of Spider-Girl as We Know It

2010-08-25T05:21:00.001-04:00

While this isn't one of the posts I mentioned last time, I thought I would take the time to babble about one of my favorite superheroes, Spider-Girl! Alternate-future Daughter of Spider-Man! Marvel's Longest-running Female-lead in a Comic Series to Date! Reason for the Creation of the MC2 Universe! Soon-to-be Replaced Character!

Sorry, Mayday, but it seems your time as the friendly neighborhood web-swinger is over! Y'know that new on-going Spectacular Spider-Girl series that I mentioned before? The one I was really, really looking forward to? It was changed from on-going to a four-issue limited series before the release of the first issue, and tomorrow (or today, depending on your time-zone), the one-shot comic Spider-Girl: The End will be released. According to Tom DeFalco her co-creator and only writer in her thirteen-year history, this one shot will end all of May "Mayday" Parker's adventures for the foreseeable future. Not only that, but it seems that Araña, a spider-themed super-teen from the main Marvel continuity will be taking over the title of Spider-Girl with a new series this November (here's info on the first issue). Not that I have anything against Anya, but she's just not Mayday.

Since she seems to be going away for a while, now seems like a good a time as any for me to ramble about one of my favorite superheroes:

This is neither the first time Spider-Girl's been canceled, nor the first time it was supposed to be permanent. After an eight-year run, her first series was supposed to end with her death and the destruction of her home universe, a plan that was fortunately scrapped and I really hope wasn't revived for this issue (since Tom said that she may be brought back in the future, I don't think it was, but in comics you never know). Her second on-going series, Amazing Spider-Girl, was canceled after thirty issues and her Spectacular Spider-Girl back-up feature in Spider-Man Family and Web of Spider-Man ran for twelve issues. All together, Spider-Girl fans have nearly one hundred and fifty issues to ~~horde~~ cherish. I actually feel kind of lucky to have come so late to the scene; most of Spidey's adventures are still new to me and waiting for me to read them for the first time.

I first ran across Mayday pretty much by accident. When a friend introduced me to superhero comics Ultimate Spider-Man was one of the first series he loaned me and I used Wikipedia to look up information on the different versions of the characters (a dangerous technique that should not be employed by anyone who doesn't want a face-load of spoilers), and thus I learned of Spider-Girl's existence (y'know, the fictional kind). Sometime later, I stumbled upon a volume of Amazing Spider-Girl in a friendly-neighborhood bookstore and flipped through, eventually buying it and becoming completely hooked on Mayday's "old school" style adventures.

Despite the similarity of their code-names and costumes, there are quite a few differences between May and her father Peter. Let's look at a few of them:

While Peter was a constantly bullied by jocks for being a geek in high school, Mayday is both smart and athletic, being both a top student and a star basketball player. She's also very popular and close friends with geeks and jocks alike.
Unfortunately for her, though, May did not inherit her father's ability with a camera and her photography is terrible.
Unlike Spider-Man, Spider-Girl gets mostly good press, even from J. Jonah Jameson, out-spoken Spidey-hater (some of you might remember him as that angry shouting guy from the movies).
May's parents know all about her powers and secret identity. It's not like it would be easy to hide: "Look dear, some girl about our daughter's age is swinging around town on webs, wearing something that looks a lot like your old costume! Boy, I wish May was here to see this instead of having to run off on some mysterious errand! I wonder who this 'Spider-Girl' could be?" Some things are too much of a stretch even for comic books.
Like Peter, Mayday became a hero and continues to dawn her mask because of her deeply ingrained sense of responsibility. Unlike Peter, however, she does it so that no one will be hurt because she could have done something and didn't, not because someone already has.

Don't think that the list above means that the series is angst-less, though! May is still a Parker and she inherited the Parker Luck: her secret identity wreaks utter havoc on her private life. If she's battling it out with Crazy Eight or some other super-baddie, you can bet her friends will think she ditched them for something stupid and that she needs to straighten out her priorities. Also, her parents knowing that she's Spider-Girl and her parents liking it are two very different things. She still sometimes has to web-swing behind her parents backs. And let's not forget love triangles; it seems it's impossible to be a Parker without them. So, yes, Spider-Girl does have angst, though neither the same type as Spider-Man nor as much.

Even with the obligatory Spider-hyphen-angst, the series brings back some of the techniques and feel of the Silver Age of Comics, and is-- dare I say it-- fun. The series has a lighter, more all-ages tone than a lot of comics out today, and I at least find it a refreshing series. Growing up with manga, I have no problem with the "decompression" that's so popular in today's comics, but there's something refreshing about fast-moving plots.

Now that it's past midnight here, I guess I should get back to the topic at hand. Here is a quote from the end of Tom DeFalco's interview with Newsarama:

"No one can truly predict the future. Is it possible that Mayday will return in a few years? I guess so. If I were to bet on it, I’d say one of our current readers will eventually grow up, break into the business and be the one who revamps Spider-Girl for a whole new generation," DeFalco said. "As far as I’m concerned, I truly believe that this will be the last time I ever write Spider-Girl."

Spider-Girl is coming to an end, but this that doesn't mean that Spider-Girl: The End has to mean "good-bye forever," though it is certainly the end of an era. I can always hope that someday Spider-Girl will return for more adventures.

I'm not writing this to accuse Marvel of conspiracy against things I like or to tell everyone to hunt down this series and make it your favorite so it will be brought back. I just want to babble a bit about something I like and to thank Tom for all his hard work over the years. Also, it's not to late to check out this series for the first time; the first Spider-Girl series is being released in "digests" (collections slightly taller than a standard volume of manga) and Amazing and Spectacular are both available in trade paper-backs. Check it out. It might not be for everyone, but maybe you'll like it, and just maybe you'll gain a new favorite.

So, until next time, folks!

Make Mine Mayday!

Oh, and here are the links to the two interviews with Tom DeFalco again. 'Night, all!

SHE LIVES! or What Ryorin Has Been Up To

2010-08-03T04:27:00.001-04:00

I seem to have fallen into The Pit Of No Posts again since returning to the U.S. I have been catching up on wide variety of excellent books and television, as well as the whole of life as general, but I haven't forgotten the Computer Cosmos (or the wonder of bullet points) completely. Here are a few ~~plots to conquer the world~~ things that I have planned for the foreseeable future:

I have been reading the books from the Jawas Read Too! Summer of Series Reading Challenge, as mentioned here, I just haven't been doing so well on the discussion part. I shall shortly post some thoughts on June and July's series. There will be one post per series, hopefully going up within the next few days.
I am still planning on rambling on about Captain Britain and MI13 as mentioned here. It will be up before the Hugo winners are announced. Really. I just need to reread it a few more times... yeah...
The two Syfy shows Warehouse 13 and Eureka are having crossover episodes this week. This may cause me to be a bit more distracted, but hopefully I'll be able to work my way out of my happy daze and post a bit about it.

I am planning on more posts than the ones listed so far, but there is other writing that I've finally had a chance to do, so hopefully I'll be able to strike a balance where I'm doing a bit of both kinds of writing, but that may not be soon, so posts may be a bit short for a while. While I will be doing my best to pull myself out of The Pit, I would greatly appreciate any ladders anyone feels like throwing me in the form of comments.

Hopefully my next post will be written when I'm less tired and can think of more bullet points. Or at least have the energy to comment on Ryan Reynolds costume in the Green Lantern movie:

...but then again, everyone else seems to have covered it, so perhaps it's just as well I'm so out of it.

Jawa's Read Too Summer Series Challenge

2010-04-16T03:38:00.000-04:00

In case you've been wondering about the banners at the top and the left of the page, I signed up for the Jawas Read Too Summer Challenge.

The challenge is to read one series a month through the summer, and there will be discussion about the series every week.

Since I'm going to be busy in May reading New Jedi Order and catching-up on other books, I signed up for June, July, and August:

JUNE CHALLENGE: The Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin

Wizard of Earthsea
The Tombs of Atua
The Farthest Shore

JULY CHALLENGE: Vatta's War by Elizabeth Moon

Trading in Danger
Marque and Reprisal
Engaging the Enemy
Command Decision
Victory Conditions

AUGUST CHALLENGE: Inda Quartet by Sherwood Smith

Inda
Fox
King's Shield
Treason's Shore

...Why, yes, I did copy-and-paste that list from the Jawas Read Too website.

Anyway, I'm really excited about this; I've been meaning to read Earthsea and to check-out Elizabeth Moon's books for a while now. This looks like it'll be a lot of fun, and I encourage anyone with a smattering of interest and time to join in. Here's the sign-up form.

Anyway, I need to finish packing. Later!

It's Still Going!

2010-04-15T11:13:00.001-04:00

Remember that time I said "hey, guys! Book Love Affair's havin' a nifty lookin' book giveaway oh, wait, never mind"? It turns out I was right the first time. I double checked with the one who runs the blog, and it's going 'til May 8th, so you all still have a chance to win if you sign-up.

I corrected that other post (again), now go check out the giveaway if you haven't already.

Girl Genius: Agatha Heterodyne and the Return of the Hugo Award!

2010-04-15T10:51:00.003-04:00

Alright: finals are done, I've had some more coffee, and Jethro Tull's playing. Let's get this started:

Adventure! Romance! MAD SCIENCE! These are the ingredients chosen to create ~~the perfect little girl~~ the story of Agatha Heterodyne: Girl Genius!

As I've mentioned previously, Girl Genius, comic/webcomic series by Phil and Kaja Foglio (colors by Cheyenne Wright), has been nominated once more for the Hugo Awards. This is a Big Deal. Last year Girl Genius won the first Hugo for the "Best Graphic Story" category, and when I say first, I mean ever. This year it's back with Volume 9, Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm:

Please excuse me for a moment as my joy demands to be released: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Ahem.

Anyway, it is a world ruled by Mad Science! Failed experiments of mad scientists (more commonly known as "Sparks") wander the earth, dirigibles roam the skies, and mechanical "clanks" and Frankenstein-monster-like "constructs" are a common site. This is a world with lost cities, talking cats, rules of royal succession altered to account for reanimation, traveling theater companies that aren't quite what they seem, and cream pies with a strangely soothing effects. This world of brilliant color is also a world of many, many questions. And, of course, regularly twisted laws of science. It's a wacky adventure story (filled with romance and Mad Science too, of course...) set in a wacky, yet amazingly complex world, populated by amazingly fun characters and amazingly ridiculous machines.

Writer and co-creator Kaja Folio accidentally coined the term "Gaslamp Fantasy" to describe this world, and it fits perfectly. It takes the steampunk aesthetic, adds gobs of Mad Science and elements from fifties-style pulp sci-fi (think "Captain Proton" from Star Trek: Voyager) and buckets of Vernian influence, mix in liberal doses of humor and great characters, sprinkle in just the amount of explanation about the world and it's history, and then hand it over to the colorist for the final touch. For a simplified version of this recipe, see the top of the page (you know, the part that starts with "Adventure!" and then mentions "Romance!"). At ten-and-a-half volumes, this series is going strong, and I really don't see it slowing down anytime soon with so many questions left unanswered (I'm not going to try to list them off; you'll have to read the series and see for yourself)!

The story focuses on Agatha, a, well, a Girl Genius. A young student who can never get her clanks to work, she... well, she turns out to have a lot more to her than anyone thought. She ends up on a grand adventure spanning, airship cities, maniacal circuses (of doom!), insane talking castles, theater, and situations that only a good death ray (or a carousel) can solve, to avoid being manipulated or killed. Or turned into a "spunky girl sidekick."

Hi-jinx ensues, and it brought friends.

Agatha herself is an incredibly fun character, willing to tackle challenges even when her concentration is inhibited at the beginning. What's she do when she's mugged? She hits the attacker with a bottle. And when she's given the impossible task of cleaning the lab before the Baron arrives for a surprise visit in half an hour? She does it. After the story really starts, well, then she goes from great to incredible. As for the rest of the cast, it's tons of fun and filled with great characters. From the lazy Krosp, the Emperor of all cats, to the fun-loving warrior Zeetha, lost princess of the Lost City of Skifander, to insane pirate Bangladesh Dupree to Baron Wulfenbach, the tyrant with very good reasons for his actions, to... well, you get the idea.

I adore Girl Genius. The characters, the world, the technology, the mysteries, the humor, the art, the visual gags ("Turnips R Us"), the massive eyebrows... the concepts are great and the execution is wonderful, and they get extra points for pulling off a fun love triangle without angst. Now, that's awe-inspiring. This is a genuinely fun series that I highly recommend to all, though I must add that the Foglios have self-rated the series PG-13.

I really doubt that I can do the plot justice (at least not without heaps of spoilers and few more weeks of editing), so lucky for us all the Book Smugglers posted their review of the first three chapters less than twenty-four hours ago. Check it out; maybe the review and my rambling combined can come close to doing this lovely series justice.

Girl Genius is available to read both in print and as a free online webcomic, updating Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. If you're reading this you have internet access and thus no excuse not to check this series out, and if you're not pulled in by the end of the first chapter, you still aren't off the hook. The first chapter's good, in the second chapter it gets even better, and chapter three is when it gets really, really fun. The series in completely in color with the exception of the first chapter, which is scheduled to be re-released in color soon. There are currently nine volumes in print, with another volume-and-a-half available for reading online:

Follow This Elegant and Finely Crafted Link to Read!

Note to self: add the color version of Volume 1 to my birthday list.

For more fun, there's also Girl Genius Radio Theater, which is a pod cast of two comedic three-part episodes and one promo, done in the style of an Olde Tyme radio serial. Oh, and the "Elegant and Finely Crafted Link" phase is commonly used at the Girl Genius website, something that should give you the tiniest taste of the Foglios' brilliance.

No, I really can't praise them enough.

Now allow me to leave you all with Phil and Kaja's acceptance speech for last year's Hugo Award:

Go read. Now.

So, this isn't about Girl Genius...

2010-04-11T11:06:00.006-04:00

IMPORTANT NOTE: I was right the first time. The Giveaway is still going on till May 8. Feel free to join in!

... but Book Love Affair's ~~having~~ had a book giveaway (that's the link to it, by the way) to celebrate having 250 followers. Two winners were randomly selected, yesterday (it ended early. Twelve hours before I wrote this post. Now I feel bad...) There were ten books to choose from and one "other" option for when you signed up. I picked Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire, because this review at Jawas Read Too made it look to cool not to look into; ~~if I don't win~~ I didn't win, but I'll probably buy the book anyway. It looks that fun.

Anyway, next post really will be about Girl Genius, but I had to spread the joyous news of a free book opportunity, and sadly didn't realize it was too late until after this post... but, on the bright side, I got to share news about a nifty-looking book I just found out about and I learned to check other blogs more often, so it's not all bad! Go, positive thinking!

Edit: this post has been altered due to the contest ending early. As in, before I wrote this post. Sorry... but that book still looks pretty darn interesting.
2nd Edit: I mixed up a tweet about a different book giveaway with one about the one mentioned here. I'm not going to rewrite this post again, but I added the note at the top and will write another post about this... after the Girl Genius one. Any way, I got conformation from Book Love Affair that the contest is indeed still going on before adding more notes to this post.

Conflict of Hugo Proportions: Brian Versus Agatha!

2010-04-10T02:10:00.003-04:00

I am feeling conflicted.

Earlier today, I was looking at the news on Marvel's website when, lo and behold, I saw this!

Captain Britain and MI13 is up for the "Best Graphic Story" Hugo award for it's third volume "Vampire State", in which Brian (aka Captain Britain) and his stalwart cohorts fight vampire. Who live in a castle. On the moon.

This news filled me joy. The world was filled with chocolate and rainbows, the birds joined me in song, and I promptly got a parody of Captain Planet's theme song stuck in my head ("Captain Britain! He's a hero! He'll take pollution down to zero because-he-was-a-Knight-of-Pendragon-and-that's-what-they-do-not-just-because-I-can't-think-of-an-other-line-really.")

So I decided to check out the Hugo Awards' official website and see what Brian was up against:

Girl Genius volume 9

And I stared.

Why does this awesome news make me conflicted? I love Captain Britain and MI13, I really do. I think it a horrible shame that it was canceled. It would be wonderful if it got a Hugo.

But I absolutely love Girl Genius. It may be my single favorite American comic series. I was overjoyed last year when it was nominated for the category and was overwhelmed with happiness once again when it won, becoming the first graphic novel to win a Hugo.

And now if one wins, the other doesn't.

Fortunately, I'm not part of Worldcon and I won't have to choose between the two of them. As such, I can take comfort in the fact that I love two of the five nominees for the category and can root for both of them, and that the nominations alone ought to bring attention to both books.

I guess my internal conflict, then, is not which to root for, but which I would rather have win: the winner from last year or the superheroes that were tragically canceled.

But when I really think about it, it doesn't matter. I'm happy that both were nominated (and that Fables was, too, but I haven't read that volume yet). I'll be happy with either one winning.

So, in honor of these two wonderful comic series being nominated, I shall follow up this rant with one gushing about Girl Genius (which I've been planning on doing anyway) and then another on Captain Britain and MI13. As the previous post states, I'm rather busy at the moment, so I'm not sure when I'll have these posts completed, but it'll be in the near future.

Good luck to all the Hugo nominees! May the Force/Spark/Self-confidence-that-now-fuels-your-powers be with you!

Absence and Other Blogs To Distract You With

2010-04-07T09:03:00.002-04:00

I had it all planned out. I would post at least once a week. The Spider-man post would be a buffer, and maybe split into two parts because it was so long. Then I got impatient and posted it early and in one piece.

No problem, I thought. I've got one, two, make that at least seven rants nearly fully formed and rolling around in my head waiting for me to sit down and write them. It shouldn't be too hard to find the time to sit down and pound them out, right?

Wrong.

I didn't bet on my final project taking-up so much time and I haven't posted in over a week. Thus this post, to break the pattern. It was originally going to be about webcomics, but that will have to wait.

The project is due on Friday and next week I have tests and packing and various other hi-jinx to take care of. And then there will be a week of more hi-jinx and travel and possibly anthropomorphic mice before an intercontinental flight. So, I don't know when I'll be able to post next. Hopefully this weekend, but I wouldn't bet the frozen, snowy acres that would be farm in a warmer, more southerly place on it.

So, without further ado, let me point you to a few other geeky and entertaining blogs:

Club Jade - A blog run mainly by women and named after Mara Jade Skywalker, a character from the Star Wars Expanded Universe (or, in layman's terms, the books and stuff). Lot's of interesting news, reviews, and articles pertaining to Star Wars and other science-fiction goodness.
Jawas Read Too - A book review blog, covering all sorts of genres and run by one person who loves both reading and Star Wars. There's a good amount of science-fiction and fantasy in here, but, as I said, there are a good number of other genres as well.
The Adorkable - A Star Wars blog. Do I sense a pattern here? This blog covers a variety of things, from reviews to editorials to caption contests. Some very interesting articles here.
Fantastic Fangirls - Believe it or not, this blog is about comics, not Star Wars. Four women who love comics and possess different tastes and opinions writing about comics. Reviews, challenges, discussion, insight, this blog has a lot of interesting articles and presents interesting perspectives. And one of there challenges inspired this post.
Wormhole Riders - A news blog about Stargate, Farscape, Sanctuary, and other wonderful sci-fi franchises. But mainly those ones. And connected ones. They do interviews, reviews, and convention coverage and are all-in-all awesome people.

Now, if you'll excuse my obvious attempt to divert your attention away from my lack of rambling (is it working?), I have a project to revise. Again.

Brand New Movie Franchise: Spidey Gets a Reboot. Again.

2010-03-27T05:33:00.008-04:00

As You may have picked-up on from previous posts, I am rather attached to Spider-man. Because of that, I have a lot to say about this topic and this post is kind of long. Please bare with me and feel free to get a snack at the intermission. Thank you.

For those of you who didn't hear back in January, Spider-man, quite possibly the most popular comic-book movie franchise around, is getting a reboot. That's right, folks, the fourth movie starring the world's favorite arachnid-themed costumed hero will ignore the previous three and will have a completely new director and cast.

The main reason for this change is apparently director Sam Raimi's lack of confidence in his ability to make Sony's deadline for a May 11, 2011 release, but there were apparently quite a few creative differences between the director and the company as well. They wanted lots of villains, he wanted one, they wanted one script, he wanted another, etc. Apparently similar issues came up with the third one, and we all remember how well that turned out... Any way, now Marc Webb will be directing instead of Sam Raimi.

Spider-man getting a reboot is hardly a revolutionary concept. The poor guy seems plagued with 'em. Let's take a look at his comic reboots from the past ten years:

Ultimate Spider-man. In 2000, Marvel decided to up-date and re-imagine the Marvel Universe and make it more accessible to new readers. Thus, Ultimate Marvel was born, a seperate contanuity from the main Marvel titles featuring Spider-man as it's flagship title. Ultimate Spider-man takes place in contemporay New York, New York (except with mutants as the most pressing political issue), focusing on teenage superhero drama of high-school-er Peter Parker the superhero.
Next, the main-Marvel continuity Spider-man got a major reboot in 2007's "One More Day" storyline , with the after-math chronicled in 2008's "Brand New Day" storyline. Basically, to save Aunt May's life Peter Parker and Mary Jane sell there marriage to the devil. This means that now they were never married, and this actually affects a lot. Peter and MJ's relationship is now rather frosty, Peter's living with his Aunt again, Harry never died, Mayday was never born, and the world no longer remembers that Peter Parker is Spider-man. A few people apparently have some vague memories about Spidey's unmasking, they can't remember his face. Spider-man, changed forever.
And then, 2008 to 2009, there was Ultimatum. Technically, it was an event that relaunched the Ultimate Marvel universe as "Ultimate Comics". But it changed everything, with the start of the "Ultimate Comics: Spider-man" series set six months after Ultimatum. Why they needed to reboot the rebooted universe is a question I can't answer, especially seeing how well Ultimate Marvel was doing before the event. Anyway, Spidey's now working at a burger place and dating Gwen Stacy's clone and fighting crime with his classmate/ ex-girlfriend Kitty Pryde. Yes, that Kitty Pryde, or at least the Ultimate version of her, who is still both teenage and mutant, but significantly less ninja.

Those are the three big reboots that I've noticed, but there was apparently one back in the ninties as well. Anyway, Spidey seems to have accidentally webbed-up a reboot-bug at some point and ended up caught in its grasp.

Now, what of the new movie? What can we expect when we walk into the theater on July 3, 2012 with our gummi-bears and extra-large cokes? Well, apparently the reboot will go back to Parker's high school days and focus on his life as a teen-aged superhero. Oh, and it'll be in 3-D. Because some thought that would be a good idea.

-INTERMISSION-

Feel free to get a snack and enjoy Some Random Guy's reaction to the news of the reboot.

Anyway, with the vagueness of "teen-aged drama, high school, 3-D," I've got some questions:

Ultimate Spider-man: the Movie. The first question that popped into my head when I head about the reboot (other than, "Again?") is whether or not the teen-aged drama movie reboot will be based on the teen-aged drama comic reboot from ten years ago. I really don't think I need to spell out why.
Who will be Spidey's girlfriend? Will it be the well-known fan-favorite Mary Jane Watson? The tragic first-love Gwen Stacy? Perhaps Kitty Pryde, the intangible X-man that dates Peter in the Ultimate comics? Okay, so it probably won't be Kitty. But still: MJ or Gwen? Though the world may now know her as "that blond girl who danced with Spidey in Spider-man 3", in the comics, Gwen Stacey was Peter's first love and her death was an incredibly significant event in his life. Let's face it: her character was ripped-off in the last movie. This reboot could give her story the fair portrayal that the other movies didn't. On the other hand, Pete and Mary Jane were married for around thirty years. MJ's a red-haired, long-lasting, well-known, fan-favorite character that Hiro references in Heroes. Could Webb really ignore her? There are more than just the "either/or" options, however. Considering that this movie is going to have more "teen-aged drama", perhaps they'll have a love triangle. Or maybe they'll have Gwen in this film and MJ later on. Perhaps they'll even have Gwen's tragic end in this film or the sequal.
The Origin Story. This one seems to be the major concern of fans out there: will the movie be Spidey's origin story again, or will they simply have flashbacks/ exposition/ a small potion of the film about the origin and them move on with the story? The first movie was all about the origin, so are they really going to do it again? I personally like the idea one of the interview-ees has here, in which Peter has the powers at the beginning of the film and is trying to figure out how to juggle them and life.
The Costume. At first glance, this seems like a silly question. I mean, Spider-man's costume is a classic. Marvel branded their comics with his masked face for years. Why would they change it? Well, apparently there was a slew of possible costume designs for the first film before they settled on the classic comic one, including a red-on-black number. And, if they do stick with the iconic red-black-and-blue, They probably won't use the same costume they did for the past three films. They're starting with a clean-slate so they're probably also going to start with a new design; the new actor will probably be a different fit than Toby, anyway.
The Setting. Another idea brought up here: since we've already seen Spidey do modern-day NY, could this be set back in the sixties, when the comic started? Kind of like how Batman: The Animated Series was sort of set in the forties? My thought on this: intriguing idea that is not gonna happen. Sony probably wants to make Peter relate-able to today's youth (thus: high school) and, really, they just scrapped everything and are still aiming at a 2012 release date. Making it a period piece would complicate things and make teenage Petey rather less relate-able.
Uncle Ben. A huge part of the first movie was focused on Uncle Ben, his death, and Peter's blaming himself. If they set the film after the origin story, they set it after Ben's death as well, but what if they don't? Will Uncle Ben's death cause the cycle of guilt to start-up again? If it does, will they ever be able to have the Death of Gwen story in this series as well? And will they repeat "With Great Power etc. etc." all through this film like they did the first one? Uncle Ben was too great of an influence on Peter for them to just ignore him and his death, so how will they treat him?
Sony wants to make a movie about a spider-suit wearing teenager and the viewers have already gone through Spider-man's hero's journey. Why not make this next movie about Spider-girl, Peter and MJ's high-school daughter May "Mayday" Parker? Just imagine the possibilities. The movie could tell her origin story without dwelling on Peter's, they wouldn't have to completely re-imagine a story the audience is already familiar with, the fans of the Raimi movies would be happy because that continuity wouldn't have to be tossed out the window, the comic fans would be happy because the movie would still be based on the comics, and no one would have to deal with the teen angst of Mayday trying to hide her secret identity from her parents ("Honey, did you see the news? Apparently there's a teen-aged girl running around in your old suit and web-shooters and with your powers. Oh, is it just me or has May seemed a bit distracted lately?"). And, with her new series Spectacular Spider-girl starting in May, the timing couldn't be better for the announcement! Okay, so this isn't going to happen. Hey, I can dream, can't I?
The Villain(s). I know, obvious question. But really: who will it/they be? The original plan for Spidey the fourth was the introduction of the Vulture, though I also believe there were plans involving Carnage; will they stick with that or go back to Gobby? Or Kingpin? Or someone else? Spider-man is Marvel's equivalent of Batman as far as the Rouges Gallery is concerned, so there're lots of possibilities.

This reboot opens up new door for Spider-man's story and franchise. How will these new opportunities be utilized? Let's let the speculation fly (at least until we have more concrete info on the film's actual content). What comments, questions, hopes, dreams, or concerns do you have regarding this Brand New Movie Franchise? Other than that Spidey should have a giant robot, I mean. Really. It's been done.

Ode to the Absurd or Thank You, Cable & Deadpool!

2010-03-24T03:11:00.001-04:00

Cable & Deadpool got me into superhero comics.

I don't mean I grew up in a world devoid of the light of comics. Heaven knows that's not the case. I was a kid fortunate enough to be born into a geeky family that recognized comics as a legitimate storytelling medium. I grew up in a household blessed with collections of American syndicated comics like Calvin and Hobbes and with two thick omnibuses of the French adventure comic Asterix and Obelix. We even had Maus laying around, though it was too dark for me to get through when I was little. Often, we would get Archie comic digests at the grocery store or borrow Tintin comics from our local library. Through middle and high school, I devoured manga like the ravenous geek who grew up on Dragonball Z that I was.

I have also always been interested superheroes. Sure, I watched Japanese superheroes save the galaxy a lot on Dragonball Z and Voltron and I always loved the Jedi of Star Wars, but I was always interested in the more conventional American superheroes too. I grew up watching mutant animals protecting New York in Ninja Turtles, the Justice League battle the Legion of Doom in Super Friends, the Thing unleash clobberin' time on Dr. Doom on Fantastic Four, and I even saw mutants overthrow the disgusting other-dimensional dictator Mojo in X-Men. I watched superhero movies like Spider-man, Superman, and even the infamous Batman and Robin. I knew the origins of the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-man, Superman, and Aquaman. I even knew who Doomsday was. I played the City of Heroes MMORPG and loved the few issues of the comic that we had (available in completely legal PDF form here; I recommend the Blue King run and the first twelve issues of the Image run, but the rest is fun too).

I just didn't read Marvel or DC comics.

Let's face it: Marvel and DC are intimidating. There are decades of history behind any one of their series and I didn't really have any friends who read Marvel or DC to explain it to me, just a lot of other manga fans. I had one friend in high school (another manga fan) who explained the basic plot of the Dark Phoenix Saga to me after we saw X-Men The Last Stand, but she had never read any of the comics either; she just had the X-Men Encyclopedia. For the most part, I ignored the Graphic Novel section of a book store except for the manga portion of it and, while I did go to my local comic shops, it was for manga and anime and Star Wars instead of, well, superhero comics.

And then I entered college. Cue dramatic music and, no, the Ninja Turtles theme song does not count.

Freshman year I was in the campus coffee shop talking to a friend of mine when the topic of superheroes came up. I mentioned how I had always been interested in superheroes but never found my way into the Marvel and DC universes. My friend (a real, live superhero comics fan!) asked me if I had ever heard of Marvel's very own fourth-wall breaking insane mercenary Deadpool. Last year, he finally loaned me Cable & Deadpool, along with some Runaways and Ultimate Spider-man. And now I am firmly entrenched within the worlds of Marvel and DC and I'm not planning on leaving anytime soon.

Let's just say that my friend hit the nail quite soudly on the head with his recommendation. I love series that aren't afraid to laugh at themselves, but can still have a strong plot. Cable & Deadpool is that series. Deadpool, as mentioned above, is insane. He's the comic relief of the Marvel Universe and is fully aware of his status as a character in a comic book. Cable, on the other hand is a Summers. He's Cyclops' time-traveling son with a Messiah complex from a dystopian future. He's a very ends-focused character trying to build a perfect world. He's got a ton of back-story, but I could still get into the series and know what was going on. And he and Deadpool balance each other perfectly.

Cable & Deadpool probably isn't the perfect gateway series for everyone. Both of the title characters have long, convoluted back-stories and major plots from the rest of the MU occasionally spill into the story (like Civil War and various X-Men plots). But for me, the series was perfect. It starred relatively obscure characters. It juggled serious moments and comedy. It had character development and a wide variety of character interaction. It had great art and wonderfully parallel first and last scenes. It occasionally breaks the fourth wall. It was over the top but still got me to think. And it allowed me to finally enter a printed world of superheroes.

Maybe I would have started reading Marvel and DC even if I hadn't heard of this wacky, lovable series. Maybe I would have browsed through the "Graphic Novel" section of my campus library and found Astro City and Doctor Strange and Sandman without having borrowed anything from my friend. Maybe I would have found Ultimate Spider-man and Runaways even without asking after my friend's earlier recommendation. But maybe not.

So I would like to thank Fabian Niciezan for creating such a ridiculous, wonderful series. You've given me the key to more wonderful stories and characters than I know what to do with. Keep up the good work.

Is there a book or series you would like to thank for introducing you to something new?

New, From Japan: Ordinary People!

2010-03-17T03:46:00.001-04:00

It's about time I talk about being in Japan, huh? Well, If there's one thing being in Japan has helped solidify in my brain (other than the wonder, wonder flavor that is melon) it's this:

People are the same the world over.

This is something I'm reminded of more and more everyday I'm in Japan. I'm currently staying with a family with two small children: a six-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl who remind me way to much of my childhood and my younger siblings. The little boy loves Dragonball Z, a show my older brother and I grew up watching. It was my favorite show for most of my childhood. He also loves Samurai Sentai Shikenger,"the current incarnation of the super-hero franchise that spawned Power Rangers, one of my little brother's favorite shows. Today, he was wearing a T-shirt that looked like the uniform of the leader of said super-hero team and reminding me for all the world of the Ninja Turtle uniform T-shirt my older brother had when he was six and the Ninja Turtles were our favorite super-hero team; it also reminded me of the Spider-man (or Spider-girl!) uniform shirt sitting in my drawer right up the stairs.

I noticed him wearing that shirt and playing with toy cars with his friends(just like I and my brother did when we were little) while I was drinking coffee and visiting with some friends of my host-mom. It came up that I like science fiction and one of the women instantly asked about Star Trek and started explaining the sequence of the series in the franchise to her friend next to her and talking about how she liked the "Picard Era" best (as in Next Generation, but with the word as in "Warring States Era" or "Showa Era." It was pretty cool.) Then we talked a bit about Stargate (another show we both appreciate) and then the movie Men in Black came up and all five of us forgot Will Smith's name at the same moment ("Isn't he that comedian guy? The one with the fat suit in that one movie?" "No, wait, that was Eddie Murphy..." "Wait, wasn't he in a movie with Jackie Cha- no, that's Eddie Murphy again..."). Five minutes later, after the conversation had switched topics a few times, I finally remembered his name and everyone exclaimed an equivalent of "Oh, yeah! Will Smith! Of course!" It was pretty much the definition of a normal conversation (in my book, anyway, which may or may not count).

The little six-year-old boy in my host family will sometimes make a bunch of random noises and ask what that meant in English, just like six-year-old boys in America will make a bunch of random noises and ask what it meant in Japanese or Chinese. The four-year-old girl here acts like any four-year-old in the U.S. would and watches cartoons that my little sister would probably enjoy. Heck, both kids here like "Sponge Bob," a cartoon that I know for a fact my little brother and sister like. I can't help but think that my little brother and sister and the tykes of this house would get along famously.

I mention these things because it's so easy to forget how similar people are when superficial differences are so plentiful. As a student of the Japanese language and as a geek interested in Japanese culture, I've been hearing about how clean and safe Japan is compared to America and how everthing's so much more expensive (this is not technically true; manga and Gundam models are significantly cheaper here, though most everything else is pretty spendy) for a long time. People always seem to want to emphasize the different, whether it be in household customs, forms of transportaion, or comic book publishing (I would like to point out that despite a very different process of comic-creation and publishing here in Japan, and stylistic differences, Japanese and Western comics have a lot in common, but I'll go into this another time).

It's very easy to get a mental image of Japan as a magical wonderland, separated from the rest of the world. It's not. Japan's part of the real world, too. I've seen people run red lights here. I've seen a guy toss garbage out his car window. I've sat on the train in the morning and heard a high school girl's shock and dismay when her friend mentioned that there was a kanji test that day (I mean, who hasn't forgotten about a kanji quiz or seven?). I've seen kids get excited while talking about their favorite super-heroes, and siblings fight over who gets the caramel-filled chocolate instead of the one with nuts, and highschoolers wait until the last minute to get on the train platform so that they can read one more chapter from the comic magazine sitting at the news stand at the train station. Yes, customs and demographics and crime-rates are different here than America, but the people are fundamentally the same.

This I find incredibly comforting; yes, even the litter.

Once More into the Breech: Giving New Jedi Order Another Chance

2010-03-14T23:20:00.008-04:00

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to give the "New Jedi Order" books another chance.

This is a big deal for me. I love Star Wars, Star Wars characters, and the Star Wars Expanded Universe, but I haven't been able to read any of the books set after "Young Jedi Knights" since I read "Star by Star" waaay back in middle school. Because I love the Star Wars characters and the Star Wars EU, I couldn't even finish "Star by Star." I was too upset, too enraged by what happened to one of my favorite characters, who had just gone through some amazing character development the book before. For years I couldn't talk about New Jedi Order, much less read it, without becoming extremely upset because of what happened to that one character in that one book.

I've gotten past that, now.

I've come to this decision thanks to this challenge put forth by the Fantastic Fangirls last year. It's not quite what they challenged their readers to do, as I had given the books a chance before, but it helped me realize that it's time to give up my grudge and stop making excuses.

"Star by Star" wasn't the only reason I stopped reading those books. Before I ever picked up "Vector Prime," I knew the series would make the Galaxy Far, Far Away a darker place, and since elementary school the thought of creatures like the Yuuzahn Vong (the antagonists of the NJO books) has freaked me out. But, knowing ahead of time the grim events taking place in my GFFA, I started reading the series anyway. And what made me stop was the fear of change.

New Jedi Order makes a point of drastic change in the beloved GFFA, something I was not prepared to face, despite my fore-knowledge of events. The reality of the fictional events caused me to retreat, and point to "inconsistent characterization" and "pointless death" and "a lack of hope" as the reasons for my withdrawal from the EU. "Inconsistent characterization," though, has been a problem in Star Wars books since long before NJO, and one of the defining characteristics of the Star Wars franchise has always been finding hope in the face of none. NJO is filled with changes, many for the worse for the characters I grew up loving, and these problems aren't solved in a book or three. They can no longer return to the status quo. There isn't the comforting knowledge of how things will be a few years in the future like there was when authors were filling the gap between the movies and Zahn's "Thrawn Trilogy." Things change, both for us and for the fictional characters we know and love. I need to face this.

Now, like back in middle school, I know what will happen. Despite limiting myself to the Star Wars books written before 1999 (excepting of the "Jedi Apprentice" series and books written by Timothy Zahn), I've been keeping up-to-date on the Star Wars galaxy via the internet, and I believe it's finally time to dive back in. My recent entrance into the Marvel Universe, in some ways so eerily similar to the EU, has helped to arm me for this battle. I want to read more stories about the worlds and characters I love. I want to watch the children I've read about for so long develop and mature into members of the new Jedi Order. I want to learn about the Chiss and the other races of the Unchartered Territories. Dang it, I want to be able to check out the intriguing-looking "Star Wars: Legacy" comics and know the backstory! I will allow the changes brought by the "New Jedi Order" and the "Legacy of the Force" isolate me from a galaxy I love no longer!

When I return to the U.S., I will confront my personal Sith of Geekdom and step into, what are for me, the Uncharted Territories of the Galaxy Far, Far Away.

Wish me luck and ask yourself, what have you been hiding from?

Warehouse 13 (and Ryorin) Strikes Back

2010-03-10T23:07:00.039-05:00

I blame finals. It's not that I didn't have things to ramble about these past few months (that'll happen about twelve and a half years after the end of the universe), it's that I did have finals. And packing. So now I type this to you, my loyal readers (both of you), from Japan. Let's just pretend there was a time-warp and I'm posting in a timely fashion, okay?

Ahem. Moving on...

Last summer saw the premier of a new age of the Sci-Fi Channel... which is to say they changed their name to Syfy. But this summer also brought the premier of Warehouse 13 to the newly re-dubbed "Syfy," a series that gained the highest rating in the channel's history. This wonderful, wonderful show (that I just might've enjoyed a bit) has been renewed for a second, twelve-episode season starting on Tuesday, July 13, 2010. Oh, and Jewel Staite (Kaylee from Firefly and Dr. Keller Stargate Atlantis) and Sean Maher (Simon from Firefly) will both guest-star.

This fills me with joy. Especially since they'll be playing opposite each other. Joy.

So, without further ado, allow me to ramble a bit about one of my favorite shows from last year, Warehouse 13. This is going to be from memory, so work with me here...

The Warehouse 13 agents collect unusual artifacts that are dangerous in some way or another and are often connected with famous historical figures and events (Edger Allen Poe, Harry Houdini, Lewis Carroll, etc.) and bring the artifacts back to the steampunk-esque Warehouse in the middle of South Dakota. It's set in the present, with contemporary clothing and buildings and such but with tons of steampunk aesthetic in the technology used in the Warehouse and by the Warehouse agents, such as the "Farnesworth" communicator to the right.

I know; cool isn't it?

The mix of steampunk technology and modern technological capabilities make the Warehouse pretty dang cool and gives the show an interesting mix of atmosphere and adds a sci-fi/ fantasy feel to a "modern" installation... and it gives the main characters some pretty dang cool toys to play with.

On to the characters! The series starts out with a rather small main cast, focusing on getting to know and developing the characters of Secret Service agents Myka Bering (Joanna Kelly) and Pete Lattimer (Eddie McClintock) who were recently recruited into the top-secret Warehouse of Wonder and Steampunkery. In the first few episodes, the only other character who shows up much is Artie Nielson (Saul Rubinek), who mainly stays at home base and tries to coordinate the agents activities.

This bugged me. It's not that I don't like stiff, calculating Myka and goofy, improvising Pete's banter; I just like having more main characters and inter-character dynamics. Sure, Artie's in every episode and Leena (why does she know about the Warehouse?!?) appears occasionally, but they don't really interact with other characters all that often. The diverse cast of primary and secondary characters is one of the main reasons that Stargate SG-1 is my favorite TV series. Is it too much to ask that this already fascinating steampunk/ X-files-ish/ adventure (?) series just add a few characters?

Enter Claudia, episode four.

Claudia Donovon (played by Allison Scagliott and seen on the far left of the promotional image to the left) is a young "genius wiz-kid" (mad scientist hacker) connected to Artie's past. She's an entertaining character that shakes things up and throws Artie off-balance with her rule-bending, superior knowledge of the cyber-realms, and razor wit. Oh, and there's also that whole "connection to his past" thing I mentioned; the point is, Claudia allows the viewer to learn more about Artie as a person instead of just a kind of distracted mission control.

Episode five, Claudia strikes back and joins the main cast, helping Artie at the Warehouse and befriending the other characters. And Ryorin rejoices. And then Leena (the aura-reading owner of a Bed & Breakfast, played by Genelle Williams) starts showing up more and even Mrs. Fredric (the ageless, shadowy director of the Warehouse, played by C.C.H. Pounder) starts checking in occasionally. Sometimes dreams do come true.

Warehouse 13 being the sort of series that it is and me being the sort of viewer that I am, there are several questions I think could be expanded on in this coming season (I'll leave out the ones that would spoil the phenomenal season finale):

What is up with Mrs. Fredric? There is clearly more to her than meets the eye; how did she become involved with the Warehouse? What are her goals? How old id she, anyway, and how is it that that can be a serious question?
MacPherson: Introduced in episode seven, James MacPherson (played by Roger Rees) is the Big Bad of the season, but what are his goals? We do learn about his past, but where do his loyalties lie? What is does he hope to accomplish, exactly? This question I really hope is answered next season, especially considering the first season finale.
Leena: What's her connection to the Warehouse, anyway? This is the thing that really bugged me about the past season. I mean, sure she runs the Bed & Breakfast the agents live at, but is the ability to make killer waffles license to wander around the world's most top-secret installation? Does she have a last name? Is it important? And why can she read auras? There are other questions about her raised by the finale, but these are the questions I've had about her since before that.
The Warehouse: everything. This is the most obvious mystery of Warehouse 13. What is the history of it? Who runs it? Why concentrate all of the artifacts in one place? And what is that purple goo? I could go on about this, but I'm pretty sure most of this (except the goo question) will be addressed next season.
Claudia's brother: what's he been up to, lately? Have there been any side-effects from his earlier experiment? Has he become addicted to online games, or did he get a job? The world wants to know!
Pete the Ferret: Does he lead a double life? Does Pete the Human ever learn why Myka's ferret is named after him? How do the events of the season finale affect him? Does he like blue jello?
Mirror, Mirror: Can Lewis Carroll's mirror please be used again? Please?

Well, that about covers it. Oh, except for my need to mention how awesome it was that Joe Flanigan (Jack Shepard in Stargate Atlantis) guest-starred in episode five and Myka's actress played Bianca in The Dresden Files TV series (which was... weird...). Oh, science-fiction actors! I love how I can actually recognize them!

Needless to say, the second season is something I'm very much looking forward to this summer. After the shocking finale of the first season, I await July 13 with high hopes and many questions for season two.

[edit: I stand corrected. Myka and Pete are current Secret Service agents, not former. As I said, I was just working from memory. The error has been fixed. Thank you, Anonymous Tipper!]

Sanctuary, Season Two: Thoughts, Feelings, and Jello

2009-10-14T00:02:00.019-04:00

Now that the second season of Sanctuary aired last Friday, allow me to ramble a bit about my thoughts and questions for the season.

The season premier "End of Nights, Part 1" takes place a few months after the events of last season's finale, "Revelations, Part 2," which ended with quite the cliffhanger. I rather enjoyed the episode, which involved quite a bit of action, many different settings, the introduction of a new character, and more. Viewers new to the series may find themselves lost and wondering who all these people are, why they can do so many weird things, and did they seriously call that guy Jack the Ripper? so I would recommend watching some of the last season (Hulu's still got the last four episodes up) and/ or reading up on the characters before diving into this season.

And now comes the section with SPOILERS:

After watching this newest episode twice, there are some questions that I think have the potential to be expanded on:

The Funny Evil Doctor Lady: Why does she have a limp? The way one scene is done seems to emphasize it, so was it caused by some significant event in her past? What happened to her daughter? "She didn't survive" really isn't a normal way to talk about a loved one's death and implies a violent death to me.
The Project: Is the Montana Project subject who got away (the one Druitt got to) going to have a significant role, or was accelerating the operation her only significance?
Ashley: How will the acceleration of Phase 2 effect its results? Will Ashley's brainwashing and new abilities be effected by the rush-job? Will Ashley be able to return to the Sanctuary when this is all over?
Will and the Invisible Girl: Was Tesla's comment foreshadowing? Is Will doomed to forever be called "huggy-bear"? Why have there been no Susan Storm jokes?
Lazarus: Has the out-break been effectively quelled, or will it continue to cause problems?

Some things I'll be watching for in the season as a whole:

What are the Big Cabal Lady's personal motivations? What are her real reasons for doing anything?
The season starts with an intense, three episode arc, the last episode of which is called "Eulogy." Is this a symbolic eulogy, or does a character die, and if it's the latter, who is it? I have a few theories who it might be, but I hope I'm wrong, so I won't say anything.
Syfy's promo cast photo for the season (on the right) does not have a certain prominent character. Whether this is intentionally miss-leading or a clue about the story arc, only time (or spoilers) will tell.
In the premier, Kate asks for jello. This is the second mention of jello in Sanctuary I've noticed so far. Coincidence, or Easter-egg for SG-1 fans aware of Samantha Carter (played by Amanda Tapping)'s taste for blue jello? Of course, the fact that that's the first place my mind went when jello was mentioned probably says more about me than the show, but still...
Will Zimmerman (played by Robin Dunne) has a Bollywood Dance scene near the end of the season. And this apparently makes sense in context (at least, according to the Press Day). I really want to know about that!
Henry Foss (played by Ryan Robbins) is now a regular. Nothing else, that news just fills me with joy...
There is a new character: Kate Freelander (played by Agam Darshi). So far she seems to be an interesting character. What we've seen of her so far really reminds me of Faith in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, sense of humor-wise. I'm interested in whether or not this mercenary character has any past issues with abnormals, and in how her character will grow and develop over the season.

And, to end this rant, a link to video of Sanctuary's Press Day, from Wormhole Riders: Part Two has a clip of Robin Dunne's Bollywood Dance!

First Thoughts on Stargate Universe

2009-10-09T23:29:00.011-04:00

Hello, internet! In honor of the premier of the latest series in one of my favorite sci-fi franchises, I shall start my ramblings with Stargate Universe. I'm sorry this is so long, but I've had a week to think about the pilot.

I have to admit, I approached it with extreme skepticism. All I had read and seen about it previously had made it look like Star Trek: Voyager with Battlestar Galactica flavor and a Stargate setting. I have nothing against BSG, but I love the light-heartedness of Stargate and the sneak peaks of SGU made it look ever so grim and unwilling to laugh at itself and the press releases declared the attempt to be darker and more gritty than the previous shows.

I approached the two-hour pilot with caution, and noticed some interesting things they did to make the show "darker":

The Stargate's event horizon is grey in SGU instead of the cheerier shade of blue it's been in the previous series. Whether this is supposed to be a special property of the Destiny gate or not, it definitely adds visually to the darker tone of the series. (side thought: Would Sam eat grey jello in SGU? What flavor would that be?)
The Ancient technology on board the Destiny is rougher and alien-seeming or streamlined than the other examples of Ancient tech we've seen. It feels far more like a Daedalus-class Earth ship than like the Ancient city of Atlantis, except in scale. This is probably because the ship is older than Atlantis, but it still adds to the gritty feel of the show.
The characters lack the optimistic attitude the characters of previous shows had in even the most dire of situations. I mean, they're in pretty much the same situation as the crew from Atlantis was at first, minus the threat of Wraith attack, but where Atlantis characters would tackle puzzles and crack jokes, the Destiny's passengers freak-out and argue.
The lighting is done at such angles as to increase the sharpness and to make everything feel darker. The quarters in Icarus base are decorated pretty much the same way as quarters in Stargate Command if you pay attention, but the way they use lighting makes them feel darker and more oppressive.
There is already signs of intrigue and power struggle. Usually, it takes a few episodes (or seasons) for that to come along.
They are definitely willing to use content the previous series wouldn't touch (except for SG-1's original pilot, but we don't like to talk about that...). Call it daring if you want, I did not need to see that scene...

So those are the major differences I've noticed from SG-1 and Atlantis. The show comes to a dark, serious start. SGU has not completely departed the beloved (by me, at least) grounds of it's predecessors. The character Eli is definitely showing more of the lighter attitude of the Stargate-verse. Even his back story for why he joined the program is light-hearted (and strangely reminiscent of The Last Starfighter). Also refreshing: the end of the pilot has them start exploring through the gate. That made me feel warm and fuzzy...

All in all, I found the pilot intriguing, though different. There was already evident character growth and I found myself wanting to know more about (some of) the characters. While I still feel that it can never take the place of light-hearted and never too serious SG-1, and it still seems like Voyager with a BSG color scheme, I look forward to the next episode and I plan on watching at least the first season to see how it develops.

Now, if only Hulu had the next episode up! Curse my lack of the SyFy channel!