Pacificapocalypse

Wednesday, December 10 - Follow-up:

DocPop has a piece on this up as well as a more detailed post over at Laughing Squid.

From You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice:

Emily the Strange is a rip off of a 1978 book character

The page on the left is from a 1978 book called Nate the Great Goes Undercover, by Marc Simont.
The poster of Emily the Strange on the right is from 1991.

WOAH. BACK UP. SERIOUSLY? Yes. The top image is a page from Nate the Great Goes Undercover, complete with text. This book was published in 1978. The bottom image is one of the first images of Emily the Strange ever made publicly available–it was sold, WITH THAT TEXT INCLUDED, as a bumper sticker.

What’s the saying? Oh yeah: Talent borrows, Genius Steals.

UPDATE: Videos have been pulled. *sigh* well I knew it couldn’t last.
It’ll probably be pulled by the end of the day before lunch; but here it is in two parts sneaked from Comic Con.

Wolverine! (No link. Seriously if you need a link for more info on Wolverine, then this post is of absolutely to interest to you. And you suck.)
Sabertooth!
Gambit!
Blob!

Please oh please oh please!

So the hype for the Watchmen movie is ramping up nicely, what with the release of the official trailer last week (and it looks amazing; please don’t fuck this up guys!) but what I really love right now is this Vargas style illo of Sally Jupiter done by James Jean.

At 1:32 into the Watchmen trailer, you can see a glimpse of an illustration I did for the movie. Alex McDowell asked me to create a Vargas-esque portrait of Sally Jupiter, played by Carla Gugino. It only appears for 1 second in the trailer, but the illustration is supposed to play a larger role in that particular scene.

click for full size goodness.

Urban Ore on Saturday; man that place is cool. How cool is it? It has it’s own set on Flickr. I wish I was craftier and or more skilled to take advantage of all the stuff they have. If you’ve never been, it’s basically a housewares recycler; doors, bathroom fixtures, furniture, old tools, just stacks and stacks of it. Found a downright awesome old industrial steel cabinet unit with drawers and shelving; cleaned it up and viola! Ammo cabinet and gunsmithing station. I’m so happy with this thing I may post a picture. GUN NERD!

Court’s been jonesing for a studio space for, well forever, so we also looked for some storage stuff for her - she picked up a massive solid oak dining table at Goodwill that will perform brilliantly as a workspace. The top is kind of beat, but what the hell, it’s going to get paint spilled on it anyway. Wrestled that into the office and it fits nicely. I’m going to get rid of my full size desk and pick up a smaller leaner unit. Think I’ve found the one I want (Ikea, of course), now just have to figure out how to get rid of my desk.
Anyway.

We Watch Movies: The Dark Knight

This is not a happy movie. In Iron Man, there was this undercurrent of, I don’t know, comic geek optimism. I can’t describe it better than that. Same thing with The Incredible Hulk. You just knew things were going to turn out ok. The little Marvel Universe tie ins and references made me squeal like a schoolgirl getting pinched. (”We’re putting a team together.” Oh fuck yes you are!)

You don’t get that with The Dark Knight. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it. It’s an outstanding film. But it’s bleak. People die. In fact a lot of people die. Heath Ledger’s Joker is bat shit (yes I just did that) insane. And you believe it. You really believe that this guy is a freaking psychopath. There’s no nifty gadgets or goofy clown cars, he’s just a crazy guy in a freaky makeup and a dirty purple suit. When the cops search him in one scene, they say “Nothing in his pockets except knives and lint”.
It’s minimalist Joker. But it works and it works very well.

Bale is still awesome as Bats, but I have to admit, this time around, his “Batman voice” was starting to hurt my throat. Just sounds painful. And the Batcycle is over the top cool.
A nice touch is that he actually does some real live detective work in this one. Something that Batman Begins pretty much ignored.

Harvey Dent. Wow, Aaron Eckhart plays evil good. Did that make sense? Well he’s not really evil, just really pissed off. You would be too if you went through what he did. They way they developed the Two Face character is brilliant. Harvey wants to save Gotham and he’s willing to, eventually, do anything, including taking the law into his own hands, to save it. And they actually only say the name “Two Face” once. Barely once.

Ok enough.

Oh, and don’t get the large soda, this is a long movie.

Found this over on Bam! Kapow!; Ten Marvel Characters Who Need Their Own Movies.
Arguably a pretty good list; which I forwarded to Court who promptly sent back *her* picks:

I counter these 11 with my own.

Emma Frost -Interesting past, conflicted, dangerous and Hot.

Black Cat -
Ummm just hot. but no, really interesting.

Kitty Pryde -
Great character possible crossover for Emma Frost movie. (University X?) And Andy could be cast as Lockheed!

The Magneto Family (House of M style)
Pietro, Wanda, Lorna and Magneto at a holiday gathering: priceless. Pietro- “Yeah well at least my significant other isn’t a robot, and I can produce children!” Wanda- “I’m crazy I’m crazy I’m crazy I’.m crazy”  Magneto- “Why couldn’t I be sterile?”

The Rhino -
Yes that lame villain from Spider-Man, but totally do a “Falling Down” type movie about being a buster costume villain who’s done taking shit.

Spider-Man Blue -
I would like to see a period 70’s piece separate from the current collection, that almost boarders on dramady.  touching poetic, and we could see what dating a superhero is like from the chicks point of view as opposed to the refrigerator women they tend to be in cinema.

Kingpin -
Great character, very interesting and just overall amazing arc.

X-23 -
So sad, so strange, so an outlet to see Summer Glau kick ass and have razor claws!!!!!!

Mystique / Nightcrawler -
Not the watered down sex kitten version from the movies but everything from being born, to Azazel, the lesbian affairs, the murders, abandoning her children, etc etc.
Nightcrawler as a college aged romantic, not emo, but before he becomes an X-Men leader, and he gets with all the A-list mutant tail.

Inhumans -
Watching Medusa and Black Bolt make love and he not being able to utter a sound for fear of destroying the moon. Hot!
Oh and that zany cast of mutant goodness.

Psylocke
A character that has really come up and is very interesting. and she’s the twin sister of Captain Britain?
Oh yes! New Excalibur goodness!

Yes, my dear Courtenay is a comic geek of gargantuan proportions; and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

MINOR SPOILERS

Saw the Hulk yesterday; pretty darn good indeed, my biggest concern was the CGI and they made it convincing; when Hulk was on-screen, it wasn’t jarring - it never took me out of the scene. AND! I really like how they’re tying the whole Marvel Universe together. Anyone else notice the Capt. America references? When Gen.Ross takes the Super Soldier Serum out of the freezer module, anyone catch the name of the original doctor on the container? And the ‘Vita Ray’ tag? AND! Did anyone else think that perhaps ‘Mr. Blue’ in New York might have been Reed Richards? If the address Banner sent the package to had been the Baxter Building I would have giggled like a little girl… yeah I’m a big comic nerd.

And yes, the last scene in the bar with Gen. Ross and Stark was a full on Geekgasm.

“Stark, you always wear such nice suits.”