Critiquing the Critics: Green Lantern.

Hidy Ho neighbour.
Every so often there is a movie that just pisses off film critics, for whatever reason. And it never seems to make much sense me the slightly more than average filmgoer.* When this happens it seems almost as if the critics are colluding to destroy said movie. And despite what everyone says about how much they trust critics, it works. I don't think there is a great conspiracy or anything but when critics are unanimous it creates buzz. That is how a godawful peice of bovine droppings, like "Dances with Wolves" is considered a classic, and a movie that did the crime of being just okay, Like "Revenge of the Sith" is considered irrevocably awful. This is currently happening to the, until last weekend, biggest movie of the summer "Green Lantern"

Well your humble narrator, has just seen, this supposedly awful movie and you know what? It was pretty good, I would also say I liked it. I wouldn't say it was Damn good like earlier in the month's "X-men First class" but I thought it was at least "Thor" good (though it didn't have the Foo Fighters but I digress). Sure it had plot holes, but unlike some action movies, they never took away from my enjoyment of the movie. As I said above this movies only crime it that it was just okay, and I think it's pretty good which last I checked was a step above okay. It was a good entertaining superhero movie, that my brother whom is a bigger Green Lantern fan than me thought was true enough to the book, in fact he also likes the movie more than me.

I think the thing with the critics is two fold. Chritics Hate computer animation in live action movies, it's a fact just live with it. And this movie had a lot of computer animation. And second, I think critics are tired of superhero movies. Many have felt that superheroes where gaining critical mass this year with so many superhero and movies based on comics coming out the bottom had to give at some point and I think "Green Lantern" with it's more outlandish premise gave the critics their opening to express this subject fatigue.

So here's what I thought worked about it minor spoiler warning though I'll try not too. Ryan Reynolds was good, and he made this lighter Hal Jordon a joy to watch, in fact I kinda wish he was lighter like this in the comic as well. I in fact liked all of the casting especially Hector Hammond. I liked that they kept Sinestro as a good guy for the entire film, something that is very hard for super hero movies to do. I wish "X Men first class (the movie that will definatley have a sequel) did the same. The Action was good the constructs imaginative and fun, and yes the famous fist does make an appearance. I thought OA was cool looking as where the Gaurdians.

Now what I didn't feel worked. The computer animated costumes. As well designed and executed as they where, they never quite got to the point where you believed them, especially the mask. I also thought (and this is true of many summer movies) that the sub plots about the corps. would have made a better movie. Like many first superhero movies, it took a bit to get started, and wasn't particularly interesting until he met Abun Sur, (who was played by Jango frikkn Fett BTW).

Above all I think it's a good start up film that would probably have a bitchin' sequel. Kinda like how the abysmal "Batman Begins" led o the "Dark Knight". But will it get one? the actors are attached, but if the box office keeps going the way I hear it is (I don't watch figures I just hear about them in the abstract) it's unlikely and that makes me sad. But back to the present, if you wanted to see this movie don't let a bunch of pissed off critics, deter you from seeing it. If you want to see it, go see it! and make your own decision if it is good or bovine excretions.

That is all.

* Before you brand me an egotist for my slightly more than average filmgoer line, I call myself this because, I have written for comics and screen (student work when it comes to screen), and have been a storyboard artist. So I know a bit of what it takes to craft a film. I was not saying I was some sort of superior film viewing being.

image of course (c) 2011 Time Warner and DC Comics.

Star Tours 2.0

In 1987 a great theme park attraction opened. It was the first of it's kind a motion simulator, themed to the most popular movie series of the day, it became a classic. I'm of course talking about Star Tours at Disneyland. Words cannot express how awesome it was to ride that attraction as an eight year old boy in the summer of '87 even after an hour long line that went all the way to Main Street. But as time went on the attraction lost a bit of it's luster, like a movie you'd seen many times you knew all the jokes every bit of the adventure and even the bumps. It was still great but it was old. Then after many years Lucasfilm and Disney got back together to re make the attraction. It closed down last year, and we all rode one last trip to Endor, and hoped for the best. And on June third the best was delivered, Star Tours the Adventure Continues.
I actually didn't go on the attraction on opening day, I actually went to an annual passholder preview, held on the first of June. Myself and my family got to ride it four times and it was a rare case of catching lighting in a bottle twice, it was just as awesome as that day in 1987 except the line was no where near as long. The ride is so much the same yet completely new. For the Star Wars geeks the ride takes place between Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars, which is great since it can now use the whole breadth of the Star Wars Saga and it does. The Attraction is sort of a prequel to the original Star Tours ride. Star Tours is a brand new service that has been started, and the destination board now shows all of the wonderful places Star Tours can and will take you. The queue that used to take you through the garage now takes you through security, where there are many in jokes, as well as some good airport security humor. my favourite bit is our old pilot Rex being unpacked. Then your on to the ride, and here is where the promise of Star Tours comes to. There are 54 possible "trips" that can happen with a random selection at three (I think) points of deviation, and on my rides we went to Kasshykk, Tatooine, Geonosis, and Coruscant. As well as having run ins with a few favourite characters. The story which I will not spoil basically involves an unexpected pilot, an unwanted passenger and the adventure that follows. The films are great, much like the effects work in the prequel trilogy a mix of computer and miniatures and the look splendid. And did I mention it's in 3D, the 3D is great and does not "fall apart" when you tilt your head like on those 3D simulator rides that littered Vegas in the '90s the 3D is of the Avatar "looking out a window" variety and really helps to sell the immersiveness of the ride. I really think Walt Disney Imagineering and Industrial Light and Magic did a great job, and it's definitely worth going to Disneyland for. Now if the can just get the PeopleMover working again Tomorrowland will be great again.

Photo of course (c) Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm ltd.

Continuity Strikes Again.

DC comics has recently announced their plans in August to reboot 52 of their titles. Doing this, they are re-numbering them all to 1, and re starting the continuities of the books even giving some characters (unannounced yet who) revised origins. The reason the continuity is out of hand, and new readers need a jumping on point.

And the fanboys are freaking out.

"What where all of the crises, countdowns, 42s, 52s, and zero hours for then!" they say.

Well, the comic companies have gotten rather touchy about continuity lately. And have been trying to find new and interesting ways to give the legendary "new reader" a place to jump on. And this is just DC's new way of doing it.

What Do I think? well it pretty much is a "meh", I am pissed that it looks like Supergirl, my favorite DC comic is being canned, but really with DC it doesn't matter. Because this has all happened before. DC comics has been into re setting their continuities for years, hell they used to have a whole bunch of continuities going on at once, and if anything, the persistence of this is making continuity less and less important to the casual reader. It's already started if fact, if I where to ask you what are some of the greatest books by DC? you'd probably list... Dark Knight Returns, and All Star Superman in your top ten. And y'know what these are out of continuity books, in fact their better because of this. We won't even mention the countless film, radio, and television versions of the same characters. As I mentioned in an earlier post mainstream comics needs to get away from this enslavement by continuity, so this can be a good thing. Because all that should matter is that the stories are good.

Of course what of the fan boys? Fanboys like continuity because as well as the fiction itself we err they like to make lists of things, and when the books get rebooted all the work was for naught, for naught!!! err sorry. The same goes for re numbering. But really these things don't matter, because above all else it's the stories and characters that lure all of us, casual reader and fanboy alike. And the fact that DC has a chance of putting story first again is also good, and I won't worry about those fanboys as soon as they realize they can start another list and compare it to the old list they'll be pleased as punch.

And what of the ever elusive "new reader", I think that all comic companies are fretting way to much over this creature. We all where new readers at one point of time and if your under 50 years old you started with a book with a rich continuity already but because we liked something in the book we kept reading even though we didn't know everything that was going on. And not to get to deep into a "when I was your age" rant it was a lot harder then, or more fairly it's easier now, the new comic reader has two great tools, the trade paperback and wikipedia. The new reader can now pick up virtually any recent relatively self contained storyline, and many classic ones at their local bookshop and if they need to fill in any blanks look up the stuff on Wikipedia, and trust me as a recovering fanboy I can tell you their mostly correct. It's been said in many places around the blogosphere, if you want to find a good starting point on a comic go to a shop, Comic or otherwise, find a book that appeals to you read it, if you need to find out more fire up the wiki, if not just enjoy it. You are now a comic reader.

It'll be interesting to see what becomes of this experiment that DC is doing. It can be great, they can back pedal in six months, or it can be the beginning of a brand new era. As long as the stories good nothing else should matter.

So Long Tokyo Pop

It's actually a bit old news but, as of May 31 Tokyo Pop manga is no more. They've closed shop after 14 years, in which they nearly defined the market for manga in the United States. Tokyo Pop began in 1997 as Mixx Publication, they launched in a bold fashion with Mixx Zine an attempt to make an Japanese style manga anthology for america, down to the paper stock (they upgraded to glossy on issue 2) and colored pages. The big coup was that Mixx had procured the rights to Sailor Moon, then the biggest thing in Anime and Manga. Though manga had been published in the America since at least the 1980's Tokyo Pop changed the model of sale from the standard monthly comic book, to the now standard first run trade paperback model. This is the model of comic sales that it still changing the face of comics to this day.

The official line, is that Tokyo Pop suffered from two major things. One was the bankruptcy of Borders, the other was the loss of their licenses with the publisher Kodansha the owner of many of their titles. Borders bookstore has been in a lot of trouble for years, and apparently they where Tokyo Pop's biggest merchant. The falling of Borders led to mass layoffs including many key people. Last year I had heard that Tokyo Pop had lost all of it's Kodansha titles. I thought then "whoa that sucks we'll never see the end of (X) series" but little did I know of Kodansha's motives. You see Tokyo Pop made manga Mainstream. In fact they did so well at this that Kodansha the largest publisher in Japan decided, "if manga is mainstream in america, why do we need a middle man". Thus Kodansha is launching it's own line of manga in the States later this year. Starting with ironically enough, Sailor Moon.

But I have a few reasons that I think came to play in Tokyo pop being the first to fall from the first manga boom. First as mentioned above they are a victim of their success. When Mixx became Tokyo Pop and discontinued their magazines and comics in favor of first run trade paper backs. They took comics out of the comic book shops and the direct market, and put them into the mainstream book store. This led manga to higher exposure and it also led to the Graphic Novel sections in bookstores to increase. And the publishers noticed. Starting with Del Rey, mainstream publishers with all of their power and knowledge of the book store system started publishing comics as well. Leading up to Kodansha's decision to publish in america for themselves.

Next, Tokyo Pop wasn't actually that good at what they where doing. They may have been one of the biggest publishers of manga in the United States but, they where largely held up by the massive fad that manga had become in the first decade of the 21st century. As much as you like manga you have to admit it was a major fad, and as it has gone back down to just another form of entertainment Tokyo Pop has just not delivered as good a product as their competitors. The print quality is okay at best, the translations are known to be a bit off (more on that later), and Viz's Shonnen Jump line has been doing far better in terms of schedule. Also from the very beginning, one never felt that Manga was what they where interested in promoting, in fact they called it "motionless picture entertainment", not manga for most of their early days. Not that long into the first year of Mixx Zine, they where already branching out into dating sim video games with "Graduation 2", as far as I can remember it bombed, correct me if I'm wrong. Then MIxx Zine started to evolve into a Japanese and asian pop culture magazine with manga. Then the magazine took the name Tokyo Pop and the manga was demoted to a second feature, presented in landscape two comic pages to a page. This is where I ended my subscription, I hated seeing the manga anthology being changed into a low rent teen magazine, but I could not forgive having to turn my the magazine on it's side to read miniaturized versions of the comics I was getting the magazine for. Some leading light in manga publishing. However it was around this time that they began their publishing of first run trades we forgave them a lot because hell we didn't have to wait for serialization to finish to get the next book. But just as they where getting good at this they branched into Anime, fair enough, but they where no where as good at this as at manga so the video label faded relatively quickly. But what happened is that they stopped looking back as well as forward when choosing titles to license, a problem in all of american manga, and instead of publishing the classics that fans where after as well as the hip and new, they chose to make a market out of the burgeoning Original English Manga (OEL). I have no problem with OEL in fact many of my favorite comics have been OEL. But it distracted from their supposed agenda of bringing us the best manga. Tokyo Pop then got into Television with "Worlds Greatest Otaku" basically Tokyo Pop Became a Lifestyle company and manga got left behind.

And last was Scanlation. Scanlation is where fans scan, translate and post Manga on the internet. And this argument is not about the right and wrong of downloading, it's about the fans and Tokyo Pop's relation to them, and the way the world is changing. Tokyo Pop has been plagued since the beginning by "loose" translations. At the very least they Americanize the shit out of everything they publish. Usually in the form of colloquialisms. In the case of Sailor Moon they chose to keep the much maligned American names of the characters, and with Initial D a much anticipated series at the time actually got into censorship. These things combined, and fans no longer "trusted" the integrity of Tokyo Pop's translations. To the point where it was assumed that Tokyo Pop would "ruin" any series that they would bring out. So these fans turned to Scanlators for these series' out of a belief that their translations where better or at least truer to the original. Now a cynic would say that they just did this because the scanlations are free, but I personally know many people that would read them for this exact reason and would still buy many dollars worth of books from other publishers. Now this was not a problem for Tokyo Pop when Manga was a fad, but once the fad had died down and the fans where the backbone of their market. It had to have hurt.

Another effect scanlations had and still have is that, they dull the cutting edge of many a manga. You see, since manga is a translated and repurposed product, many of the series already have a following when they arrive in an "official" capacity in the US. As scanlators don't have to worry about publishing rights or print houses, as soon as they've bought scanned and translated it, it's up on the inter-web for all to see causing "new" series' to be old hat buy the time they "oficially" come out.This has recently been exemplified by the series Hetalia. Hetalia, has been the darling of fan sub Scanlation series' for the last couple of years, it's been huge. But now as the trend surrounding the series has been winding down, Tokyo Pop has finally gotten the series out "officially". Because the speed of the internet, Tokyo Pop has released one of the biggest new books, after it's audience has moved on! Maybe it would get big again after a mainstream audience reads it, but that's all academic now. It's cancelled now that Tokyo Pop has closed shop. Of course scanlation is going to be a big problem for anyone planning to make money off of manga for the above reason, but it should not be the end for any of them as long as they pick good series' that have "legs" and can be bigger than a trend. Scanlations and what they mean for comics will have to be and deserves to be a subject for another day.

But all that said. The late great Tokyo Pop manga deserves our gratitude. because it was they that redefined how manga was perceived and sold in our country. And as a direct fallout, the position of comics in bookstores was greatly improved, helping to lead us to the current age of the comic business.

Hobo With A Shotgun

Last Saturday I saw a movie, it was probably the most wonderful and intense movie I've seen in a loooong time. It is called Hobo With a Shotgun. Based on a fake trailer, that was a promotion for the movie Grindhouse. It is a story of a Hobo, played by Rutger Hauer, who wanders into a lawless town. And when he's had enough of pain and suffering of the people "stops begging and demands change". The movie has a great 1970's look especially, in the lighting, and has many a great violent action scene involving and not involving the eponymous weapon. It's not playing everywhere but if you like horror or exploitation flix I do recommend tracking down a theater that has it playing.
Check out it's official website: http://www.magnetreleasing.com/hobowithashotgun/

Godspeed Endevour

After many setbacks, The Space Shuttle Endevour has been launched on it's final flight. It is taking supplies and such to the International Space Station. After it's flight it is to be retired and put on display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles CA. Which of course has me (Living one hour from L.A.) excited. To the crew of STS 134 I'd like to wish good luck with your mission and have a safe return.

Do you wanna make a comic? Part 1 Idea and Character

I started "Neuropsychosis" about ten years ago, and in the time since I have, I've been amazed at how democratized comic making has become. Never in the history of comics has it been easier to get supplies, materials, resources on learning craft and most importantly a way to publish than today. This is of course due to computers and the internet. But more on that later, how do you start, or "get in" as we used to say. Well the good news is all you need to get in these days is paper, pens, a scanner, and an internet connection. but getting started that's another story.

Now I'm gonna say up front, before I can be viewed as an egomaniac. I'm not the best Artist or writer out there, nor am I very successful. but in the 250 odd page run of my comic "Neuropsychosis" I've done learned a thing or two about making funny books. Also this is not the only way, or necessarily the right way, for you, let's just call it the David's Wonder Blog way.

The idea.
Okay now you've decided I love funnybooks so much I'm gonna make one. So it's time to take the first step, and it's not related to writing or drawing. It's the idea. You most likely have already come to this, but the what the comic is about should be the starting point. The idea can be as great as people saving the world, or as minimal as the day to day life of a working drone. This part doesn't even have to be original as there actually not that many original story idea's out there. Take Star Wars, the Matrix and Terminator for instance. All of these where heralded as groundbreaking, but none of them actually had an original idea in them, they where just put together in a new and exciting way. Think about an idea as ingredients and the writer as a chef. The writer's goal is to put together all of the ideas into a form that is new and exciting.

Characters.
I come from the Characters first school of writing. The other school is plot first. I find I enjoy character driven narrative more than plot driven, and if I'm to believe what this here interweb says, (a dangerous thought) you do too. Most everything I've written has been of this school, so here goes. Now that you have your idea, which may of course come before you thought "I wanna make a comic". It's time to decide, what people you want to carry it out, the characters. My screen writing teacher once told me, "characters make plot, plot doesn't happen to characters." While this is not necessarily true it does help in developing characters. But you most likely need a main and supporting cast. think of the people you need to make your idea happen. For example when making "Neuropsychosis", my idea was "a rock band that gets into crazy stuff" so therefore, I knew I had to have at least three people. A drummer, guitarist, and bassist. I would most likely need a singer too as power trios aren't too big these days, and I wasn't going to make a period piece. Or in My forth coming "the Adventures of Captain Kenji" I needed a ships crew. See how this goes. I always like to take an approach of complementing personalities. Kind of a variation of what TV tropes calls the "five man band". Basically I give each character a central trait, sadness, anger, silliness, so that the whole group makes kind of a full personality. Now this is only a starting point, the character will get more rounded as you allow them to grow through writing. I personally like to make work sheets where I list a characters likes and dislikes. plus the central trait lets me work out who the character is. And eventually through writing they'll become "real" you'll know what he or she would "think" or "do" in any circumstance.

Assemble the Cast.
Here's where drawing comes in. Now that you have your character. Decide, what they look like. I tend to think of character design as casting actors, and so I cast a wide net. draw lots of ideas hair, eyes, shape, skin etc. you'll know When the character is right. I often do this at the same time I'm creating characters. Because after you've decided the appearance of the character, that plays into the way the character carries him or herself, and thus makes you re think the character a bit making them that much more "real". good examples from my work, is Jessy from Neuropsychosis, making her tall steered the way I imagined her self image, also she started off as a blond girl, but in drawing her one day she came out looking black, I liked it, and her identity as a black latina was eventually born. Another good example is Stef, when I decided to make her extremely buxom it not only changed the way the character viewed herself, but the way the other characters viewed her. You see where I'm going.

But of Course.
There is also the other way of doing it. Where plot is king. You can come up with the story first and then populate it with characters. Or you can design a character first and come up with the personality later. In fact i did this with my new project "Super Cliche Hero Chick" I originally drew her as a gag drawing for my Deviant Art page. davidarroyo.deviantart.com. And I was amused by the drawings' attitudes so I put word bubbles into them and that's when she became a character. No one way is right, but when I have a strong cast of characters I find writing is less of a chore and comes out richer.

Next on Do you Wanna Make a Comic Writing.