syntheticgerbil

I try to draw pretty pictures, but other that, which sucks up a ton of time anyway, not much is going on. EDIT: I guess this is due, but here are website and blog links. They don't get updated enough. Soon, soon. Site & blog If you other art guys want to follow me, I'll follow you in return.

This hypothetical comic situation is silly. You are again thinking of everything as a short term investment. Hardly anyone's first 32 page comic is going to sell at all. Usually what an independent comic publisher does is expects you to make a series that you will follow through on or to make more original work for them to publish so that they can start branding you as an artist. Either way leads to the notoriety of the artist and will have more buyers as each issue comes out (unless it REALLY sucks). Word of mouth and self advertisement is what independent artists live on. You are also putting a time frame on when those 2000 issues need to be bought and aren't taking into factor where they will be sold. If Diamond is distributing your issues, you could have tons of comic stores order your stock and sell none of them, all of which covers your costs up front anyway, because then it becomes the comic stores bad investment. If you sell the 1000 issues directly, who says the other 1000 aren't going to be completely bought up in the oncoming years as the artist puts out more work, gains more fans, and becomes more in demand? Comics, especially independent ones, are in no way a "take the money and run" type business. People tend to buy things they can rely on, including art, they are attracted to serials and artists who produce constant work. Someone with a strong back catalogue of varying quality will be more interesting than an artist who has made just one amazing comic. I always hate failed comic artists who run around upset because they made one 24 page mediocre comic and no one bought it and they quit. Well then that's their call to not give up and produce more work and get better. No one starts on top in comics. In the commentary for the film and in various interviews, Gilliam is not reluctant to say that he did the Brothers Grimm movie for the money, which is not necessarily a bad thing. He still probably would have had fun with it if he were not in a situation to battle with what the Weinstein's wanted as opposed to what he wanted. That's just him not knowing the Weinsteins before working with him. A lot of directors tend to switch between movies that are commercial and will make a lot of money back to pet projects. They fund eachother. Pet projects help gain notoriety and commercial projects give moolah. It's a nice day when they do both. That's where The Fisher King was born out of, as he allowed himself to take on someone else's script for the first time because he was so beaten down with working with the Hollywood machine. The Fisher King is one of his bests as well (or I would say). Also, Gilliam said he did not like the script for Brothers Grimm, but he also said he liked the story, part of why he took on the project. You left that part out. He also did a director's rewrite of the script so it would suit his tastes, as director's often do, but could not get the writers credit, which is a whole different story. But that's why Gilliam and Tony Grisoni (his partner) are credited as "Dress Pattern Makers."

WAY too many people saw Howard the Duck. It's nearly a tragedy. (In the UK Lionsgate is distributing Parnassus and Sony has gotten on board to distribute in the US as of a day or two ago)

So Seven was given many test screenings where the whole audience did not want the head in the box... the reason David Fincher took the script in the first place. Obviously the correct decision was made and fought for, but I hope everyone would agree you can't possibly have some system where you are trying to constantly only satisfy what your audience is creating. Not everything should be a "high risk" project, but if no one took risks, you would have no art and no creativity. There's gotta be enough people to stick to their guns, and they say a recession is the perfect time to do that more when every studio around is doing something derivative, which is what audiences will generally crave if their opinion is asked, since that is what is ubiquitous. It's really my belief that just about anyone will get into something that is marketed well, easily accessible, and ubiquitous. So if more publishers stood behind their original IPs, marketed them well, and followed through with enough sequels or ports, they may find the profit coming back exponentially with each iteration. Low risk projects that are derived are for the instant gratification (and profit). They require little to no work in marketing dollars. This makes me think of what SEGA of America's VP said recently about why Sonic games are the way they are now. http://kotaku.com/5336675/sega-impossible-to-please-all-sonic-fans-with-one-sonic-game I mean, as long as the 8, 9, and 10 year olds think it's cool, it's okay to put out games that regularly rate a below average score and have sections that are unfinished or unplayable. That's not okay to me.

HOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOORSE BAG

I getting the feeling that neither does Molyneux.

I don't know, it could create a very interesting dynamic as shown by this Youtube comment:

Looking through google on some of the artists and comics you guys suggest, they all look great! Thanks guys, I'm going to make a list!

...but you've gotta make "flavour videos."

Mr. Remo, suggest me some international comics, I'm always on the lookout for more stuff. I tend to just keep buying comics by the same artists/writers over and over until I just have huge chunks of shelf devoted to them, so I think I'm due for some variety at the moment. I would love to get Marc Caro comics, but they are all in French only, as seems to be the general problem with the "bande dessinée." I have two old 80s issues of Raw that are all over the place in terms of art quality and writing, but they do have a few short things in English by Caro. I generally like comics drawn by the same guy who's writing, if that helps.

Haha, and you tell me I'm always digging up old internet stuff. Though I wonder what their scripts looked like. Maybe they even had to cut back sometimes on Link's catch phrase.

Yeah, I can completely understand all of this. My angle was more that since Japan has one of the biggest animation industries in the world (debatably even the largest if you go on original content as opposed to who outsources more and who has more effects type studios) and that there's probably something out there for you to like. But I could have also just given a ton of terrible suggestions as well. But going on the style, I'll avoid a lot of video games if they look way too much like generic anime crap. This leads me to have not played much JRPGs. It's also somewhat turned me off from the DS adventure games but I'd still like to play them one day anyway. I guess I sort of feel the same way when people really don't like comic books, not really because of the medium, but because of the general advertised subject matter in US comics. There's a lot of range in US comics (much more than the animation industry) outside of superheroes and Garfield type comics, but I don't think a lot of people understand this or care to find out. Japan's manga defnitely has a lot more subjects about many different types of characters, but their drawing style doesn't seem to vary as wildly as the artists in the US. France's comic industry seems to have gotten the best of both worlds, but they don't usually translate or export anything for English speakers it seems. So, I tend to think with such abundance there's always gotta be something out there for someone to enjoy in the comic world, as long as they enjoy pictures and reading. But then again I guess there are also those who think a book is cheapened with pictures.

This is probably going to be a long and awkward post... so bear with me guys. That's funny, I also find the the older anime from the 80s and earlier to give me a nostalgic feeling even though I don't think anything I would recommend is from that era. I think Nick Jr. was into importing and dubbing existing anime in the early years when I was watching and that's why I feel that way. But yeah, I didn't want to just start throwing suggestions out earlier because it makes me feel really self-conscious but I'll name a few that may or may not be worthwhile. I'd say seeking out anything Masaaki Yuasa has been involved with over the past decade is very worth your time, as he seems to take many elements of European animation and Looney Tunes and put them into his work. There's Cat Soup which I named earlier which is a short he co-wrote and animated on, but what I think is really worth seeing is Mind Game, which is ridiculously Japanese at times to the point of parody but crams a lot of different animation styles and unique visuals in as well. There's also his Kaiba series named earlier that I have not seen but is supposed to take many pointers from a Tezuka in style and character design (and maybe even story?). Kemonozume is also worth a look, although it's kind of ultra violent and sexual, as it's some kind of weird monster love story TV series. If anything it has a more gangster type of weird animation mishmash similar to Mind Game that is worth checking out. Koji Morimoto, who usually works as an animation director or key animator, has been involved in some great shorts. He directed Noiseman Sound Insect which people should download from somewhere. He's also mostly known to the English speaking world as the guy who directed the Beyond segment in the Animatrix. His art is really distinct too, kind of almost looks like Jamie Hewlett's in a way. I'd also recommend Tekkon Kinkreet, which I think breaks a lot of anime conventions and is a very interesting story with characters I really cared about. The backgrounds and city are gorgeous as well, using a lot of that 2.5D stuff we saw in the MI2 projection. A lot people seemed to not like it, though. It's not in the exact same style as the comic by Taiyō Matsumoto (who draws very much like a European comic artist with shaky hands, which is great, but hardly any of his work is in English) and is closer to Mind Game in looks, but not tone (same studio). On one of the Animation Show DVDs there's this great short by a director named Koji Yamamura called Mt. Head. He seems to be capable of making great stuff, maybe less conventionally Japanese than everything else I've named, but I think his animation DVDs get imported to France in French subtitles only. Dead Leaves is really fun, but is over the top and weirdly conventional much like Killer 7. The story is trash, but what is really great about Dead Leaves is the way it stretches a low budget and low amounts of frames into such kinetic animation. It has really stretched what I see can be done with limited animation, much like Ren and Stimpy. There's also a lot of good short collections that introduce the audience to many animation styles that don't often get used (even by the same director in other works). If you can find Robot Carnival, Memories, Digital Juice, Neo-Tokyo, and the Genius Parties (Which I haven't seen and I'm still waiting for to arrive from Australia, the only place they are in English on DVD ) you'll probably find something good. Yeah, I really don't read any Japanese comics outside of what I can find in English by Taiyo Matsumoto and Katsuhiro Otomo. I think no one is interested in completely translating the complete work of certain artists into English and instead focus on long running volumes that sell to 15 year old goths who frequent Barnes and Noble, which is very frustrating. I've hardly read anything by Otomo outside of Akira, but I did import a collection of his short stories from the UK called Memories, since it was in English, and there's a lot of range in there that I was very impressed with. Stories ranged from extremely goofy and cartoon like to political to parodies to serious and strange sci-fi in the vein of Akira. I know he has a few more short collection volumes which are in Japanese only that I would love to read one day. But thank you for the recommendation of Yoshihiro Tatsumi, as I've never even heard of him before. He must be good because he draws detailed backgrounds in his comics, which seems to be a good indicator of a good Japanese comic artist (or any), since all of the rest of the typical artists just slap some zip-a-tones or gradients over white in the back and call it a day. Just a nerd note here, but I don't really consider anime to be a genre (or any animation really). It's really just more of a tendency you get for a blanket style from a crammed country with a large animation industry rather than a genre, much like US cartoons and movies tend to have a lot of overacting and big eyes with small pupils or French cartoons are just so... French. Yeah, I mean that's all the major problem contributing to the hate towards Japanese cartoons. The most sex filled, violent, and vapid stuff seems to be more ready for import. Anything that may have deeper symbolism or meaning rooted in Japanese culture usually gets axed, unless you are Ghibli and have the helping hands of Disney. There's probably so much stuff we are missing that we'll never see. And then you can add to the problem that not every English speaking country gets the same imports. The UK and Australia seem to get higher quality comic and movie translations than the US. I feel the same way about the uneasiness. I guess the pervertedness seems to be sort of a joke most of the time in Japan or more widely accepted as typical male behavior, but it just kind of weirds me out as well. There's also the weird underage girl attraction thing that seems to pop up a lot, even in some video game imports we get. *Haha, maybe this thing can be read in chunks among your work week. Sorry about my length. I didn't even want to insert links or pictures in fear of making it even longer, so sorry if those are absent as well.*

How did she cram all that graham onto one DS cartridge?

Time Bandits is a lot of fun, I think may go back and watch it again with all of you guys talking about it. It starts off sort of plain but gets better and better as the movie goes along. It usually doesn't work that way in most films. Wizards is that Bakshi directed thing though right? I've heard of and have seen the VHS for rent many times, but haven't seen it. I'm not really a fan of Ralph Bakshi so I sort of tend to avoid anything he touches and let other people tell me about them.

Can someone post a spoiler video? I heard about it a few months ago and remember laughing about it... to myself... no one else. EDIT: I was going to type this earlier, but I completely forgot. I just wanted to agree with Chris about the obnoxious abundance of smarmy sarcastic characters in video games, especially male characters. It can nearly ruin a game with unlikable characters sometimes. Writing someone as 100% sarcastic and arrogant is incredibly lazy writing, easy characterization, and a simple way to inject bad comedy. I don't even like people like that in real life (yes they exist!) who think it's their duty to always wisecrack on everything out there and have a bad attitude, so why would I want to play as them? It's just not clever Having Ben in Full Throttle grumble, grunt, or have a drawn out "hmmm" in response to a situation is ten times more effective and clever than having the new Prince of Persia saying, "Yeah, well whatever dude!" to a bad guy. Is this what company's think all game playing males are like and can relate to or is it the reality of who mostly plays video games?

I'm pretty sure Cat Soup does none of those things you listed except maybe the big eyes. But I know what you are saying. I get the feeling though that it's more of a case of you not seeing the right ones that are very good in spite of the idiosyncrasies of Japan's animation industry. Mostly they don't come on DVD to the US or you have to download and find an internet fan sub. I don't know, I used to feel the same way and would argue about anime for pages and pages on forums around the internet about most of the same things you listed (even on Idlethumbs long ago I made an ass out of myself over some argument about Japanese cartoons... but I've since deleted my posts). I guess I just got exposed to a few shorts and movies in the past few years that were so good that even if they had the regular detestable elements of what a regular Japanese comic artist or animator would learn just by growing up there, I couldn't discount some of the great stuff that has been done with animation that goes beyond any US animated film. It's still a very small selection of good stuff in comparison to the major amount of animated trash that comes from Japan it seems, and I'm not really counting the Studio Gibble stuff, since it doesn't interest me. But then again, I still kind of hate Canadian animation because they seem to like squiggly lines and dick noses. Lately though it's been adolescent teen drama flash toons they make for Cartoon Network instead.

Waluigi love? Wizard wizard boss boss?! What the fuck is this shit?!

Talking about the "Nintendo Horse Bag" and Discworld Noir?! I must listen now! I'm pretty sure there's no DOS version of Discworld Noir... It's one of those awkward Windows only games released between 98 and XP that tend to have problems running on the modern Windows OS. I haven't tried installing it recently, but I think there's some fan patches out there for a few major problems.

THE BIRTHDAY!

I did not know about this... what is this going to be used for besides keeping your pulse for the fit games? I mean I've only tested those things in sleazy restaurants and bars to see how I rank on the love meter. Maybe they'll have a Princess Peach simulation type thing for adults somewhat similar to when you talk to Pikachu on the mic for 64? Maybe you can use the vitality sensor with your donkey somehow?

The meat circus did take me a few trial and error type tries on the Xbox, but it didn't get to the point in some games where it goes past trial and error and just becomes a chore to do all the right moves and maneuvers until the next checkpoint. So yeah, after playing the last level, I didn't see what the big deal was. Really the hardest part of Psychonauts for me was tracking down all of those phigments. There was really way too much of them, but at the same time the completionist in me sort of enjoyed the challenge. You also got rewarded with nice concept art, which made it all worth it. Kind of like Windwaker, where I usually enjoy getting all of the items in a Zelda game, but getting all of the figurines was sort of pushing it. Especially when that whole task could have been made so much easier by small changes. I'm just hoping Brutal Legend won't be too much of a collect-o-thon outside of gathering moves and things.

I don't know, it could make for some good podcasting. He could dominate the whole hour and a half, criticize the low quality food and drinks in the fridge while simultaneously consuming them all, yell about all of the M rated games Chris owns, and then go home and write a blog post about how it was too business oriented for his taste and that he was the only one who had the guts to stand up and make a comment on how much fun it wasn't. Maybe he could even recreate the Michael-Jordan-in-front-of-a-286 pose while the guys take a picture?

I figured the only way the CD or DVD could break your drive is if it was really dirty or the label or something was hanging off of it. Seems to me that when people are complaining about a retail game breaking their consoles drive they are blaming the game because of a coincidental drive failure.

This guy is nuts. Why is he rambling about Grand Theft Auto being Adults Only at one point and that EA has to watch out for its image as it may hurt their "Hollywood ties?" How is 40% of M rated game players in 2002 being under 18 at all relevant to anything? Why is he concerned that no one is concerned about a conservative backlash? That stuff with him eating his non-Costco cookies and panini in his button up shirt and slacks (standing apart from the T-shirt and jeans wearing crowd) in the beginning was classic. I do hope they pass out prints of that picture of Michael Jordon on the 286 to shareholders next year, because maybe it will cause everyone to learn something about themselves and how to run a company. The part where I think he was complaining about outsourcing to Romania and India was the only valid comment I really agree with. Oh well. This is kind of like when people in the official PS3 forums were complaining that Assassin's Creed bricks their PS3 upon starting the game. I wouldn't have even seen this if not for a former friend who had a PS3 trying to convince me that this is possible and that's why his PS3 is ruined. Like someone can write some kind of magic code that destroys your CD/DVD/blu-ray drive upon reading the disc, let alone a big release retail game.