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Morphing has been an important part of vfx for quite a while. Here's 10 memorable morphs that made us go wow!

The post 10 Unforgettable Morphs in Film, TV, and Music Videos appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

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When writers are fully engaged in their work — not just writing, but actively (or unconsciously) thinking about the writing — it tends to create a state of unique receptivity. Everything we see, hear, read, or smell becomes fodder for the work. A face we see in a coffee shop becomes exactly the face we need for a minor character. Someone’s small gesture — the way a girl crosses her arms and squeezes the skin of her elbows when she’s nervous — soon worms its way into our writing.

We have our antennas up. We’re sticky like flypaper, catching the signals in the atmosphere. I’ve heard it described as a time of being particularly “spongey,” a state where writers are especially absorbent, like quality paper towels. The song in the elevator becomes the key song in the book, and so on. The whole world feeds into the writing in unexpected ways.

I suppose I was in that sticky/spongey condition when I began casting about for ideas for a new Jigsaw Jones book. After a while, I figured out that it would revolve around a note stuck inside a book, found at a Little Free Library (because I love them). Without disclosing too many spoilers, the found note would lead some to believe that aliens were coming from outer space. Spoiler #1: They are not. Coincidentally (or not), Jigsaw and Mila’s teacher, Ms. Gleason, has been talking about the planets in class. Spoiler #2: She was even planning a surprise Skype visit from a real, live astronaut.

I was eight years old on July 20, 1969, sitting before my television watching grainy, black-and-white images of Neal Armstrong walking on the moon. At the same time, “Star Trek” was the most popular show with my older brothers. “Lost In Space” was also on television, feeding that fascination. The idea of space, the final frontier, has always loomed large in my imagination.

Below is a photo of the only twelve people who have ever walked on the moon. This is what the astronauts looked like:

Notice anything about them? Go ahead, study hard; this might take some time. Hit the buzzer when you are ready.

BUZZZZZZZZ!

Yes, correct, they are all white men! Good work. I don’t recall questioning it at the time. But times do change, and many things do get better, even though it doesn’t always feel that way. Even so, this concept of what an astronaut looks like had been planted deep inside my brain. It just . . . was. Then one day the internet coughed up this image on my Facebook feed:

Beautiful, perfect. This was just what I needed. One of the tricks with plotting mysteries is to run counter to assumptions, gender or racial or otherwise. The reader leans one way, you go the other. Also, politically and personally, I want to celebrate the diversity in our world. I want to jar readers a little bit, perhaps. Remind them to rethink those assumptions. Or, maybe, help them see themselves reflected from a new distance . . . under a new light . . . maybe even a world away.

From the book:

 

 

NOTE: One of the primary missions of this blog is to provide readers with a glimpse behind the scenes into the writing process and a writer’s working life. If you go to the Jigsaw Jones page and scroll through, you’ll find links to many other “Stories Behind the Story” posts. This new book will come out in the summer of 2017, along with the repackaging of four more titles that are currently out of print. I’m happy about that.

 

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By Nicholas Eskey San Diego publisher IDW have grown steadily beyond their beginnings of comics. Though comics are still their main focus, the company in recent years has expanded beyond that and into other forms of entertainment. At this year’s Wondercon, IDW Entertainment represented by Dirk Wood, Vice Present of Marketing,  David Hedgecock, Managing Editor, […]

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Fuller adds another big series to his plate

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Take a look at where Justin Lin is leading the franchise next

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Pocket Books will host a Star Trek-themed fan fiction writing contest. This program was organized to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Star Wars.

Here’s more from the press release: “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was an annual collection of short stories that ran from 1998 to 2007 set in the Star Trek universe, written by amateur writers chosen through an open submissions process. Now, under license from CBS Consumer Products, Pocket Books is reviving the contest in 2016…The deadline for submissions will be January 15, 2016, and winners will be announced on March 31, 2016.”

Ten participants will be selected as grand prize winners. Their stories will be featured in the 2016 edition of the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds anthology. Two of the writers will go on to be named first prize winners. Each first prize honoree will receive a free self-publishing package from Archway Publishing.

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Today there are high hopes for technological progress. Techno-optimists expect massive benefits for humankind from the invention of new technologies. Peter Diamandis is the founder of the X-prize foundation whose purpose is to arrange competitions for breakthrough inventions.

The post Why a technologically enhanced future will be less good than we think appeared first on OUPblog.

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On this day in 1953, the New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary and Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest. In the following excerpt from his book, Exploration: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2015), Stewart A. Weaver discusses why we, as humans, want to explore and discover. For all the different forms it takes in different historical periods, for all the worthy and unworthy motives that lie behind it, exploration, travel for the sake of discovery and adventure, seems to be a human compulsion.

The post Exploring the final frontier appeared first on OUPblog.

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May the Fourth be with you! Playing off a pun on one of the movie’s most famous quotes, May the 4th is the unofficial holiday in which Star Wars fans across the globe celebrate the beloved blockbuster series. The original Star Wars movie, now known as Star Wars IV: A New Hope, was released on 25 May 1977, but to those of us who waited in line after line to see it again and again in theaters, it will always be just Star Wars.

The post May the Fourth be with you! appeared first on OUPblog.

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After yesterday’s Valiant and Daredevil news items and today’s Eisner nominations, you’d think we could shut the door down on news for a while. But, surprise surprise, there’s still a few other items of note, here’s the rundown:

– Joss Whedon, while on the press circuit for next week’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, held court with Buzzfeed, and in a pretty revealing interview about his time at Marvel that is well worth reading, he happened to elaborate on his feelings regarding Edgar Wright‘s departure from Ant-Man:

I thought the script was not only the best script that Marvel had ever had, but the most Marvel script I’d read. I had no interest in Ant-Man. [Then] I read the script, and was like, Of course! This is so good! It reminded me of the books when I read them. Irreverent and funny and could make what was small large, and vice versa. I don’t know where things went wrong. But I was very sad. Because I thought, This is a no-brainer. This is Marvel getting it exactly right. Whatever dissonance that came, whatever it was, I don’t understand why it was bigger than a marriage that seemed so right. But I’m not going to say it was definitely all Marvel, or Edgar’s gone mad! I felt like they would complement each other by the ways that they were different. And, uh, somethin’ happened.

One you hear Whedon make a statement like that, it’s hard not to wonder what could have been (not that many weren’t already). I’ve long held that parting ways with Edgar Wright was one of the biggest missteps Marvel has made thus far and the loss of his idiosyncratic take on Scott Lang would be felt pretty heavily come this July. But, movies have to be seen before you can judge them, and we’ll find out soon enough.

On that note, Avengers: Age of Ultron is currently sitting at 84% on Rotten Tomatoes with 49 reviews in. If that score holds, it’ll put the film just below Iron Man (93%), The Avengers (92%), Guardians of the Galaxy (91%), and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (89%) in the Marvel canon, if you care about that kind of thing.

– One more Ultron related note, those of you who are aspiring to be professionals in the field of journalism may not want to follow the example set by Krishnan Guru-Murthy from Britain’s Channel 4 news, whose junket press questions caused Robert Downey Jr. to walk out of the interview:

Seriously, save the hard hitting stuff for when it’s warranted and expected, not in promotional interviews for a superhero film.

– The third Star Trek film in the rebooted franchise now has a rumored title: Star Trek Beyond. The rumor comes via TrekMovie who discovered Paramount’s recent MPAA registration of the title. To be honest, I don’t love it, but it’s also a good sight better than Star Trek Into Darkness, which was an awful pun. At the very least, perhaps this ensures that exploration will be the key factor for the new Star Trek entry.

– With True Detective Season 2 just a couple of months away, HBO has released some ominous looking motion posters via the show’s official twitter feed:

 

We get the world we deserve. #TrueDetective pic.twitter.com/iTkuP2t04n

— True Detective (@TrueDetective) April 22, 2015

We get the world we deserve. #TrueDetective pic.twitter.com/CFJuv00Nws — True Detective (@TrueDetective) April 22, 2015

Creepy stuff!

– And finally, in a fun little piece, here’s what this Summer’s big blockbuster releases would look like in 90’s VHS form. Oh, do I ever miss Blockbuster, until I think about the late fees and scrambling to get the latest video tapes.

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A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP

— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) February 23, 2015

After being taken to the hospital complaining of chest pains a few days ago, actor Leonard Nimoy has passed away at age 83. He’d been suffering from COPD in recent years.

Nimoy portrayed Mr. Spock in the original Star Trek series and became the first mass media nerd icon, a symbol of SF via his pointed ears, Vulcan salute and Vulcan Nerve Pinch. Images of Spock were shorthand for early nerd culture, and Nimoy’s sensitive portrayal of the emotion-repressing half-human Vulcan was one of the best things about any and all Treks he appeared in.

Nimoy the man was generally loved, and held a gentle philosophy that carried him well through life. He wrote a book of poems called “I Am Not Spock” published in the 70s as a protest against his best known role, but later on fully embraced his part in pop culture history. He retired from conventions in 2011 although he appeared in Fringe and Star Trek: Into Darkness.

Although he and William Shatner had a sometimes testy relationship, in their twilight years, they became good friends, and NImoy was best man at Shatner’s most recent wedding. The two reunited for a car commercial last year.

Nimoy also made an album, and even among bad album aficionados, this was one of the worst. I won’t speak ill of the dead, but google Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.

Twitter is pouring out it’s remembrances now.

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Geordi LaForge was yesterday’s #sketch_dailies! My dad is a big Star Trek fan and recently I’ve been making my way through The Next Generation and really liking it, even though there are a LOT of episodes. 

And yes, I know what you’re thinking, my dad sounds like he’s the coolest. And your right, he is!

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It has only been over a month since Roberto Orci walked away from the director’s chair on the upcoming Star Trek threequel, with Fast & Furious series director Justin Lin taking over the job not long after.

With Orci’s script for the film (which he co-wrote with John D. Payne and Patrick McKay) being tossed, Paramount needed to find a replacement, and fast, if the studio planned on making their 2016 Anniversary release date.

They didn’t have to look too far, as Simon Pegg (Montgomery Scott/Scotty in the current series) will be teaming up with Doug Jung (Banshee) on a new iteration of the script.

Pegg is no stranger to these duties, having teamed up with Edgar Wright to co-write Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End. With that pedigree, this is a definite upgrade for the series and for the first time since just before the release of Star Trek Into Darkness, my interest is piqued.

This isn’t the first time that a cast-member has jumped into Trek’s big screen creative end, as he’ll join Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner and Jonathan Frakes, who have all taken a swing at a Star Trek film of their own (though in director duties, but Nimoy and Shatner did co-write the stories for The Voyage Home and The Final Frontier respectively).

With any luck, this means Pegg will also have some supervisory involvement in any upcoming tie-in comics produced by IDW in the same way Orci did for the previous array of miniseries.

Star Trek 3 is set to release on July 8, 2016.

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By Robert M. Geraci

2014 is the year of role-playing…November marks the 10th anniversary of World of Warcraft, the first truly global online game, and in January gamers celebrated the 40th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, the fantasy game of elves and dwarves, heroes and villains, that changed the world.

When Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) became popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s, many commentators lambasted the game as a gateway to amorality, witchcraft, Satanism, suicide, and murder. Of course, such accusations were no more substantive than the claim that vicious tricksters put needles in Halloween candy, and eventually everyone saw through them. In fact, the only thing that D&D’s detractors got right is that D&D competed against the conservative religions that attacked them.

Those original D&D books were and remain sacred texts. Finding an out-of-print copy of Deities and Demigods was a religious experience in the 1980s. It was impossibly rare, appearing once a year behind the counter at the comic book shop and with a plastic bag protecting it from the mundane dust, dirt, and fingerprints that could sully its sacred value (and it’s high price). The magic of Unearthed Arcana could inspire the spirit, renewing a love of the game through new rules and new treasures. Like any good sacred text, the handbooks of D&D enthralled the players and gave them dreams worth dreaming. In doing so, they gave them opportunities to be more than anyone else had ever hoped. Dungeons & Dragons made heroes of us all.

As the devoted fans of D&D grew up and, more often than not, gave up the game and its requisite all-night forays against evil, fueled by junk food, soda, or beer, they nevertheless carried it with them in their hearts and their minds. Dungeons and Dragons never changed people into Satanists and murderers, but it did change them. All of those years carrying a Player’s Handbook or a Dungeon Master’s Guide couldn’t help but reshape the bodies that lugged them around or the minds that fixated upon their contents. Those books encouraged adventure, and a desire to go one step further, even in the face of cataclysmic danger. Let the mysterious be understood, for there is always another mystery to uncover.

Dungeons & Dragons was a revelation. It didn’t come—as far as we know—from any gods, but it revealed the future. Today more than 90% of high school students play videogames and the demographics just keep getting better for the manufacturers. Every time a new Marvel comics-themed movie hits the theaters, it goes radioactive, raking in many times over its enormous cost to film. The religions of Star Trek and Star Wars have played a part in this cultural turn, and they get most of the mainstream credit. But it was the subtler impact of D&D that really re-shaped the world. Dungeons & Dragons provided the intellectual and imaginative space that has produced many of today’s great writers, technology entrepreneurs, and even academics. The game is a game of imagination, and its players—whether they gave up when they graduated high school or college or whether they play now with their friends and their children—never forgot what it means to imagine a world. They’ve been re-imagining this one into their image of it and we should all be thankful for the opportunity to play in their world.

Robert M. Geraci is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Manhattan College.  He was the principle investigator on a National Science Foundation grant to study virtual worlds and the recipient of a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Award (2012-2013), which allowed him to investigate the intersections of religion and technology at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. He is the author of Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality; Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life; and many essays that analyze the ways in which human beings use technology to make the world meaningful.

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Image credit: Dungeons and Dragons (meets Warhammer…) by Nomadic Lass. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.

The post Gaming the system appeared first on OUPblog.

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By William Hoffman

In pondering how rapidly animal, plant, microbial, viral, and human genetic and regulatory sequences travel around the world over wireless and fiber optic networks, I’m transported back to the sci-fi movie The Fly I watched as a boy. Released in 1958, the film was based on a story George Langelaan published in Playboy. In it, an experiment has gone awry: a matter transporter device called the disintegrator-integrator manages to hybridize the scientist who built it with a housefly. The fly sneaks into the action while the scientist is trying to dematerialize and transport himself from one chamber to another nearby. Two creatures result: a man with the head and left arm of a fly — the head retaining the scientist’s mental faculties — and a fly with a man’s miniature head and left arm.

Hybrid life forms are nothing new in biology. When neuroscientists outfitted laboratory mice with human brain cells, it prompted fears of “nightmare scenarios in which a human mind might be trapped in an animal head,” nightmare scenarios like that of The Fly. Leo Furcht and I noted the ethical concerns surrounding experiments that fused human embryonic cells with rabbit eggs, and human DNA with cow eggs, in The Stem Cell Dilemma. Ananda Chakrabarty, whose name is associated with the 1980 US Supreme Court decision ruling that genetically modified organisms can be patented, raised the question “What is human? This is not a question of the moral dilemma to define a human but is a legal requirement as to how much (human) material a chimpanzee must have before it is declared a part human….”

Hermann Muller employed radioactivity to induce point mutations in the fruit fly Drosophila, sometimes with bizarre results, though there is no evidence (of which I am aware) that George Langelaan was influenced by such experiments in conceiving his story. The technologies that captured Langelaan’s imagination had more to do with communications and information. Communications and culture run the show in his story: the telephone, a constant annoyance that drives the scientist to search for an escape; the typewriter, which he turns to when his voice is altered by the failed experiment; and above all a metamorphic miscommunication made possible by a crude teleporter and a fly. Science and culture scholar Bruce Clarke sees Langelaan’s story and the film as an allegory of modern media.

Another allegory of modern media was the 1960s TV series Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry, its creator, had not read or viewed The Fly when he initially conceived of the “beam me up, Scotty” transporter that Star Trek made famous. Quantum physics tells us it’s not quite that simple to convert a person or object into energy, beam the energy to a target, and then reconvert it into matter. But physicist and author Michio Kaku has predicted that a teleportation device similar to that in Star Trek would be invented by the early 22nd century. (Roddenberry’s fictional device was invented in the early 22nd century by Dr. Emory Erickson.)

J. Craig Venter, who led teams that sequenced the genomes of both the fly (Drosophila) and Homo sapiens, described a “biological teleporter” in Life at the Speed of Light. What he and his research team created is manifestly not a matter disintegrator-integrator but a biological code conversion system. The machine, called a digital biological converter, transforms digital-biological information transmitted in electromagnetic waves into proteins, viruses, and even single microbial cells. Unlike the teleporting machines Langelaal and Roddenbery imagined, Venter’s is based on what is actually known about biology, physics, chemistry, materials science, and informatics. Venter’s converter incorporates a variety of technologies including nucleotide synthesis and 3D bioprinting. Though enveloped in myth, the biological teleporter/converter “is not a myth,” says Venter, whose project was funded by DARPA’s “Living Foundries” program. It is already being used to develop and produce vaccines over great distances, and in short order.

On the subject of great distances, Venter wants to use his system to detect life on Mars and bring it to earth. “Although the idea conjures up ‘Star Trek,’ the analogy is not exact,” the New York Times reported. “The transporter on that program actually moves Captain Kirk from one location to another. Dr. Venter’s machine would merely create a copy of an organism from a distant location — more like a biological fax machine.”

The technology timeline above shows the accelerating growth of biological technologies and their convergence with other technologies. Unlike Michio Kaku we do not speculate about human teleportation. We suggest that a self-replicating microbe created entirely from computer code may make its debut in the not-too-distant future. Teleporting it to Mars should be eminently feasible with existing technology. It would be a modest step until the day when mechanisms for our own disintegration and distant reintegration become available, mechanisms equipped with regulatory safeguards to protect us against complications posed by house pests.

William Hoffman has been a writer and editor in the University of Minnesota Medical School for more than three decades. He is the co-author of The Biologist’s Imagination: Innovation in the Biosciences with Leo T. Furcht. He has worked closely with faculty in genetics and bioengineering and with the medical technology and bioscience industries. He has also coauthored books and articles on genetics, stem cell research, and heart disease.

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Well, Episdoe VII is officially under way. Principal cast has been announced and shooting has started. As a life-long fan, I have much confidence in JJ. Contrary to many, I totally enjoyed what he did with Star Trek and thought Into Darkness was better than his first one. To me, it seems Mr. Abrams is a fan first and a businessman second. I hope that he makes my beloved universe his own, acknowledges the fans and makes something not only for kids, but also those of us who never really grew up.

I have my hopes for what I would like to see in the new trilogy; characters like Mara Jade and events like the death of Chewbacca. Don't get me wrong - I don't want to see Chewbacca die. Jar Jar heads that list. Chewbacca's death was an epic moment and a great sacrifice. He swore a life-debt to Han and it should be a necessary moment, even if it does not occur as it did in the Expanded Universe novel.

The cast consists of a young group of relative unknowns. Sound familiar? Still, there is one Harry Potter alum, two from Coen Bros and one that endured Attack the Block. One of the biggest treats for me is to see Max Von Sydow join the ranks of Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. In case you are not familiar with this legendary actor, he starred in the classic Strange Brew.

I could rant about how great the original trilogy was, everything wrong with the prequels and what they musn't ruin in the new movies. I won't do that. We all have our own opinions and own hopes. Isn't that what Star Wars is really about...hope? It is adventure, humor, mystery, love and good conquering evil. On top of all that, it gives us hope...hope that there is something bigger, greater out there - something that binds the universe together. It gives us hope that we can revisit our childhood and remember the things that made us happy.

Star Wars remains one of the earliest inspirations for my own writing. The Hero's Journey is a universal map that applies to my first novel, The Fourth Queen. I even tried my hand at some SW Fan Fiction (which might end up on this blog some day).


"They're for sale, if you want them."

As I continue my training in the Jedi way, I find that I can part with material things. To that end, I have created a Facebook album featuring over 300 figures collected since 1995. Feel free to make me an offer on any or all of them.

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The Martian
Andy Weir
Science Fiction - Adult

Pop quiz:
1) Do you ever stare at the night sky wondering if there is life out there?
2) Ever tried to levitate something with your mind?
3) Have you ever secretly (or not so secretly) watch Star Trek?

Houston, we have lift off. You like science fiction!

Science fiction has been fascinating readers from the moment Mary Shelley brought Frankenstein's monster to life. And writers of science fiction have been working to keep their edge ever since that first breath of life into their genre. Today, they're getting a little help from actual, real life physicists. Science fiction has become your basic rocket science.

How can this be? Some brilliant people at Tor had the great idea to pair up science fiction writers with NASA scientists. The result is a new list of science fiction titles, headed up by Andy Weir's, The Martian.

Basic premise: Robinson Crusoe on Mars.

More details: Mark Watney, a member of the Ares 3 Mars crew, accidentally gets left on Mars during the middle of a sandstorm. He has a habitat. He has oxygen and water. He has some food. But he doesn't have enough to last until the next Ares mission arrives. Cue creativity. How will Mark survive? Will NASA be able to help?

Weir's characters are wonderfully diverse and wickedly smart without being so smart they become inaccessible. The plot is scary believable. Accidents can happen, especially on a mission to a place as far away and foreign as Mars. The scientific does not way down the story, but rather, enhance it. Admittedly, there were moments when I did zone a little. Then again, that could have been the elliptical machine getting the better of me. I have books I "save" for work outs only. This was one. But I found myself sneaking more of The Martian whenever I could, like a secret stash of chocolate. And more than once that I had to remind myself this is NOT REAL. It's "just" a story (so stop crying!).

Tor has more books in the line up. One is about an elevator from earth to the international space station. Finally, a true fix for my science fiction addiction. I can't wait to see what they imagine up next. And...um...if it's not too much to ask, does anyone know how to get in the super secret society of writers who get to work with these amazing scientists?

For more April fling reads, check out Barrie Summy's website!

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Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card
Age Group: ?

With the movie quickly approaching, I got my hands on a copy of this almost cultish book. As a kid, I gobbled up science fiction - Dune, anything by Mary Stewart, Martian Chronicles, every Stars Wars book ever written. But Ender's Game came out way after my science fiction phase. I was well into battling my way through such wonders as the far more scientific (than fictional) Charles Monod's Chance and Necessity. Sigh. Hours of my life I'll never get back. 

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure yet, Ender's Game is a battle heavy book about a boy who has to save humankind from the perceived threat of an alien race, much like the Borg for all you trekkie fans, that have attacked earth twice. There will be no third invasion. Instead, we're taking the battle to their home world and Ender must lead the attack. 

Despite a zillion fight scenes and at times unsettling brutality, I enjoyed Ender's Game. The premise was intriguing and the characters all Byronic heroes in their own way, but more than anything what kept me coming back for more was that the writing perplexed me. Card defies boxes.

Ender is a child who writes, speaks and acts like an adult. Entirely. There is nothing childlike about him. Either this is genius on Card's part, a particularity of the genre science fiction (there are no childlike characters) or an inability to create a child protagonist. Either way, unchildlike child protagonists are definitely Card's calling card, which has led me to theorize as to what good they do. I've come up with three: 1) this kind of character holds up a mirror up to the way we treat children in war zones; 2) this character portrays the way children view themselves, and 3) these characters create stories that defy categorization.

Three intrigues me most because Card's protagonist appeals to young audience and well as older ones, and has created a cultish following among none other than teen readers. How's that for defying/embracing all categories at once? Seems like  genius on Card's part. His work defies the neat boxes publishing has attempted to erect and neatly divide books into. In getting rid of the boxes and making a jederman character, Card's stories unsettle me, and in unsettling me, challenge me as a reader to think, reassess, reenvision the world around her, and as a writer to challenge boundaries too. Yep, definitely genius.

For more great reads check out Barrie Summy's website. It's brimming with temptation!

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It's only the middle of June, but if there is, this year, another moment of unintentional comedy as richly hilarious as the putative climax of J.J. Abrams's Star Trek Into Darkness, I will be very surprised.  Going into the movie, I didn't expect that I'd find it funny.  Abrams's 2009 reboot of the Star Trek franchise left me genuinely outraged, and its sequel seemed to promise more of the same.

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Once again, it’s that time of year again!  Sports geeks speculate who will make the Big Dance, who got snubbed, and who will be the Cinderella Team this year.  Billions of dollars are wagered on the outcomes, as casual fans contemplate the 68 teams and fill out numerous brackets.

It’s not uncommon among comics fans to wonder, “Who would win in a fight, Forbush Man or ‘Mazing Man?”  (Neither.  Ma Hunkel would break it up and have them both over to the JSA mansion of cookies and milk.)  So it’s not inconceivable that fans would take that simple idea, and turn it into a tournament.  Who do you seed in each bracket?  How do you arrange the divisions?  Do you mix and match franchises and tribes?

Well, we here at Stately Beat Manor offer the following brackets as a community service, especially to fans of Gonzaga, New Mexico, and Kentucky.  (Your lack of faith was disturbing.  >choke<)

Comics

Let’s start with the big comic bracket: Mix March Madness over at ComicMix.com!  Those crazy kids are at it again, this year adding a new wrinkle!  You can BUY votes!  All money goes to The Hero Initiative, so put your money where your mouth is! 300 webcomics have been reduced to eight, and it’s getting competitive!  (This is the perfect opportunity to check out some new webcomics!)

The latest bracket (as of March 24, when I started this article):

	Ava’a Demon Game 1 Details Questionable Content
			Winner of 1 Game 5 Details Winner of 2
					Winner of 5 Game 7 Details Winner of 6
	xkcd Game 2 Details Sandra and Woo
	Girls With Slingshots Game 3 Details Bittersweet Candy Bowl
			Winner of 3 Game 6 Details Winner of 4
	A Redtail’s Dream Game 4 Details RomanticallY Apocalyptic

The final is open for voting!  Click to view, and to vote!

—

Comics Should Be Good, an awesome blog over at Comic Book Resources, has suspended their annual superhero tournament in favor of notable story runs by creators!  Is Simone’s Secret Six better than Claremon’ts New Mutants?   Byrne’s Fantastic Four or Gruenwald’s Squadron Supreme?  The Elite Eight (is that a superhero team?) can be voted on here!  (X-Men vs. X-Men!)

Cosmic Comix and Toys, a store in Cantonsville, Maryland, is hosting a female-centric tournament, and the final is a humdinger!  (One which I don’t think we’ve ever seen in comics, but which would be amazing if done right!)

Food

The Victory Formation does a different tournament each year.  This year, the fourth, is based all on Cereal!  The Elite Eight are in competition!

Multimedia

Awwww… TV couples!  Inside Pulse lets readers play match-maker with their massive tournament!  I’m hoping for Bobby and J.R. Ewing to win!  Third round voting can be done here.

 

Toys and Games

Miscellaneous

And finally, which style do you prefer?

 

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After Pixarifying (is that a word?) the universes of Marvel/DC comics, Doctor Who and Star Wars, cartoonist Phil Postma has directed his attention toward the characters of Star Trek. In a post on his blog, Postma explains that he didn’t render any of the images:

“Yes, these are characters from Pixar films and it is just a photo mash-up of images I find on the Internet using Photoshop. No, they are not meant to be a caricature of the actors who played them. Rather a character from the Pixar universe that resembles in some small way the character I am doing. It is just a fun simple project I picked to help me learn more about Photoshop since I am far from an expert at it.”

Reimagining “X in the style of Y” isn’t necessarily a groundbreaking venture, but it’s a common creative exercise done by artists to help better perceive the design tropes of certain styles and studios. In that light, Postma’s exercises are fun to look at. Incidentally, the best reimagining by Postma has nothing to do with Pixar—it’s a Fleischer-ization of Spider-Man.

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TweetFriday is art day! Friday is also the harbinger of the weekend, but who cares about that? Instead, take a look at all the pretty pictures I gathered for you from the shady, cob-webby corners of the Internet you dare not venture… (I can’t say more) FF by Mike Allred (you HAVE to click on this to [...]

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STAR TREK, yay!  The new movie, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, comes out next year!

THE CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER is one of the best episodes of the entire franchise.  Anyone know off the top of their head how many Star Trek episodes/movies used time travel? 

Today's photos are taken at Waterloo Records, which celebrated its 30th anniversary this year!  Congrats, guys!  Interestingly, in this digital age (and on the eve of the closure of their neighbor, Cheapo Records), they say they're making it on a revival of vinyl.

T-shirt is from Teefury.com.

 Links to previous posts:

 A Dino a Day: Day 0: Thundercloud Subs Turkey Trot
A Dino a Day: Day 1: Book People
A Dino a Day: Day 2: Driskill Hotel
A Dino a Day: Day 3: Whole Foods 
A Dino a Day: Day 4: Texas State Capitol 
A Dino a Day: Day 5:Amy's Ice Creams
A Dino a Day: Day 6: Austin History Center
 A Dino a Day: Day 7: RunTex

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Well, our crack Team Beat Elite are swarming all over San Diego, filing reports, having fun, and experiencing the Con in all its glory.  (Been there, done that, got the tote bag.)

Meanwhile, back here at Stately Beat Manor, at what we’ve sardonically dubbed “The Undisclosed Location” (just in case someone decides to recreate Lex Luthor’s beachfront plan with a few nuclear missiles aimed at California), we’ve been monitoring the systems, editing reports, and excavating the chest freezer (we’re making a jambalaya of the freezer-burnt meat tonight, to have for tomorrow).

This isn’t quite a “studio coffee run” post, as I tend to ignore the many celebrity sightings at CCI, and because other staff do a better job.  (I also don’t recognize most of the boldfaced names, so that’s another layer of disinterest.)  But I do love animation, and while I don’t have a television, I am somewhat cognizant of the various media tribes and denominations which comprise the Great Geek Nation.

That said, here are some links of various reports.  Stay tuned for reports for panels!

So, here we go!

➠  Nerdy Bird Jill Pantozzi interviews Thor Parker, Midtown Comics’ Social Marketing and Events Director, about National Geographic’s upcoming “Comic Store Heroes”.  There’s a special airing on the NG Channel Friday at 8 PM ET.

Jill: And that brings up something the press, and fans, are likely to be talking about. What you just described is similar to what AMC did with Kevin Smith’s Comic Book Men. It had a mixed reaction in the community as to how it portrayed us. I know I certainly had a strong opinion on it. What are your thoughts on that and the inevitable comparisons?

Thor‬: We all watched Comic Book Men when it came out. We’ve got a lot of big Kevin Smith fans at the store. When I saw it I could help but want more out of it I guess. I know that Kevin Smith’s name doesn’t go hand in hand with highbrow entertainment, but I think, and I beleive a lot of other people thought, the show could be so much more. I don’t blame the show for not providing the things the modern comic fan is looking for. That’s where we’ll come in I suppose. We’re striving to show how positive comics and the comic community as a whole is and can be. I don’t think Comic Book Men had a mission statement, but that would be close to what ours is.

National Geographic.  Comics.  *sniffle*   The dream is coming true…

➜  AHEM… sorry…  Elsewhere, the Hollywood Reporter asks, “Are Fanboys Still Worth the Time and Money?”

Here we go again, another July, another parade of movie stars and executives heading south to peddle their wares at Comic-Con. But before we all spend crazy money jetting in talent, booking lavish parties and crafting just the right teaser-trailer package, think for a moment: Is the Comic-Con crowd still the best audience on which to be blowing our marketing budget? A decade after Hall H became Hollywood’s must-stop venue on the path to the multiplex, what if Comic-Con is sort of over?

11 Comments on SDCC12: Watchtower Thursday: Media Edition, last added: 7/13/2012

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Matt M. said, on 7/12/2012 9:01:00 PM

RUST? Like the Now Comics RUST from the late 80s?

ed said, on 7/12/2012 10:39:00 PM

(Been there, done that, got the tote bag.)

You have to admit, though, that Comic-Con back in the ’90s isn’t the third/quarter of what it is NOW.

Hell, compare-and-contrast the SDCC captured in Mark Hamill’s COMIC BOOK: The Movie (filmed during the 2002 Con) and Morgan Spurlock’s COMIC-CON EPISODE IV (filmed at SDCC ‘10): what a difference just eight years make!

It’s a COMPLETELY different experience. And I don’t remember any Comic-Con tote bags from the ’90s; they just had those white plastic baggies with Rick Geary’s old Toucan logo on them… the ginormous WB bags just started appearing in the last 5 years…

Just sayin’.

/SDCCist

/SDCC ‘12 Day 1

Jimmie Robinson said, on 7/12/2012 11:17:00 PM

“Think [movie one] meets [movie two] by way of [movie three]!”

Okay, I got this comic…

Think BEYOND THUNDERDOME meets WANTED by way of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK.

Where do I sign for my millions?

sroman said, on 7/13/2012 4:44:00 AM

“Think [movie one] meets [movie two] by way of [movie three]!”

Oh, then you’ve overheard my sales pitch at cons when I’m selling copies of THE SAGA OF PANDORA ZWIEBACK, my YA novel series, have you? ;-)

“It’s about a 16-year-old Goth who teams up with a 400-year-old, shape-shifting monster hunter. Think Ellen Page and Salma Hayek in a Hellboy movie.”

(Actually, I get the biggest laugh from that wordy description of the monster hunter, but the Hollywood high concept line is the punch line.)

http://www.starwarpconcepts.com/?page_id=61

David M said, on 7/13/2012 6:46:00 AM

Think SHREK meets THE PIANO by way of SUCKER PUNCH.

We could market it as niche Oscar-bait, but I think it has real break-out potential.

Torsten Adair said, on 7/13/2012 7:52:00 AM

Or if you want to do it the easy way:
http://theyfightcrime.org/

He’s a benighted umbrella-wielding paramedic in drag. She’s a radical French-Canadian Valkyrie who can talk to animals. They fight crime!

He’s a war-weary overambitious matador whom everyone believes is mad. She’s a transdimensional gold-digging wrestler who hides her beauty behind a pair of thick-framed spectacles. They fight crime!

He’s a bookish native American rock star living undercover at Ringling Bros. Circus. She’s a blind nymphomaniac pearl diver from aristocratic European stock. They fight crime!

WriterGirl said, on 7/13/2012 8:03:00 AM

“Think [movie one] meets [movie two] by way of [movie three]!”

Yipee! It’s Mad Libs for movies!

sroman said, on 7/13/2012 8:25:00 AM

“Yipee! It’s Mad Libs for movies!”

And now you understand the awesome power of the “Hollywood high concept!” :D The most famous one is how SPEED was pitched: “It’s Die Hard…on a bus!”

Actually, this approach does work to get your idea across, especially when you’ve got maybe thirty seconds to a minute to pitch your project (book, comic, etc.) to any visitor to your convention booth.

If you can boil your concept down to one or two sentences, people will remember it. The “Ellen Page/Salma Hayek” line might sound goofy, but I’ve seen people quote it online when they mention my Pandora Zwieback series, and had others recall it when they see me at a show the following year. It’s a very effective method.

Torsten Adair said, on 7/13/2012 9:25:00 AM

2002 was my last Comic-Con.

I don’t remember any totes either, except for maybe some plastic bags. I think Viz might have done a few back then… I have most of the variations. Nowadays, I organize each show by stuffing all the loose papers into whatever free tote I pick up there. Then I toss it in a corner of my apartment.

I’m still searching for a picture of the petite waif who took the big red Smallville bag and turned it into a tube dress.

As for the new totes, it is not uncommon for attendees to sew the Warner bags into clothing. (dagnabbit! I can’t find a single photo! I coulda sworn I posted one from a previous Con!) Not just as as simple dresses, but as full Victorian clothing!

Ah… I see… the site doesn’t exist anymore…
http://www.thewb.com/comiccon/bagswardrobe

Ah ha!
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Y2z8sCcAEC2XMsLS4NLsww

Carlton Donaghe said, on 7/13/2012 12:00:00 PM

Hey, someone has got to give a shout out to Ashley Lopez in that awesome Superboy costume. Good job, Ashley!

Al™ said, on 7/13/2012 5:18:00 PM

Ashley, yes! Fun, happiness, colour, sexiwholesome. Winner!

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Well, the capuchin monkeys at Stately Beat Manor remembered who I was, so I didn’t have to run that gauntlet again.  (Stately Beat Manor is situated on an island in the Hudson, near Croton.  Back in the 1940s, when organ grinders were eradicated from the streets of New York, Gerhard von Fulano Zutano Mengano y Perengano, the inventor of the mechanical clapping monkey, offered his island estate as a nature preserve for the numerous orphaned capuchin monkeys.  Since then, they have become quite protective of the grounds, discouraging any boater foolish enough to get in range of their catapults.)

The tree octopi enjoyed the fresh crabs I brought them from Hunts Point.  I’ll play with them during the weekend, in the garden fountain pool designed by Tiffany and Bartholdi.  Since I have seniority over the other Beat Elite reporters, I’ll be sleeping in the Kirby Room in the north wing.  It has a private balcony, and the ceiling is painted in fluorescent paint, so that it glows like a trippy black light poster!  (Yeah, the women love it… it’s better than a mirror!)  The Beat’s working library is just a few doors down the hall.  (The archives in the sub-basement hold most of her collection, and she likes visitors to peruse specific shelves, so nothing gets too musty or dusty.  Last summer it was Soviet Russia and the Warsaw Pact comics.  This year, it’s sub-Saharan Africa.  Can’t wait to read me some Powerman!)

So, Wednesday marks the beginning of Comic-Con International: San Diego, with Preview Night.  There’s not much news streaming on Google, aside from the Twilight tragedy from Tuesday (which hit #1 on Yahoo! News earlier today).  There will be some excitement tomorrow, when the paparazzi and bloggers invade.  So today is kinda laid back, going with the flow, remembering where Heidi hides her secret stash of chocolate.  Here’s some interesting links I’ve discovered, and hope you enjoy!   Not much in the way of pictures, but I’ll try to find some to keep things interesting.

Putting the “international” in CCI is this early report from a Russian reporter, filed yesterday.  You’ll need a browser to translate it, or you can just look at the pictures.

For those of you stuck on the outside, looking in, here’s a handy interactive map of various events happening in the trolley circle north of the convention center.  If you look on the right, there’s a menu, which includes listings of food trucks!

How inclusive has Comic-Con become?  Well, venerable Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group will be at Booth #1515.  In addition to science fiction and fantasy authors, there will be two notable authors: E.L. James (she of Shades of Grey fame)

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