Archive for September, 2004
Hi y’all! Sorry for the lack of updates and comic strips. Been pretty busy lately. While getting ready for my new job, I’ve also been fixing up some pages for this site and will be having a lot of updates in the near future.
Oh yeah! And of course.. more comics 
So don’t worry your pretty little head off, and keep checking the site in the next few days for some major(?) changes. Thanks! 
Official website for SCEI’s Wanda and the Colossus is online. Simple little site, showing screenshots, characters in the game (like three types of the “colossus” monster/statue), and plus a cool game trailer. Just like ICO, it looks like its all real-time and uses a similar graphics engine - with a lot better textures and new lighting techniques.
Hmmm.. it’d be nice import the new PS2 and this puppy. Hehe
Here are the links to the trailer (Windows Media Player): HIGH :: LOW
09. 26. 04 :: UPDATE
IGN.com has two more previews to check out. Sweetness.
So after watching the first two episodes of WB’s new cartoon The Batman, I have to say I’m pretty disappointed by it and not surprised. Like I mentioned in an earlier blog, this series has a different team of creators than from the original, more well-known Batman: The Animated Series. The show just seemed pretty generic (while trying to be different) and doesn’t have the fresh style, the edge or the storytelling like the original series or the current Justice League Unlimited. I’ll probably watch a few more episodes, hoping it will improve, though I’ve lost a lot of interest.
On the flipside, I wanna talk about one cartoon series that has really made me a fan and a follower. That show is Disney’s Kim Possible. I started watching the show last year as research for this design project. (It was for a series of projects called Explanatoids which focuses on finding inventive ways to teach math and science to kids.) As inspiration we researched what activities and trends were popular, and what kinda TV shows and movies were being watched. One cartoon that stood out was Kim Possible, which my professor loved as well as some of my friends, I later found out. This show is awesome. It’s really comic booky and action-packed (think Batman or anime like Ranma 1/2) and has a lot of humor and randomness (think DuckTales, Doug, at times even Futurama). It’s a lot of fun and a pleasant surprise to the other shows out there. I’m mentioning this show now, because tomorrow, Saturday, September, 25th, will be the first new episode of the third and, unfortunately last, season of the show. Apparently, the Disney Channel only produce shows for about three seasons in order to have a fresh lineup every now and then. Though overall, Kim Possible has become pretty popular to a lot of children AND adults.
Okay, so I stole this from my friend Jason (his site is Guboogi.com and is a whole lot more popular than my site, haha, so check it out), and he stole it from his friend ingyroo. Believe it or not, it is not animated. It’s just a good ‘ol optical illusion (or witchcraft.. doy!)
The original version can be found here. The illusion is called the “Rotating Snakes” and a full explanation on how it works can be found here. Hella crazy, hehe.
Errrrrrrrr. Zombies are just plain fun. Back in high school, a dude named Rory introduced me to the world of George A. Romero and shared with me the philosophy of the zombie. True zombies can only be defeated by destroying its head, in particular the brains. These zombies also do not speak or have any special abilities, they just walk and move around, trying to find flesh to eat. They also have a weird sort of subconcious, which allows them to act out activities they used to do when they were alive (like going to the mall, as in the hands-down best zombie movie ever, Romero’s Dawn of the Dead - which by the way, was shot in Monroeville Mall, for all you Pittsburgh folk or fellow CMU peoples). All these “principles” which made the classic zombie movies so great are also well practiced in Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, starring Simon Pegg. But there is so much more. While it is a jam-packed homage to all the great zombie or undead lore - Romero’s Dead films, H.P. Lovecraft stories, Raimi’s Evil Dead films, Jackson’s Dead Alive/Braindead, and the other UK undead flick Boyle’s 28 Days Later (which I think can barely be classifed as a zombie movie, but whatever) - the movie stands really well on its own, and it’s not just a wet-dream for horror film buffs. It has a pretty good balance of horror and comedy - though I would go further in saying its really American horror with British comedy, if that makes any sense, hehe. It’s a fun film, with some moments of hardcore drama, and it’s not so big in scope like Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, which is cool and works better for the flow of the film. Ebert mentioned in his review on Shaun of the Dead, that the earliest zombie films play out like modern video games, where zombies were just targets for people to hit, and this is really exploited and become funny, though also scary, moments in the film.