Picture Dump Comic-Con 2015

Many a picture was taken of the various thingamajigs, whosits and whatsits from this past weekend.  You can find them all at this Flickr Album.

The pics on flickr are not full-res because it would have taken some huge number of hours (seriously ATT U-Verse, step up your game).  If you find yourself in one and want a higher-res version, contact me.  

This post had no title for 2 weeks.

Another con has come and gone.  We now enter that stage post-convention where the most frequent question I ask of myself, as I sift through a ridiculous amount of pictures, is "when the hell did that happen?".  I know it's a four day convention, but there's so much stuff to see and so much time sapped by lines, that the entire weekend(+) is a jumble of cosplays, panels, lines (can't forget the lines!), and getting pressed up against strange people like a lukewarm hamburger patty in the worlds biggest, George Foreman grill because you made the mistake of crossing in front of the Marvel Entertainment booth when some actors were there.

Pics and such...  Bigger, more ridiculous gallery to follow.

What the hell is a raccoon?

Terminus: Those who arrive, survive.

Big Sister.

70% survival rate?  Sign me up!

Seriously, what's a raccoon?

Feed the poro.

Don't be scared, homie.

She-Devil with a sword.

Oh my...  So many princesses.

The Massive DC Group Cosplay.

Game of Thrones Group Cosplay

That's impossible, even for a computer!

Back in the early days of the internet, when X-Files fan pages and the *blink* tag roamed the web, I would frequent a number of amateur film sites run by teenagers like myself who were trying to create movies with whatever we had available at the time.   By today's standards, this included technology just a step above the phenakistoscope but not as steampunkishly awesome.  Remember VHS-C?  You're better off if you don't, unless you produce training videos for the Dharma Initiative.  And by "film sites" I mean personal pages on GeoCities, Tripod, Angelfire, and the like that read more like wish lists of the movies we wanted to make someday.  I'm talking old school, basic HTML, on dial-up connections that would be taxed to their limits by a simple blog with a few pictures.  That didn't really matter though because it was 1996, what the hell is a blog, and did you hear about this movie coming out called Independence Day?  Looks awesome.  Bonus points and a meteoric rise in the pecking order would occur if anyone managed to actually go through the somewhat hellish process of capturing their film-videos and (gasp) putting them up for people in the larger world to see.

After around eight years of slogging through with Pentiums, Pentium II's, III's, AMD Athlons, Semprons and Decepticons and the like, I started to realize that when it came to both hardware and software, my old "If it didn't cost so much, I'd be making indie films every month" excuse was growing less and less credible.  I had a miniDV camcorder and my dual core Athlon desktop could edit standard definition video fast by MySpace era standards.  I was at the tail end of film school, soon to have a Bachelor of Fucking Sciences degree in Film and Media Production (BFS Degree.  Look it up fool.).  I was doing a webcomic called Section 3! (Now resurrected maybe, we'll see) using mainly Photoshop 7.  Youtube was about to become a thing.

Then I got a job.  Like an actual job that didn't involve shoveling popcorn or stripping the coating from copper telephone cables (not even joking, the temp-world is a strange place sometimes).  The ultimate excuse for a procrastinating creative type is "growing up".  It was perfect because with HD available to all, tablet computers and a billion ways to get your work in front of people, I felt like one of those college sport stars that turns into a draft bust but whatever, I was getting paid.

But I still want to make movies.  I still want to tell stories, be it through comics, animation, film, or monosyllabic grunts while explaining my latest cave painting.  I decided to get back into it with NaNoWriMo and more recently, a new webcomic called An Arrow in the Moon.  As I did, I suddenly realized that all the stuff I hoped for back in the old days had arrived.  The things that were always "on the horizon" in the early 2000's actually showed up, RIAA and MPAA attempts to disrupt the tech be damned.  Video editing is not expensive anymore and the need to "capture" from sources is essentially gone or a one-step process.  A basic laptop in the sub $700 dollar range can edit HD video without a problem.  You can put your work up on YouTube, Vimeo, or just throw it up as a torrent.

So what's the point of this, the longest blog post I've put up to date here?  It's for me to complain like an old man about how easy you whippersnappers have it these days.  We would have killed for the stuff that exists now back in the day, I'll tell you what.  And even if we did have it back then, we had to walk fifteen miles in the snow to access it. And before that, we had to walk fifteen miles just to get to the snow.  Actually, this post is more of a letter to myself, reminding me that things are possible now.

So I need to get off my ass, you need to get off my lawn, and we need to start creating, because the technology is here, it's relatively cheap, and despite all this, I estimate 80% of the stuff coming out of mainstream media/entertainment is kind of garbage.

Below:  Amazon links to things I use, because they say I get money if I convince people to buy them.  Lacking items like Photoshop, higher-end Wacom stuff, and Some other Adobe products because they're all high-quality, but linking them here goes against my thesis of creativity on the cheap.

• Manga Studio 5: This program is the stuff if you're making comics.  I was kind of skeptical because the non-EX version is under a hundred dollars.  Amazon's got the best price I could find if you're not a current student.  If you are, I think you can go directly to Smith-Micro and get it for $50 bucks.
• Sony Movie Studio Platinum Suite 12: That's quite a mouthful.  Disclaimer:  I actually use an earlier version of this, but unless they completely dropped the ball, this program's got everything you need to edit HD video unless you're trying to get your stuff ready for 35mm theatrical release.  Sound tools are above average.
• SketchBook Pro 6 : Simple and cheap.  Missing some advanced features you'd find in Manga Studio or Photoshop, but great if you just want to draw without a bunch of nonsense everywhere or consider a lot of photo manipulation stuff to be "cheating".
• Monoprice 10X6.25 Inches Graphic Drawing Tablet: The only thing that is a little sketchy (ha! see what i did there?) about this thing is the pen.  It feels a little like it could break on you, but after a year of heavy use, it hasn't.  Also, the drivers are a little strange.  You can find updated ones at UC-Logic, but be warned.  The site is a little ESL.

Game of Thrones isn't back until 2014. You need your epic fantasy fix.

An Arrow in the Moon launches on Tuesday, 08/20/2013.  The intention is for a normal update schedule of Tuesday and Thursday.  It's brightly colored Disneyesque characters in horrible situations.  Maybe not quite George R.R. Martin horrible, but pretty violent.  The opening sequence is a pretty brutal (well, as brutal as my drawing skills are capable of portraying) fight scene, just to make sure people know off the bat that despite my somewhat cartoony style, I'm not shooting for kid's stuff.  Well maybe if your kids were like me and like violent medieval fighting...  But chances are they're not.  You decide, I'm not raising your damn kids, take some responsibility for once.

Sorry, about that.  Come back, I've changed.  Anyway, doing this comic has made me remember how time consuming the whole full-color, draw-ink-color process is, even though I'm doing almost all of the art for this thing on computer.  If I want to even remotely remain on target with this thing, I might be changing the art style after the opening sequence to something more streamlined.

On that note, I think Smith-Micro's Manga Studio 5 is my software of choice now.  I've worked with Autodesk Sketchbook 6 and Art Rage 4 in the past year and this might finally be the full package as far as comic artist software goes.  I'll probably be dedicating my next blog to the annoying journey of frustration that is drawing/painting software.  (I almost tried to install my copy of Photoshop 7, but though better of it.)

CCI 2013 Photo Dump (Did I get you?)

So I took quite a few pictures this past weekend.  If you're in one of these and want a higher-res version, email or message me or something.  I reduced them because it was taking forever to upload.  

If you're not down with the slideshow thing.  Album link can be found HERE.  I think the "View All" button does that too, but I don't know how to internet...

Con Man

Things I learned at Comic-Con International 2013...

Jennifer Carpenter steals things.  Specifically, she took "a lot of stuff" from the Dexter set after they wrapped shooting for the final episode.  It was insinuated that she even yoinked the blood spatter paintings Michael C. Hall intended to take as souvenirs.  In case you missed it the first time, she reiterated that she took "a lot of stuff".  Also, she wants Deb to die because she does't want her in her head anymore.

"No I'm serious.  I think I might be going to jail..."

Kevin Smith is one of the world's greatest motivational speakers.  Nearly every person who came up to the mic on his Saturday night panel talked about how Lunchbox changed their lives in some profound way.  Not bad for a man whose most famous on screen character is known for being silent.  Snooch to the nooch.

Jim Lee is Stan Lee's son.  The Marvel Comics Legend legally adopted the talented artist after his entire village was mercilessly fire-bombed during the Asian Pacific War of 1973, leaving young Jim as the only survivor.  Thankfully the successful UN program known as "We are One World" connected the two of them and the rest is history.

The previous thing I said regarding the two Lee's is completely untrue.  Every.  Single.  Word.

Something true.  Jim Lee is a smart ass and his panels are highly entertaining, especially when you consider it's just some Korean dude drawing on an overhead projector.  In high school we called that Physics class.

Oh crap, he's lost it...

...Never mind.

Neil Gaiman looks like Snape.  I already knew this, but every time I see him in person, my brain treats it as new information.

American Superheroes are creepy as fuckall when done by a Japanese animation house.  Although I definitely liked the flick, "Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox" took some getting used to in terms of visuals.  Also, it apparently takes the Dread Pirate Roberts (Cary Elwes) voicing the character to make Aquaman bad-ass.

By Saturday night, the tents outside of Hall H smell like the camp of a mongolian raiding party, complete with horses, after riding day and night, unbathed for a week.

Any attempts by security to actively control a crowd of nerds is less effective than stepping back and letting said crowd of nerds regulate itself.

Steampunk is still gaining popularity.  It's only a matter of time before suburban rich kids co-opt the movement into the more mainstream friendly, watered down, Steam Pop-Punk.  I hope not.  Here's some "Chap Hop".  It's fucking weird.  That makes it pretty cool.

Finally, I took like a billion pictures.  Combined with the billions I've taken at comic-cons in the past, that makes for like, several hundred pictures.  Look for full on photographic goodness next time as I continue the SDCCI 2013 post-game..

The Death Star will be in range in 33 hours...

From the east they came...  Long-haired wildmen, some with beards thickest about the neck area, bearing strange long boxes filled with their curious pictographic literature and detailed figurines of legendary heroes.  Curious beings in elaborate garb and finery modeled from animated cinema orginating across the Pacific appeared in droves, some seeking not so much to witness the spectacle forming, so much as become the spectacle.  From the North and East, South, and West...  From all reaches of the globe they descended upon my coastal city like the Dothraki Horde.  Artisans and merchants sold their wares in the grand hall.  With them came the illusionists from the glittering, decadent metropolis to the North, seeking inspiration for their next work or an audience for their latest spectacle.  For 4 days and 4 nights the festival continued and the City on the Coast pulsed with excitement.  At the end of the fourth day, the festival ended and the curious visitors departed, some to far off lands, some to their normal lives within the city itself.  As the doors to the grand hall closed, some already began counting the days until the next year, when it would all begin again.

I've always been a fantasy writer at heart.

Comic Con is here again.  Pictures are coming...  If it hadn't been for villainy, this would be my 15th comic-con in a row, but circa 2000 or 2001 some foolish manager decided I didn't need the day off.  I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.  Of course not.  That would be awful.  I hate liver.  It tastes like its been used to filter blood toxins or something.