Power Level One Million

Objet d'horreur Pink

2010-05-04T14:43:00.006-05:00

Long ago, little girls played with Barbie dolls. They played with these dolls until puberty, upon which they moved on and new little girls took their place. Then one day, the little girls stopped playing with the dolls long before puberty. And with each generation the age of the little girls got younger and younger until 5-year-olds were saying stuff like, "Barbie dolls are for babies."

Realizing that the barn door was now open and they were never going to get those little girls back no matter how many Bratz lawsuits they won, Mattel decided it was much easier to just go after the ex-little girls, in their 20's and 30's (and 40's) since they had more disposable income anyway.

So they did fashion shows with real models and a real beach house in Malibu with celebrity guests and sold Jonathan Adler accessories and Stila makeup. And now there's the new PLASTIC collection, with limited edition art and apparel and decor to appeal to those women who really love their non-biodegradable heroine.

Except...

No, just no.

However, if you do have some kind of Boxing Helena fetish, this lovely foosball set can be yours for the low, low price of $25,000. But act now, only six are available for sale!

Review: The Uniques

2009-09-06T04:15:00.012-05:00

I do have to thank The Uniques for giving me my favorite comics panel of the week. Look, maybe it's not a mistake. Maybe the stomp-victim's name is actually Sonfua and Ponytail Wheelman is overcome with emotion at his friend's plight! I bet Sonfua gets that all the time!

Had a chance to flip through issue #2 of The Uniques, which takes a Godlike premise and veers straight into four-color terrain set in 1996. After reading The Uniques #1 via free download from uniquescomic.com, I'm still not sold on the comic (now up to issue #7). It's an independent labor of love from Comfort Love and Adam Withers and the art is fine, if not quite top-tier, but the book itself doesn't grab me. And when the script for at least the first 60-odd pages saddles just about every black-looking character who speaks--briefly--with stereotyped mad ebonics yo 'sup boy word for realzz dialogue? Yeah, it's painful.

Despite The Uniques's self-made origins and its lengthy, unintentionally goofy alternate history detailed on the website--during the Vietnam War, "teenagers .... were assigned to combat units without sufficient training if they possessed a useful ability such as the capacity to glow in the dark"--it looks and acts like a wannabe mainstream superhero comic. Sure, it's a world where supers were used as tools and weapons from WWII up through Vietnam and the Cold War, but that angle is smoothed over as much as possible so The Uniques can get back to generic superhero antics. Whatever, backstory; overpowered teenagers face-kicking random thugs in dark alleys and basement lairs is Serious Business. Call it the convergent evolution of the genre, a phenomenon by no means unique to Love and Withers: no matter how elaborate a superhero comic's backstory or setting, the end result is almost always precision-engineered so that people (preferably young white people) with spandexy outfits can play out all the usual tropes.

The Uniques' central cast (young, overwhelmingly white, frequently spandexy) even has dazzlingly generic codenames: Scout, Telepath, Quake, etc. Their predecessors did them one better with codenames straight off an RPG character sheet: Virtue (who really should've been called Uncle Voltron), Speed, Celerity, Mentor, Kinetic. (Love and Withers previously did RPG illustration work and, indeed, the cover to The Uniques #1 doesn't resemble a comic so much as a player's guide.) The names feel flat even for the government-run superhuman "Uniques"--Countryman is the best moniker this world has for its Captain America? (Russia has the similarly inspiring... Comrade.) Imagine all the downcast military and intelligence officials who at least would've thrown words like "Eagle," "Flag," "Freedom," and "Thunder" into a hat to come up with a veritable redwhitebluegasm. The Pentagon must be crying, Uniques-verse. Crying.

On the plus side, you can amuse yourself all day by wondering what other Uniques might be out there: Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Charisma, Comeliness, Height, Weight, Birthplace, Class, Demeanor, Skills, Feats... Dominate, Obfuscation, Presence... the possibilities are endless, at least until you run out of rulebooks. (If I became a Uniques-verse superhero, my codename would be either be Four Dots In Guns or Player's Name: _____.)

According to Love and Withers, their intention was to create a comic "about character first instead of big plotlines," "real, normal people who talk like real, normal people." Interestingly, character and dialogue are among the the weaker elements of the book; the leads are more like types with dialog than individuals, with a habit of neatly info-dumping their feelings and motivations at each other. The reader is always being told, not shown.

Another downer: the first read-through of The Uniques #1 immediately revealed sloppy errors such as a seemingly misplaced word balloon, "I want to be there when she arrives Motherboard," and "Your welcome" instead of "You're welcome." Uniquescomic.com suffers from an even higher rate of spelling, capitalization, and punctuation errors; for starters, nothing jacks a knife into the back of the comic's would-be alternative timeline like repeated references to "the 27th ammendment" of the U.S. Constitution. The mistakes are good for laughs, at least; take Michael, the Icarus-with-immunity-powers-and-alien-guns character, raised in the Appellation Mountains.

The long and the short of it is, in a field stacked with competing superhero titles, The Uniques isn't genuinely horrible, merely bland and unpolished. Still, Love and Withers aren't devoid of artistic talent; if they stick to pictures, not words, they should do all right in the end.

"Bollywood ZERO is more like it, am I right? Guys? Anyone? Aw..."

2009-08-07T04:20:00.016-05:00

Now, this is the miniseries I wanted to watch. Instead,
they aired some thing starring Chris Kattan...

So, Bollywood Hero. Here's the thing: it would be a perfectly fun watch if Chris Kattan was meticulously excised from every single frame. A comedic miniseries about a bunch of easy-on-the-eyes Bollywood entertainment types in Mumbai? With dance numbers? Sold! But... that's not actually Bollywood Hero, now airing on IFC.

Even though you'd prefer to spend time with all the other members of the cast, Bollywood Hero is a mocku-dramedy about a bumbling, talent-deprived Caucasian guy (Chris Kattan the person and character both) who has a fish-out-of-water adventure trying to land a film role in India, a foreign place that has a minimum hourly quota of scene transitions featuring shots of crowds and street people. As Kattan-the-person describes it, India's got that whole "third world country" thing that teaches you the value of survival and life and stuff like democratic Constitutions (what does India, the world's largest democracy, even know about that), and indeed his character will learn so much, so much about life and stuff as he fumbles toward self-discovery and romance with a strong-minded Indian woman with goals and dreams of her own (in particular, a script-mandated soft spot for unappealing white D-list actors).

Oh, Chris Kattan. He has some musical numbers here that make you wish he didn't, because even though it's a key plot point that he-playing-himself can't dance that well, he... acts as well as he dances, and he doesn't dance that well. Also, he seems shorter than actress Neha Dhupia (could be the shoes), his partner in one key dance number, which wouldn't be a problem except that if you have a good-looking lady and her backup crew elegantly dancing away and then some muggsy dwarf jumps in to gyrate awkwardly and flail at her collarbone, it doesn't work even if you cut to a bunch of Indian people clapping their admiration for the brave, brave white guy doing a mediocre job.

Another number has Kattan "dancing" with a bunch of Mumbai-dwelling impoverished types, "singing" a song about being... untouchable. See, Kattan is very sad that he was kicked out of a swanky hotel and nobody wants him in a corny movie about the caste system 'cause he can't dance and his credit card was frozen. Now, the number could work if the show's humor was knowingly based on being ridiculously inappropriate--It's Always Sunny in Mumbai--but this series wants that schmaltz, that aww, that redemption, wants to convince you there is a genuine, beating heart at its center, so the "Untouchable" scene just comes off as a tone-deaf miscue.

“Somebody at ‘SNL,’ a very successful writer, once said to me, ‘Kattan, stick to characters that don’t talk.’ That hurt. And I think other people thought the same thing. So letting myself try something like this was important.”

Of course, something like that would hurt. Hurt a lot. But hey, sometimes life just fits you for a niche, through no fault of your own. And not talking, acting-acting, or Bollywood dancing, that's a good, solid, Chris Kattan niche. In the over-long mobile phone ad at the end of a Bollywood Hero installment, Kattan makes the constant repetition of his own name so unfunny it's like he's training the audience for some kind of Pavlovian gag reflex, so... he's got a potential comedy void thing going for him, too. Poor guy.

Mind you, even if Bollywood Hero replaced Kattan with someone better suited for the role, it would still have problems like the is-it-supposed-to-be-funny-or-just-dubious "Untouchable" number and its bog-standard approach to the whole White Person Goes To "Strange" Foreign Country That Is Mainly A Backdrop For Experiences (That May Or May Not Include A Cast Of Ethnic Foils) On White Person's Way To Finding... Themself! plot. But it'd still be more tolerable. Nowhere near as good as a straight-up mocku-dramedy about ambitious siblings and stars in the Bollywood scene, of course, but that's showbiz for you.

I'm on a boat

2009-05-29T20:47:00.035-05:00

As a fervent fan of Napoleonic era tales of adventures in the Royal Navy and beyond--via C.S. Forester and Patrick O'Brian--it was with fascination and horror that I discovered Naomi Novik's Temeraire series. Several of the promo blurbs describe the series as O'Brian meets Pern-Eragon-generic-dragon-buddy story and this is all too true; Temeraire is an Aubrey and Maturin series, except with one party replaced by a smarty-whiz talking dragon. (Which seems a little unfair, considering Maturin was always reptilian around the edges to begin with.) And yes, you're supposed to bond with dragons when they hatch. And if they bond, they only bond to one person. Because that's what fantasy dragons do best, hang out with people and stuff.

Back when I was in middle school and obsessed with dragons just like all the other girls, adding dragons to everything was an awesome idea. ("Clan of the Cavebear? Needs more dragons.") Now that I'm no longer 12, I'm not sure what Pern adds to the historic seafaring genre--there's still a Napoleonic war on, everyone is still sailing around on ships, hauling ropes and firing cannons at each other, they all clearly believe they're in the world of Hornblower or Jack Aubrey, and all Novik did was plug in a DRAGON BUDDY AERIAL CORPS expansion pack. If you are in fact a 12-year-old girl, Temeraire may appeal for this reason alone. If you aren't 12, try the real books first. Then see if you need this random mash-up (possibly soon to be a film from Peter Jackson--can't be hard, just retroactively CGI some dragons into the existing Master and Commander film).

With the zeal of the dedicated fangirl, Novik tries to capture the style of an O'Brian or even an Austen (though to be sure, Jane Austen understood to a greater degree that it is sometimes permitted, even desirable, to allow lines of dialogue to flow without interruption or exposition), by deploying every florid sentence in her arsenal; she also embraces, it must be said, a grave excess of punctuation: the semi-colon and the colon, or even the comma, all rightfully possessed of a place in higher society, should nevertheless not be used to distraction; of course, O'Brian himself was a great friend of the semi-colon and colon, even multiple times within the same sentence, and Novik is determined to knock off the best.

A paragraph from the first chapter of O'Brian's Master and Commander:

The heat had increased while he was in the house, and when he came out into the street the air was hot on his face, almost like another element; yet it was not at all choking, not at all sultry, and there was a brilliance in it that took away all oppression. After a couple of turns he reached the tree-lined street that carried the Ciudadela road down to the high-perched square, or rather terrace, that overlooked the quays. He crossed to the shady side, where English houses with sash windows, fanlights and cobbled forecourts stood on expectedly good terms with their neighbours, the baroque Jesuit church and the withdrawn Spanish mansions with great stone coats of arms over their doorways.

And a paragraph from the first chapter of Novik's Victory of Eagles (Temeraire excerpts are available at temeraire.org), with the added power of an adjective assault:

The breeding grounds were called Pen Y Fan, after the hard, jagged slash of the mountain at their heart, like an axe-blade, rimed with ice along its edge and rising barren over the moorlands: a cold, wet Welsh autumn already, coming on towards winter, and the other dragons sleepy and remote, uninterested in anything but their meals. There were a few hundred of them scattered throughout the grounds, mostly established in caves or on rocky ledges, wherever they could fit themselves; nothing of comfort or even order provided for them, except the feedings, and the mowed-bare strip of dirt around the borders, where torches were lit at night to mark the lines past which they might not go, with the town-lights glimmering in the distance, cheerful and forbidden.

Throughout the books, you can see Novik at work, diligently attempting to capture the wit and liveliness that made O'Brian's books so memorable. Unfortunately, this imitation is too self-conscious to do anything but remind you that Novik is not Patrick O'Brian and desperately lacks a style of her own. ("I also like Pern!" doesn't count.) Yes, Patrick O'Brian wrote some great historical fiction. Yes, it's fine to be inspired by Patrick O'Brian. No, it's not necessary to pretend to be Patrick O'Brian in order to do historical fiction in the same era. I could credit Novik if she established her own unique voice or at least her own punctuation style, but she didn't. Sure, an author could definitely crib the setting of the O'Brian novels but use his/her own writing style, or apply an O'Brian-esque writing style to a completely new setting, but wholesale copying of both O'Brian's writing style and the setting of his best-known series? That's just cheap. Why bother? Who reads or writes because they're driven to find or create inferior imitations of other, better books? After all, those better books already exist.

In any case, the first Temeraire novel, His Majesty's Dragon, is available as a free online PDF. Who knows, this could be start of a hot new trend: World War II... with talking dragon friends! The siege of Troy... with talking dragon friends! The Civil War... with talking dragon friends! The Russian Revolution... with talking dragon friends! The Armenian genocide... with talking dragon friends! Oh, somebody better get Weta on the line right now.

Ignorant Caucasian Appropriation Attack, Go Go 55!

2009-05-25T11:00:00.011-05:00

Grant Morrison should probably sit on his hands the next time he has a "great" idea to create a team of "Asian" superheroes like Japan's Super Young Team or the Chinese Great Ten. That said, he does make a body grateful to belong to a minority group that flies below the radar; as much as it sucks to be invisible or interchangeable, it just might beat being reduced to another one of his cheap collections of attributes and stereotypes. For one thing, Asians of the world, you may speak perfect English, but you will never, ever get the hang of coming up with an English codename. And no, you can't use the name you use in your native language, because it was too much trouble to bother coming up with one. It's so much easier and more amusing to simply apply a white Anglo writer's "they do things fun-nee over there" filter. Enjoy, Shy Crazy Lolita Canary! Shiny Happy Aquazon! Well-Spoken Sonic Lightning Flash! Socialist Red Guardsman! Accomplished Perfect Physician!

(Shy Crazy Lolita Canary, by the way, is a tiny winged girl in a schoolgirl uniform who fights with a voice that sounds like, and this is Morrison's vision here, "the shopgirls in every Tokyo store screaming SUMMMIIMMMMMASSENNNNN!! as loud as they can, at the highest pitch possible and en masse." Deep. The Super Young Team also blatantly emulates/borrows from established, "Anglo" DC superheroes like Superman and Green Lantern, right down to using their logos--and while you could argue that Japanese pop culture does incorporates a lot of cultural remixing, these Japanese characters are presented not as unique individuals with their own names and identities, but as people with wacky names who aspire to be lesser imitations of "Anglo" characters.)

Still, this may be Morrison at the mere cusp of his "creative" powers; he could yet top himself. Why, he could create the Cock Cracker Corps, a bunch of dentally-challenged heroes from the depths of Appalachia. This one gets her powers from meth! That one is a man-billy goat hybrid! Over there is a welfare queen who superpower-pops out another 5 children named Darlene on a weekly basis! Confederate Soldier will never give up the fight, or his 2nd Amendment rights! And as for the Burning White Hood of Purity and Righteousness, a.k.a. Earl, well, best you simply don't ask. Surely Morrison would agree that there's real potential in this one--I mean, if we're going to create racially or ethnically identified teams based on an outside observer's superficial exposure to representation of that racial or ethnic group in selected elements of a country's (pop) culture, then why the fuck not?

Anyway, Morrison's Super Young Team is getting their own, Joe Casey-penned, Final Crisis spin-off mini--Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance--and issue #1 just goes to show that whoever you are, wherever you may be, however dodgy your concept or your writer, no-one can resist the stylish look of the...

Photoshop star brush. Respect!

Colorists: They're Just Like Us

2009-05-16T21:12:00.003-05:00

Uncanny X-Men #510: with the X-Men under attack, it's up to Pixie to save X-23 and Hisako with the power of...

The Photoshop star brush!

You the man, colorist Justin Ponsor. You... the man.

Brooklyn: We now have electricity and running water!

2009-04-13T22:27:00.013-05:00

Which one of the following is a "real" Brooklynite, according to The L Magazine?

A. The 40-something Brooklyn-born Lincoln High School graduate that grew up in Coney Island but now owns a nice house in Marine Park purchased with the money he made by driving car service all over Brooklyn for the past twenty years.
B. The 20-something Iowa-born Oberlin graduate who moved to New York to pursue a literary career but couldn't afford an apartment in Manhattan so they got an overpriced apartment in Williamsburg because it's trendy and oh, that's where all their college friends moved too.
C. Jay-Z.

HINT: It's not A... or C.

As with almost anything "literary" and "hip" in New York, L Magazine once more forgets that there exists a Brooklyn below Prospect Park, filling up the quiz with in-crowd references like:

How much time per month must members of the Park Slope Food Coop work?
Which bar is affectionately known as “The Dog Bar”?
On which street in Williamsburg can you get arepas, bibimbap, burritos, prawn crisps, buffalo mozzarella, vegetarian chicken wings and a haircut?

The piece can't seem to decide whether it wants to be taken seriously or is merely a lark. (A word of advice: If it's on the front cover, and you're not a humor magazine, you should probably take the piece seriously.)

Should they actually bother to have a question that a non-hipster Brooklyn resident would have a reasonable chance of answering correctly, they litter the choices with obviously wrong answers.

36. To whom is Greenwood Cem-etery’s statue of Minerva waving?
A. The hopes and dreams of all who lay there.
B. The Statue of Liberty
C. Livia Soprano

Because having actual Brooklyn trivia would reveal the nasty truth about the rest of Brooklyn: It exists.

As an aid to future attempts to pin down that elusive Brooklynness, I have taken it upon myself to rewrite a few of the questions:

2. What was the last year the Dodgers played in Brooklyn?
A. 1963
B. 1957

C. Grandpa, the Dodgers have been out of Brooklyn longer than they ever were in Brooklyn, let it go already.

7. How many trains can get you to Coney Island?
A. 4
B. 7
C. Depends. Are they doing track work... again?

23. Where was the first Brooklyn Industries store opened?
A. Bedford Ave. and N. 8th St.
B. Broadway and Bedford Ave.
C. Fuck you.

24. Which bar is affectionately known as “The Dog Bar”?
A. Iona
B. The Brooklyn Ale House
C. No, seriously, go fuck yourself.

44. What Williamsburg favorite used to be in the space now occupied by the Bedford Cheese Shop?
A. Clovis Press Bookstore
B. Ugly Luggage
C. Your mother

Who will pee on House's chair now?

2009-04-08T15:45:00.013-05:00

When one of your stars decides to leave your show—and acting in general—to go work at the White House, what exactly do you do with his character, a happy-go-lucky doctor who just got the job of a lifetime and seems to enjoy his work very much?

Why, you kill him off. Or more precisely, you have him commit suicide. Because you see, they'll never see it coming! Just like in real life!

And after you've said goodbye to the character in the most artistic and heartfelt manner possible, and posted the requisite public service message advising suicidal people to seek help, what do you do with the rest of your traumatized audience?

Send them to Facebook, of course, where they can write comments and watch the tribute video and add the widget.

Widgets: the tribute that keeps on tributing, at least until people stop watching House or decide to make room on their profile for a list of their favorite beers.

The one project they unwisely chose to not overachieve on?

2009-03-31T23:48:00.020-05:00

Yale's Mixed Company a cappella group recently got a bit of flak for the "Single Asians" video--no longer available on YouTube, probably because of what happened when people actually, uh, started watching the video, but you're not missing much since (apart from everything else) the video was lovingly produced with all the care and attention you might put into a five-slide PowerPoint presentation--which features four young Asian women dancing and singing to the tune of "Single Ladies" by Beyonce. So it wasn't amazing. But was it... racist? (Dun dun dun.)

The lyrics, if you care, are listed below (via Ivygateblog.com). It's basically a recitation of Asian stereotypes; for the first thirty seconds the song bears some tenuous thematic connection to the original "Single Ladies" and it's still possible that this is in fact a satire of stereotypes about Asians, but then it's revealed as a list of increasingly random Asian stereotypes presented without commentary. Did a lot of people hate it? Sure. Does that make them humorless haters? Well, for those people to have "missed the joke," there at least has to be a joke in the first place.

Therein lies the problem. The song doesn't really push back on Asian stereotypes or offer any subversive commentary, it's too straightforward to be clearly identifiable as satire or parody, it doesn't attempt to empathize with the Asian/Asian-American experience (whether as the object of stereotyping or otherwise), it doesn't display any particular insider Asian or Asian-American knowledge or humor--more the opposite, in fact. In the end, it's perfectly content to rest on a bunch of Asian girls dancing as they happily reiterate that Chinese people can't tell the difference between "R" and "L". So, even if for no other reason than sheer ignorance and lack of effort in both conception and creation, in the final running this work could well place closer to a minstrel show than a work of satire or commentary. Laziness dooms all intentions, people. Don't let it happen to you.

(Mixed Company claims they're "known for having a great (and irreverent) sense of humor." Which, ironically, is probably the funniest thing about this toothless song.)

Anyway, the lyrics:

All the single Asians (x5)
Now put your hands up
Library and MCDB
Test comin' up next week.
You dropped a flask,
And now I've gotta ask
If you're enough to be in a lab with me.
I need this grade
I've never been laid,
Because I live my life for med school.
I do bio-chem
On the weekends
You ain't hardcore enough for me.
Cause if you like me
Then you shoulda got an A on it.
Cause if you like me
Then you shoulda got an A on it,
An A-minus
Ain't the same as an A is it?
Cause if you like me
Then you shoulda got an A on it.
Let's make some noise
For all the boys
Who have yellow fever. [By the way, "yellow fever" is incredibly annoying.]
I'll be Lucy Liu [Seriously, the weird shit some strange dudes will tell you in public...]
Or Sailor Moon [...about how their Japanese girlfriend feared the size of their non-Asian cock...]
A geisha just for you. [...but learned it was not, in fact, too big for her to handle--yes, this really happened.]
At the restaurant
I'll taste your sauce
And you can slurp my sushi. [slurp a long cylindrical (and, it seems, inexplicably oozing) sushi roll? These girls are clearly packing a little something extra in their shorts... what the hell?]
I like it raw,
So bring it on,
And me love you long time. [I'm a Japanese dick-girl! Wait, now I'm a impoverished war prostitute! Oh, I'm so confused.]
[With faux-Chinese "accent"]
We from Beijing,
We dry cleaning, [Wait, unless we're back to discussing the Supreme Court holding in Yick Wo, that's not even the "right" stereotype--who wrote this? C'mon, folks, stereotypes are annoying enough without people blurring them all together to boot. If you're gonna hate, keep it straight: that's my new motto, as of two seconds ago right now.]
And practice viorin.
We visit Yale,
We bring peace there,
And take picture at the Beinecke.
I make the rice,
(She make it nice)
Cause I'm in charge of Dim Sum!!! [Yes, the song is really this emphatic about dim sum, even though rice isn't really, uh, the point of a dim sum spread]
I make chai tea [Don't recall if this lyric is accurate--I mean, chai tea isn't even East Asian to begin with]
I do tai chi
And bring honor to our family.
[Chorus reiterating Beyonce's lyrics in Korean]

Laughter is the best medicine (for brainwashing)

2009-03-31T21:56:00.013-05:00

So, Dollhouse. The main premise appears to be that young women are raped, or pretend to be in danger of rape, or are implanted with memories of rape, or get assaulted by rapists, or stand around naked and oblivious in the shower while guys stare at them with hard-ons. (The latter is what passes for a love story in this show.) Sometimes young women do other things too, like get brainwashed into having sex with dudes for money. But this is all okay because, ladies, if you suffer long enough and hard enough, eventually you will get to punch a dude in the head, or ninja-kick him or something--mainly because your handlers gave you that ability, not because you have any real agency of your own--and the audience will cheer because that ninja-kick totally makes up for everything that just happened. And then you'll forget most of what did just happen. Until next week, at which point it's back to running around in a very short skirt to be imperiled and stuff. There're supposed to be some other themes to the show, too; as the opening credits make clear, one major theme is that Eliza Dushku's character could not be happier about putting on hooker stockings and wearing the aforementioned very short skirts while listening to outtakes from the Felicity soundtrack.

Anyway, all this clearly makes Dollhouse staff (AKA the British Nationality is a Substitute for Having a Character, the Seth Green Lite, the bad cop, the good cop) active and knowing members of a human experimentation-prostitution-slavery operation. But did you know they're also funny and lovable? It's true! Why, in the most recent episode, "Echoes," everybody starts tripping balls on secret drugs: drugs which could make you crazy and suicidal, or--if you're a member of the Dollhouse staff--spout charming Whedonesque dialogue and jump on trampolines. Comic scenes ensued, and the fans ate it all up; who knew pimp-slash-rape-enablers were so wacky and adorable? Those lovable rascals! Which one's your favorite? I like the one that says "inappropriate starches!"

There's no rule that says people can't have likable aspects and do awful things to people on a daily basis. But "Echoes" in particular is more invidious than the simple and honest premise that people are complex, that a doer of evil is not simply a walking evil tower of evil 24 evil hours a day. Instead, it gives the characters a gloss of Whedon-brand whimsy. People remember the catchy lines, not the whole rape-slave-oppression-as-a-day-job part. Then again, Dollhouse is a show where Boyd the handler gets a sympathetic edit because he cares about Echo. Really cares, deep down. That's why he helps pimp her out again and again, occasionally furrowing a brow to show the depth of his concern, and then at some point during a given episode he'll descend upon Eliza Dushku like a savior angel, taking her hand and leading her out of danger to--to another round of brainwashing and pimpery, mainly. But he furrowed his brow to signify a vague moral concern on which he can't be bothered to take action, so what more do you want; he's funny and plays the piano when he's tripping on drugs! And isn't that what's really important here?

Of course it is. And isn't that the Joss Whedon touch everyone has been waiting for?

The Nightwing Doctrine in what regard, Charlie?

2009-03-02T18:40:00.005-05:00

So--Outsiders, yeah? Borrowed a couple of the trades and so far it's a mildly horrible book. Thoroughly approve of gorillas and the disembodied brains that love them, or vice versa, but the book conveys less of an edgy-superheroes-doing-edgy-things-that-regular-superheroes-can't-do-because-they're-not-edgy feel, more of a I-watch-Fox-TV-shows-while-high-on-Percocet feel. As amusing as it is to watch superheroes go 24 on, er, regular human beings. (See Judd Winick et al., Outsiders: The Good Fight 30-36 (2006).) But he knows where the ~~nukes~~ sarin canisters are, guys! And there's only ~~five minutes~~ an indeterminate amount of time left until ~~they blow~~ somebody maybe decides they should do something putting the plan into place to use them! Ooh, ooh! Can Metamorpho turn into a waterboard?

Here's the thing--say you have superpowers. Heck, say you have an entire team of superpower types, and a high tech flying ship that can do all kinds of neat computery things, and so on, and so forth--if your first and only answer to the question "Where would someone put a not-insignificant storage facility containing a crapload of sarin, somewhere in an African nation of modest size?" is "Let's grab an assistant in the office of political affairs, put on our best camo and gimp hoods, then systematically start breaking his hands and other assorted parts of his anatomy until he cracks," you are a) a fucking lazy moron, and b) in the wrong business entirely.

Let's rehash, shall we?
You: superpowers, magic soul-eating sword, giant flying ship full of fancy computers and stuff. Also, kryptonite in a box. Just in case.
Them: desktop PCs and paper. Snazzy berets.
Something about that match-up suggests that it is not, in fact, terribly hard to find out where the sarin is, as long as you don't mind having Metamorpho breeze in through a window or something and maybe pry open a file cabinet. Or, y'know, maybe you have to hack into some government files by punching in the president's birthday as a password. Maybe you might even try, um, scanning any large semi-demi-military-looking bases that happen to be sitting around in the open. Because that's where the sarin is, you know. Inside a large military-looking base. Which is sitting out in the open.

The best part is that Thunder is like, hey, um, isn't this kind of torture and kind of wrong? but Nightwing slaps her upside the head with his Jack Bauer logic (Big picture! It's all your fault! Big picture!) and then they find the sarin, sitting around, not being used, not being about to be used, and Thunder sadly admits Nightwing was right after all big picture. Terrible.

(And the less said about the Outsiders' concept of regime change, the better:
Step 1: put the current president on a desert island.
Step 2: tell the deputy minister he's in charge and he should be really nice to people. Because generally, that's all it ever takes to assert control of a destabilized nation dominated by the military and plagued by an army of rogue child soldiers.)

9 out of 10 fanboys love the smooth taste of rape! I mean, grape. Well, no, actually, rape.

2008-12-30T17:10:00.031-05:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MNEMOSYNE RELEASES NEW SODA, TENTACLE GRAPE

NEW YORK, NY - December 29, 2008 -Mnemosyne LLC has teamed up with the people who brought you the Anime After Dark Film Festival to bring you a new taste sensation!

This new beverage, inspired by the genre of adult Japanese animation called Hentai, is a perfect caffeine rush for gamers, cosplayers, and comic book fans.

"Obviously I don't take the brand very seriously. we can't. The best I can do is develop products that I'd want to buy myself and frankly this is the right combination of ridiculous and delicious." Says brand creator, Dekker Dreyer.

Proofreading: another thing he doesn't take very seriously. So, uh, Tentacle... Gr--

As the website copy says, "WATCH OUT! You gonna get GRAPED!" (Her lips say "いや!" but her tastebuds say "おいしい!")

The only reason this soda exists is to point out that "rape" sounds a lot like "grape," and wouldn't it be funny if you constantly replaced the word "rape" with "grape"? "[S]tart graping your friends!" Uh, no thanks. But please note that this beverage is "crafted with care... [by a "skilled team of grapists," no less] and a slight feeling of breathless anticipation." Because what's more appetizing than the thought of a bunch of geeks hunched over a soda production line, "breathlessly anticipating" (there's a new euphemism for you) the forcible pseudopod rape of screaming, baby-faced Japanese schoolgirls all over it? Woo. Plus, once you've seen a criminal case where a man suggests he molested his prepubescent daughter in part because he was influenced by his anime porn habit, thinking about a "skilled grapist" is just not thirst-making. Still, if it weren't prohibited by jail regulations, the guy would probably really appreciate someone pre-ordering him a case of Tentacle Grape. You gotta laugh at it all, right?

(According to the press release, "[a]dditional flavors and label designs are slated for the third quarter of 2009." How about Shouta-Cola? You can put a cringing 6-year old anime boy on the label and surround him with molesty adult hands. The fizzy taste of imminent pedo-rape is just the right combination of ridiculous and delicious to appeal to Mr. Dreyer's purchasing sensibilities.)

Keep on keepin' it classy, male fandom! And I'll keep avoiding you at conventions. And comic book stores. And GameStop. And...

Peter David's remake of The Blob

2008-10-29T02:21:00.006-05:00

Is it petty to drop one issue of a comic? Well, maybe. But $3 for X-Factor #36--I could be persuaded to part with $1, probably, but a whole $3 feels like giving Marvel an unearned reward when I could buy a hot chocolate and a bagel instead and actually receive joy from my purchase (except that bagels in this part of the world are uniformly horrible, but that's another story). It's a pretty low day when the ad pages are more attractive than the actual comic content, yet here we are. How many times can it be said? Comics. Are. A. Visual. Medium. So even though Peter David's scripting might be the same as ever, it can't save the issue when Larry Stroman's art continues just this side of horrific, a nightmare world where objects, background, physiques all shift, puddle, move and mutate from one panel to the next; even if he does try to lighten it up by drawing random kitty cats and birds and bunnies instead of proportions and perspectives and anatomy, the color palette is dourly unappealing as well.

Although the comic is still intended as noir, it now has the same noir feel as, say, feeding the entire script to The Maltese Falcon through Babelfish--English to Finnish to English--and then re-enacting the end product with Quizno's puppets. Though it looks like next month, people go back to vaguely resembling people instead of a head I once tried to sculpt out of hamburger meat. So, who knows. Hopefully the magic will come back.

Detroit: a place where people do stuff. Maybe. It's hard to tell.

2008-07-19T20:27:00.021-05:00

You'll have to pardon me for temporarily borrowing these scans from the Photobucket of one tw_basketcase until I can finish touching up my own, but now that X-Factor #33 is finally out? Yeah... no.

I don't think I hate Stroman's art in this issue because I'm ignorant of what art is or unable to stomach anything harder than Alan Davis--yeah, I was really into Mondrian, Magritte, Seurat, all sorts of Impressionist/Post-Impressionist and Hudson River School-type stuff when I was a kid, fairly tame as far as it goes, but I was raised on New York City art museums to be cool with everyone from Burne-Jones to Kandinsky to Pollock and beyond. And even after taking into account that art can take on just about any form, however abstract, and still possess positive, lasting qualities, I still consider Larry Stroman's work here to be hideously unsuccessful. He can draw, I must emphasize--from time to time there's a panel that actually looks perfectly decent and you wonder, well, why didn't he bother to keep doing that, then?--but for the most part, this issue looks like it was phoned in over two paper cups and a length of string.

Or maybe I just really hate this top panel. The sequences with Darwin and Longshot rapidly oscillate between "hey ho, here we are in the trackless waste" and "look, an urban street with people on it!" In the page just before this, Darwin and Longshot stepped off a Detroit street into what I guess is an abandoned lot, which here magically morphs into giant sand dunes filled with free-standing ruins and random floating animals. Two panels later on the same page, even though they haven't even moved, the background? Trees and intact houses.

(And about those animals, what the hell is that? Is that a hawk? Or just a really inept Skrull? Because it's the wrong body type to be a pigeon, starling, sparrow, chickadee, mockingbird, oh, I dunno, night warbler, whatever. It looks like a random... ground-skimming... hawk... in the middle of what is either allegedly Detroit or the protected shoreline nesting habitat of the killdeer.)

Turn this page and now they're back in the same trackless waste, except it's inexplicably filled with crowds of people. A page before, Jazinda appeared to be standing near a telephone pole on a city street. Now--is that her silhouette to the far right of the top panel? Just standing around in the desert? (Floaty Cat also reappears in silhouette in the bottom panel, for no reason.) The whole thing is like that--there's no real attempt to establish where anybody is in relation to anything else. It's just a bunch of panels that happen to be sharing a page, which is doubly unfortunate when there's no dialogue to disguise the weakness of the action sequence. Comics are a visual storytelling medium and, regardless of personal art style, if you can't convey the story in an effective, dramatic manner, it just doesn't work.

Anyway, we'll see. I do like X-Factor, for the most part. But I'm perfectly willing to jump ship and hook up with Invincible Iron Man instead of paying to watch Jamie "No Nose" Madrox and his other face-shifting buddies throw punches or randomly run back and forth through an indeterminate landscape populated by African-Americans depicted with the same bone structure as Deep Ones. (Marvel Detroit's new slogan might as well be "Dude, You'll Never Guess What We Put In The Water Here.")

AX Post-Mortem, Pt. 1

2008-07-18T20:01:00.011-05:00

Atlus ran a Shin Megami Tensei panel at AX 2008. Cool, right? So I went, and so did some friends--the room was packed to capacity, unsurprisingly--and here's the thing: that panel was deadly. I'm not sure if marketing ever gave its seal of approval to the entire affair, but the main speaker was not really a polished public speaker (not his fault, but a moderator figure would've been a good idea) and the accompanying slideshow presentation was specifically designed to hide any or all aspects of interest. If you want a technical recap of the panel, you can find it easily enough online, but the whole affair pretty much went like this:

1. Static slide of game cover art appears on screen.
2. Yu Namba (senior project manager at Atlus) haltingly describes the game and its gameplay features, all of which you have to imagine for yourself because the AV presentation consists solely of a static slide of the game cover art.
3. Static slide of the next game's cover art appears on the screen.
4. Yu Namba haltingly describes the game and its gameplay features, all of which you have to imagine for yourself because the AV presentation consists solely of a static slide of the game cover art.
5. Ad nauseam.

One particular wince-point: as Digital Devil Saga VA Yuri Lowenthal talked about his experiences voicing the game, he mentioned seeing some of the cutscenes and being amazed that the game was actually being released in the U.S. Somewhere... somewhere in all of this would have been a swell opportunity to play a cutscene from the game, or at least a clip showing the man doing his damn job. Instead, Atlus provided... a static slide of the game cover art. The only way anyone could have put any less effort into this panel would be if they just shut off the projector entirely and let Namba mutter for an hour.

Now, I love Atlus, I love Persona and the Shin Megami Tensei series, but I'd been working all day and this was a flagrant waste of time. The panel didn't even attempt to excite any newcomers in the crowd: hey! Play this game! It comes with a cover and there is a picture on that cover! Wait, where are you going?

Swag or no swag, I pulled the ripcord and bailed. Didn't regret a thing. Wasn't even the first to leave.

My companions did stay for the duration--because one of them had a game device to ease the tedium until the Persona 4 announcement. Later on they came by to show me the swag: somewhat unexciting bright yellow shirts, which only came in gamer size (L) and were thus pretty much useless for small females anyway. Plus, bright yellow. (Who is that color supposed to flatter?)

"Ebay," they said.

"Ebay," I nodded.

Breaking new ground since... never

2008-07-17T00:57:00.012-05:00

Another delightful female character description, courtesy of PvP:

Jade Fontaine
Certainly there is more to Jade than just a chick who’s into games, comics and the Lord of the Rings movies. But, hey… who cares really? She’s a hot chick who’s into geek culture. That’s all we, as men, really need to know. Right?

Well, that's pretty much all you really need to know about the mindset of the author, in any case. ("But wait! I was being ironic! Yeah, ironic...")

Anyway. Fellas, if you think the world really needs one more comic about the hee-lar-ious adventures of yet another slacker gamer fanboy who may or may not bear a surprising resemblance to you (in your mind), or you already have a comic about the amazing exploits of said generic white dude and the people who inexplicably put up with his wastage, I strongly suggest that you not embrace the mindset of the Parents' Basement. You have every right to give every impression that you and your kind are socially retarded man-children--adverse to ambition, exercise, and fresh salads, content to see women as breasticular fantasies instead of actual people--but I wouldn't really advise you do so. (If nothing else, it doesn't hurt to differentiate your work from the horde of guys out there peddling the exact same tired wares.) It may take effort and/or talent to rise above its mephitic depths, but the Basement is not your friend.

Also, it floods whenever it rains. So, there's that.

Guys! Don't know how to be funny? Go for the tit punch every time!

2008-07-15T11:35:00.025-05:00

Hey hey, kids! Did you want to know more about Otakon's mascots? No? Tough. There's a spec sheet out on the Otakon website with all the vital information you didn't give a damn about, such as:

Hiroko-chan
Age: 22
Height: 5'9" (175 cm)
Weight: 145 lbs (66 kg)
Build: Busty (C Cup)

There. Aren't you glad they took the time to give her a bra size? After all, women are their breasts. (For the record, her "brother" Hiroshi-kun has a build that's "Skinny/Wiry Muscle.")

For another example of the principle in action, let's take a trip through otakudom via the Sketched Out Life webcomic, where when it comes to humor, women are
Nothing...
But...
Their...
Breasts.

Breasts... that are crazy! Like the nameless main female character!

(Soon to be named main female character) She's all that geeks want in a woman. Yes all other comics have this type of girl, but this one is special. She's the embodiment of all Sketch's experiences with girls... so basically she's nuts!

Woh-ho! Females have boobs and they're wacko? What a way to really distinguish this faceless fantasy object from, y'know, every other stereotype of the female gender. Then again, she is allegedly based on real girls the author has met, all of whom apparently possessed no notable personality traits aside from mammaries and insanity.

To be fair, some people are perfectly happy to just play titties or bust for the rest of their natural, and if that's all someone is aiming for, they have every right to do so. (And let's face it, there will always be people happily ensuring that the stench of the proverbial parents' basement clings to fandom until sometime shortly after the sun goes supernova.) Doesn't mean they still shouldn't get called out for it, though.

What to Expect When You're Expecting... to Be Shot At

2008-07-08T21:49:00.006-05:00

So issue #5 of Cable came out last week, in which Cable continues his adventures with the baby-who-I-thought-was-Rachel-Summers-for-a-second-and-then-I-remembered-that-Rachel-is-flying-off-in-space-with-Shi'ar-Cloud-so-I-guess-it's-supposed-to-be-baby-Jean-Grey. Le sigh. I liked Cable/Deadpool.

So, whatever, right? Except I saw the cover on the shelf, and my god, is that what I think it is?

After running all around during Messiah Complex dodging the Marauders (and Bishop) with this fragile, newborn infant strapped to his chest... right over his center of mass... with no head support (I'm sure the world's most powerful telepath/telekinetic can withstand a little Shaken Baby Syndrome)... he finally buys the world's most bad-ass Baby Björn. Or cobbles one together in some warehouse somewhere. Look at those sturdy pipes! Air tubes? Poop tubes in case she needs a change in the middle of a firefight?

I guess it's something, though I fully expect that hole in the middle to fire psionic beams at some point.

"You got reality in my fantasy!"

2008-07-05T00:16:00.008-05:00

So here we are at Anime Expo's new venue, the Los Angeles Convention Center. When the move to the LACC was first announced, there was trepidation from certain quarters about the local neighborhood. In practice, the local area is largely devoid of life but otherwise quite tame, with several pricey buildings either leasing units or under construction. And here's a hint: if there's a California Pizza Kitchen around? You're not exactly in peril.

Sure, there are a few homeless people in the area, as generally happens in, oh, what d'you call those places again... cities. In fact, one recurring homeless fellow was quite happily licking the underthighs of his jeans clean in the middle of the plaza outside West Hall, surrounded by tons of cosplayers and looking fairly pleased to have the company. It was almost touching, in its way, and he would've fit right in except that the convention-goers were less likely to have a change cup. Don't believe me? Then let's play:

HOMELESS OR ATTENDEE?

Homeless: spends a lot of time sleeping on the street or sitting against a wall
Attendee: spends a lot of time sleeping on any available carpeted floor or sitting against a wall... or in front of an elevator... or in front of doorways... or, as witnessed earlier today, lying head-down and on their side in the middle of a flight of concrete stairs, playing with toys

Homeless: sometimes shouts at people on the street; occasionally provoked into committing acts of battery
Attendee: sometimes stands in hallways, stairways, elevators, etc. and shouts for everyone to raise their hands if they want to be touched in special ways; often, upon seeing a/other cosplayer(s), rushes to commit an act of battery

Homeless: has a sign saying "HOMELESS, PLEASE HELP"
Attendee: has a sign saying "WILL YURI FOR POCKY/HUGS/MONEY"

Homeless: relies on donations for income
Attendee: relies on parental donations for income

Homeless: sometimes trailed by an unpleasant odor
Attendee: sometimes trailed by an unpleasant odor

It Came From the Gamma Quadrant

2008-06-23T00:48:00.009-05:00

So the previews for X-Factor #33 are looking pretty awesome. Peter David throws a real curveball into the Skrull invasion storyline--turns out the Skrulls aren't the only shapeshifters in town! Yep, X-Factor and the greater Detroit metro area (or wherever) have been infiltrated by blunt-faced changelings from DS9. A time-displaced Odo has taken over as Jamie's changeling replacement but, given his inability to replicate a human face, he isn't fooling anyone; still, looks like Guido and Val will play along for now.

What happens next in the epic clash between Skrulls, changelings, and mutants? Why did Val Cooper spend the past five months eating steroids for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Stay tuned to find out!

Finally, a comic for people who failed Basic Cultural Sensitivity 101

2008-06-01T09:12:00.009-05:00

So the next X-Men story arc is, er, X-Men: Manifest Destiny, which suggests the title was conceived by people who have no idea what, exactly, Manifest Destiny entailed. Now, if the underlying theme was that Cyclops' fisty, fisty concept of "leadership" ("let's send people to beat the crap out of everyone until we are all perfectly safe--do we still have any disposable teenagers left?") is moronic and should be humored by no-one, then hey, you might manage to justify the title with a strained analogy. But that could be asking a lot from the folks who thought X-Force: Needs More Clawz, Rawr!! was a good idea.

Speaking of people who have no idea what Manifest Destiny actually involved, Newsarama poses a question to Axel Alonso:

Newsarama: The term Manifest Destiny beares a significant amount of weight in the history of the U.S. and the expansion of civilization to the Western shores of North America--how does this metaphor apply to the X-Men beyond the obvious move to San Francisco?

Axel Alonso: The X-Men’s move to San Francisco is more than just a change in scenery – it’s a change in strategy. It’s a large part of Cyclops' vision for what the X-Men should be – and one thing they should not be is sitting ducks in a hostile world.

The expansion of civilization, eh? Well, gee. Thanks for the blankets, white man.

We're the Princes of the [Democratic Process]

2008-04-26T11:45:00.007-05:00

This week's Time cover:

Hmmm, let's see...

Obama: Edwards' blade did not cut deeply enough. He was right about you. You're slime.
Clinton: Edwards was an effete snob! He died on his knees. I took his head and raped his woman before his blood was even cold.
[Obama looks at her in fury]
Clinton: Ah, I see. Edwards lied. She was not his woman. She was *your* woman. And she never told you. I wonder why. Perhaps I gave her something you never could, and secretly she yearned for my return.

Don't take this as an endorsement, either. Because remember, if McLeod wins, then we end up spending a Saturday night watching Highlander: The Source. And that, my friends, is a battle no one wins.

Dote up a cat, my X-Men

2008-04-24T00:47:00.009-05:00

More manga X-Men character designs were released. They're--they're something. It's not that the actual drawings are terrible, they're pretty good, but.

Kitty Pryde: the name says it all! No, really. It does. No need for any further characterization: it's cats all the way. Lots of cats. Oh, she may be bishoujo now boys, but trust me: this can only end in the lingering smell of Meow Mix and lonely nights on a shredded, cat-pee-stained couch by the time she's 30.

Seriously, this is a path that just encourages more shit like this.

Nightcrawler: guy, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be out there saving Rosette or something?

And finally, Beast: I'm so sorry. I am so, so sorry. Someone needs to bundle your ass on the first Catbus out of Xavier's or whatever ASAP--Mei and Satsuki have got to be better than this.

You can check out the full versions of Anzu's character designs here.

Bet all those "L" and "R" mixups in Japanese seem pretty insignificant now, huh?

2008-04-22T10:48:00.010-05:00

Times when it is a good idea to send a text message:

You need to send someone detailed information like an address or phone number
One or both of you are in a place you cannot talk, like a meeting or class or very noisy room
You want to be disgustingly cute and tell your significant other that you less-than-three him/her

Times when it is a bad idea to send a text message:

You and your soon-to-be-ex-wife are in the middle of a nasty divorce and having a dot over an "i" can make the difference between her just being pissed off at you or her waiting at the door to stab you in the chest with a knife.

Oh, Turkey, between this and Brides on Tour, it makes one long for the days when we could simply laugh and watch Turkish Star Wars. In fact, I hear that sort of thing is in now.

Even with those eyes, Natalie Portman can't emote

2008-04-15T10:43:00.012-05:00

Japan loves Star Wars. And this year is the 30th anniversary of Star Wars in Japan. So of course we want to find out how to draw Star Wars characters manga-style.

What, we don't? Well, too late! Now you too, can learn how to draw such strong female Star Wars characters such as Padmé Amidala, Mara Jade, Aayla Secura, and Anne! Wait... who the hell is Anne?

It's so simple- just a few lines here and there, and big eyes, and ta-dah, you have a handmaiden/queen/senator from Naboo! Oh, and bangs, you mustn't forget the bangs, because:

"Manga characters seem to almost always have bangs. Even if the character being drawn in real life does not, the Manga style usually incorporates them anyway, along with longer than usual flowing hair. This often helps add dramatic action to the pose or motion."

I'm a bit surprised they didn't put Princess Leia in there. You know, 'cause then you'd have mother and daughter (and sister-in-law) and then we could really delve into some manga stereotypes.

Oh, there she is. Well then.

Anne?

Which looks better: one, or two? One... or two...?

2008-04-14T22:32:00.004-05:00

Realmscon mascot? Homage to a film classic? Or both? You decide!

Well, Nazi chic certainly does exist in Japan, so I guess either way it fits. SS-tan!

I want girls, girls, girls

2008-04-11T13:16:00.009-05:00

The winner of the Shadowline "Who Wants to Create a Superheroine" contest has been announced, and while the concept itself is actually quite cute, the best part is that heroine Journey Dominguez, "a normal teenage girl", is a glossy 20-something pin-up vixen with cha-chas nearly the size of her head. Yeah, that's pretty much artist Franchesco's default style, but still. Glad to see Shadowline has really gone for something... um... unique. With any luck, contest winning author Tom Arguello will have the heart to put Journey on the upper side of the 17-year divide so readers can savor her shapely body and come-hither eyes with all of the taste, none of the guilt.

Kinda makes a person nostalgic for the early, not-hot days of Kitty Pryde and Jubilee, though. Check out the rest of the top entries for a good laugh and a head scratch.

North Korea: the most eco-friendly nation of them all

2008-03-30T09:18:00.006-05:00

From the geography whizzes at SFist:

You know, I bet Kim Jong-il uses energy-saver bulbs. Why don't you?

Stuff White People Like

2008-03-24T00:35:00.028-05:00

It's not an anime or a comic, and it's not even an animated series featuring kung-fu fighting delivery orphans or kung-fu fighting chickens hunting down a villain with a Japanese name. But I'm gonna mention this anyway.

The Lonely Planet Taiwan (2007) guidebook is deeply amusing in its cluelessness, despite alleged improvements from the previous edition and the supposed insight of its resident Anglo expat writers Robert Kelly and Joshua Samuel Brown. To be fair, the authors hit all the appropriate Lonely Planet notes: they cluck disapprovingly over Snake Alley and the appearance of elephant tusk ornaments in a hotel lobby, and they give their stamp of approval to animal welfare and environmental conservation efforts. They shake their head at the onslaught of modernity:

Just a few years ago the place had a great remote outpost feel to it and we highly recommended a stop there. But those days have gone. The 'old street' now has a shiny 7-Eleven on it, completely ruining the atmosphere...

Fortunately, there's no such danger of anything similar happening on the east coast:

For years, people have been saying that the time to visit the east coast is now before its backwater charms are lost forever, but we see no danger of that happening for a while yet.

We can only hope the Taiwanese inhabitants of the east coast will treasure and preserve their "backwater charms" for years to come! Modern infrastructure and conveniences just spoil the view. It'd be such a shame to disappoint the Anglo tourists, and the Taiwanese are nothing if not a friendly, relaxed folk. Not like the Japanese or Koreans, who the book notes are often described as "industrious", "polite", and "reserved", most notably right there in that sentence. Yes, the authors continue, you can keep the Taiwanese people down with colonialism, martial law, dictatorship, threats to invade, and refusal to grant political recognition, but by gum, those folks just keep on smiling! (Except for, y'know, the ones who went into political exile, or were victims of the aforementioned martial law and dictatorship, or...) The guidebook bandies around a couple of theories for why this is--maybe it's the weather? Or,

...maybe its [sic] because Taiwan has been blessed with a mixture of Buddhist philosophy and hefty (although somewhat underestimated) contribution of relaxed Polynesian DNA to the overall gene pool.

And you know how those Polynesians are. They can't help it; it's in their genes. It's true because we the authors just said so. But wait, there's another theory. Maybe the Taiwanese are "so genial" because "a foreign visitor is recognising (in some sense at least) Taiwan's legitimacy to control its own borders":

Or maybe there is something in the theory of collective national hunger for recognition from world community ... Perhaps when a Taiwanese person is especially nice to a Western visitor (as often happens), following some random act of kindness with the commonly spoken words, 'Welcome to Taiwan,' they're only telling part of the story.

Maybe what they're really saying is, 'Thank you for realising that we are here.'

Yes, massa! We're ever so glad you could come and give our happy-go-lucky li'l lives meaning with your white gaze! It means so much to us, especially because your Western countries won't grant Taiwan formal recognition as an independent democratic nation. Thank you. Thank you so much for realizing that we are here and you'd rather we shut up and not do anything about it that might upset buddy China. Welcome to Taiwan. You smug fuck. Now gimme an Aegis cruiser.

Still, there's no denying that the authors have a keen grasp of the island's tangled history. They can see the lighter side of cultural annexation and suppression:

Taiwan had been in the imperial sights of the Japanese empire long before her colonisation [read: take-over] in 1895. Though conventional wisdom holds that Taiwan's neighbour to the north was seduced by the island's abundant wood, coal, and metal deposits, we think the real reason (in part, at least) might have lain elsewhere. For a people as wenquan (hot spring) crazy as the Japanese, the thought of having the world's finest hot springs so close to home yet not under imperial control must have been discomforting to them to say the least. And of course, there's the issue of prestige; for the rest of the world to discover that the finest hot springs in Asia were anywhere else but in Japan might have implied an unbearable loss of face. Clearly Taiwan, and her amazing geothermal waters, would have to be incorporated into the empire.

The wit, gentlemen. The wit. And also, the filling up of a big paragraph for which you had nothing at all useful to say except for a clumsy stab at humor. Bravo.

But anyway. Should you be faced with a Taiwanese person who, inexplicably, is not full of islander joie de vivre and doesn't knock themselves out to help you--especially a person who doesn't understand the clear and simple English words "non-dairy creamer"--never fear! The guide advises that you have a "Cultural Compassion Moment":

Also common among Westerners visiting Taiwan is an experience of the following sort: You are at a bank, a restaurant, or someplace else, desperately wishing that the local with whom you're briefly interacting could understand just a few words of simple English. But they can't; in fact, you seem to be making them visibly uncomfortable by your presence. Perhaps they're fidgeting, or stammering something unintelligible, [like their native language?] or just giggling nervously. They certainly aren't helping you get your money changed, your coffee sweetened, or whatever it is that you came for. You find yourself wondering, 'Does this individual dislike foreigners?'

The guide's authors advise that you bear in mind the possibility that this stumbling native before you may have been traumatized as a child by being forced to practice English on Westerners in the past. Or not, is the other possibility. Either way, they advise you to smile and practice "the compassionate patience of the Buddha". Yeah... practicing Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka or Japanese would probably be more useful, but whatever. It's not your problem, it's theirs; that native's got issues.

More multiculti wisdom abounds, probably because they needed to pad sections out and didn't want to come up with actual content. A sidebar in the Food & Drink section describes Joshua Brown's culinary experiences with his first Taiwanese girlfriend, who asked him near-daily whether he wanted rice or noodles for dinner:

New to Taiwan and somewhat unschooled in the culinary culture as I was at the time, I took this as a sign that everyday Taiwanese cuisine was none too diverse. It took me a while to understand that this question would actually lead to a variety of meal choices...

So really, you have to feel sympathy for the poor fella and his acute visual disorder. Not only has he apparently never had any experience with the variety of East Asian food in general, he was also physically unable to perceive any of the restaurants, food stalls, snack stands, night markets, cafeterias, supermarkets, groceries, bakeries, specialty stores, and related advertising that are everywhere on the goddamn island. This sidebar, by the way, is all of three sentences that come to the realization that actually, there is a lot to eat in Taiwan! Wow! Really? Thanks for putting that in the Food & Drink section, never would've figured it out otherwise. Like... from the rest of the text.

What other insight can these expert writers provide? Well, in the listing for a restaurant whose name translates as Cat Mouse Noodle, they take special pains to note:

The shop's odd name arose because the owner's nickname sounds like 'cat mouse' in Taiwanese and not because of anything you'll find in the food.

Good thing you emphasized that, 'cause you know how those people are--you never can tell! Alas, no such clarification is forthcoming for, say, the Train Head Original Food Restaurant, which is unfortunate because I draw the line at cannibalism and crunchy cogs are bad for my dental work. Then again, East Asians don't have a reputation for eating trains. They do have, in certain circles, a reputation for eating cats, and again, thanks to the authors for pandering to that angle. Quality work, guys.

They also have keen insight into the characteristics of Taiwanese towns. Take their lengthy sidebar discourse on municipal sanitation and the town of Puli, a sidebar that starts with an anecdote about the author watching a dog poop on a sidewalk:

Odd as it may sound, I sit in my car to see what will happen next. The dog is a stray so I'm not expecting an owner show up [sic] and lay claim to the prize, but I am expecting the 'Puli Poop Patrol' or some-such entity to come and clean up the mess. When they don't, after a considerable wait, I leave in disgust...

Other places the author has been forced to leave in disgust at the lack of satellite-guided poop disposal squads: every city and town in the world that has dogs in it. But surely one couldn't expect much more from Puli: "Puli, which yes, does sound like 'poo village' ('li' is village in Chinese)..." You're paying up to $25.99 plus tax for the privilege of seeing these words in print, by the way. Well, fortunately, the government is on the poop-scoop case:

Truly, in Puli's defense, however, I did only see the one dog get away with leaving his lunch remains behind ... If progress continues like this, there may come a day the town will have to consider changing its name.

Because the syllable "pu" sounds like "poo"! Yeah, it means something completely different in Mandarin, but so what? Puli! Get it? Get it! Change its name? Get it? ...yeah. One of the authors proudly claims that he's been living in Taiwan for 11 years. And this is the best they can manage. Is there any hope for cross-cultural understanding left?

But I kid the authors. They really have spent a lot of time and effort on this book, effort that extends to every ethnographic detail. Why, Joshua Brown once lived with a Hakka family! And based on that one family, he is now prepared to give you a sidebar discourse on "A 'Typical Hakka Family Home'". Let's see... there's a garage and a living room on the first floor, and there's an aquarium with lucky fish. Oh! And next to the living room, there's a kitchen. Bedrooms are on the second floor. The third floor has another bedroom, and a parlour, and the fourth floor was where Joshua Brown lived, and also there was a family shrine... there you have it. A typical Hakka family home. Leaving aside that all it takes is five minutes in Taiwan to realize that this is the same basic layout as any "typical" family home in Taiwan, regardless of ethnicity--all I have to do is reconfigure it a bit to, say, put in a home theater instead of a "parlour" and I can submit essentially the same crap as "A 'Typical Ho(k)lo Family Home'" based on relatives' digs in Kaohsiung--well, alright, there is nothing after the leaving aside.

That's all there is in the sidebar, by the way. A floor-by-floor description of a house. Did I mention this book lists at $25.99 retail? Oh, and it has a picture of people in white uniforms doing tai chi on the cover. Because really, that's what you should think of when you think of Taiwan. Not hey, a country that has ads in its airport proudly advertising the manufacture of computer components, or even damn, that's a lot of bubble tea stands, but a bunch of people in old-fashioned clothes practicing leg extensions. No matter how advanced you may be, East Asians = martial arts/tai chi forever. Joy.

So yeah, the book is a joke. But at least the Rough Guide to Taiwan put Taipei 101 on its cover. Modernity! Squeal! It's almost as if Taiwan is a nation in the 21st century! Oh, Rough Guide. Thank you for doing that much, at least.

Why do you not use your powers for good?

2008-03-14T00:49:00.006-05:00

When I heard Longshot will be joining the cast of X-Factor, my first question was how long it will take before Peter David has him dishing out extended references to, I dunno, Teletubbies and The Jeffersons and shit. Place your bets now, I've got $5 riding on issue #34!

Fifteen Load Bearing Posts for the Fanboys We Don't Cater To

2008-02-08T21:09:00.000-05:00

io9 is a new blog from the snarky folks at Gawker, dedicated to science fiction and futurism, where they promise (in their manifesto) to "show you a new world that's shockingly different from what you're used to." As a concept it seems sound enough, since a lot of science fiction is about the future, and the future has technology, and technology is scientific... sort of. Yeah.

Their manifesto later goes on to say "io9 is from an uncharted region in futurist culture. Our idea of science fiction includes things like Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica TV series, the architecture of Frank Gehry, and the writing of Michael Chabon. These creators don't cater to fanboys with trivia obsessions, and neither does io9."

Right then. So dear io9 bloggers, please explain this post so endearingly titled, "The Explodiest Outer Space Crashes Ever to Rock Your Movie Theater." Or how about this list of science fiction currency. Oh, that one actually tried to express the value of fictional currency in real-world dollars, which is a truly noble endeavor. In the future. The technological future. In space.

Cranking back the dial we have this list of time machines and "The Greatest Scifi Dance Routines Of All Time" and... oh hell, let's just make a list!

And that's just this week. Digging back a bit further we find gems like:

Top Five High-Tech Lairs of Evil Masterminds (OK, a Few Good Masterminds Too)
Who's The Tallest Giant Monster?
This post titled "Can You Escape Your Fate? Science Fiction Has The Answer!" seemed promising, but spoiler, it's another list! With lots of words.
And my personal favorite, "Five Ways 9/11 Changed Science Fiction." Because no one had ever made a movie where New York gets trashed before September 2001.

There, there, io9 bloggers... don't cry, they're not bad posts. (Well, not all of them.) Just don't pretend like you don't get paid based on the number of hits they generate. Because we know. Everyone knows.

There is nothing you possess that it cannot destroy

2008-01-25T14:15:00.000-05:00

So The New Yorker had a contest in which readers were invited to submit art re-imagining cover boy Eustace Tilley, shown below in his original incarnation:

And wouldn't you know, someone came up with this. Which is funny and cool but also makes you want to die a little inside. (This, on the other hand, is a more guilt-free pleasure. Superflat, baby.)

Let'sjustputshitupandcallitadayist

2008-01-18T11:38:00.001-05:00

Courtesy of today's edition of SFist:

Get it? Because, uh, people might have been yelling at Tatiana the tiger. Just like Sailor Moon villains Tiger Eye and Hawk Eye are yelling! At Sailor Venus. Because they want to date her...

Still, the dude's name is Tiger Eye. So technically it's probably more on point than, oh, I dunno...

Sure, we all hate Chibiusa, but isn't that a little harsh?

Slow Ballad Grudge Match!

2007-12-18T16:45:00.000-05:00

Which syrupy endsong from a CGI showcase flick can caterwaul its heroine's name with the most style?

In the right corner:
Kaena: The Prophecy. Heroine: Kaena. Notable cast members: Michael McShane and Greg Proops in a Whose Line double feature, Dwight Schultz, John DiMaggio.

In the left corner:
The Golden Compass. Heroine: Lyra. Notable cast members: Count Dooku, a lot of other people who should've known better.

A few handicaps to note:

Kaena has a plan. "Lyra" has no clue: where are our lives / if there is no dream? "Kaena" has the obvious answer: if you should fall in the deep / to call the dreams / the vision in your sleep. In retrospect, it is easy to figure out.

On the other hand, Lyra is less likely to trip in the dark. Even although the night is falling on "Kaena", the sun is in sight. This sounds pretty good until you realize "Lyra" has the numerical advantage: and the stars look down upon her / this darkness settles on her. Remember, a sun is just one star.

Kaena's soul is the great attractor. "Kaena": echoes of the past / are flying to your soul, which is a distraction she doesn't need in the middle of a title bout. "Lyra"? Her soul walks besides her. Moving target, forces the enemy to split their attention. A tactical advantage.

Fuggit, just bring a spade. "Kaena": the truth is in her head. "Lyra": the truth lies deep inside her. At least Kaena knows exactly where it is.

The Showdown:
"Kaena" vs. "Lyra". You be the judge!

Special last-minute contender added--"The Dream WIthin" from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. It hits all the right notes (stars, dreams, mysterious internal guidance, light, trust, love) but not once croons the name of Dr. Aki Ross, a critical failing.

My money's on "Kaena" because, let's face it, as bad as it is, it has more than one note. Several, in fact.

Damn, that Kate Bush song is really shitty.

I have to get a copy of this...

2007-12-11T15:37:00.000-05:00

At last! A first peek at some rough character designs for the X-Men OEL shoujo manga. And everybody's sixteen! Except Magneto, he's gotta be a hard twenty. Imagine how awesome it'll be when they're all dating and angsty and dating and angsty and dating and crying and talking about their feelings and stuffs and Professor X (because no shoujo is complete without a vaguely icky pupil-teacher romance) will be all like, "Ben or Noel, Jean. Ben... or Noel?!" and then she'll cry sparkles 'cause she loves them both but in the end she chooses Phoenix and... yeah.

Teenaged girls hate subtlety

2007-12-09T21:55:00.001-05:00

If I'm very good in this life, hopefully I will be reborn in the next as the person who has to write copy for manga like All Nippon Airline:

ANAL – All Nippon Air Lines – is a unique airline company. All of its employees are beautiful gay men. On top of that, relationships between employees, or even between passengers and employees, are highly encouraged! This is of course the premise for many hilarious situations and strange adventures both for them and for their passengers.

Now that's classic. Admittedly, the art of yaoi manga copy is not an easy craft to learn. For example, if it were up to me, I would describe Author's Pet like so:

Poor, poor Yuta. He's a high school student who's about to be used for the hot erotic gratification of a chickenhawk desk jockey with a bum arm! Sexual abuse let's go-go funny!!

Whereas the actual description reads like this:

High school student Yuta bumps into a man outside the train station, injuring him. The man's name is Tsubaki Nishijima, occupation novelist. In exchange for crippling his arm, Tsubaki demands Yuta work like a slave every day! Today's job is to take exact dictation of Tsubaki's words. Whaaat? What's with this perverted depiction of "Come”...!!! Isn't this sexual harassment?

See? There's a lot of nuance that goes into that work.

Welcome to my dark pit of not really that darkness

2007-12-08T03:55:00.000-05:00

Costume design by Jessica Rabbit and the Ice Capades.

Because I owe certain people a post, here it is: Wendy Pini's Masque of the Red Death, the first original series (as conceived by Edgar Allen Poe) from Go! Comi. It's a daring "walk on the dark side" kinda like Hot Topic is a walk on the cutting edge of alterna-cool, but hey, it's free to read when you register at the Go! Comi site. Editor Audry Taylor describes it as "what all fans of homoerotic fantasy and horror dream of: a long and involving story line with a cast to die for ... characters who make love, pursue immortality, and suffer from the highest peaks to the lowest depths of human emotion."

"I can see the outline of your fibula and it is totally turning me on.
Also, I've sculpted my own hairdo out of marshmallow fluff."

I describe it as a slow-moving story about boring pro-ana assholes making glassy eyes at each other. There's been none of the promised love-making as of yet, but I imagine it will look pretty much like this when it comes.

As you may have noticed by now, the lead characters are styled, unsuccessfully, in what might be described as a pseudo-Peter Chung, pant-averse future look. People, if you want to draw emaciated yaoi reeds, don't do it halfway! Go all out and invest it with flair, or else your fellas just look repulsively disproportional. Despite Pini's professed interest in manga, her art here is much stronger--and less glaringly Photoshoppy--when it more closely resembles an exaggerated American animation style; no doubt there was a lot of effort put into this, but right now it's not gelling well.

As for the dialogue, well, it exists and it conveys information. So, uh, kudos on that accomplishment--

Bunchh [sic]: A woman's perfect breast... Royess' slinky grace... Steffan's bone structure... you're saying these miracles are just illusions fashioned by whims of the mind?!
Prosper: There's no miracle involved. Royess slinks in black because she wills it. Steffan looks as he does because he wills it.

--wait a minute, dude! This shit is just an infomercial for The Secret!

"I am devoid of all vital organs and muscle mass because I will it.
And now, I will you... to purchase my DVD for $29.95!"

That Asian dude better not be the evil character

2007-12-07T15:54:00.000-05:00

So yeah, you could watch the Speed Racer movie. Or you could skip paying $11 to see Emile Hirsch act constipated-intense and just play any version of WipeOut instead, because that series kicks ass. Your choice.

I iz too a cosplayer cuz I has cat eers on

2007-12-01T17:34:00.000-05:00

This book is as every bit as depressing as the cover image.

So photographer Elena Dorfman, as you may already know, took a series of photos of "cosplayers"--her words, not mine, as you'll see later--which has been released in the book Fandomania. The blurb goes like so:

"The theater of cosplay has no boundaries, is unpredictable, open-ended. It includes both the fantastic and the mundane, the sexually aberrant and innocent, female characters who become samurai warriors and brainy scientists, and male characters who magically change their sex." Explorations of identity through portraiture are at the forefront of Dorfman's work, with the blurred lines between fantasy and reality a continuing theme.

Not to hate, but after flipping through the book it becomes clear that Dorfman's bold statement is undermined by the fact that half the people in the book look like they were picked up at the cosplay equivalent of the Bowery Mission. Whatever Dorfman's intent, these dispiriting photos convey only the message that the theater of cosplay is one of cruelty, filled with sad, sad, predominately white people living a broken-down lie. I mean, who the fuck is this supposed to be? I feel like I should at least recognize this as a character but all I feel is a pervading sense of sadness and pity. You can do it! Defeat the emo that rages inside and reclaim your flip-flops! Go, girl, go!

What's this? Oh, it's just a trap. This isn't even cosplay either, it's just how people dressed at my high school. And that sloppy hanging thread just bugs.

There are costumes in the book that are much better, but for photos featuring some of the the saddest-looking cosplayers and so-called "cosplayers" around, Fandomania is a safe bet. Then again, you can find these exact same people loitering in front of the elevators at your local convention, shrill-voiced with "GLOMP ME!" signs and boxes of Pocky. It's like Hot Cosplay Mess...

...with a foam cover. There's no reason why it should be foam, nor does its foamy quality add anything whatsoever to the finished work except for a vague sensation of squishiness, but that's how awesome and well-thought-out this project is.

So... hard... core!

2007-11-17T21:36:00.000-05:00

It's a perfectly fine tune, but do you really want to kick off a Letter from the Convention Chair with a song whose lyrics include the lines

For a feast for your eyes to see
An explosion of catastrophe?

Apparently, yes, yes you do.

Still, bonus points if ACen's opening ceremonies will also involve mascots with guitars and five rounds of skeletal chick boxing.

While we're at it, check out deleted scenes from Perfect Hair Forever. Oh, wait. No? That's not what it is? It's a Tandokucon promotional video? (Tandokucon: where panelists will be crushed by falling sheetrock and you will like it.) Well, watch it anyway. Gotta at least applaud the effort--I really like the end credits--while realizing it was a glorious diversion of time and effort from things that would actually have made the convention run good.

In an unrelated comment, am I the only one who thinks it's quietly amusing that Tandokucon promoted itself as the first anime con produced by an African-American owned group, but still won't use a mascot of color? Even all the characters in the promo video are white.

The devil is in the details

2007-11-13T21:03:00.000-05:00

So Tandokucon has come and gone, to decidedly mixed reviews. The backstory, which deserves to be enshrined for all posterity, is that it was created by a Philadelphia-area mother as an alternative to the cost and hassle of having her daughter travel alone to faraway conventions. (Like, I dunno, New Jersey or Maryland or, um, Pennsylvania.) You do the math. And also--wait, what's that you say, Tandokucon website?

To us, TandokuCon is something more than just a good time.

Well, sure, I can understand that--

It is our way of fighting against a terrible epidemic: the loss of life amongst our young people.

--oh-kay, that's a new one, but--

The tragedy at Virginia Tech is an awful reminder of the callousness some feel towards this matter.

Wow. Alright, let's leave aside how that last sentence has no actual logical connection to anything that precedes or follows it, and move on...

Interesting Fun Facts: Tandokucon's host company, T-Con Expressions, was founded in October 2006. E'lea is now 20 years old. Is now really the time to express your concern with rented convention center space? Honestly? Are you going to wait until she's 24 to set up a polling booth on your street to save her the danger and expense of traveling to the nearest school or senior center to cast a ballot?

Anyway, more about T-Con Expressions:
Staffed by one person, TCON Expressions has recruited several volunteers to administer TandokuCon. The volunteers who comprise the convention staff are passionate about art, anime and the young people of Philadelphia. We are Project Managers, students, PR Professionals, Retail Professionals and Customer Service Professionals.

Inspiring. And possibly suggestive of multiple personality disorder. Customer service professionals, you say? (Best Guest Relations Liaison... ever!) Speaking of professional, how about this helpful Tandokucon website blurb from convention artist Daylen Wright?

"I've been using the alias 'Kizziesama' in honor of one of my personal best characters named Akurin Kizuo (nicknamed "Kizzie" for her last name). She gets the '-sama' suffix because her rank is the Queen of Hell after marrying Lucifer.”

You know, if you're trying to cut the poor girl a break by featuring her on your website, do her a kindness and edit her text for idiocy. It's the least you could do. Y'know, for the children.

In related con core competency news, ran across a Mahou Con flyer this weekend. And they still couldn't spell August. Do you want to give these people your money? I know you do!

Did New Hampshire teach you nothing?

2007-11-04T00:01:00.000-05:00

Everyone and their mother wants to run a convention these days--literally, but more about Tandoku Con later--though sadly, not everyone deserves to run a convention.

Exhibit A for the prosecution: MahouCon '08. Is the California anime con circuit hurting for more? No. But too bad, here's MahouCon, a month after AnimeExpo and located in the same county. Perhaps it's merely a case of envy; even though its convention site is still under construction, that hasn't stopped MahouCon from taking out an ad swap on AnimeCons.com and cheerfully pirating AnimeExpo for what pieces of information they do have up and misspelled.

Although the event is scheduled for the Hotel Huntington Beach, it "may" move to the Anaheim Convention Center second floor if the event grows too big. (Not... likely.) Their tentative video room schedule is even titled "Video room if in Anaheim" and is organized by Anaheim Convention Center room numbers. The schedule also refers to a Go Tournament which you will not find referenced anywhere else on the site. You rock, MahouCon!

Best of all, the list of guests consists of--could it be, it is! Chris Hazelton ("he coming") and Amanda Tomasch! I'd suspect something but quite frankly, this effort looks so inept (with at-door prices like $22, $16, and $8--you've never seen registration in your life before, have you?) that I could honestly believe the organizers, whoever they might be, mistook the pair for, well, actual people in the industry.

One of us! One of us! One of us!

2007-10-28T22:11:00.000-05:00

What's better than the mouth-foaming drama of Your Webcomic is Bad and You Should Feel Bad? A blog devoted to harshing on Your Webcomic is Bad And You Should Feel Bad! Especially when the blog that's critical of the criticism blog is, in and of itself, bad. The first scathing shot across John Solomon's bow is "Your web comic review blog is bad and you should feel bad for using a blatant Futurama quote instead of coming up with something yourself which is rather ironic considering you constantly rip on web comics for doing the exact same thing except with other pop culture phenomenoms instead of Futurama", a sure sign that we're not exactly looking at the next MST3K contender.

Who should feel bad? Who knows. Welcome to the Internet.

Here is my shoddy assemblage of cliches. Now buy my stuff!

2007-10-25T21:34:00.001-05:00

There's still some weird mucky liquid at the bottom of the cup of delight that is Demented Dragon, so here we go with A Steel Wing Shattered by Chris Hazelton. First, the story in their own words:

In an average town a three hundred year unseen war is about to come to a head. Leona, a girl with no past must uncover the key to a place no living being has ever been, and secure humanity's place in the struggle to unlock the secrets of the universe itself. Her only clue is the mysterious woman known only as "Alsatia".

Because reading these things takes 1d4 SAN a shot, let's sum it up in brief. If your comic looks like it was lettered in Zapf Chancery, stop. You fail. Oh, and fellas--I know you love the boob size stuff, but it's not an adequate substitute for actual characterization and/or dialogue that suggests the women you know best all have little yellow subtitles when they talk. Nor is having characters walk in on each other naked novel or entertaining, but it does suggest you learned everything you know about writing by parroting anime and manga instead of developing talent, creativity, and an individual voice. And if your series is set in the modern day but it looks like it barely made it out of colonial Williamsburg, well, that's on you.

Here's the bottom line for all you would-be manga-ka out there: if you don't care enough to attempt even a bare modicum of professionalism and effort, maybe you shouldn't be doing this at all. Sure, we can't all be great artists or writers. But if you don't even try to do your best? If you're content to do half-assed work and call it good enough for print? That's an insult. Get the fuck out.

Are we done? I think we're done. Oh wait, he did some other stuff? Crap. Okay.

Chris also has another webcomic, a gender switcher called Misfile, and there's bras and recycled boob humor and cars and shit and more cars and he still hasn't figured out how to use a decent font. Right, now we're done.

Wow, New York guests at a New York convention!

2007-10-25T20:57:00.001-05:00

Okay, but seriously, New York Anime Festival. When are you going to announce the good guests? Co-director for the new Evangelion money grabs, that's nice, but your guest list is about as vigorously vetted as a stray dog with three legs and most of the kind folks on it are only marginally harder to get than genital herpes.

Admittedly, exhibitor participation is probably the biggest feature of the New York Anime Festival--which underlines the impression that there simply doesn't appear to be much at the Festival that you couldn't find anywhere else, the Festival just has collected more of it in one place for your mechanical consumption. But with a month still to go, there's still a chance for some genuine excitement to develop...

What's that? Oh, it's only a vending machine.

2007-10-24T22:25:00.000-05:00

Walking the streets of Japan? Afraid of becoming a crime victim? One woman may have the answer!

The other white meat

2007-10-20T23:09:00.000-05:00

Want $100 off the price of the Fujoshi Paradise Tour? Buy a Digital Manga Publishing employee at Yaoi Con! And then please, please explain to him the principles behind graphic design so that he can take the knowledge back to the others. Life is too short for weak typography. Anyway, Ben comes "sporting a lovely Wa-Lolita outfit in a floral pattern" from Dreamshoppe. Will it look anything like these? Because not many men--even very pretty men--can carry off the Strawberry Shortcake Lives On Through Me look.

Other Yaoi Con delights include Cafe Verfuhren, where you can "[d]elight in the ever changing dynamics between the owner and his growing harem of bishie waiters as they serve up food, drinks, and hot fan-service for your enjoyment." Everyone involved is actually female, but I'm guessing that if your idea of a good time is watching American girls pretending to be boys patterned on female fantasies of vaguely homoerotic male behavior in order to immerse you in the culture of Japan, then this is for you. Bon appetit!

Come tour a magical land where people are fantasies and fantasies are people!

2007-10-14T21:01:00.000-05:00

The Fujoshi Paradise Yaoi Tour snagged a brief mention in the New York Times today. Despite its promise to "take you into the secret garden of bishonen", it's just a standard Tokyo tour package with one day set aside for yaoi-themed activities. Okay, two days if you count taking your free day in Tokyo to, as they suggest, "Find your bishonen prince". Which you could probably do in Southeast Asia for cheaper, if that's the brand of cheap fetishization you're after. Or you can take the day to join the Tokyo Darkside goth-loli tour, which is the exact same tour except their special day is spent shopping, talking, and eating goth-loli, with dinner at the Alcatraz Medical Prison Restaurant. The latter seems about as authentic to the EGL experience as Trekkies dining at Mars 2112, but what do I know. Here, have a menu. They do birthdays.

As for the secret garden of bishonen? Shopping in Ikebukuro, two yaoi cafes, a visit with yaoi manga artist Makoto Tateno, and an all-male (sorry, "shapely Japanese bishounen"--speaking of fetishization...) variety dance show in Roppongi. Now, I don't know how big a yaoi manga artist Makoto Tateno really is, but the English release of her series Yellow is hilarious. Or at least the sample pages are, anyway.

Leaving aside the fact that so-called professionals laid this page out just like the Dungeons and Dragons maps I drew in Canvas 3.0 when I was 13, and in fact I would not be surprised if this was laid out in Canvas 3.0--the ellipse tool is a subtle and wily beast--"His identity is a secret, except that he's gay" is the best non-description I've seen since, well, White Wolf's classic "May be a Jew." Now that's the way to deftly establish character!

Drug use will make you sexy... so very, very sexy...

2007-10-13T01:05:00.000-05:00

What's next in Demented Dragon's house of hack-rate horrors? Yoko Molotov's Stray Crayons! Now, Amazon lists the Editor on this one as Beth Mashburn. Yeah, the staffer who supposedly has a Masters in English. That's why she didn't bother to edit tounge, wierd (twice!), glamorus / layed, gulitly (incidentally, "fare the night alone" is crap English), rebeled, and experemented / probaly. That's just in 23 sample pages; does anyone over there give a shit? Rhetorical question.

If anyone over there is actually paying Beth Mashburn, for God's sake, stop. You could hire a bright seventh grader to surpass the job she's doing, plus you could pay the kid entirely in popsicles.

Anyway, like the copy says, Stray Crayons is based in the "beautiful, haunting city" that is Louisville, KY. Feast your eyes upon its majesty, folks. Quite possibly this story wishes to be "awesome manga with hot punk rock girls" while also being beautiful and haunting and deep and shit--Maud, our female lead, is a drug-user who's beaten by her boyfriend--but sadly, Ms. Molotov's skills are not nearly up to the task. If you liked Midnight Mirror, this has the same sense of narrative urgency, just with more boob and panty shots. Thrill to 23 pages of Maud talking to herself, sobbing "I probaly look like shit! ...or crazy, because I am an idiot!" and "You're right, I am such a jerk... a whiny little bitch!" while nothing. Happens. At all. It has all the subtlety of a dead raccoon. It's the type of comic where you get a sledgehammer lecture on a young girl's poignant lost innocence, yet the previous page treats you to upskirt action of the same girl.

And there's a sneak peek of Volume 2 on Yoko Molotov's site. It even comes with a "spolier warnin'." That means watch out, there's an awesome phonetic accent inside! An accent the same character didn't have in the Volume 1 preview pages!

Must've been the drugs.

your vanity press is bad and you should feel bad

2007-10-09T21:34:00.000-05:00

The hell with it, let's go through the Demented Dragon catalog one-by-one. Demented Dragon is sponsoring Chris Hazelton's appearance at New York Anime Festival, by the way. Draw your own conclusions. Anyway, first up:

Throughout history, mirrors have been reffered to a source of mystery and magic.

So begins the steaming pile of hackery that is Midnight Blue, which promises something about magic mirrors. Instead it gives you a hero, Jay, who appears in sample pages 17-33 but spends pages 18-30 dispensing the following dialogue (presented in its entirety, original spellings and punctuation preserved):

Dammit I really suck... ...it's just not fair. Shit!
Piss off!
Oh shit... Willow
God I suck! Shit!! It's just not fair!
Fuck off you damn fairy!
Kei? What are you so happy about fat ass?! Hey J.R. - you idot cat...
What the hell? Kei you friggin bitch!

Trust me, the other pages are no improvement. It's kind of hard to tell which has more realistic dialogue: Midnight Blue, starring a borderline misogynist who makes Irredeemable Ant-Man look like the bastard child of Gandhi and Jesus Christ, or Richard McBeef. In all honesty, my money? It's probably on Richard McBeef. And that is just fucked up.

Artist Yishan Li is not terrible, though someone should really help her figure out if Jay has facial hair or not. As for who's responsible for okaying the oh-so-accurate depiction of "Western New York" circa 2006 A.D. (no shit, really?), God only knows. But downtown "Western New York"? Yes, we do have art auctions on the steps of City Hall. All the fucking time. And the neighborhood totally looks like this. In 2006 A.D., by the way. Just in case you missed the caption 4 pages ago.

Don't you love it when people can't be bothered to put any effort into their work?

Midnight Blue author Amanda Tomasch also happens to be the Publication Editor for Demented Dragon. She has quite the storied history on the anime convention scene; search out the Animecons mailing list if you like, but frankly, what matters is not so much her past. What matters is that she lacks talent and Demented Dragon sells crap, and maybe, just maybe, that might be the real reason not to prop her up on a guest chair to dispense advice to the gladdening crowds. But as I said before, the anime con circuit does not deal well with the concept of quality control, which is why Tomasch and Hazelton will make guest appearances at IkkiCon, AniZona, and ooh! Look at that shiny button on the JaniCon webpage.

In any case, it's no secret that the vanity press is not a new concept. Does that excuse grossly unqualified individuals from printing up half-assed shit? Not really. You'd like to think Ms. Tomasch, or perhaps the other so-called Editor swanning around this outfit and apparently trying to prove that a Masters in English really is completely useless, could figure out that the English language does not include the words "majestey", "patheic", "repsibility", just as it lacks a place for "reffered", "peice", and "idot". You'd like to think. But you'd be wrong. And Demented Dragon expects you to hand them money for it. Integrity? Basic respect for art and the written word? Pride in putting out competent work? Who cares, we're official manga artists and publishers now, son! We're convention guests!

Oh, and this is just funny in a pathetic sort of way. So's this. And this one too.

Because it's not Scottish

2007-10-08T22:12:00.000-05:00

Not sure if you're going to attend the New York Anime Festival? Then sister (or brother), let us tempt you with their dazzling guest list to date, including "prominent online artists" such as:

Juno Blair B, writer and illustrator of Star Cross'd Destiny! Star Cross'd Destiny is a webcomic--sorry, serialized graphic novel--about a teenager called, um, Juno. A "sad, traumatic" teenager, mind you. With powers over "weather and metaphysical darkness." (Can't you do something about your own emo then, lass?) And an '87 Shelby Daytona Pacifica which, I'm guessing, is not at all reminiscent of the author's own '89 Shelby Dodge Daytona.

Actually, there are a lot of teenagers in this; there's an embargo on main characters above the age of 20. Yes, the author is that type of borderline anime Sue. Logan's Run is all you can look forward to if anime fans rule the earth, I tell you. Still, keeping everyone in the same age bracket is a handy excuse to draw everyone the same; props to you if you can distinguish any of them from the thumbnails.

Supposedly this won an award. Supposedly.

Lindsey Henninger, "the most popular artist on anime art portal theOtaku.com". And you can clearly see why! Breast cancer: what anime girls have in common. Actually, they don't, because the teen demographic is not big on mastectomy storylines in their sexy robot catperson boylove power fantasies, but whatever. You get the idea. I mean, she meant well. The point is, she has what it takes to be a prominent online artist at a Reed Exhibitions event. Reed Exhibitions: "generating billions of dollars in business" in 34 countries worldwide, to bring you this. So please, take in what NYAF calls "her unique art and coloring style". Take it in and suck on it. Mmm, delicious.

Chris Hazelton, and I didn't get much farther than the front page for his webcomic Building 12 before I realized life was too short for such pain. My life, anyway, but not yours. As a fun aside, there are probably more aliens (2) than people of apparent African descent in it (0), because that's just the way shit goes down in this fandom. Be sure to check out his mad lettering skillz and a page from his apparently published work, A Steel Wing Shattered. The work is rated 16+ but it already evinces all the comic design sensibility of someone who's 11. Okay, maybe 12.

And that's rated 16+ as according to Chris's "publisher", Demented "We Can't Distinguish Between 'Its' and 'It's'" Dragon. Pay for a fucking editor, people. Just goddamn do it already. Also, it took me all of two seconds to pull this map up on Google--you see how there's that bit to the west that isn't New York City, much less a poorly filtered image of downtown (southern) Manhattan labeled "Western New York"? Ah, but my ire at self-styled publishers who have no interest in learning or applying the basics of editing and presentation--comics don't need asterisks to denote sound effects, by the way--it runs away with me. ("Rift the heaviest graveyard stone" indeed, what did Lafcadio Hearn ever do to deserve this?) I digress. (I bet I could put manga-style pictures to Atlanta Nights and they'd still publish it... yeses.) My favorite line from their website: "Originality in both story and art are always a plus!" And they have neither, so there you go. Dare you not to check out Yoko Molotov's Stray Crayons, which is "based in Yoko Molotov's hometown of Louisville KY, a beautiful, haunting city." Louisville: the Paris of the South. Or, knowing Demented Dragon, West.

Now, not to begrudge people the creative urge, and no doubt these artists will improve over time somehow, but the anime convention circuit sure does love to celebrate itself some low-level-mediocrity-verging-on-outright-crap. Certainly there are times when it's hard to get a person of the caliber you want, or even one who could pass as a journeyman professional. But is that really a reason to give feature status to any warm body with a Wacom tablet who presents at the door? Does that do the artist, the fan community, or the industry--or even an event's reputation--any favors?

I ain't sayin', I'm just sayin'.

When content writes itself

2007-10-08T01:22:00.000-05:00

The 1st Annual Naruto Star Trek Convention. There, my job is done.

But your job has just begun! The Convention is looking for panelists to come up with 2 panel topics that, God is my witness, combine both Naruto and Star Trek for discussion. So come to the convention and, as the organizers say, "[f]ind out why Naruto and Star Trek are more alike than you think." Because they're not going to tell you on their website. And frankly, they probably won't even tell you when you attend the convention.

A hint or two would be much appreciated because all I can picture is Picard squealing "I'm gonna be Admiral! Make it so!" while Beverly Crusher cries a lot because she's a sissy-pants medical officer and no use to anyone on the Away Team and then I want to cry too, quietly and alone in a corner.

Everything's wetter under the sea

2007-10-07T18:36:00.000-05:00

Time for more mascot escapades, this time featuring the latest incarnations of Anime Boston mascots A-chan and B-kun. Anime Boston seems to have an aquatic theme for 2008, which is no doubt why their webpage features A-chan trying to check out B-kun's tacklebox. And taking notes on what she sees.

Whee! It's like someone spotted hidden treasure down there.

Vox Populi

2007-08-13T00:18:00.000-05:00

Dear Illuminati:

I used Action Replay on my video game and now it doesn't work properly. I contacted the original video game manufacturer and asked for assistance but nobody replied. Why? And what can I do now?

Signed,
Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

Your question is so clueless, just reading it has driven Blackbolt OOC. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Shooting you into space with our minds,
The Illuminati

Eat Drink Mad Villain

2007-08-12T10:14:00.000-05:00

Good news, everybody! It's the upcoming series Three Delivery!

Three Delivery is set in a magical Chinatown and follows the adventures of a group of orphaned teenage delivery kids who are also Kung Fu-fighting superheroes. Together, they must prevent the evil Kong Li from collecting powerful, ancient food recipes that have the power to unleash dark forces upon the world.

Finally, someone acknowledges those underrepresented themes of Chinese kung-fu and evil Chinese men! But tell us more, creator Larry Schwarz:

“The show is a fantasy, but the characters are written as real kids who viewers will want to emulate. We also incorporated tween trends, including extreme bike riding, punk and EMO."

Really? Emulate real orphaned delivery kids? Wow, I can taste the awesome already, and it tastes like EMO! I'll let the press release explain further:

When orphans Sue, Sid, and Toby are recruited by Nana to make deliveries for Wu's Garden Chinese restaurant, they see it as a chance to move out of the orphanage and ride cool bikes.

Two things:
A) Nana got to stop with that child labor shit.
B) Seriously, those kids have got to be dumb. As. Fuck.

Anyway, Three Delivery. Coming this fall!

The Order #1

2007-08-10T01:23:00.000-05:00

So here's the deal: California's LA-based Initiative team is composed of regular humans juiced up into superheroes with really boring names and powers. And a Greek pantheon-based sorting system that doesn't work at all, just like Ares once his royalty checks start rolling in. There's no genuine reason why arbitrarily designating team roles as Hera, Apollo, or Athena works any better than Strategist, Tank, or dozens of other words that are completely free to use (until Stark applies for trademark registration), but you'll have to sit through the official explanation whether you like it or not.

Anyway, this issue won't set the stars ablaze but there's enough here to show promise, especially if you're not wedded to the idea of four-color superheroes. (Speaking of color, the cast includes not one, but two physically handicapped minorities--c'mon, would it be so hard to let at least one of 'em keep a pair of functioning legs?) Our characters are adults who recognize, to varying degrees, that it's all basically a set-up. So do you join up to save the world? Or so you can use your new powers to skip traffic on the freeway? Sure, it's a little cynical, but hel-lo, LA.

Barry Kitson's art is solid, which also helps. Incidentally, I suppose it's too much to ask that action star/charity diva Magdalena turns out to have an international passel of adopted orphans or a Kabbalah bracelet, is it? No? Oh well.

The deal-clincher, though, is that everyone gets fired in the first issue. Okay, not everyone. But a bunch of people are unceremoniously handed the pink slip, and it is awesome. This is something the Marvel Universe could frankly use a lot more of, as its employment standards are pretty laughable:

X-MEN: So, A-List Villain, you've been killing people off and on--mostly on--for the past ten years or so without remorse or regret?
VILLAIN: Yup.
X-MEN: Even tried to kill us a number of times, I see.
VILLAIN: Uh-huh. In fact, I'm thinking about poking your eyes out right now.
X-MEN: Welcome to the team!

Also, there's a bear with a jetpack. I'm not one for bears with jetpacks, as a rule, but if you have to have bears with jetpacks, LA is as appropriate a place as any to send 'em. So--go bears!

Where is the good stuff?

2007-08-09T01:50:00.000-05:00

Aoi House: because creativity would take effort. Published by Seven Seas and appearing in Newtype USA, this OEL manga "harem comedy that's truly like none other" features the truly, truly unique elements of:

* A harem, duh.
*A panty-stealing ~~character~~ hamster!
* Everyday protagonists who end up living in a cra-a-azy dorm full of people... of the opposite sex!
* A shy, dark-haired girl with glasses! A sassy, trouble-making redhead! Rich blonde girl! Plus, other characters you've seen a dozen times before!
* A theme song featuring 101-level Japanese lyrics!

My God! Can you stand the sheer novelty of it all? Sure, it's a collection of overused stock elements that justifies OEL manga's occasional bad rap as nothing more than cheap imitation. It even reads right-to-left. But on the other hand--well, there is no other hand. Still, the artwork by Shiei is competent, if very generic. Who knows, maybe even Aoi House was supposed to be unoriginal. You know. A very post-modern artistic statement. Or something. Besides, it's not the creators' fault they got published or that people are willing to buy this stuff.

And yeah, it's a manga set in America where all 7 main characters are pleasingly pale to the eye. If Wikipedia is to believed (as I haven't read the hard copy of the books), one character was supposed to be African-American, but there were toner problems. Never heard that one before, but OK. Sorry, African-Americans! It's not that they didn't want put a token representative in this manga. It's just that they couldn't, 'cause of the technical issues involved with your darkness and all. And there just wasn't time to hire a replacement here. Maybe you can appear in an upcoming volume once they can do that toner stuff. Or maybe not.

But hey, at least the gay character isn't a comedy prop portrayed as an effeminate freak unable to resist straight men due to his uncontrollable queer man-lust, right?

Right. Does he turn kindergarteners and Cub Scouts gay in his spare time, too?

In any case, lest you think author Adam Arnold was completely asleep at the right-side wheel, his notes make it clear that lots of effort did go into developing a quality product:

We've even taken steps to ensure that all the girls' bust sizes are as varied as possible. Nina's are the smallest, but she's quite macho. I'll let you try and figure out which girl has the largest.

Thanks, guy! But I'm afraid I'll pass. On all counts.

Anime: a beacon of nuanced multi-ethnic representation since, well, never

2007-08-08T01:54:00.001-05:00

Hey fan-kids! Want to blog against racism? I know you do, because it's easier than trying to make a difference in the "real" world! And now pretense to action is cooler than ever with these handy dandy anime icons! Nothing creates concrete change like a "ninja against racism" icon, because you know how Naruto is about the fight against--against, well, ninja, mainly. Um. Maybe they're ninja who stand for racism (except for the good guy ninja, who stand only for being ninja) and also ninja.

Here at Power Level One Million, we're ready to join International Blog Against Racism Week and speak out against racism. For a week. On a blog. Which only a few of our friends read. Because that's how we'll turn back centuries of institutionalized inequality. See, there's even an icon.

Because like so many bloggers out there, we too can commit... to looking committed. As long as it can be accomplished entirely from the comfort of our computer wheely chair, anyway.

Hello Kitty: Mark of the Beast, Mark of Shame

2007-08-07T19:42:00.000-05:00

Because tardiness and littering are adorable! But did Sanrio okay this?

It's also made for a man but strong enough for a woman

2007-08-01T22:03:00.000-05:00

Just as video games increasingly attempt to emulate film, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. And here it is: a film that emulates a video game cutscene, but alas, not on purpose. Action sequences: good, of course. Everything else: well, just tune in at 4:25 into the trailer and thrill! To! Acting! If that doesn't make you feel like you are right there in the recording booth, nothing else will.

CATBLUE Dynamite! Making its stateside premiere at the New York Anime Festival this winter. Good luck.

We're all the same on the inside. And the outside, too.

2007-07-30T18:57:00.000-05:00

Presenting the Life (ライフ) manga by Suenobu Keiko, featuring the most indistinguishable series of tankoubon covers ever.

Anime Punch, Bomb, Stab, Shoot

2007-07-28T00:43:00.000-05:00

So maybe there aren't many anime convention mascots of color in America. But what does a convention mascot stand for, anyway? Anime Punch, the convention that proudly posits otaku as the self-important roaches in humanity's bleak future, has given mascots Ann (19) and Penny (11) a backstory:

Choosing the difficult path of dedicated martial artists they live outside the bounds of civilization, rejecting any comforts, and never backing down from a fight. They are forever white-belts; unable to advance in rank because they killed their master. On top of that, they must face the shame and indignity of not being able to avenge his death because they were the ones who defeated him.

The difficulty of the dedicated martial artists' path is clear; while both girls are "karate white-belts with a traditional karate uniform", Ann uses "a long Japanese sword, or dual pistols" while Penny's "weapons of choice are handfuls of knives or bombs". At first I thought their contradictory backstory was toked up after a few bouts of Street Fighter Turbo, but I can see it all now:

ANN: Tell me, master. Why are we still unable to progress beyond the beginner's white belt?
TIGER SCHULMANN: My young students, karate is more than a martial art. Thus, you will never advance in karate until you understand what karate is, and what it is not.
ANN: Like?
TIGER SCHULMANN: Like that time you unloaded two Glock 9mms full of Black Talons into your sparring opponent on Family Demonstration Day. The point of unarmed self-defense is not to wallow in deadly incendiaries and firearms--a simple point, perhaps too subtle, that seems to have escaped you. Didn't you ever watch The Karate Kid? And you, bomb freak--you're 11. What the hell is wrong with you? You're outside the bounds of civilization!
ANN: The Karate Kid isn't cool. I wanna be like The Matrix. Now that was cool. I watch it a lot. 'Cause it's cool. Yeah... I like The Matrix.
PENNY: Now, master, your fate is sealed, just as you have so cruelly and unjustly sealed ours. [throws bombs and knives] Ahahaha! Ahahaha!
TIGER SCHULMANN: [dead]
ANN: Still, Penny--I think we will keep these karate uniforms, to remind us of what has transpired this dark day.
PENNY: Yes. Also, because they were free with our introductory month of classes.

Weak.

2007-07-27T20:09:00.001-05:00

Somehow it has escaped my attention until now that anime conventions--not many famous ones, but anime conventions nonetheless--are commissioning commemorative hand-forged katanas from BowenDragon1. Because nothing says "trust me with your money" like cheesy animated GIFs. Admittedly, katanas aren't nearly as cool as the Flashing Hair Blade, which totally sounds like an exotic concealed weapon for deadly lady assassins everywh--oh. Oh. It's not.

Moving on, as an extra bonus, a blindfolded e.e. cummings writes website copy for the Kumoricon Katana:

pick up will be at BowenDragon1 booth when dealers room is open ID is required. .Swords ordered before August 18, 2007 will be delieverd at show.. after cut off date swords will have to be shipped.. check walk in for delieverly at show.

In any case, should you find yourself paying for one of these things, you'll want to take proper care of it as soon as you get it home. This is best accomplished by quickly and forcefully impaling yourself upon its naked blade--thereby mitigating some, if not all, of the shame of being so pitiable as to have purchased a commemorative anime convention katana. Enjoy!

Dear X-Factor (or next of kin):

2007-07-27T15:17:00.000-05:00

Please to be explaining what you are doing in World War Hulk/X-Men #3. You're not exactly the X-Men A-list. Or B-list. You are, with all due respect and affection, the Kathy Griffiths of the Marvel superhero world. Jamie wasn't even up to lifting a finger against Black Bolt in Silent War, and now you want to go a round against the guy that kicked Black Bolt's ass?

I've heard Monet has an IQ in the double, nay, triple digits. Could she not be bothered to explain in painstaking detail that you cannot stop the Hulk with witty banter and pop-culture references? No? OK, fine, whatever. I will merely submit for your consideration the Events So Far:

Beast: Oh my God, our species is nearly extinct! Even the death of a single mutant is a solemn event! ...so anyway, kids, let's all try and gangbang the biggest, baddest Hulk ever and see what happens.
New X-Men: [fighting Hulk] Yay! Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Pain. Ow.
Cyclops: OK, now the grown-ups try!
Xavier: Scott, even I think that's a dick move. Everyone, it's far too dangerous to fight the Hulk--
Cyclops: Shut up! I said, everybody fight the goddamn Hulk! Emma, help me make sure everybody fights the Hulk.
X-Men: [fighting Hulk] Ow. Ow. Ow. Ohdeargodjesusmyarms. Ow.
Kitty: This is so lame.

Think about it.

Yours sincerely, etc.

Dear Marvel:

2007-07-26T09:35:00.000-05:00

When can I expect a Bob, Agent of HYDRA limited edition cold-cast porcelain statue? When?

I would be willing to settle for a high quality resin bust. But make it quick.

Yours with the deepest sincerity, etc.

Stallion? Neigh!

2007-07-10T21:40:00.000-05:00

Now that I am the proud (?) owner of a gift copy of Stallion, everyone's favorite wild west English-language yaoi, I can say not only is it definitely sucky, but it's also half a book short.

You'll only realize this if you purchase the book online since there's no mention of it on the book cover, but Stallion only takes up half of its volume--the rest of the space is taken up by two other shorts from Studio KÔSEN, plus the story Cancellation of Darkness. So not only is the story basically kinda crappy, it's not even the crap you thought you were paying for. Thanks, Yaoi Press!

Anyway, Stallion is the thinly-scripted story of a trio of forgettable anorexics with rigorous depilatory regimens, whose fates and loves intertwine under the hot desert sun or something to that effect. The titular (Savage) Stallion is a generic Native American from a nameless tribe that mostly consists of an old woman in a tipi. (In the middle of a barren wasteland devoid of plant life? Well, alright, I suppose.) His purpose in this narrative is to a) be token exotic eye candy, and b) take it up the ass from various white folks such as Josey the bounty hunter, unto whom Stallion gladly renders a blow job and a portion of his own soul. Watch out for soul syphilis!

Still, the creators attempt to give Stallion some dignity. Or not. Actually, they just compare him to an animal:

Since he has a name related to horses, we wanted to give Savage Stallion some slight features from them. His eyes are a bit bigger and darker than the other characters [sic] ones. His buttocks are a bit rounder...

That's as close as you're ever going to get to character notes in this thing, so get used to it.

Anyway, opposing Josey and his white man's burden is the wispy cowboy Bill (seen above), who shares the same tragic eating disorder as his foes and draws webcomics in his spare time. Despite being about as intimidating as a hipster working the Soho Apple store, cowboy Bill still manages to ride around the desert raping our heroes until Stallion fells him with a thrown dagger between the eyes. A dagger he keeps unsheathed and tucked in the back of his modesty thong:

Yes, that makes perfect sense.

See, I've never tried to ride horses and tackle bounty hunters in the old west, much less do so with a naked blade shoved down a G-string. It is entirely possible that the practice poses no potential hazards whatsoever to the integrity of my underwear and my fulsomely rounded, horse-like buttocks. So I guess I should cut KÔSEN some slack.

I'm also willing to cut linguistic slack to the Spanish KÔSEN, who seem like a fairly likeable pair of artists for all their authorial shortcomings. But Stallion was supposedly edited by Xaviera Pallars and Yamila "Female Parts That Make You Feel Icky" Abraham, neither of whom figured out that dialogue like "They said my tits were too big for the dress" doesn't ring true to the wild west. (For what it's worth, the OED traces the slang usage of "tits" to 1928.) None of this stopped Stallion from getting four stars on Amazon, for what it's worth (not a lot). But let's face it, if you're looking for plot, characterization, and writing, what the hell are you doing reading girls' manga porn in the first place?

On the other hand, if you're bored at work and you want to see how many people will start laughing after reading the back cover copy alone, then Stallion is well worth the purchase. I highly recommend it!

Special Bonus Feature!
The last page of Stallion is an ad for Zesty!, a free shounen-ai webcomic from Yaoi Press, featuring rave reviews from the likes of... PikachuGoddess and TwilightDNA?

More manga copy I love (not really)

2007-07-07T16:45:00.000-05:00

Via Go! Comi press release:

CY-BELIEVERS is the new series by Shioko Mizuki, creator of Go! Comi’s highly popular CROSSROAD. When Ryo’s controlling father betroths her to a lecherous upperclassman, her only hope is a club of hot computer geeks!

In A.I. REVOLUTION the daughter of a scientist finds herself surrounded on all sides by violent bishonen robots who she must teach to live — and love — like humans.

Query: does it really matter if robots must learn to live - and love - like humans? That's what humans are for. Still, people never tire of stories about the human-robot condition even though robots are really for shooting laser beams at people you dislike and transforming into jetcopters (also with lasers). You know. Useful activities.

Let's face it, anyone who invests countless research dollars and hours of manpower in designing a robot, however pretty, whose highest purpose cannot be achieved until it's ready to direct-dial my cell at 3 AM on a work night and sobbingly demand to know why I won't talk about our relationship, deserves only to be punched repeatedly in the face. Then again, people never tire of saying "I get the premise, but why would anyone breed super-intelligent sharks to cure the disease?" or "I get the premise, but why do governments continually invest in secret programs to create out-of-control psychic killing machines?" and handing over ten bucks for a ticket (or manga) anyway.

Hell, I paid to see Aeon Flux. And the return on my investment was every bit as terrible as I'd hoped.

Welcome to my dark pit of darkness, but watch out--it's dark!

2007-07-07T02:29:00.000-05:00

Ah, the Great Lakes Avengers/Initiative/what have you. A promising idea, often executed with all the subtlety and nuance of a sledgehammer to the cranium. (Maybe I'll start buying once they get rid of the editorial commentary by the damn talking squirrel.) Yet there are still bits--this one courtesy of the Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular preview at PopCultureShock.com--that are so, so right:

It's like half the shows and comics I've seen, all compressed into one tidy panel!

This got four stars on Amazon. Four. Stars.

2007-07-06T17:19:00.001-05:00

Orchiee Fairchild the third is an exorcist who hops through the land on his pogo stick purging demonic powers with his living marionette companion, Doodoo. Orchiee's travels brings him to Kingsgoie Lanzbarg University where he meets the beautiful student Philip Gillson, who employs him for a spiritual cleansing. A love affair brews between the two right as strange events start happening at the University. A dark force is raping and brainwashing the male students. It's up to Orchiee and Doodoo to put a stop to it.

I'm not sure, but I think this is supposed to come off as wacky and zany instead of half-assed and sorely needing a functioning proofreader. Who wrote this crappy copy? Why did they feel the need to waste space on irrelevant details like "Kingsgoie Lanzbarg"? Who thought this cluttered mess of a title logo in any way resembles a professional product worth your hard-earned cash?

Anyway, such is the wonderously amateurish pitch for OEL yaoi as brought to you by the febrile mind of Stephen Doerr, self-styled illustrator/sculptor/martial artist/janitor and author of Exorcisms and Pogo Sticks. Personal motto: In Doerr We Fart. Oh, the sparkling wit! Don't take my word for it--Sequential Tart's Kat "Lowering the Bar" Avila claims that "Doerr's fanciful character designs and humor-filled dialogue can put a silver lining in any cloudy day." Personally, I would prefer that Doerr's fanciful character designs not put the thought of Adam Warren: The Early Middle School Years in my mind, but what the hell do I know.

However, the best part, and by "best" I mean "most likely to make me question the existence of God", is that there is in fact a second volume of Exorcisms and Pogo Sticks: The man-slut Orchiee and his marionette side-kick Doodoo are back for another arcane adventure blah blah blah. As terrible as the pitch is, you can amuse yourself for at least five minutes by coming up with your own names of Doerr-esque absurdity and inserting them where appropriate:

The man-slut Glamour McDanger, Esq. and his marionette side-kick Buttpunch...
The man-slut Fheevee J. Johnson Jr...
The man-slut Wackums von Tittles-Guffaw...

Try it yourself, it's fun! Or at least, something to do while waiting for the bus.

101 Things to Do in Long Beach When You're Dead Inside

2007-07-05T14:07:00.000-05:00

One easy way to entertain coworkers at an anime convention is to pick up the free, glossy literature lying around and read it aloud. For example, grab the ICv2 Guide to Manga, open it up to a random page, and read the following manga descriptions in your best movie trailer voice:

1. This shonen ai/yaoi manga features pure love at the judo club between a cute boy and an ideal man.

2. A male shinigami is sent to earth on a mission, but instead of a normal skeletal form in a mix-up he gets the body of a sexy catholic high school girl, whose spirit ends up in the skeleton so she has to tag along and try to keep the shinigami's dirty mitts off her nubile form.

3. So when he catches a glimpse of a beautiful stranger and her strawberry panties set against the backdrop of the setting sun, all he can think about is recreating the scene on film. Thinking she is the owner of the underwear in question, Junpei begins dating the popular and perky Tsukasa, hoping that as his girlfriend she'll be willing to appear on camera. Little does he know that shy, nerdy, bookworm Aya also owns a pair of strawberry panties...

4. A rash of unexplained deaths on the U.S. border with Mexico provides the backdrop for this OEL yaoi romance thriller. Rated 18--hey, I know that one! The art's really good for a yaoi title, too:

Frank says: I thought we agreed NO CHICKS.

Oh, Hatemonger. Your white power wuv is so twoo.

White Town

2007-06-27T12:02:00.000-05:00

Looky look, it's the 10 finalists for the New York Anime Festival Mascot Contest! What best captures the spirit of anime in New York City, that melting pot of all conceivable nations and cultures?

White people. How white? Bavarian-Holly-Hobbie-goes-street-urchin white.

Okay, to be fair, the Ringo Broadway girl is kinda taupe. But you'll probably sooner see an inhuman mascot like a fucking apple robot or a catgirl or a flaming dog-lizard in a military jacket before you ever see a anime event mascot who looks, for example, African-American. Or even Cablinasian. Cablinasian would at least be a start. Caucasian, East Asian, gay, straight, possible were-lepus transvestite, human-animal hybrid, robot, whatever--all of these are perfectly acceptable features in anime convention mascots, just as long as they're not brown.

Anyway, feel free to continue blithely endorsing them dominant racial norms here until the poll closes on June 29th!

Your improbable girlfriend is blocking my view of the exploding robots, please move

2007-06-24T02:54:00.000-05:00

The New York Times has an article on Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, screenwriters for the upcoming Transformers movie. Alex, I'll take "Crapping on a Perfectly Good Franchise" for $100:

What ultimately sold Mr. Kurtzman and Mr. Orci (who share a story credit on the film with John Rogers) on “Transformers,” and Mr. Bay as well, was the opportunity to tell a story about a boy and his car — a car that just happens to be a robot in disguise.

“It’s all the things that a car represents in this country,” Mr. Orci said. “That’s a story of stepping into adulthood, stepping into responsibility, possibly a gateway to sex. That is a story — with or without a giant robot.”

Sorry, but what you've actually described are all the things that Kiss Play represents. Next time, you might want to try describing a story about things that are actually awesome.

Am I completely out there? You can tell me if I'm totally out there. Was I the only one that loved Transformers for the robot dinosaurs and Sharkticon pits and shit? Or was I actually supposed to be immersed in Spike and Daniel's Decepticon-plagued passage to manhood? 'Cause I'd rather have robot dinosaurs.

Licensing show news you'd rather not use

2007-06-23T12:55:00.000-05:00

Hot on the trail of other Transformers animated series we didn't really need, it's Transformers Animated! Offering a "new twist on the original series", each episode is "a standalone storyline featuring everyday heroes who do good deeds that triumph over evil."

Alas, "everyday heroes" suggests less robots with laser guns, more fleshbags like little girls named Sari who are voiced by Tara Strong. But that's the core appeal of the Transformers brand: stirring tales of plucky humans who do the right thing and wear The Strokes T-shirts. Not, as is commonly believed, talking robots who transform into jets and eat planets. Not at all.

Maybe he can date Marissa in issue #4

2007-06-15T01:14:00.000-05:00

Dear Greg Pak:

Thanks for adding more Asian-American characters to the Marvel Comics stable. But seriously, guy, you can take Amadeus Cho back now. The comics world--okay, let's face it, the world--needs more Sooper Brilliant Teenagers Who Outwit Grownups and Stuffs... in Your Face! about as much as it needs more Random Asian Ninja Cheesecake. ("No, seriously, I'm British!") Tacking the word "ASIAN!" between "Sooper" and "Brilliant"? Does not automatically redeem this or any idea.

As you said last year: "I had this idea of doing a story about an insanely smart kid, but one who wasn't a reject or dork or geek."

You and every other fanfic writer on the intarweb. But hey, you know, the ranks of Marvel Universe superbrains/futurists/crazed geniuses/etc. are so devoid of male characters, at least you're breaking utterly new ground on that angle.

...nah.

Next!

Yours with the deepest sincerity, etc.

Also try Jerich Olives.com for all your catering needs

2007-06-09T10:06:00.000-05:00

Huzzay! CBS has decided to give Jericho seven more episodes. Which means the rest of you potential fan agitators should already be selecting delicious, delicious treats to best suit your message. In fact, it's best not to wait for a reason to protest; pre-emptive action is the key. Example: want to ensure Viz continues releasing Yakitate!! Japan? What better encouragement than boxes upon boxes of scrumptious confections and baked goods, right now?

Fauchon and Payard both ship. Not a request, merely a suggestion.

Meanwhile, a Television Without Pity poster asks:

Just what is the responsibility of TWoP with regard to throwing its ever-expanding influence solidly behind this effort?

To which the obvious answer is the sound of hysterical, soul-dead laughter.

Don't ask, don't tell

2007-05-29T00:29:00.000-05:00

INSTRUCTIONS: Select two out of the following three questions, or invent your own. (90 minutes, 50%)

Question 1. I chair an anime convention whose mission statement, like many other conventions, includes the promotion of Japanese culture. This is accomplished both by the convention and volunteer panelists through events such as matsuri themes, tea ceremonies, and the Let's Talk Shinsengumi Hour. Please explain in 500 words or less whether this may risk reinforcing a fetishistic approach towards "understanding" the culture of Japan, and whether this is in fact inferior to any other approach that could be undertaken in this format.

Question 2: Anime is cool. Manga is cool. Japan is cool. Japanese characters are cool. Especially if they are babes. I am a white college student in New Hampshire who has created a webcomic based on precisely this philosophy, and I am not alone. Please explain in 500 words or less what this could or should mean, if anything, for Japanese Asian-Americans; for non-Japanese Asian-Americans; and whether Asian-Americans in general should consider the fad for things Japanese to be a positive sign, another wave of Oriental exoticism, a combination of the above, or none of the above.

Question 3: I am a teenager in Kenya who does not speak fluent English, but I am obsessed with American network TV. It is far superior to anything on Kenyan TV. Please explain in 500 words or less how my love of American network TV will grant me a deeper understanding of what it means to be American, thus fostering my cross-cultural competence, and how American network TV carries a unique message of female empowerment that I find refreshing.

Extra Credit, Option A: If you selected Question 1, please explain in 250 words or less why I, as convention chairman, should be free to exclude the consideration of any or all Asian/Asian-American issues and concerns from the planning, staffing, content, and execution of my Japanese culture event.

Japanese for everyone

2007-05-28T13:35:00.000-05:00

The absolute best example ever of how to use the phrase 汝の敵を愛せよ ("Love thine enemy") in context, from Love, Hate, and Everything in Between: Expressing Emotions in Japanese (Mamiko Murakami, Kodansha 1997):

A: 「もういいかげんに許してやれよ、聖書にも『汝の敵を愛せよ』ってあるじゃないか」
B: 「冗談じゃないよ、敵は憎らしいもんよ」

A: You've been holding this grudge long enough. Why don't you forgive the guy? You know, like it says in the Bible and all, "Love thine enemy."
B: Don't be ridiculous. I hate my enemies.

Better yet, you can turn to page 154 for the following chapter: "We've been through a lot together! Now let's break up!"

Boy, 11, kills traumatized forest god

2007-05-26T13:47:00.000-05:00

Inoshishi-gama, no-o-o!

This shit is bananas ($2.50 / lb, UPS Ground and sales tax extra)

2007-05-26T12:24:00.000-05:00

By way of Defamer comes word that fans are sending CBS boxes upon boxes of delicious, delicious roasted peanuts to protest the cancellation of Jericho.

No idea what that show is? You're not alone. Still, according for the NUTS for Jericho page at NutsOnline.com, thousands of pounds of delicious, delicious peanuts have already been shipped to CBS. Technically the nuts will be sent on to City Harvest (in America, feeding the underprivileged is a task left to upfronts and inmate executions) but nobody will notice a missing pound, or fifty, stashed in the employee break room, perhaps the trunk of a intern's car.

Obviously, this "Pay Company A to send Company B a Shitload of Tasty Treats" strategy is a superlative one that anime fans should immediately adopt as well. Sure, you probably still won't get your show or your Sonic the Hedgehog voice actor or whatever, but Company A gets money and Company B gets Omaha Steaks for everyone, even Carol in reception. Did you know that licensing companies respond very favorably to Omaha Steaks? Because they do. (Better than they do to the fifty identical voice messages you left on the feedback line, anyway.) Also, Harry & David gift towers go over particularly well. Or so I'm told.

For more information or to better coordinate your protest needs, please visit our newly established sister site, PowerLevelOneMillionGiftBoxesOnline.com!

Some men are simply born to greatness

2007-05-13T00:14:00.000-05:00

A: I appreciate a hemorrhoids-based webcomic that never updated as much as the next person, but--who's this Robert DeJesus guy who's always invited to conventions? I tried his website but it's not that helpful.

B: Look, you can't expect him to update his website. Just because his Studio Capsule website link is printed in a convention program guide doesn't mean there needs to be anything recent there for people to look at. Besides, the sage himself has an explanation:

This may come as a surprise to some, artists do have bills and need to eat too. Since I don't make a single dime off of this website there's no fiery desire to crank out work for this site.

"Well, why can other artists get a lot of work up on their site?"

Maybe their art is not in huge demand and they have more time to update, and/or they refuse to work for 'the man'. That's all fine and dandy but in the real world, once you stop living with your parents, one needs currency to keep themselves from living out of a cardboard box.

B: See? He doesn't have to care about presentation because he is a real, working artist. As opposed to artists who regularly update their sites, because those people are probably unpopular and/or deluded.

A: Wow! That makes perfect sense! Thanks for clearing that up. He must really be amazing--I wish I could advertise on his site.

B: Can't. The link to do that is there, but it's broken.

A: He's so good he doesn't care about bennies from web advertising banners either?

B: Even to this day, there are tribes in the Polynesias that still worship him as a god.

A: Wow. That is good!

It's no excitement

2007-05-08T04:03:00.000-05:00

Dear Broccoli and Gainax:

You were right! Nothing says must-have mecha v. Angel fighting video game like Monotype Corsiva! It's the most powerful font ever.

For a wedding invitation.

Yes, due out in June and approximately 10 years too late to be cool, Neon Genesis Evangelion Battle Orchestra looks every bit the half-assed cash-in attempt.

We know how to keep objects from overlapping! Oh wait, we don't. That's Unit 00's arm sticking out the middle of Ramiel. Crap.

Still, it's probably worth a try for two reasons. One, a plugsuited Kensuke appears in the intro, so if he is a playable pilot, this is probably the only chance anyone will ever have to make Kensuke Aida do something of interest. Then again, this is a game where the black EVA unit is armed with the pinnacle of NERV Angel-fighting technology: nightsticks. So scratch that, Kensuke's toast. Two:

Ramiel and Leliel better be playable characters, that's all I'm saying. Nothing could sum up the undying Evangelion enterprise better than paying 7000 yen to smack a cube and a sphere into each other... to the death.

Otakudom is not dead

2007-05-06T00:50:00.000-05:00

From the pages of the local discount pharmacy circular:

Everyone has a story to tell...

2007-05-02T02:57:00.000-05:00

Don't like mauve book covers? Then turns out you don't actually have to bother with purchasing 2004's Shoujoai Ni Bouken: The Adventures of Yuriko, the visibly homebrew novel by Erica Friedman with Kelli Nicely on illustrations. But does the carpet match the drapes? Well, the text is available online and it is fan-tastic. Generic fanfic, that is. It's more or less grammatically decent, though, if that moves you. Also moving: the dramatic opening scene in which our heroine goes! To! Makeup! In adjective-pulsing detail:

"Just once more and we’re done.” Yuriko could feel the cool slime of cold cream pass across her cheek, followed by a vigorous circular rubbing motion. Her skin became warm, and the slimy feeling changed to a slightly tacky sensation. She sighed impatiently and crossed her arms. The sensation ceased.

“You’re done.” The hairdresser was tall, scandalously thin and exceptionally effeminate. He put his hands on his hips and looked at Yuriko condescendingly. “That wasn’t *that* bad, was it?” He leaned forward, peering at her closely. “Oh wait, I missed…” She slapped his hand away and stood abruptly.

No, what would be bad would if the publishing arm of your organization thinks *asterisks are a professional-looking substitute for boldface*. Yeah, I know just about anyone can self-publish nowadays. But presentation still counts, people! That's all I'm saying.

Every time you pirate an Avril MP3, a kitten dies... oh yeah, and then this happens

2007-04-27T18:57:00.000-05:00

A scene from Episode 8 of Avril Lavigne's Make 5 Wishes, which is now officially The Funniest Free Podcast Ever (in the Last Two Months):

Avril Lavigne gets chomped by a giant sea monster.

If otaku ruled the world, there would be no war, and also no labor movement

2007-04-23T22:39:00.000-05:00

Anime Boston 2007: complete. There were a few complaints about the convention hotel, which is currently on the rocks with hotel employee union Local 26. Says one Anime Boston staffer:

I was running the Tetris DS tournament out on the balcony of the game room, and right before the 1st round began the strikers started making loud noise and their union party van started playing lame 90s "techno", and we kept screaming at the to STFU. And then Sheraton people came and kicked us off the balcony cause we were interrupting their strike >.>

"Jeezus fuck, what is wrong with you people? 'Working without contract for the past six months' blah blah blah. We are trying to play video games over here! And play some goddamn decent protest music while you're at it! It's like you assholes don't even have any 'Real Emotion' remixes in there."

Words there are none

2007-04-18T01:02:00.000-05:00

From Avril Lavigne's Make 5 Wishes, Episode 7, in which our protagonist Hana acts out her secret wishes:

Public Service Message

2007-04-12T22:31:00.000-05:00

Get the Anime Industry to Take You Seriously: A Fan's Guide to Contacting Companies via Email

1. Spam, spam, spam, glorious spam. Sending twenty identical emails titled "Read Me", "Please Read Me", and "Important - Must Read" is a great way to get people's attention. Once their junk mail filter is full, they'll have no choice but to listen to you. (Junk mail filters do get full, right?)

2. Personal insults get results. The result is that your illiterate, obscenity-strewn message will either be tossed on sight or tacked on the wall for employees to mock. Clearly, it's only a matter of time before the company, weeping with collective guilt, accedes to your demands.

3. You don't need knowledge to know what you're talking about. You've never had a real job, much less one in the anime industry. But you read ANN, for God's sake, obviously you know as much (if not more) about running a company as any of its employees. So tell companies what to do, and be prepared to quote Wikipedia if necessary; execs will bow to your superior business acumen.

4. Anime skillz are more important than work skills. Companies don't hire based on experience, education, or skill. In fact, HR always keeps a few choice game design, character design, and scriptwriter positions open because they're just waiting for you to email and say "I'm a huge fan, will you hire me? And produce a movie based on my fanfic (sample attached)?"

5. Santa Claus has branch offices in California, New York, and Texas. Maybe your parents won't buy you the company's product, but the company definitely will. Just email your address and the list of items you want for free, then wait for your package to arrive via FedEx Overnight.

If these tactics fail to achieve the desired result, it may be that the company just doesn't care about you as a fan. Because if the company really loved you, it would do whatever it took to make you happy. And like the ex-boyfriend who only dated you because he was on the rebound, the company must be forced to realize that spurning your affections was a fatal error.

The next guide will include everything you need to accomplish this and more! Here's a preview:

1. Trash your ex on the internet. Whether it's your old boyfriend's secret herpes infection or the character names and dialogue lines that the company "translated" with total disregard for the BitTorrent subtitles, let it all out so the world will know how badly you've been hurt. The more you complain, the more reasonable you will sound.

Rain obscures without lying, and also makes things soppy wet

2007-04-08T01:55:00.000-05:00

You can now subscribe to Avril Lavigne's Make 5 Wishes (A Tribe Called Quest) on iTunes as a free download. Or hop over to make5wishes.com, an official site that resembles the free-hosted fan website of a clueless teenage girl. Right down to the Google ads and disregard for attractive web design!

You can even "Sign Up" there. For what, it doesn't say. Perhaps a demon-ridden box that can only be dispelled by the imaginary musician friend of your choice. Perhaps junk email from Nettwerk.com.

Sorry for the forthcoming spam, flintstone@yabbadabba.com. But it was in the name of research.

Avril Lavigne's Make 5 Wishes (A Pimp Named Slickback) episodes aren't a terrible concept when viewed in something akin to the intended format. Print can be unkind to Camilla D'Errico's art, here verging on the amateur webcomic level--rubbery bodies, faces that don't look their age, generic backgrounds--but seen one panel at a time, it's oddly appropriate.

Likewise, it's not Joshua Dysart's best and his rain-based metaphors need work (okay, a lot of his metaphors probably need work), but it's an emo parade for an emo age group. And the story, such as it is, does pick up once the happy wish-granting demon appears and the reader is no longer trapped alone with protagonist Hana's endless angst. Hey, Hana! Maybe the futility of life isn't the reason you don't have real friends. Maybe you don't have real friends because you suck.

Until Hana learns a Valuable Life Lesson, tune in to Episode 4 for the unintentionally amusing bit where Hana rags on an old jazz guitarist because jazz music is dumb and slow. Old music suxxorz compared to Avril Lavigne! Yes, a scene so pathetic that even Imaginary Avril Lavigne is embarassed to be part of it. And Imaginary Avril's embarassment is understandable; a manga where her biggest fan is a delusional, mopey little muffin who doesn't know shit about music... just doesn't seem like a particularly effective sell for the brand, no?

Rumble in the Barracks

2007-04-06T19:01:00.000-05:00

Avengers: The Initiative.

Set in Stamford, Connecticut...

...but filmed on location in Vancouver.

(Avengers: The Initiative #1 scans from IGN and scans_daily user Flidgetjerome.)

Now where's my manga Book of Mormon?

2007-04-03T01:42:00.000-05:00

Siku's The Manga Bible is not the only manga Bible around, but to our knowledge there is no illustrated testament that kicks more graphic ass. (At least until until Rob Liefeld gets around to The Bible Reborn guest-starring Youngblood and Avengelyne; maybe Jesus can start by healing anorexic steroid freaks.)

Siku certainly has a dynamic style (like Exalted meets, well, the Exalted), but that's not even what makes The Manga Bible truly hardcore. Because there are two versions currently available: the NT Raw or the NT Extreme.

Now that's extreme!

New York is totally different from the Big Apple

2007-04-02T12:06:00.000-05:00

Anime Expo is sometimes derided as having become an industry event, but here comes Reed Exhibitions to show fans what "industry" really means: enter the New York Anime Festival at the Jacob Javits Center this December. Says breathless show manager John McGeary in the press release: "New York finally has an anime event of its own!"

Yes. Because there's never been a recurring anime event, much less one organized by industry, in New York City, with "Anime" and "Fest" in its name. Ever.

Given the NYAF's organization and backing, it seems unlikely that it'll meet the same swift fate as its predecessors (if it had any, which it totally doesn't). The sponsor list should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with New York Comic Con and the American Anime Awards, either--hello, ADV!

With a day dedicated to the trade and Artist Alley prices of $350 a table, it's a far cry from anime conventions as "FANS/Consumers" know them. It's not exactly the death knell of said conventions, which offer some experiences that consumer/trade shows can't and vice versa, but it'll be interesting indeed to see if this signals the start of any larger changes on the anime event scene...

Robots in disguise. Really, really lame disguise.

2007-03-29T04:08:00.000-05:00

Transformers come in all kinds of impressive shapes and sizes, from planet-munching monstrosities to predatory tape cassettes. But truly, nothing we've seen so far can compare to the power of this latest concept, by way of Fantofan.jp:

Transformers that transform into shoes! Er. Well, into left shoe, anyway. Megatron and Convoy even keep their sporty kicks in robot mode. (No word on whether small, sad, underpaid Indonesian Mini-Cons were enlisted to complete this process.)

Autobots, transform and... pathetically hop... out!

30 silver pieces for the one who delivers...

2007-03-08T16:33:00.000-05:00

Rob Liefeld presents: The Godyssey!

Whether you smoke it or sniff it, there is no finer comic crack in the universe than Rob Liefeld (and his epilepsy-inducing, Rottweiler-designed website). Transformers jailbait hentacle porn comes close to evoking the sheer suspension of sanity and disbelief necessary to embrace the Liefeld, but there is no comparison to the master. This is the man who, whether directly or through his publishing ventures, egged on some of the greatest sequential art of our time.

It is in the area of Biblical crack where Liefeld's abilities truly shine; The Godyssey scans have been kicking around the Internet for years, but did you know you too could easily own a copy of Avengelyne/Glory: The Godyssey? (There's a copy up on sale at eBay through March 14th, too. Buy it now for 95 cents plus shipping and handling!) Alas, the Jesus content is cut short of favor of Avengelyne, a fallen angel who kicks ass in the name of the Lord, with an occasional assist from the angel of death: Passover.

Yeah. Did you know Maximum Press gave Passover his own book? Because they did. Featuring "a tongue-in-cheek cameo appearance by Gene Simmons"!

Oh, and Liefeld et al are planning a new faith-based comic label to debut this year. Hooray!

One of these things is not like the other

2007-03-04T11:52:00.000-05:00

Although Black History Month has ended, perhaps it should be extended for a few days to bring a much-needed ray of reality into the lives of juvie anime fans everywhere.

Sayeth the 4Kids fangirls of Save Our Voice Actors:

I found the absolute best quote for SOVA. I'm going to be putting this all over my banners!

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

....I'm making a shirt with this on it.

Yeah. Uh. Kids. You know what Dr. King was talking about? Because somehow I don't think it was--

Wow, that is a perfect quote for SOVA... We definitely need to use it!!

Seriously, I really don't think he was thinking on the level of cart--

I agree!! It's a very SOVA-y quote!! I love it!

Oh, fuck it. Yes, chilluns, the civil rights movement and the recasting of a cartoon have exactly the same moral, social, political, and historical weight. Uh-huh. You go with that.

But is SOVA the goofball-poppingest fan campaign yet to see the light of day? I'm betting "no way"--somewhere out there, the race to the bottom surely continues.

I laughed, I cried, I hit reset after the final boss wiped out my party

2007-03-04T10:25:00.000-05:00

Via Kotaku link comes an arty Insert Credit article on why video games are not Art and most likely will never be, as well as a few kind words for intentionally punishing games:

They shine. Not for the enjoyment they provide, you see, but for the enjoyment they don't provide. They are the Art that games aren't. They are selfish objects, wringing a terrible revenge from a subculture that deserves to be punished. When you strip the fun away, you see Gaming for the bony white husk that it is . . . sad masses of cells tapping plastic in the dark, wondering where all the loneliness and depression are coming from.

Back at Kotaku, one can already hear some shrill squeals of "Gaming has no Citizen Kane? What about Mario? What about Metal Gear Solid, fer chrissakes! Games touch me in a way movies never have!"

Feel free to raise your own opinion on this one; this coordination-challenged sad mass of cells is at least grateful it doesn't have to shoot down a squad of mooks and an attack helicopter on a rooftop just to find out how Citizen Kane ends. There is a great deal of unfinished and unfinishable "Art" sitting around the house...

Chrono Crusade Vol. 8

2007-02-23T21:57:00.000-05:00

There's really not much you can do to ruin gun-toting nuns in 1920s America; that is what is known in the industry as Pure Entertainment Gold. Okay, you could take all those possibilities and flush them down the toilet in favor of your standard emo apocalypse saga with predictable religious overtones, but - oh yes, the concluding volume of the Chrono Crusade manga.

First things first: Chrono Crusade Vol. 8 is as beautifully drawn as always. The characters don't break any new ground but Rosette, although a generic spunky heroine, is at least a generic spunky heroine who kicks people in the head and bought up her Both Guns Blazing schtick, and Father ~~Remington~~Awesome is Father Awesome, so they're all perfectly pleasant to watch. Of course, this being the final volume, all there is to watch is expertly-rendered scenes of battle damage and heart-rending emotion you've seen a hundred times before.

The plot is entirely optional at this point: people cry and shout a lot about their issues before kicking each other in the head, there's the obligatory scene where the Main Character is KOed during a crucial battle and must mope through a metaphysical experience (on a train, no less) before returning to consciousness to whup villain ass, childhood promises are remembered and new promises made (and cried and shouted over), naked women of significance are awakened and then decapitated, disaster is threatened and averted, and climactic battle scenes suddenly cut to black. Can we get a spaceship that crashes onto a planet and causes wacky shit to be set in motion, too? Yes, we can. Cue epilogue!

The epilogue is standard sentimental fare, but it's a decent enough send-off for all the heroes you mostly tolerated or kinda liked for the past 7 volumes. And that's about it, really. Still, it's a really well-drawn series and Father Awesome has a big-ass cross sword, so the early volumes are at least worth a read. Meanwhile, Daisuke Moriyama's moved on to World Embryo.

On the technical side, ADV's translation is competent enough. But design-wise, there are just some situations in which a Helvetica-style font simply looks crappy on the page. Which is too bad, because people at ADV Manga apparently loves them some cheap-looking sans serif action.

Sparkles, people, sparkles

2007-02-23T18:52:00.000-05:00

If the subject is cool girl-girl love, then why is your book design so purposely amateurish and unappealing?

Maybe yuri fans have a zest for shades of dull off-mauve. Is this something I should be aware of?

Taking the concept of fan wank to a new and disturbingly literal level

2007-02-22T19:29:00.000-05:00

Pokemon fansite Serebii makes Something Awful's Weekend Web feature this week. Should we even be shocked that there's a Pokephilia Club thread out there? Because somehow it's hard to muster the surprise anymore.

Besides, it's not exactly hard to find Pokemon fans who are a step removed from reality. Something Awful could just have easily plumbed the depths of the Save Our Voice Actors club, headquartered on Bulbagarden and a one-time blip on last year's fandom wank radar. This kid's crew is still fixated on Pokemon characters and the voice actors from 4Kids, Pokemon's former dubbers; they're convinced they will get that semi-original cast back any day now despite everyone else having moved on with their lives - except 4Kids VA Maddie Blaustein, who apparently still hangs around to post about her hurt feelings.

Though I adored anime characters when I was a wee lass (having outgrown ponies, dragons, and death-dealing robots but not yet moved onto real human beings), I could never compare to typical SOVA specimen PokemonTrainerLisa, who thinks that fanmailing former Pokemon voice actor Veronica Taylor means they have a promising relationship:

Speaking of getting the VAs on SOVAcast, well, since Veronica and I are pretty close, I could send her an email, asking if she'd like to come on the SOVAcast. And she would most likely reply back to me as soon as she reads her email (she's replied to MANY of my messages before, and we seem to be good friends now).

However, I'm getting worried, because Veronica hasn't replied to any of my messages in a long while. It's odd because, usually, she would reply to every message I send her (it would normally take her anywhere from a few days, to 1 or 2 weeks to reply back, depending on how busy she is and everything).

But as for the reason why she hasn't replied to me lately, I'm not sure if it's because she's been very busy with all her VA work or if it's something else. But anyway, I haven't heard from her in a good while, and it's starting to worry me.

The SOVA mystery club is so out of touch with reality in general that they're phoning up Pokemon's latest hire, former 4Kids exec Caryl Liebmann, for help. See, if she used to work at 4Kids, then the only possible reason Pokemon hired her was to work on the TV show. Because that is so totally what Director of Retail Promotions means.

Shiny Happy People Holding Hands

2007-02-20T18:52:00.000-05:00

In a completely, unmistakably neutral piece titled "Japan resorts to manga propaganda", the AP and CNN discover the Japanese penchant for putting cute mascots on everything. Including the Self Defense Force.

"Prince Pickles is our image character because he's very endearing, which is what Japan's military stands for," said Defense Agency official Shotaro Yanagi. "He's our mascot and appears in our pamphlets and stationery."

Yes, endearing he is, indeed! Which raises a good question: why didn't anyone think of this earlier? It's nothing short of pure brilliance. Any military force could potentially be a highly-trained, devasting force... for cute! To help you visualize, we quickly drew up the following examples:

Is there any limit to the power of cartoon mascots?

Public Relations: A Lost Art

2007-02-15T13:38:00.000-05:00

Here's one by way of Gothamist: NYU Asian Heritage Club protests appearance by non-Asian Heritaged band Ching Chong Song, which then renames itself the Church of Lurch. As noted, a Ching Chong Song appearance was previously nixed at Bryn Mawr, prompting band member Julia LaMendola to (presumably) get Gibson drunk and write a poorly-thought out rant to the school paper which was promptly published, as the editor rightly smelled dynamite:

Growing up a child of a gay parent in a tiny town, a poor second-generation Italian girl, I also have experience with the nuances of language. And give me a break you stupid twats.
...
I am mad that I was asked to back out, just another way the small-scale mirrors the large-scale of “shut-your-mouth-you’re-scaring-me” tactics are infiltrating our f’d up sweet spunky youth. By the way, “ching chang chong” is what people in Germany call the game rock paper scissors, and stupid petty retards is what I’m calling you.

That'll totally get Bryn Mawr's sympathy. In any case, the notion that membership in Category X and/or experience of Y automatically immunizes anyone from the charge of offensive or insensitive behavior is not a recognized defense in this jurisdiction. Nor was the band named after any type of German Roshambo. We decline further review of the appellant's argument. Appellant continues:

Let our band be what it is: a gay and omni-sexual duo that writes song about life and it’s crusts and death, and most of all love and open-eyed Acceptance. You stupid petty retard girl school twats!

Ching Chong "commited to Bodhichitta by getting pissy and calling names" Song/Church of Lurch speaks for itself not only with keen tact and language-nuanced oratorical skills, but with the inevitable MySpace page. With songs! File under Instrument-Aided Hipster Masturbation, Self-Conscious Tunes for Coffeehouse Poetry Night Intermission, and Not Good Enough to Get a Free Pass on Willful Public Stupidity.