Sorry for the lack of activity, folks. I've been in a real funk for the last month, largely due to unemployment and the first anniversary of my father's death this past Saturday. I've been consuming about the same amount of pop culture, but I haven't felt up to writing much about it. I've kept active following my friends' blogs, but mine has gone fallow.
I'm just posting to let y'all know what's up with me and why I haven't been around much. I'm not giving up blogging, but expect activity to remain on the low side for the foreseeable future.
While I'm here, I also felt like sharing this keen portrait I found of one of my favorite video game villains, Porky Minch from Nintendo's classic RPG, EarthBound.
Très fly, Monsieur Minch. I find the sheer repugnance of an obese 13-year-old asshole strangely refreshing in a field dominated by whiny, conflicted pretty boys. If you have the time, I highly recommend this guy's playthrough (with commentary!) of EarthBound, one of the shining gems of the Super Nintendo.
So yeah, that's all I have to say for now. Excelsior, y'all.
Cosplay - dressing up as fictional characters, usually at fan conventions - is not something I'm into. I don't engage in it because of the negativeassociations that most people hold toward the hobby, because I just don't have the body type to pull off most characters, and because I just hate being in front of a crowd. That said, I recognize that while most cosplay is crap, some of it is actually pretty good. There's bad cosplay, and then there's good cosplay.
Without a doubt the best cosplayer I've ever seen, pikminlink brings Link from The Legend of Zelda to life. Thanks to the intricate detail of the costume (which must have cost a small fortune to make), you can really believe that everyone's favorite elf-boy has stepped out of Hyrule and into reality. It's not just a costume, it's art.
And guess what? She's a girl.
Check out her deviantART gallery for her in several variations on Link's costume and as several other characters, plus some original art.
I found this cool music video tribute to Magic: The Gathering on YouTube. It's just plain awesome. You'll wanna play this with your volume on high because the music is just that good.
I'd be remiss if I finished this countdown without mentioning one of my favorite horror-themed publications: the Ravenloft campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons.
There isn't a single D&D setting that I honestly dislike (though Dragonlance grates on me at times), but if I had to play favorites, Ravenloft would be near the top of my list. The setting was never hugely popular - it was a product of the bad old days when TSR, Inc. would throw out a new campaign setting whenever their sales were slumping and hope to Pelor that it would stick. Rather than being a generic fantasy setting, though, Ravenloft mixed heroic fantasy with gothic horror. Elves and dwarves, wizards and warriors did battle with vampires, restless spirits, and evil geniuses, and a happy ending wasn't always assured.
The setting had its origin in the classic 1980s adventure Ravenloft and its sequel, The House on Gryphon Hill, written by Tracy Hickman, one of the creators of Dragonlance. These adventures gave us the tortured vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich, Lord of Castle Ravenloft, who went on to become the campaign setting's central villain and one of the most popular recurring villains in D&D's history. The original adventure Ravenloft has been reprinted no less than three times for three different editions of the game, and I've no doubt that a version of the adventure for the new 4th Edition will pop up down somewhere the line.
Ravenloft had something that most other RPG settings lack: atmosphere. An impending sense of doom hung over the very land, and the sinister mists constantly threatened to whisk you away to some new unspeakable horror.
If I had the ambition to do so, I'd love to run or otherwise participate in a Ravenloft campaign. If you're into D&D or tabletop RPGs in general, I can't recommend Ravenloft enough.
Oh, dear - I missed an update. Ahh well, guess I'll just have to double up tonight.
One of my favorite short stories is "The Whisperer in Darkness", by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Lovecraft was an odd duck - fervently racist, sexist, homophobic, and nationalist, yet possessed of one of the most vivid imaginations in early 20th-century writing. His stories were often chock full with bigotry, but Lovecraft was a master at crafting atmospheric, nightmare-inspiring scenes.
"Whisperer" concerns one Professor Albert Wilmarth from the famed Miskatonic University at witch-haunted Arkham, Massachusetts and his inquiry into reports of extraterrestrial activity in the hills of Vermont. Published in 1930, it's one of the first works of fiction to deal with alien abductions, though they take a much different form than in modern media. It also invokes the dire god Nyarlathotep, who plays a central role in many other stories by Lovecraft.
There is (or was) apparently a film version of "The Whisperer in Darkness" being produced by an independent studio in the style of classic black-and-white 1930s chillers, but I haven't heard any news of it in over a year. Here's the trailer, which does a commendable job recreating the feel of the story.
And here is a gorgeously macabre picture of one of the alien creatures from the story.
What's Halloween without Frankenstein's monster? And what's Frankenstein's monster without Doc Frankenstein himself? The mad scientist, cackling over beakers of bubbling substances best left unidentified, seeking out forbidden knowledge, daring That Which Man Ought Not to Dare, is a classic stock character that works in almost every genre. From horror to sci-fi, superhero adventure to medieval fantasy (mad alchemists count!), and even mundane fiction, popular culture just wouldn't be the same without the mad scientist. It's safe to say that the character type originates from the (sadly still very prevalent) phobia of scientific advancement that permeates our culture, though personally I think all the Victor Frankensteins and Lex Luthors are balanced out by scientists like Emmet "Doc" Brown and Agatha Heterodyne who use their prodigious brainpower to help the forces of good, not hinder them.
Without a doubt, my favorite mad scientist is the one and only Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana, archnemesis of your hero and mine, Captain Marvel, and RIGHTFUL RULER OF THE UNIVERSE!!! HEH HEH HEH! He's just so willfully, deliberately, unequivocably, and joyfully eeeeeeeeeeevil! How can you not love a villain whose stated goals are as follows:
1) Become RIGHTFUL RULER OF THE UNIVERSE!!! in fact as well as in name; 2) Further the spread of evil, cruelty, and nastiness throughout the cosmos; and 3) Humiliate, discredit, and ultimately KILL CAPTAIN MARVEL!!!!! HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!!!
That's in no particular order, of course.
Doctor Sivana (RROTU!!!) is like the perfect mad scientist. Disgusting little troll? Check. Lab coat? Check. Giant glasses that take up a full third of his face? Check. Bald of Evil? Check. In a comic book cosmos of increasingly gray morality, it's oddly comforting to read about a card-carrying villain who just wants to take over the world and make everyone miserable, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Admittedly, the good bad doctor isn't the most complex villain out there, but when you're a snarky super-genius prone to fits of histrionics in a comic written for children and your archnemesis is a 12-year-old magic-powered Superman ripoff who hangs out with a tiger in a tux, you don't need to be. Captain Marvel has a mess of cool villains, from Mister Mind to Black Adam (hey, DJ!), but Sivana is the exact opposite of the Big Red Cheese (brainy old man who couldn't break a wet noodle with his bare hands? check), and no one can take his place as Cap's number-one nemesis.
Incidentally, I mentioned before that I thought Armin Shimmerman - Quark from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - would make a good Sivana, and that's him in the picture above, buried under 20 pounds of Photoshop magic. That's my choice for a live-action movie; in a cartoon, no one but no one should play Sivana but Wallace "Inconceivable!" Shaun.
Can we get another shot of Sivana? Preferably by Mike Wieringo?
Well, it's been a month, and I'm feeling about ready to get back into the habit of posting again. I'm doing a lot better now; not up to 100%, but getting there.
Anyway, while I was on my break, I had a great idea: Why not do a series of 13 posts, one per day, sharing creepy, Halloween-related, or just plain weird things related to comics, movies, and other pop cultural things I like talking about on my blog? Great way to motivate myself to write a bit more often, right?
Unfortunately, I only thought of it three days ago.
So instead of counting down to All Hallow's Eve, I've decided to start on the 31st and keep going from there. Stretch the season out by two weeks or so. It'll be like the Twelve Days of Christmas, only spookier!
Since it's going to take me a little while to plan this whole thing out, all I have to share today is a sketch I drew a few years ago when I still had a working scanner. I promise that most of the posts I write from here on out won't be this self-indulgent.
For a short while in my adolescence, I was a fan of Changeling: The Dreaming, a role-playing game published by White Wolf Game Studio as part of their World of Darkness line (which also included Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and a half dozen other games titled Noun: The Noun). Unlike the other games, though, Changeling had a much more pronounced sense of idealism, even whimsy, though it still had its fair share of things that go bump in the night.
The idea of the game was that the players were fairies* disguised as humans, trying to fight off the banality of the modern world lest they fade away. Players were given a variety of different types of fairies to play as, from the beautiful Sidhe and mighty Trolls to the inventive Nockers and vicious Redcaps; fairies of all types were aligned with one of two Courts: the haughty yet benevolent Seelie or the cold and amoral Unseelie. One of the fairy types, or "kith" as they were called, associated with the Unseelie were the Beasties, who thrived on the fear of little children. The bogeymen, the monster in the closet, whatever you want to call them.
Beasties come in all shapes and sizes - anything that anyone would find scary, really. The one I drew was supposed to look sort of like a corrupted stuffed animal, a teddy bear gone bad. You can probably tell I saw Gremlins (which I may or may not also end up posting about) before drawing it.
Since I drew this, Changeling: The Dreaming has been discontinued and I've drifted away from RPGs, but I still like this piece. I'm not a terrific artist by any stretch, but I think I did a fair job at making it look good 'n' creepy.
That's it for now. Watch this space!
*I refuse to say "faeries". It's trendy, yeah, but it misses the point that fairies were supposed to be downright dangerous, and that calling them "fair" was supposed to be a way to get on their good side and keep them from spoiling your crop, poisoning your livestock... or abducting your children.
Say, is it just me, or are 90% of the "How to Draw Comics/Manga/Whatever" books on the shelves written by artists who have never published successful comics?
Mind you, about 89% of "How to Draw Comics/Manga/Whatever" books are written by Christopher Hart...
Terese Nielsen has a DeviantART page! She's like the best MTG artist there is, along with Quentin Hoover and Wayne Reynolds and John Avon and Rebecca Guay and --
Seriously though, I miss the good old days of the Weatherlight saga. I understand why a lot of people look back on those days rather less than fondly -- the characters were shallow, the tie-in books were mostly awful, and following a preset storyline detracted from the sense of exploration that made Magic great. But having those characters to latch onto, no matter how shallow they may have been, went a long way in getting me hooked on the game.
Even today, I still miss Gerrard and Squee and Volrath... and Urza, that crazy old bastard... *sigh* Good times, good times...
Much to my surprise, I've just learned that fantasy artists Ron Spencer...
...and Terese Nielsen...
...are twin siblings.
Who'd'a thunk?
I have to say I like the latter a mite better. Mr. Spencer is great at depicting action-packed scenes, heroic figures, cool monsters, and attractive people of both sexes, but his artwork often comes off as far too busy, not to mention extremely "kitsch" -- like a poor man's Boris Vallejo, I think. Ms. Nielsen, on the other hand, is good at all those things as well, but her artwork also has a much more realistic, natural, and sometimes sensual feeling, conveying not just action but emotion.
Not that I know anything about real art. *shrug* Just a spontaneous thought.
Welcome to my comfy little hobbit-hole on the web! A 24-year-old slacker in Springfield, Massachusetts. Considering going to art school to work towards a career in animation. Likes role-playing games, fantasy novels, cartoons, and comic books. Lovably ineffectual. I pretty much just use this weblog to post about pop culture stuff that I'm into.
