Boston ComiCon This Weekend

Okay kids, this weekend is the Boston ComiCon. Now a two-day show! I’m very excited about that. Two things make this show awesome. First of all, I don’t need to get on an airplane. And second, it’s a chance to hang out with a lot of good friends who I only get to see when I’m in Boston. I do quite a few small local shows and they are always fun. But they are always on a Sunday and afterwards everyone is in a rush to get home and prepare for the working week. This will be a chance to really hang out and have a good time.

Who Watches The Watchmen? I guess we do. Or I did. Whatever. Despite my general disinterest in the comic I was excited to see the movie. Any chance to see superheroes in action on the screen is fun. But in this case it was more than just wanting to see a live action version of a comic. Despite more than one attempt to read the comics I was never able to make it all the way through. It just failed to suck me in like a good story should. Which sucked, because I was pretty sure there was a good story in there.

The movie did for me what LoTR did for many people -it presented something old in a new light, and in such a way that it totally captivated me. I loved it. A few posts back when I mentioned Watchmen, Tetsubo commented that one of the things which really set it apart was how it captured the insanity of the closing days of the Cold War. And for me the film did that. I felt, in a way that I was never able to with the comic, just how impactful (is that a word?) this story was, and how relevant to the times in which it was created. It sucked me right in, and suspended my disbelief in the most pleasant of ways. One of the marks of a good story -to me- is that it makes you believe that the fictional world you are immersed in could be real. Than anything can happen, that maybe the story will end differently this time. At the end of the movie there was a part of me hoping that somehow Rorschach would survive even though I knew that he would not. (Is that a spoiler? I doubt it.)

I found most of the characters to be very engaging. Commedian most of all. Silk Spector (both generations) sort of left me feeling flat. I don’t know if that was the screenwriter or Moore’s original character (since I didn’t like the comic enough to finish it I never got into any of the characters). The mental state of the first SS, which lead to the birth of the second SS just made no sense, even in a comic book world. I’ve heard people say that Moore doesn’t write the best female characters, so it could be that. I’ve found his women in Tom Strong to be a little weak, but his women characters in Top Ten and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are some of my favorites. So I don’t know. But damn, everyone else, both character wise and who they got to portray them, was damn near perfect.

I had a chance to flip through the graphic novel again this weekend and at a glance I’d say that nothing critical was cut from the story, and the changes made to the story’s MacGuffin actually improved the story in a very big way. So I’m pleased. I finally got to have the Watchmen experience that I craved. Just not in the media format I was supposed to have it.

On the technical side of things I thought the movie was more gory in a few parts than it needed to be. I have a low tolerance for seriously graphic violence, and compound fractures or limbs bending the wrong way just sends me into the dry heaves. Also, I couldn’t stop wondering who the poor slob was who got the job of rendering, rigging, and animating Dr. Manhattan’s schlong. Doctor M is a “shower”, not a “grower”. It was like a tennis ball slung in a tube sock. Jesus.

I don’t have a whole lot of comic book news this week. I’m wrapping up TORCH today and probably starting on the cover for ATOMIC ROBO 3.5. I owe Christina Strain a Robotech pin-up for her coloring work on this new Robo banner.

I’d grown to hate that older image of Robo with the Bomb and all the ComBots, but everyone else seems to like it. So I decided to redo it. I’m already obsessing over the mistakes in this new version, so I’m sure there will be a third attempt in the next year or so. I also have a few commissions that will probably have to wait until ROBO Vol.3 is done, and a pile of pages people have bought that I need to get mailed out this week. Sorry to keep you folks waiting!

Oof, and I need to get my taxes ready for the accountant visit next Tuesday. Blarg. (Then again, being self employed I tend to get nice fat refunds so that should be nice.)

On the Nerd Front (which is like the Home Front, but with more sweat), I found a deal on the new Core books for D&D 4th Edition online and I bought them. I’m a relatively new convert to D&D, though I’ve loved pen & paper RPGs most of my life. I think it was after rereading the LoTR books in preparation for the movies that I got interested. Around that time I picked up the 3.5 Players Handbook and was impressed by the quality -though the mechanics of D20 still strike me as sort of sucky. So I liked the idea of it, but not the game mechanics. When hints of a new version of the game started circulated I was interested.

Now for the hardcore Gamer Luddites D&D 4E is an abomination of nature. I can sympathize with, if not share, that view. Wizards of The Coast promised prime rib and delivered a soup sandwich. My personal favorite FAIL (and the one that got me interested in 4E) was the promise of an online system that would allow you to play with 3D maps and figures with other people across the chasm of time and space, via the magic of the internet. Because any gamer will tell you that the hardest thing about playing an RPG is finding other people to play it with you. So far that software has not materialized. I could be playing D&D with my my brother in NYC right now and happily paying whatever monthly subscription fee they wanted for the convenience. I don’t know if my brother plays RPGs, but he goes to Ren Fairs, shoots a bow for sport, and I suspect has a pair of soft leather boots and possibly a felt cap hidden at the back of his closet. He will probably now shoot me through the brisket with said bow for putting this all in writing -which would be fair pay back for the time I buried a dart in his kneecap. Oh well. . .

Further more, WoTC, in an effort to expand their customer base, basically told their existing loyal (fanatical?) customer base to go fuck themselves. Many many years went by between the release of Advanced D&D and the 3.0 version of the rules. When 3.5 came out, it was a very easy transition and many tools were available online, for free, to allow a person to use their old books with the new system. But this time around they seem to be ignoring the fact that all these Gamers spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on dozens of books and other errata, and are telling them that they will just have to buy them all over again. Additionally, WoTC has also given the big Fuck You to the RPG publishing industry at large -but it would take an entire post to explain that one.

Luckily for me, this is just a shiny thing that I wanted. And now I got it. I’m talking to a guy about getting a game going and I’m more excited about that than I should be. I’ve even been listening to the Penny Arcade D&D podcasts and loving it. Every. Nerdy. Moment. They are on their second session now but I can’t find a link to the first podcast of the new session. Here is “Season 1” and “Season 2 Ep5” for anyone interested in joining me in my madness. You can also get them via iTunes.

Now I’m not posting tiny tweeks for any particular reason. Brian and I are not doing anything that might have anything to do with Hollywood. But in my short experience with this sort of thing. . .I mean my experience NOT doing anything at all like this . . . this is exactly what the process is like. If there ever is a ROBO movie you count yourselves lucky if it’s not a fucking musical.

RANDOM SPLENDOR

-Tesla: Master Of Lightning.

Speaking of D&D-like things . . .

Bollywood. Oh SNAP!

With all the WIN in this painting why am I trying to figure out if that is an African or a Drow down in the corner?

Zack did these a little while ago. Not sure what for. But he drew me as Mr. New Hampshire and Powell as Mr. NY.

And here is my wife with her usual look of disapproval.