Sketch Your Life-Michael Nobbs

So I recently downloaded Michael Nobbs' free ebook 'Start to Draw Your Life' (Here ) and his book gave me more ideas for what to do with this blog, hopefully this will breathe some new life here. I'll try to do what he suggests, drawing something from my life, something small and quick every day and upload it here, not quite every day, I start school again in a couple of weeks and I don't know how much time I'll have to mess with scanning and uploads and the like but I can at least try a massive weekend dump every week. I try to draw a bit every day but it usually results in sketches and detailed drawings of people and the like, not exactly super challenging stuff or stream of consciousness style sketches like Michael Nobbs is encouraging, so let's see if I can take up his challenge.

His blog, I plan to read through it and see what information I learn from it, is here.

Green Arrow II

So the last couple of days I've read the few graphic novels I have that feature Connor Hawke, Green Arrow II. And surfing the 'net for more fan stuff and pictures of him.

I think, somehow, almost without my knowing it, he became one of the top five favorite DC characters in my list.

He's the son of the original Green Arrow, a Buddhist monk, gentle, kind, polite, loving, forgiving, vegan, patient, loyal, and a hopeless romantic. On paper, he sounds perfect, too bad he's not real. Anyways, he came about in the 90s I believe, and I think he's Kyle Rayner's best friend, they did a lot of team ups in the 90s. I missed a LOT of his storylines, it wasn't until I got a copy of Green Arrow:Quiver in a library that I got to read him for the first time, so all my exposure is from the Kevin Smith-and the writers afterwards-run, so I'm hoping to find other books with him in it, he just seems like such a stand up guy, I want to read more about him.

Anyways, so basically Connor Hawke's just an interesting and unique character-not just because of his ethnicity(white, black and asian all in one package) but because he's so mild and even tempered when the rest of the cast are volatile and temperamental. He's even keeled in the face of his father's outbursts, and Mia's antics and Kyle's energy. I really look forward to finding out more about him and his storylines in the GNs of Green Arrow.

Survive Style +5

At Fanime 2010, a couple weeks ago, my friend Jenna and I got to see the Japanese film: "Survive Style +5".

It was amazing. An equal mix of drama and comedy, violence and romance, the movie has 5(six if we include the two jaded teen girls) stories that all seem separate but eventually merge and cumulate into a mind-blowing, head scratching visual feast known as "Survive Style +5"

The five stories are thus:

Story 1: Husband (played by popular actor Tadanobu Asano) and Wife (not sure who plays her, but she had such gorgeous clothes, the favorite being the one in the picture above.) Both are creative and unorthodox characters, as visualized from his car, painted with flowers, the clothes she wore, to the house they lived in, each room decorated in a 'theme' of sorts, a wonder house of different things to look at and observe. The house was almost a third character itself. But visual aspects aside, the story is this: For reasons unknown, Husband has gotten into the habit of killing Wife, who has, herself, gotten into the habit of coming back from the dead. She appears, attacks and in his self-defense, he kills her. Rinse. Repeat.

Story 2: A loving, happy family gets tickets to see a hypnotist, who hypnotizes the father into believing he is a bird, and when the hypnotist, due to the actions of the characters from Stories 4 and 5, is unable to return to his human self. The story then shows the family learning to accept their 'bird-dad'.

Story 3: Three young men have a hobby of breaking into houses and supposedly stealing things to sell, although they were only ever shown to play with the kids' toys and games. One of the three is in love with another of the three, and this story is more of the comedic variety.

Story 4: A self absorbed self-described 'genius' Ad Exec has ideas for the weirdest, lamest commercials, none of which are funny, and if we laughed, it was only because the ads were too weird to be believable. When she is insulted by the hypnotist from Story 2, she hires the characters from Story 5 to wipe him out, thus forming the connection between the characters of Stories 1-5. The least interesting, but most vital in how she causes the events to all merge and take place.

Story 5: An American assassin and his Japanese interpreter are hired by the woman from Story 4 to kill the hypnotist, causing the father from Story 2 to remain in his 'bird brain' state, as well as being hired by Husband to kill his wife. In the process of Story 5, the assassin also has a run-in with the three from Story 3, attacking one of them.

Story 6: I consider this another story, but the girls were pretty much side characters who only appeared three times, one girl getting more bandages with each appearance, and both girls having an unemotional exchange in which the bandaged girl explains that she was attacked by birds and then by a would be rapist, while the other girl continues to text.

I won't spoil the ending, but all I will say is that Bird-Dad and Husband finally meet and their respective stories overlap.

This movie was a blast to watch, visually stimulating, and a tear jerker in some places. I recommend seeing this movie.

Interdimension time travel talk

No, there isn't going to be any physics or any scientific talk here. What I know of science is from comic books and films.

But really, I've been thinking, if I had a choice between who I'd travel with, which would I pick? The doctor with his TARDIS and his sonic screwdriver and his need to help everyone and be involved in politics and altering time and history, or Ford Prefect and his thumb and his towel and his need to see the world and have fun and get lost in the past and drink dangerous alien alcoholic drinks?

I asked my dad this question and we both actually had to think. Either is just as dangerous as the other, the Doctor has enemies after him(the Master, the Daleks, etc) and there's no garauntee that you, as companion, would survive traveling with the Doctor (Rose-lost in another dimension, Donna-forgot everything about the Doctor and if she ever remembers her brain will burn out, Sarah Jane-waited forever for him to come home. Martha's the only one who walked away and got a normal life, but she'll never recover from the Doctor). And Ford Prefect, he makes enemies and friends everywhere he goes, he has no concept of self-preservation, much less looking out for his companions, he left Arthur Dent alone in the universe to figure out what to do. The Doctor at least worries and protects his companions, Ford Prefect just goes off on his own.

And then Dad pointed out that the Doctor controls time, or can manipulate it, so you could travel with him for years and centuries and decades and millineum and then he'd drop you right back at the second you left, and no one would be the wiser. Ford Prefect would take you to the end of the Galaxy, the end of Time itself and then say, 'well, how do we get back home?' and it'd be another adventure to get back, but no gaurantee that you'd make it to the world you knew.

(although technically, the world you knew was already destroyed, hence the whole getting onboard with Ford thing.)

I don't know. Ford seems to be more a partyer, going from planet to the next and just doing his own thing. The Doctor's just traveling because he has no where to go, so..

I suppose, in the end, I'd pick to go with the Doctor, even if it meant I got a bad ending.

Ford Prefect, his philosophy is amazing and inspiring, but he's freakin' nuts, I'm not trusting my life with a dude who got Arthur Dent lost in prehistoric Earth-2.

A fish story (Sirène Song)

I found this video while looking for something else and it's just so cute I couldn't resist.

Chris Evans time!

Aww lookit that face. I think Chris Evans is slowly becoming my second favorite actor. He'll never be my first favorite, but considering Sir Ian Mckellen is the one residing in #1, it's pretty dang good to get that high up. I first saw him in 'Not Another Teen Movie' when it first came out, with my friend Samantha. I remember, at the time, being so fascinated by his hair, it was so obviously dyed. He was pretty funny in that movie, and then I forgot about him. When he played Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four series, I took notice of him, and I adore his protrayal of Johnny Storm. Maybe loving the movies isn't something to admit openly, not to comic book fans, but you know what? I consider the movies different from canon, an interpretation, so I can love both the comic and the movie versions. But anyways, I found his Johnny spot on. And then for a while, I only liked him as Johnny. And considering his role in Not Another Teen Movie, I started to think of him as a..I don't recall the term for an actor that only does one thing, but I considered him a one trick pony, he was GOOD at what he did, but I thought all he could do was comedy. When I heard he was going to play Captain America, I was concerned, because although I like Chris Evans and although I like Captain America, I couldn't get the image of well.. Johnny Storm as Steve Rogers out of my head. I thought perhaps he'd already been type cast. Then I caught the tail end of 'Cellular" and his role in that movie, well, it proved he could do drama just as well as comedy, and when The Losers came out, I'd already resolved to see it because it had Jeffery Dean Morgan and Zoe Saladana in it, he was just icing.

Well, he was the best part of the movie! At least for me. He was funny and dramatic and had the character down pat. Seriously, I was impressed. So now I've got Sunshine and Fierce People, and I plan to watch them to see how well he did those roles, and I am actually looking forward to seeing his portrayal of Steve Rogers/Captain America.

I might even go see Scott Pilgrim Vs The World since he's in it. I'm really leaning towards it.

Even though Michael Ceras is the star. I'm sorry but he creeps me out, always has since Arrested Development.

Wondercon 2010 Recap

Wow this is a few weeks late, I would have done this recap a lot sooner but I'd been waiting for pictures to come out of the whole thing and they haven't. But I have scans of art! And a screencap!

In my last post, I discussed getting to go see Kick-Ass a week or so before it

premiered and how much I loved it. My friend Jenna is actually showing up in the commercials for it! She's the one in pink who kicks at the camera. But when I was watching the commercial, I realized *I'M* in it too! I circled where we are in the pic

ture.

But anyways, back to Wondercon! So Jenna and I have been going to conventions for years as a pair, mostly APEcon and anime conventions, and last year's Wondercon was her first WC, and so this year she jumped at the chance to go again. I went with the express notion of meeting Amanda Connor and Jenna wanted to meet Peter Beagle, the writer of The Last Unicorn. We showed up and we went to the artist alley, where we try to get doodles, and Jenna got a cute sketch of a unicorn and I got a commision

of Boy Blue from this woman. Isn't it adorable? After her, we went by this table looking for the guy who played Chewbacca and ended up THISCLOSE to Adam Baldwin! HE IS TAAAALLLL.

We went by the artist alley again, where I got a doodle from FRANK CHO!

He was pretty nice, so I'm glad I worked up the nerve to talk to him. After Frank Cho, we swung by Amanda Connor's table but she wasn't there, so we went over to Peter Beagle's table. He was pretty nice and signed Jenna's copy of the movie of the Last Unicorn three times, plus a picture she bought from his table.

He was willing to sign my sketchbook too. That imprint you see on the paper is the Frank Cho sketch, so now I have two in one!

Jenna was so excited about Peter Beagle and her unicorn sketch that she ran over to this other booth to show off the autograph and it turned out the man running the booth was doing some sort of record breaking thing where he did as many sketches as he could for the whole weekend so Jenna got on board for a...unicorn. She had a unicorn full day.

I got on for a girl cowboy. After I got my girl cowboy, we decided to swing by the artist alley to see if Amanda Connor was there. She was! And she was so so nice! I'm an even bigger fan of hers than I was before. So much so I even went out the next day to my local comic book store (Flying Colors) and bought the Power Girl TPB with Amanda Connor's pencils. The cover and a place to buy it: Here. Anyways, promoting done, I stood in line and she asked if I was there for the writer and when I told her I was here for HER, she acted all surprised, and I got to tell her how much I love her art and how I love how she draws her women. I bought a Catwoman print(which I don't have a scan of, it's too big for my scanner) and she was just so nice and gracious. Definitely going on my list of people I adore. After her, we decided the con was a bust so after stopping by Trina Robbins' table to buy her new book, we went to dinner and came back for the movie 'Kick-Ass' which you all read about in my last post. Next year will be fun and I look forward to it!