A 10 cent preview comicbook is also available for download from the Illustrated Section, and a thumping great graphic novel series of STEAMTOWN will be cranking out starting this year.
Good times.
Nake nula wauŋ welo! Flying Tiger Comics - comics, graphic novels and books for the new Aeon
Monday, August 15, 2011
STEAMTOWN goes webcomic
A 10 cent preview comicbook is also available for download from the Illustrated Section, and a thumping great graphic novel series of STEAMTOWN will be cranking out starting this year.
Good times.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
River Song - a problem of timelines
The Eleventh Doctor is pretty freaking awesome, combining the irritating mannerisms of an Asperger case with a genuine tour de force of acting by Matt Smith to make the character erratic but very watchable.
Although River Song doesn't reach the depths of the genuine Mary Sue characters like Captain Jack or the dreadful addons from the books like the never-interesting Iris "utter shit" Wildthyme, the character of River Song has hit a couple of walls for me. Three, if you include the fact that Alex Kingston is very much not everybody's cup of tea, and an actor of ER intensity. Which is to say, none.
However, the pair of walls of which I speak are as follows.
Wall 1: her timeline continuity is bollocks.
Unintelligent fans can repeat timey wimey and other babyish shit until they're even older men, but at its most basic the "incredibly clever" (done to death in various sci fi previous to Moffatt's attempt nonetheless) meeting someone "out of order" has been poorly executed. This is because when you do a "meeting someone out of order" thingy before you do it you need to know at least roughly where you're going. Then either keep the timeline straight in your head or write it out so the continuity can be shared with other people. That way, when the process you want to implement is just simple reversal and not randomly out of order meetings like in for example my own TYR: STONE COLD CERTAINTY, you just map the events backwards, and tick them off as you write them up and show them.
Unfortunately, this is not at all what was done with River Song. Groaning under the weight of even the flimsiest continuity, the character crashed and burned in her second appearance, since that would have to be her second to last appearance in the original plan and it was tied into a year very close to that of the Silence in the Library two parter. And yet here were extraneous plot points spilling out like weevils out of a bogan's cereal box.
And then came the idea to do a comicbook or at least a DC / Marvel comicbook type thing and retcon the family tree somewhat.
Not only was it silly, it was pointlessly self referential. This is what killed Star Trek- the endless call outs not so much to continuity as to the IDEA of continuity- leading to really big mistakes usually on the level of Chekov not having met Khan. It's all able to be explained away. Of course it is. But in doing so, you are taking your millions of readers or viewers and doing your best to turn them into thousands of readers or viewers.
It also completely ruins the Amy Pond baby. A smarter choice if they wanted to try a ham fisted ourobouros would have been to make Amelia Amy's daughter - she gave birth to herself. Inexplicable, very Celtic, and about infinity times better than the actual idea screened. Plus we would get more Amelia, which can only be a good thing since the juvenile actor involved is a total scene stealer.
Wall 2: it's called "Doctor Who", not "River Song".
This goes back to the many awful awful characters bodged into the doctor who books over the long years behind us and comes down to an unprofessional tendency of many fans turned to writers to be over reliant, even when turned professional, on not just overused tropes but entire chunks of plot from various pop culture sources. Since one of the main sources tends to be the execrable derivative "writing" of Star Wars, and similar rehashed rehashed rehashes, when a character is made front and centre they tend not to be original in dialogue, characterisation or incident. Take a bow, River Song.
Although River Song doesn't reach the depths of the genuine Mary Sue characters like Captain Jack or the dreadful addons from the books like the never-interesting Iris "utter shit" Wildthyme, the character of River Song has hit a couple of walls for me. Three, if you include the fact that Alex Kingston is very much not everybody's cup of tea, and an actor of ER intensity. Which is to say, none.
However, the pair of walls of which I speak are as follows.
Wall 1: her timeline continuity is bollocks.
Unintelligent fans can repeat timey wimey and other babyish shit until they're even older men, but at its most basic the "incredibly clever" (done to death in various sci fi previous to Moffatt's attempt nonetheless) meeting someone "out of order" has been poorly executed. This is because when you do a "meeting someone out of order" thingy before you do it you need to know at least roughly where you're going. Then either keep the timeline straight in your head or write it out so the continuity can be shared with other people. That way, when the process you want to implement is just simple reversal and not randomly out of order meetings like in for example my own TYR: STONE COLD CERTAINTY, you just map the events backwards, and tick them off as you write them up and show them.
Unfortunately, this is not at all what was done with River Song. Groaning under the weight of even the flimsiest continuity, the character crashed and burned in her second appearance, since that would have to be her second to last appearance in the original plan and it was tied into a year very close to that of the Silence in the Library two parter. And yet here were extraneous plot points spilling out like weevils out of a bogan's cereal box.
And then came the idea to do a comicbook or at least a DC / Marvel comicbook type thing and retcon the family tree somewhat.
Not only was it silly, it was pointlessly self referential. This is what killed Star Trek- the endless call outs not so much to continuity as to the IDEA of continuity- leading to really big mistakes usually on the level of Chekov not having met Khan. It's all able to be explained away. Of course it is. But in doing so, you are taking your millions of readers or viewers and doing your best to turn them into thousands of readers or viewers.
It also completely ruins the Amy Pond baby. A smarter choice if they wanted to try a ham fisted ourobouros would have been to make Amelia Amy's daughter - she gave birth to herself. Inexplicable, very Celtic, and about infinity times better than the actual idea screened. Plus we would get more Amelia, which can only be a good thing since the juvenile actor involved is a total scene stealer.
Wall 2: it's called "Doctor Who", not "River Song".
This goes back to the many awful awful characters bodged into the doctor who books over the long years behind us and comes down to an unprofessional tendency of many fans turned to writers to be over reliant, even when turned professional, on not just overused tropes but entire chunks of plot from various pop culture sources. Since one of the main sources tends to be the execrable derivative "writing" of Star Wars, and similar rehashed rehashed rehashes, when a character is made front and centre they tend not to be original in dialogue, characterisation or incident. Take a bow, River Song.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Jim Shooter: Writer/Editors – Part 2
Jim Shooter: Writer/Editors – Part 2: "First, This Sorry about not posting for the last two days. Tuesday, I had to go to the city for a meeting and when I arrived home I disco..."
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
(Strummer/Rhodes)
I hear a gang fire on a human factory farm
Are they howling out or doing somebody harm
On a catwalk jungle somebody grabbed my arm
A voice spoke so cold it matched the weapon in her palm
This is England
This knife of Sheffield steel
This is England
This is how we feel
Time on his hands freezing in those clothes
He won't go for the carrot
They beat him by the pole
Some sunny day confronted by his soul
He's out at sea, too far off, he can't go home
This is England
What we're supposed to die for
This is England
And we're never gonna cry no more
Black shadow of the Vincent
Falls on a Triumph line
I got my motorcycle jacket
But I'm walking all the time
South Atlantic wind blows
Ice from a dying creed
I see no glory
When will we be free
This is England
We can chain you to the rail
This is England
We can kill you in a jail
Those British boots go kick Bengali in the head
Police sit watchin'
The newspapers been read
Who cares to protest
After the attacker fled
Out came the batons and
The British warned themselves
This is England
The land of illegal dances
This is England
Land of a thousand stances
This is England
This knife of Sheffield steel
This is England
This is how we feel
This is England
This is England
I haven't bothered adding in the "politically incorrect" lyrics. Everyone who cares knows what the original track said.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
2UP update
DB Cooper teaming up with Lady Ghost is still number one in the teamup comic series but after that we will be putting in the Casimir Effect teamup, followed by a Steamtown / Prankster crossover before returning to DB Cooper as the "star" of the book.
We've had this announced for months, which makes me wonder why Oni now brings out a bigger budget DB Cooper ongoing. Having DB Cooper as a comicbook character was our idea, it was clearly our idea, and we were doing something pretty cool with it. We still are. But this constant unoriginal churning is fucking irritating. Get your own ideas, douches.
We've had this announced for months, which makes me wonder why Oni now brings out a bigger budget DB Cooper ongoing. Having DB Cooper as a comicbook character was our idea, it was clearly our idea, and we were doing something pretty cool with it. We still are. But this constant unoriginal churning is fucking irritating. Get your own ideas, douches.
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