One Who Walked Alone: Solomon Kane Preview

If you were to take a random sample of Americans and ask them to name a hero created by Robert E Howard, arguably the creator of the Sword and Sorcery genre, their most likely answer would be Conan the Barbarian. For the past forty years, since Lin Carter and L. Sprague De Camp resurrected the hero for mass consumption, Howard's man of gigantic mirth and gigantic melancholies has appeared in a wide variety of media for public consumption. People have encountered Conan, or some approximation, in film, video games, comic books, television shows, and numerous pastiches written by more recent authors. Never mind the fact that the Conan of popular culture bears only passing resemblance to Howard's barbarian, the character has become a deeply ingrained part of the American Mythos.

From time to time some devoted soul, will attempt to resurrect another of Howard's heroes in the hopes that they too will become a part of the American psyche.

A little over a decade ago we saw the release of Kull the Conquerer starring Kevin Sorbo. Kull was a proto-Conan and the first published Conan stories is a re-writing of a Kull tale. The film meandered between the swashbuckling stylings of a Harryhausen Sinbad film and the camp of the Batman television series, and in doing so failed to capture the character or any real audience.

There have also been attempts to bring Howard's dour and deadly Puritan, Solomon Kane. In the 70s, Marvel Comics released a number of Solomon Kane comics, recently Dark Horse has done the same. In fact, Dark Horse is publishing the reprint trades of the Marvel books. In the 90s, Baen Books released a collection of Howard's Solomon Kane stories with and introduction by Ramsey Campbell. Campbell also used the Bael edition as an opportunity to "collaborate" with Howard in a manner similar to de Camp and the Conan tales. Del Rey released a beautiful edition of the Solomon Kane tales, with wonderful artwork by Gary Gianni, in 2004 -- an edition still in print -- that collects all of the original tales with a few exclusive story fragments. The Del Rey edition is Kane as Howard wrote him. Solomon Kane has even been the subject of the excellent The Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane role playing game by Pinnacle Entertainment.

Kane is among my favorite Sword and Sorcery heroes. His combination of a forthright pursuit of justice and his unforgiving personality makes for an interesting take on the "religiously motivated" hero. Howard describes him as, "a strange blending of Puritan and Cavalier, with a touch of the ancient philosopher, and more than a touch of the pagan...A hunger in his soul drove him on an on, an urge to right all wrongs, protect all weaker things...Wayward and restless as the wind, he was consistent in only one respect -- he was true to his ideals of justice and right. Such was Solomon Kane." Like so many of Howard's heroes, Kane was -- like Howard himself -- One Who Waled Alone.

Kane's star is certainly rising in the popular psyche, but how great a place the Puritan will hold will greatly depend on the upcoming film starring James Purefoy as the title character. If the preview is any indication, the character of the film will not be Howard's character "made flesh," but Purefoy's Kane might just be Howard's character in spirit.

Solomon Kane at IGN.com

Hulu Recommendation Friday: The Secret of NIMH

Sometimes it seems as if we've forgotten how wonderful hand drawn animation can be and the sense of marvel it can convey. Digital Animation can be, and often is, a wonderful medium in which to view stories, but there is something about hand painted cells that -- when well done -- captures the imagination in a spectacular way. Don Bluth's 1982 masterpiece, The Secret of NIMH is a film that manages to show off many of the advantages of hand drawn animation, while exhibiting few of the weaknesses. Digital animation still lacks the fluidity of well executed hand drawn animation, but that is only a matter of time.

What is special about this kind of animation is the same quality that is special about paintings in comparison to photographs. Photographs, particularly digital photographs, have a crisp quality of realism where paintings -- even spectacularly realistic paintings -- have a sense of the surreal about them. The same is true when comparing digital animation and hand drawn animation, the digital always "feels" a little more real than the hand drawn -- somehow more abstracted from reality.

Both types of animation have a well deserved place in entertainment, but sometimes we get so obsessed with the new that we forget the transformative nature of the old.

The Secret of NIMH is one of the rare movies that Jody and I own actual animation cells from and they are among our most prized possessions.

Cinerati Book Review: The Mall of Cthulhu by Seamus Cooper

In the movie My Favorite Year, Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole), in quoting another actor, claims that "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard." While the origins of the quote are relatively unknown -- being attributed to several sources -- the spirit of the quote is none the less true. It is very difficult to write an engaging work of comedy of any length. Nowhere is this more evident than in comedic Science Fiction and Fantasy writers.

While there are those like Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, and Ernest Bramah who have written what many consider to be consistently high quality SF/F books of a humorous nature, the majority of genre humor writers fall into a trap that Jo Walton succinctly describes in a blog post on her love hate relationship with humor fiction. Walton argues that the majority of humor writing tries to hard to be funny and doesn't let the humor rise organically from the material, and she finds this very frustrating as a reader. As she puts it, "I hate things that are trying to be funny, rather than letting the humour bubble up from underneath." I agree with her sentiment, and I agree that this is a pratfall that too many writers fall into too easily.

It is a pratfall that Seamus Cooper risked falling into in his recent novel The Mall of Cthulhu. The novel, published by Night Shade Books this past June, attempts to use comedy to synthesize the mystery procedural with weird fiction.

The book's plot is relatively simple. Ten years ago, a college student named Laura Harker was saved from being turned into a vampire when a geeky folklore student named Ted charged into the vampire's den -- the Omega Alpha sorority -- and slew all of the undead occupants therein. This act of heroism shattered Ted's sanity, and led Laura to pursue a career in the FBI. Ted now works at a chain coffeehouse named Queequeg's hoping that the mind numbing routine of a service job will help him remain sane, and allow him to lead a normal life. Alas, Ted's fate -- and Laura's -- is not destined to be one of day to day doldrums. Ted has accidentally stumbled upon a group of modern day Cthulhu cultists who wish to use a shopping mall in Providence, Rhode Island as a nexus of power to summon the Old Ones to wreak havoc on the world.

As the back of the book describes it, "[Ted] and Laura must spring into action, traveling from Boston to the seemingly-peaceful suburbs of Providence and beyond, all the way to the sanity-shattering non-Euclideian alleyways and towers of dread R'lyeh itself, in order to prevent an innocent shopping center from turning into...The Mall of Cthulhu.

The book is an entertaining read that hits all of the right plot points for a first novel in a series of comedic weird tale procedurals. The two main characters, Laura and Ted, are extremely likable and Cooper's writing has us empathizing with them as real people in relatively quick order. Especially engaging, for me, was Cooper's ability to convey just how mentally damaging slaying an entire pack of vampires might be -- particularly when the person doing the slaying is an everyday kind of guy. Laura is also affected by the night of mayhem. Nearly being turned into a vampire by someone she was attracted to has had lingering affects on her ability to form long term romantic relationships -- she has a hard time trusting the women she meets.

As a procedural, the story works its way through the mystery at a nice pace and we get to see how Ted's impulsiveness -- and laziness -- interacts with Laura's trained professionalism and adherence to routine. It makes for some nice narrative tension when Ted gets into trouble and Laura comes running to help. Is she too late? The only real problem with the underlying mystery is that it opens feeling like a grand conspiracy and ends as what feels like a few guys with a chip on their shoulder acting out. I understand that mass conspiracies are implausible and unsatisfying, but so is a small group who don't seem capable of some of the tricks they pull early in the plot. I didn't need a huge conspiracy, but one that was a little bigger would have been beneficial. With that small complaint, the book's procedural elements were interesting enough to keep the reader engaged.

The book has a good pace, likable characters, and is an entertaining procedural. But...is it funny or does it fall into the trap of trying to hard to be funny? The short answer is both. At times Cooper has me laughing inside my head at one joke or another. It's pretty amusing to read about a character so disturbed by the mind numbing timelessness of R'lyeh that he begins kicking Cthulhu in the head in the hopes that the Old One will awaken. It's also funny reading about someone sitting in a dumpster, using a milk filled garbage bag as a pillow, while reading a version of the Necronomicon through the eyes of a character in a Sims-like video game. The book also avoids an over-abundance of puns. There are "easter eggs," to be sure, but Cooper refrains from making every other line of the book a pun.

The comedy does break down a little bit in three distinct ways.

First, there are both too many, and not enough, internet porn references in the book. Had Cooper used only a couple such references, they would have remained funny. Had Cooper tossed one out every couple of pages, they would have become funny again. Sadly, Cooper used them to the point where they lose comic value, without using them enough to where they become funny again -- though the foot fetish porn comment was in itself amusing.

Second, the commentary about Lovecraft's racism, and his "ambiguity," became tiresome. No one who has read any Lovecraft can walk away from his fiction without the strong feeling that Lovecraft had some peculiar ideas about race -- and likely eugenics -- but readers don't need to be reminded every chapter. Cooper attempted to use this conversation, as well as a couple of rough asides about role playing games, as witty banter -- banter that also served as an important connection between Lovecraft and the cultists -- but it gets a little over played. It might have seemed less overplayed if Cooper had included more specific examples of Lovecraft's racism by including quotes from stories where Lovecraft's racism really shines through. This is a place where it would have been nice to have been shown rather than told. Give the reader a couple of passages from Dunwich Horror and have your characters talk about how disturbing they were. The same can be said for the mocking of Lovecraft's use of "indescribable." Though it should be noted that Cooper does have a good comedic moment in R'yleh which is only made possible due to previous complaints regarding Lovecraft's prose. Once again, it would have been nice to get some more actual Lovecraftian passages. The purple prose might have been comedy enough all by itself.

Third, Seamus Cooper's attempts at political humor largely fall flat. The best political comedians skewer both those they agree with and those with whom they disagree fervently. Cooper's political jabs can be summed up as simply as Republicans underfund paranormal defense and Democrats fund it appropriately. Their was one gem of a joke where the post-94 Congress wanted to restrict a certain agency to using only "Biblical Based Defenses." Anyone who has read a Chick tract should get a good chuckle from that conversation, but by and large Cooper misses a couple of real opportunities for humor. For example, why wasn't Nancy Reagan's use of an Astrologer included? One can easily imagine a dozen jokes stemming from that concept alone.

What if Ronald Reagan, after he fired the striking Air Traffic Controllers, had the replacement military controllers have planes fly paths prescribed by the Astrologer? And what if those paths corresponded to a particularly dangerous summoning ritual? One could have a field day with that, as one could also have had a field day with Clinton needed a special anti-Succubus Secret Service Agent, or how Tipper Gore's anti-D&D statements in her book Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society led to some D&D obsessed "occultists" using a ritual they thought was fake against her? There is no limit to where these jokes could go.

Were I Cooper's editor, I would have had him unpack a lot of the political comments and have him transform them into more specific jokes. There's a lot of humor, on both sides of the aisle, to toss around and the book would have been better for it.

These complaints aside, The Mall of Cthulhu was exactly the book I needed when I read it. The book is an enjoyable and light-hearted yarn where underfunded, and under-powered, good guys have to fight against larger than life enemies -- including a hundred plus year-old sorority member vampire priestess named Bitsy.

I'll Be Watching TRON on December 17th, 2010 and Avoiding GREEN HORNET Like the Plague

December 17, 2010 will be a very busy day at the movies. That day will see the release of The Smurfs, Yogi Bear, Tron: Legacy, and The Green Hornet. The Green Hornet is the only one of these films that won't be released in 3-D, and it is likely the only one of the December 17th films I won't see at some point. I am eagerly awaiting Tron: Legacy and my daughters will be 33 months old at that point and will likely pressure me into taking them to see the other two.

The reason I will be avoiding The Green Hornet (or should I write Seth Rogan is The Green Hornet?) like it was the H1N1 virus is that of the four movies coming out next holiday season, it is the only one that will be mocking its underlying IP. One imagines that Yogi Bear will be a loving adaptation targeted at 5 year-olds -- and their parents -- the same can be said of the upcoming Smurfs film. One finds it difficult to believe that the studios would turn those animated features into stoner humor parodies of the original cartoons. As for Tron: Legacy, it speaks volumes that the film includes much of its original cast in what appears to be an attempt to capture what made the original so engaging.

None of this guarantees that the non-Hornet films will be any good, but all signs are that the filmmakers are at least attempting to make enjoyable fare that pays homage to the original.

This is not true of The Green Hornet -- Seth Rogan is The Green Hornet -- which seems to not only be meandering through the production cycle with delays in release date and changes in director and actor during the production phase of the film. It is not usually remarkable when a film changes directors or cast during pre-production, but it is remarkable when the film pushes production because of the changes. The film can't even keep Nic Cage on board, and he's a big enough geek to put up with a lot. In fact, the loss of Cage pretty much eliminates any geek street cred this film could have churned up.

The film had already lost Hong Kong star, and director, Stephen Chow. Last December Chow cited "creative differences" as the reason he could no longer direct the film -- a big hint that the film wouldn't live up to any fan's expectations as a "comedy kung fu film." One can accept a comedy kung fu film directed by Chow, he's one of the best directors of the genre, but when he drops out it's a signal of bad things to come. At that time, Chow was staying on as Kato, but as of this July he has dropped out of the project entirely. Now there's footage of an "accident" on the set of one of the shoots (scroll down to the bottom and watch the video). Apparently Britt Reid is giving a press conference when a shoot out breaks out and Kato has to drive to the rescue...or some such nonsense. The accident link also includes photos from the shoot.

It just looks awful, but at least they pushed the date to "post-Comic Con" so we can get extra hype next summer and have people try to convince us that the film will be good. My thoughts are that if you were to create a drinking game counting the number of bong references and fart jokes in the film, you would be dead by the end of act II. On the positive side, at least they are shooting in Los Angeles.

John Carter of Mars and The Queen of the Iron Sands

The 90s were a decade of either no news, or bad news, for fans of Planetary Romance, but during the 00's these fans have been experiencing a roller coaster ride of positive news and worrisome news.

For the uninitiated, Planetary Romance stories are a kind of speculative fiction that straddles the line somewhere between fantasy and science fiction. The stories are fantasy in that they often incorporate magic systems, princesses, and mystical experiences. They are science fiction in that they often take place on other worlds.

The genre was largely created by the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel A Princess of Mars featuring Burroughs' second most famous character John Carter of Mars. In story, readers encounter the Civil War veteran -- who is of indeterminate age and possibly unaging -- John Carter as he mystically transports himself to Mars (or as the Martian natives call it, Barsoom) after being near fatally injured. While on Barsoom, encounters alien races, falls in love with the most beautiful woman in the universe, and participates in large scale war. The book established the basic tropes for the genre, tropes which have been used to great success in literature and film in everything from Leigh Brackett's John Eric Stark stories to George Lucas' Star Wars films. There is a reason that Brackett was selected to write a draft of Empire Strikes Back and that reason is that Star Wars sits firmly in the genre of Planetary Romance -- as does Flash Gordon.

Planetary Romance stories are more about adventure, romance, and the unknown than they are about science or political commentary -- though there are exceptions. There are many wonderfully written novels and stories within the genre, but there is also material some consider to be offensive drivel. I can remember stumbling upon the Gor novels of John Norman because of some basic underlying similarities between it and Burroughs' Martian novels. Traditional Planetary Romance novels advocate Victorian sensibilities about virtue and heroism, much like Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (an interesting experiment is to read The Lost World and The Heart of Darkness back to back), and love is presented as an ideal akin to Courtly Love. The heroes of Burroughs' novels nearly swoon with affection for their beloved, a beloved who is perfect beyond compare. The Gor novels turned this on their head as Norman's novels were erotica disguised as Planetary Romance. Let's just say that this came as quite a shock to my 8th grade self, and to this day I don't have an appreciation for the Gor novels.

Needless to say, Planetary Romance is a rich and important sub-genre of fiction and one that I highly recommend.

Some of the roller coaster peaks in recent years have included:

• The University of Nebraska Press editions of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian Stories, Moon Stories, and Venus Stories.
• The Planet Stories line of books by Paizo Press.
• Chris Roberson's Paragaea
• Jon Favreau being selected to direct the John Carter movie. Even though he seemed overly influenced by the art of Frank Frazetta, and not enough influenced by the art of Michael Whelan or Frank Schoonover, Favreau was a great choice...before he had to leave the project and make an awesome version of Iron Man.

Some of the roller coaster valleys have included:

• The selection of Robert Rodriguez to direct the John Carter of Mars movie. I'm a Rodriguez fan, but the thought of his "lowest budget possible" mentality underlying a John Carter film just rubbed me the wrong way. Sure his Harryhausen homage was fun, but...John Carter in DV Cam isn't my idea of cool.
• The recent three Star Wars films which hinted at how good Planetary Romance can be, while simultaneously showing us how bad it can be.
• The recent Flash Gordon series. Seriously, WTF?!

As noted above, a lot of the news -- good and bad -- for Planetary Romance fans centers around a John Carter project. One is still slated for production by Disney with Andrew Stanton at the helm, and Michael Chabon attached to the screenplay. So far that seems like good news for the Planetary Romance fan...but there is news about the project that should make fans worry too.

One can easily overlook that Stanton hasn't done a project like this before, Doug Liman hadn't directed a spy movie before Bourne Identity, because Stanton's other film work has been extraordinary. That's not what is worrisome. What is worrisome is the casting.

Taylor Kitsch (Gambit from Wolverine) has been selected to play the title role. Unless his performance in Wolverine was atypical, I cannot imagine him as remotely capable of capturing the charm and power of the Carter character.

I am less worried, but only cautiously optimistic, regarding the casting of Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris. After all, who can play "the most beautiful woman in the universe?" That's a pretty tough title to live up to, but I like the fact that the casting director didn't equate beauty with "ultra-voluptuous" and try for Scarlett Johansson or someone similar.

Then there's the casting of Willem Defoe -- who has recently become a parody of himself -- and Dominic West -- who I loved in The Wire but who was ridiculous in Punisher: War Zone.


It's gotten to the point that every piece of news I read regarding the upcoming Disney film version of John Carter of Mars has made my inner geek want to run away and hide. Will it be good or will it be awful? The inner 8th grader cannot stand the pressure and needs some new Planetary Romance distraction -- a quality one.

Thankfully, Fantasy author Scott Lynch has recently released a free web-book (at least the first few chapters) of exactly the kind my inner geek needs. A few weeks ago, Lynch began e-publishing Queen of the Iron Sands. He's releasing the story as a "serial novel" and simultaneously paying homage to the classic of Planetary Romance and the serials of the early 20th century.

My inner geek now refuses to hide no matter how bad the news regarding the John Carter film gets and it's all to Scott Lynch's credit. No matter how bad the John Carter film ends up, I know that planetary romance as a genre will live on because talented people are still applying their skills to the genre.

Hulu Recommendation Friday: Heavy Gear

In the spring of 1994, Dream Pod 9 released its popular Heavy Gear tactical miniatures game. The game featured a grim and gritty universe where giant humanoid shaped vehicles did battle on the battle scarred landscape of Nova Terra -- and throughout the galaxy. The game featured an easy to learn tactical game system that could be easily scaled to a companion role playing game, so players could use the same characters in both the rpg and the tactical miniatures game. The components were high quality, and the sourcebooks were -- and still are -- engaging.

Dream Pod 9, a company that started business as the creators of a licensed setting (Jovian Chronicles) for another company's role playing game (Mekton), emerged as a force of their own with the creation of Heavy Gear. Eventually, Dream Pod 9's Jovian Chronicles setting would be translated from the Mekton system into the DP9 in house Silhouette system. From small beginnings, the company became a gaming establishment whose product line diversified and whose IP became desirable commodities. Their Heavy Gear game has been licensed as video games and as an animated series. The company has also shown an ability to adapt to changing market forces and have released new editions of their game lines.

In 2001, Sony's 40 episode animated series based on the Heavy Gear IP was released worldwide -- though it seems that there was not much advertising in the American market for Heavy Gear gamers who might have wanted to watch the show. I know I certainly never saw any advertisements for the show, and I was actively looking.

The show had a similar animated style to Reboot, which should come as no surprise as both shows were produced by Canada's Mainframe Entertainment -- now Rainmaker Entertainment. Where the role playing and tactical Heavy Gear games featured a grim setting, the animated series toned down some of the darker elements and aimed a a younger audience. The gear battles at the beginning of the series take place in an arena in formalized, almost athletic, competitions. The show's tone was a far cry from the setting established in the games.

The original press release hints at what the initial concept for the show was intended to be. It appears that the initial concept was closer to the original IP than the end product. That release stated:

The animated series' storylines will focus on the soldiers who pilot the Heavy Gears combat machines, combining state-of-the-art storytelling with the fascination of heroic dogfighter pilots and the dynamics of Japanese mechanical warriors. It will also deliver a tremendously rich storyline that lies beneath the action of Heavy Gear: politics, love, religion and unexpected mysteries as well as unexpected enemies all play their part in the saga of Heavy Gear.

In the end, the show ended up focusing on a character named Marcus Steven Rover whose characterization is close to that of Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films. Watch the opening episode with A New Hope in mind and you can see how being a Gear Pilot can be seen as analogous to going to the "Academy." The end product, as DP9's current site describes it is:

The Heavy Gear: the Animated Series followed the adventures of Marcus Steven Rover, a young Gear pilot just recruited into the Shadow Dragons, a special independent dueling squad of the Southern MILICIA. His team is pitted against the Vanguards of Justice, their counterparts from the Northern Guard. Both squads meet in a series of events and battles in the arena desert town of Trash City to determine who will take home the coveted Heavy Gear Championship cup and its associated glory. Major Alexander Wallis III, the leader of the Vanguards, will let his team do anything to secure a victory against the ragtag team of Southerners.

Gone are any mention of politics, love, or religion. All that remains is the quest for the cup and a battle against a team willing to cheat to win. As always, we are rooting for a "ragtag team" fighting against the odds.

Though the show abandoned a darker tone, which would have appealed more to the gamers who play the game, it is still an entertaining series. It just happens to be a series for a younger audience. One could look at it as a show you get your kids to watch to "prepare" them for shows like Robotech.

As always...click PLAY...then FULL SCREEN...and ENJOY.

Sporadic Geek Update (9/3/09)

Once in a while I like to imitate the excellent Morning Medieval Miscellany done by Professor Scott Nokes at Unlocked Wordhoard. Doing a daily update of all things pop culture related would be an absurd task for an amateur blogger. I much prefer doing individual posts highlighting things that interest me, at least as my "regular" post technique. But there are times when it's nice to kick out a Sporadic Geek Update featuring things that might otherwise be overlooked.

Following the merger between Marvel and Disney, Sony has backed off on the Spectacular Spider-Man Cartoon. Does this mean that Spidey is headed over to Toon Disney? What about the new Avengers and Iron Man cartoons?

SF Signal has a good discussion about what San Diego Comic Con can learn from Worldcon and vice-versa. With the exception of the highly predictable "pretentiously disdainful view from the old guard" by Lev Grossman, the comments are excellent. Notice the difference between his snarky anti-"common fan" rant and the insightful comments by Jeremy Lassen of Night Shade Books. Lassen presents the difference between the SF "tourist" and the SF "devotee" as a good thing and looks at each con in its proper light. Grossman, a critic for Time Magazine and best selling SF/Fantasy, slanders the unwanted popular rabble in a fashion typical for one who favors "literary" works.

Lassen's Night Shade Books is a publisher of books important to the SF/F historiography. Night Shade keeps alive brilliant writers like Manly Wade Wellman and Clark Ashton Smith by releasing beautiful editions of their works. They also promote exciting, and often overlooked, new talents like Liz Williams and her Detective Inspector Chen series.

Lassen's trying to bring in new fans and introduce them to classics. Grossman is content to denigrate those who are introduced to SF/F via Hollywood. This is ironic, because Grossman's blog at Time isn't usually so filled with venom, and his writing is engaging. One expects a little, "I wish the casual fan understood how rich the SF genre is," but one would rather not read "the rapid expansion and mainstreaming of -- for want of a better term -- nerd culture is a dangerous thing." This isn't to say there isn't room for criticism of SDCC, and how commercial it has become, just that I would have rather read it without the snark. Snark is so 90s.

Matt Tarbit has done a wonderful job in creating a visual representation, with links, to all the games featured in Green Ronin's wonderful Hobby Games: The 100 Best. If you are looking for the perfect resource as an introduction to "Hobby Gaming," you cannot do any better than this book and Tarbit's webpage gives you the pictures the book lacks.

Wolfgang Baur, and his exciting Open Design Project, have announced three new projects that are awaiting patron support. I am particularly excited about Red Eye of Azathoth, though I wish they were offering it in Gumshoe format in addition to Pathfinder and Basic Roleplaying.

Kobold Quarterly has an excellent interview with Joseph Goodman regarding the state of the role playing game industry.

Catalyst Labs, the Battletech people, have a good blog post about role playing gaming and "those kids today."

Topless Robot -- Village Voice Media -- provides us with a trailer for the next installment in the Star Blazers saga. Like the writer on that site, Star Blazers was my first anime. I eagerly awaited each new episode as a kid. I have embedded the preview below, but head on over to the website and give them some traffic.

Progressive Boink has a demonstration of the typical immature fanboy hatred of Rob Liefeld. Liefeld is certainly not among the best artists in the field, but in a field filled with talented artists who are constantly behind deadline Liefeld is a worker. I remember reading in the introduction to a Hawk and Dove trade paperback that Liefeld was one of the most tenacious "submitters" in DC Comics history. He was constantly submitting work and had a huge productivity level. He is also one of those who expanded artist's rights within the industry, took on powerhouse Marvel, and was one of the founders of Image Comics. Image is to this day one of the shining lights of the industry and promotes a number of excellent titles -- books like Invincible, or a number of other titles. Sometimes an artist's legacy isn't in the work itself, but in what that artist has done for the field as a whole. He still cannot draw feet, but he certainly didn't deserve the treatment he received from "Yellow Hat Guy."