Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 23, 2008 in Animation
Thanks to Metafilter I came across a post on historical campaign videos and I was pretty surprised to find a few that were animated! The trend for animated campaign commercials seemed to die out at the very end of the 50s, but it looks like there was a mini-golden age when a civic minded animator could throw his or her hat into the ring. Shown above is a spot for Ike from 1952, what funny is that the elephant reminds me a great deal of Dr. Seuss who was a life long Democrat. Below is a 1956 spot for Adlai Stevenson which is a bit negative. But you know when a negative campaign ad is a cartoon there’s something a bit more lovable about it:
I found this next spot for Adlai Stevenson (also from 1956) interesting because it seems that Barack Obama wasn’t he first candidate to have a “funny sounding name”:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 23, 2008 in Comic Books
I was looking through the Marvel offerings for August 27th and come across the above detail from the cover of Fantastic Four: True Story. The first thing that hit me about this cover that I liked is that the coloring technique looks so much different than everything else out there. It looks like illustrator Horacio Dominguez is using some combo of water colors and colored pencils which really allow the drawing to pop out in a way at a saturated Photoshop glob job would hide. The other thing I like is the subject matter: There’s the stark contrast of the Victorian ladies standing in front of the Thing beating up creepy looking monsters:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 22, 2008 in Comic Books
I’m such a Quentin Tarantino fanboy that I immediately fell in love with this cartoony illustration by Sarah Mensinga which was done for the website drawergeeks.com on the theme of Samurai.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 22, 2008 in Comic Books
Liquid City looks pretty interesting: It’s a collection of comics by artists from South-east Asia: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. This book will be out in November (published by Image) and it looks like a nice collection for those of fanboys who like our comics to be a bit off the beaten path:
Liquid City
By Mike Carey, Sonny Liew, Gerry Alanguilan, Lat, Jon Foster & Others
Cover Shelly Wan
“The full-color Liquid City anthology brings together creators based mainly in South-east Asia: From Leong Wan Kok’s distinct post apocalyptic landscapes and alien creatures to Lat’s unique and charming take on Malaysian life, from Mike Carey’s meditation on colonialism to Ken Foo’s dark tales of regurgitations and bodily transformations, Liquid City presents an edgy vision of lives in cities past, present and future.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 21, 2008 in Television
Most fanboys tend to associate the 70s with space opera titles like Star Wars or Space: 1999 but many people tend to forget that a big craze at the time was anything inspired by “the unknown”. The show that kicked off this trend was In Search of… which covered all sorts on odd phenomena from the Loch Ness monster to Big Foot and was hosted by Mr. Spock, errr Leonard Nimoy. Also part of this trend was a best selling book The Bermuda Triangle by Charles Berlitz.
The Fantastic Journey was built upon all of this interest in the Bermuda Triangle, and in many ways one suspects the show also owed a great deal in some way to Land of the Lost from 1974. But unlike Land of the Lost what made this show cool was that the characters weren’t from one background — the lead character was Varian (played by Jared Martin) who was from the 23rd Century and the rest of the cast included “daughter of an Atlantean father and an extraterrestrial mother”, a “rebel scientist from the 1960s” and of course a 13 year old kid who was “the son of a famous scientist”. Oh and by the way did I mention that Roddy McDowall was the rebel scientist?
The one thing I remember the most about The Fantastic Journey was that it was in my personal category of “must watch TV” from that year — looking back at the episodes I can see why: Every episode featured themes like time travel and telepathy. Also reading up on the show it seems that some A+ writing talent was involved, most notably D.C. Fontana who made the original Star Trek one of my favorite TV shows.
As much as I’d hate to see Hollywood ruin this series by remaking it, looking at the above titles I’d love to see someone like a Quentin Tarantino take a stab at it. I’d also wouldn’t mind seeing a Japanese film studio turn it into an anime series — in fact the 80s series The Super Dimension Century Orguss serves as a good proof of concept that it can be done right.
On a last note I wish there was a legit release of the series out on DVD. I did find a copy of it here, but it looks a tad “gray market” to me.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 21, 2008 in Videogames
It looks like Sony is trying to play catch up with nintendo in terms of going after the family market: EyePet allows you town interact with a virtual monkey of sorts. The title is set to come out in 2009, but no word when or if it will be out in the US.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 20, 2008 in Animation
I always preferred South Park over Family Guy which feels more like an animated sitcom than an animated show, although adding visual from Death Note does make it much more humorous.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 20, 2008 in Comic Books
The one thing I’ve always loved about manga over American comics is that in Japan comic books are for everyone and cover every damn subject — from baseball to sex. American comics on the other hand have been stuck in a super hero rut for about 30 years. Now of curse I’m excluding all the great indie work, but I’m talking about the big boys: Marvel and DC.
But I’m happy to say that I’m starting to see the trend reverse. Believe it or not the above detail is from a cover published by Marvel — the first thing you notice is that “damn that’s soooo cute!” The issue is Wolverine and Power Pack #1 (whichis due out in November) and the illustration is by Gurihiru and it’s an example of Marvel getting it right:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 19, 2008 in Star Trek
I just want to put the entire world on notice that my feelings as a fanboy won’t be the slightest bit hurt if warp drive technology become real! Of course if I can get a free pass on the next mission that would be cool too:
“Two physicists have boldly gone where no reputable scientists should go and devised a new scheme to travel faster than the speed of light. The advance could mean that Star Trek fantasies of interstellar civilisations and voyages powered by warp drive are now no longer the exclusive domain of science fiction writers.
Dr Gerald Cleaver, associate professor of physics at Baylor, and Richard Obousy have come up with a new twist on an existing idea to produce a warp drive that they believe can travel faster than the speed of light, without breaking the laws of physics. In their scheme, in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, a starship could “warp” space so that it shrinks ahead of the vessel and expands behind it.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 19, 2008 in Science
Could it be that there are quite a few minor planets wandering around out there on the far edge of our solar system? Astronomers haven’t come up with a real name yet, but this new minor planet called 2006 SQ372 is mostly made of rock and ice. Shown above is a chart of the orbit of 2006 SQ372 which almost seems to just barely dip into our solar system (click on the image to view it at full size). Here’s the full story:
“Astronomers announced today that a new “minor planet” with an unusual orbit has been found just two billion miles from Earth, closer than Neptune. Using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, astronomers detected a small, comet-like object called 2006 SQ372, which is likely made of rock and ice. However, its orbit never brings it close enough to the sun for it to develop a tail. Its unusual orbit is an ellipse that is four times longer than it is wide, said University of Washington astronomer Andrew Becker, who led the discovery team. The only known object with a comparable orbit is Sedna — the distant, Pluto-like dwarf planet discovered in 2003. But 2006 SQ372’s orbit takes it more than one-and-a-half times further from the Sun, and its orbital period is nearly twice as long.
2006 SQ372 is beginning the return leg of a 22,500-year journey that will take it to a distance of 150 billion miles, nearly 1,600 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Scientists believe the object is only 50-100 kilometers (30-60 miles) across.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 18, 2008 in Animation
I just can’t get enough of the second season opening titles of Death Note, it’s one of the best opening titles I’ve seen in a long time! But some people can’t leave good enough alone — and thus i’ve collected a few anime fan videos that are kit bashing Luck Star with Death Note because you can never get enough of a good thing:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 18, 2008 in Star Wars
Sadly I’m afraid for now you can only buy this little goodie in the UK, but it does look rather cool! Produced by Wesco Limited this Star Wars Tie Fighter Webcam can attach to the top of your computer screen and features a built in microphone.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 17, 2008 in Science, Tech
This 1960 promotional film for the UNIVAC computer is amazing to watch — it’s amazing to think how much computing has changed in just a few decades: Computers have gone from being these large exotic machines to a disposable device that can fit in your pocket.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 17, 2008 in Animation
Thanks to computer graphics it’s interesting to me that serious researchers are covering ground that traditional animation has been focused on for almost 100 years now. In the above video scientists reach the conclusion that having different body types makes for a more convincing scene — well the truth of the matter is that Disney already used this technique with great success in the 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. If you looks at the seven dwarfs you’ll notice that they all have different body types:
Just think about it: Over 70 years ago Disney animators knew how to create a convincing crowd with just seven characters who were all the same height and sex — yet computer scientists are just wrapping their heads around this now…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 16, 2008 in Comic Books
The charming illustration above is by Gray Sapphire. The main draw of this illustration is the contrast of the alienesque monster with the cute little girl offering a flower — although in addition to the subject matter I like what the artist has done with her color and lighting which furthers the content.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 16, 2008 in Videogames
Inspired by computer arcade systems of the past like Pong, Retro Space is a arcade cabinet with a minimal footprint. It features an HD screen and has controls for many classic games in addition to offering a hi-fi audio system. Right now the Dutch made system isn’t available but you can sign up for info on their website.
Special thanks to Chris Liendo for finding this site.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 15, 2008 in Star Wars
I hate to admit it — but when I first watched this video I thought it was for a real gym! As a young fanboy I hated gym (jocks aren’t always so nice to nerds) and sadly I’ve carried that dislike with me till this day. So if anyone wants to open up a real life Jedi Gym I’ll buy a membership (or at least a few day passes).
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 15, 2008 in Dr. Who
Until I watched this video I had no idea that there was an entire genre of songs inspired by Harry Potter — in this video our friend from England Nerimon takes this concept to the next level with Trock which stands for Time Lord Rock. By the way the idea of writing science fiction folk songs has been around for eons — it’s called filk singing. Any way Nerimon’s work reminds be a slight bit of Perl Jam, just without the guitars and a bit of geek thrown in.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 14, 2008 in Comic Books
The latest meme in comic book circles on Flickr are artists creating icons of themselves using the website faceyourmanga.com. Of course not being a poor artist myself I just screen grabbed an image and cropped it in Photoshop. Other than costing too much my problem with the service is that look of the artwork isn’t very manga like.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 13, 2008 in Star Wars
The above skit was from a 1977 episode of the comedy show The Richard Pryor Show which aired on NBC. The show only ran for a few episodes, was a mega hit — but at the end of the days Richard Pryor’s comedy was a little bit to racy for broadcast television. By the way the costumes in the skit were used with permission from Lucas and I believe that this skit was done before in infamous holiday special.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 13, 2008 in Videogames
Shown above is a trailer for My Aquarium a WiiWare game by Hudson Entertainment. The advantages of this virtual aquarium are:
1. No hard feelings when the fish die from you not cleaning the tank.
2. No need to buy yicky fish food like worms.
3. No guilt that you are taking the poor critters away from the wild.
By the way the aquarium concept reminds me a great deal of the old After Dark screensavers for the Mac from the early 90s — as I recall they had a fish tank themed screensaver:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 13, 2008 in Star Trek
Confession time: I’ll admit it that I’m a grumpy old fanboy when it comes to the fact that William Shatner won’t be in the upcoming Star Trek film, but I have to say that Paramount is doing a great job of fan outreach. Thanks to their webmaster program I’ve managed to get some copies of posters for the upcoming film. Above is the main poster (click on them to see at full size), below is a version with “Kirk” (quotes used out of respect to William Shatner):
