I'm terribly excited that Bitstrips now allows users to utilize their own installed fonts in the comic builders. This was hinted at last year, and I wrote about the possibilities presented by such a feature. I am planning a prop font right now (a series of swords, guns and other weapons), and hope to have it finished in a week or so. Fonts can now be layered behind other objects in Bitstrips, something not possible when the font feature was first teased, making the use of font-based custom objects even cooler.
In the meantime I've created a Dingbat Font based Gag Panel Strip called Dingyto play with the enhanced graphic possibilities of this new feature. Kudos to the Core Matrix team for all the recent additions to the Bitstrips experience.
Here's episode 1 of Dingy inspired by the lovely Mrs. Disaster-1955:
Today the VHS format turned 33! I was only four years old when VHS was introduced to the world in 1977. We wouldn't have one for about five more years, but I remember when we first got a VHS VCR in my house, we hooked it up and one of my sisters had rented an American Werewolf in London.
It must have been 1982, I was only 9 at the time, but I remember watching that movie with my family, all the nudity, and violence intact from the theatrical release. I was used to watching movies that had been cut to pieces, edited for content and length and appearing on network television. We did not have cable so we had to drive 20 miles from Selden to Oberlin, Kansas to rent movies. I don't remember too many of the films we rented, but I recall seeing Trading Places, one or two of the Friday the 13th films, and 16 Candles. I specifically remember watching the George Romero/Stephen King comedy-horror masterpiece, Creepshowwhile a friend was over for a sleepover, and that we stayed up pretty much most of the night scared out of our young minds!
We didn't rent a whole lot in those days due to the distance involved in obtaining and returning videos, but mostly used the VCR for it's most revolutionary aspect, time shifting television, and allowing us to record one channel while watching another. It's sometimes difficult to remember what a life-changing concept this was in the 1980s given the current age of DVRs and streaming web video.
As the youngest child of four it became very apparent that this was a tool designed for me. I was often low man on the totem pole when it came to choosing viewing material, so the VCR guaranteed I'd never miss Automan, Misfits of Science, or Manimal, shows that my Knots Landing, Dallas loving sisters despised.
Once we moved to Oberlin in 1986 I had my first crack at Cable TV, and the VHS once again proved to be a world changer for me. For whatever reason when we got cable we were not given a cable box for the channels beyond 13, but I quickly discovered the tuner in our VCR went up to 188, so all those upper tier channels became available. I found the Discovery Channel (16) and Nickelodeon (33, I think). Nickelodeon at the time featured the awesome, You Can't Do That on Television (check out the Pythonesque intro), Mr. Wizards World, and the surreal animated French adventure show Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea. I wish they'd release that one in an English language DVD set, but alas, no. Check out the awesome opening credits:
I also remember using the VCR to record NBC's Friday Night Videos, and Night Flight on USA Network. We didn't have MTV in my home town (not even on the upper channels) so those two shows were my only real outlet to view music videos. Here's some Night Flight videoabout the movie Krull if you've forgotten this awesome 80s show:
Night Flight featured all kinds of video weirdness aside from music, and was my first exposure to the Church of the Subgenius.
I used the VCR to sample and save all kinds of shows and movies and I still have a collection of movies on tape, as well as three working VHS players (one is a DVD combo). Somewhere in my stacks of old tapes I still have the pilot episode of Twin Peaks from the night it premiered, commercials and all.
VHS tape is truly a buyers market these days. Thrift stores often have movies on videocassette for as little as $1 each, not just junk either, but major releases. There is also a lot of stuff that was released on VHS that hasn't made the jump to DVD, so visit those thrift stores. You can probably pick up a standard definition TV and VCR while you're there.
I post a lot about comic creation site Bitstrips, and for good reason. It's a ton of fun to make comics, it's a great creative outlet, and there is an awesome, creative community there. I try to do at least one strip a week, outside of Major Spoilers Adventures, but am not as prolific as I'd like to be just because of personal time constraints, work, life, writer's block, etc. I've posted a lot of my own comics here, but today I want to show some of the creators that I really like.
This is by no means an all inclusive list of great creators, just the ones that I thought of today as I was putting this post together. Here are four Bitstrips authors whose work inspired, influenced or impressed me along with some of my favorite series of theirs:
Very cool character designs in simple (but brilliant) microadventures. Uzi Bazooka uses a masterful storytelling style with minimal dialog to tell sweet, surreal, and funny tales. Uzi was my original friend on Bitstrips' social networking component. Always encouraging to new users, he's also one of the site's most prolific creators. He is also the bane of any trolls who find their way to the site.
Check out just a few of his many, many series: Average Joe (not for the faint of heart or easily offended) and 1-800-LUNATIC.
My personal favorite strip by Bitstrips master and all around nice guy, BoomMike. Mike makes great characters, and uses Bitstrips to it's fullest for really great layouts in all his strips, but it really shines in this series. The story is really great as well, as Boom is used as a pawn in a surreal and conspiratorial game where he has to learn the rules as he goes. It's very funny and suspenseful too.
The Skiordians from this series were the inspiration for Major Spoilers Adventures housekeeper, Edna.
Also check out Producteria, and one of Bitstrip's longest running and most acclaimed series, Local Patrol.
A fun little limited series that riffs on noir movies. Only 15 episodes. Ogre is a great Bitstripper with an eye for detail, effects and lighting. She makes wonderful use of the available props to bring all sorts of wonderful things to life.
One of Bitstrips' original bio-comics, Acea tells tales from his youth that made him the person he is today. Very personal stories, funny and often sad, are coupled with a 'soundtrack'. Each strip has a song title and artist attached to it that sets the mood of that portion of the tale. Kicked off a whole bio-comic fad on the site after it first appeared.
Early on April 1st the Bitstrips Comic Builder started bringing in characters with nothing but stick figures for bodies. Upon further investigation it was revealed that these stick figures were pose-able limb by limb outside the standard Bitstrips poses usually available. A long awaited feature was being unleashed!
Bitstrippers the site over build dozens and dozens of stick figure strips with characters in all sorts of fantastic poses. I myself created this simple Cowboy vs. Clown strip: It was done in anticipation of the ability to create decent fight scenes, something that was very tough to do in the then current builder. Later that day characters started appearing fully fleshed out, and still pose-able!: As I pondered the possibilities of this fantastic development I began thinking about the importance of body language in communication, and how it is a powerful tool in comics. Body language can convey a lot of information wordlessly. I built this simple strip to show some of the possibilities: I was also lucky enough to have it placed on the Editor's Pick page which hasn't happened to one of my strips in quite some time. I can't wait to exploit this new tool, and give my characters more 'character'.
Occasionally Cafe Press, home of Otter Disaster Designs, partners with certain media outlets to create fan portals allowing Cafe Press Shop owners to create designs based on existing media properties. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that a fan portal had been opened featuring the much beloved Schoolhouse Rock!
I put together this design based on my all time favorite School House Rock! song, No More Kings:
Yesterday at comics guru Scott McCloud's website he posted a link to this video at Pixton.com, and asked creators their opinion. A pretty interesting debate ensued in the comments thread, from haters, lovers, and the indifferent alike. Bitstrips developer BA (you'll notice in the link to his profile that he is user 3!) jumped in to defend Pixton and Bitstrips as simply another tool with which to enjoy comics. I threw in a few opinions as well as Bitstrips super-user and all-around nice guy BoomMike.
One commenter left this response to BA and mentions lo-fi web sensation XKCD:
BA: “accessible to everyone, rather than an elite few with the rare combination of talent and patience”
Yes, the elite world of webcomics, where there are absolutely no barriers of entry. Give me a break. Have you ever heard of XKCD? It has stick figures and gets like 40 million hits a month. That’s because he is a funny writer and knows his audience. I’m sure you know that, but the whole “access” angle is part of the sales pitch for your website.
If Pixton 2.0 allows people to scan in their own drawings and work with those, that might be something worth noting. This is just lame.
Here is my response:
Jesse, isn’t XKCD exactly the point? That it doesn’t necessarily matter what tools you use if the ideas, writing, and execution are solid, and you communicate effectively?
Bitstrips and Pixton are as capable of conveying a message in comics form as XKCD. It’s the user of the tools and the message created with them, not the tools themselves. If there were 10,000 stick figure strips out there (and there may be) would that diminish XKCD? I could also mention Get Your War On and Dinosaur Comics as strips with a simplified artistic approach that communicate really well.
As BA mentioned there is a high signal to noise ration on these sites, but that is largely because they serve as a clearing house offering both a creative platform and storage/hosting for the strips. Maybe not everyone wants to get a blog or develop their own site and deal with hosting/coding/etc. These sites/services do lower that particular barrier to entry.
There are are probably more bad webcomics out there than good ones created using ‘traditional’ methods, but that is no reason to question the tools used to make them.
I’ve read some really good stuff at Bitstrips (among a lot of bad stuff), and there are some extremely creative and clever creators there. I’ve watched people start simply, and become more sophisticated in their approach to their strips in both the writing and the art. I hope I’ve made some enjoyable stuff there myself., and as I mentioned I’ve learned a lot about comics from making them that I wouldn’t have learned simply by reading them.
I’ve also seen a large sector of the user base push the tools in directions I’m not sure they were initially intended and I’ve witnessed the developers respond to the needs and desires of those users. Bitstrips continues to improve, and I hope there will come a day when I can use my own custom art as part of the experience.
I work to make my characters and scenes as distinct as possible to put my own stamp on them (a constant challenge for me). And believe it or not, there are certain creators who have a ’style’ and I can often pick them out of the crowd, even with the homogenized ‘house style’ that Bitstrips currently offers. BoomMike, who commented above is one of them. These sites are really in their infancy at this point, but they will increasingly become customizable and eventually you will be able to personalize the art to the point of making it uniquely your own.
Last week I posted about a cool Photoshop Filter that creates Kirby Dots. After playing around with it for a while it inspired a new comic book themed T-shirt design for Otter Disaster Designs called the Power Cosmic:
One last design, adapted from a sketch by my Little Disaster is this Doodle Skull and Bones:
She drew it in pen on a scrap of paper a few weeks ago and I decided it would look great on a shirt. Basically I just scanned the drawing, added some color (her choices), dropped in the circular background, and it was done.
Atari offers several of it's classic arcade and Atari 2600 games for play in your browser. Choose from Asteroids, Crystal Castles, Battlezone, and even Yars' Revenge! There is also a new online version of one of my all time favorite games Missle Command:
It allows you to adjust several variables including Maximum and Minimum dot size, distribution, softness of edges, and foreground and background colors. NEAT!
Download the filter HERE!
Tutorial on installing and using the filter HERE.
I posted last week about British Metal fans trying to get 'Heavy Metal' recognized as a religion in the 2011 UK Census.
According to this article the UK census does not 'officially' recognize any religions and does not define what is or is not a religion, it only lists the percentages of respondents to a given religion, which is how Jedi Knight ended up 'recognized' in the 2001 Census.
The notion seems to be gaining steam though. There are almost 17,500 fans on the movement's Facebook page (as of this posting).
If any band embodies the notion of Heavy Metal as religion (or at least as lifestyle) it's the incomparable Manowar. Here's Battle Hymn, from their 1982 debut album Battle Hymns:
I'd be willing to bet no other band has done as many metal songs about 'metal' than Manowar: Metal Daze, Gloves of Metal, Kings of Metal, Brothers of Metal, The Gods Made Heavy Metal, Metal Warriors, Die for Metal, and any number of songs about swords and steel.
This blog post at the UK Guardian suggests some other musical forms that might also qualify.
Bitstrips presents a Theme of the Day. Yesterday's theme was Fandom, here is my entry:
These kinds of arguments are of course the bread and butter of pop-culture aficionados the world over.
They are being asked to officially register their faith as ''heavy metal'' while filling in the next Census questionnaire...Rock magazine Metal Hammer launched its campaign last week and has already attracted nearly 10,000 followers to a Facebook group...
It has even gained the backing of a metal figurehead, Saxon frontman Biff Byford, whom the magazine says will become the proposed faith's ''world metal peace ambassador'' if the campaign proves successful.
If you are unfamiliar with Saxon or Biff Byford here's the video for the 1981 New Wave of British Heavy Metal Anthem, Denim and Leather:
This movement is partly inspired by the recognition of Jedi as a religion by several English speaking nations in 2001.
Of course Metal has a long history of viewing itself in quasi-religious terms. A fine example is Judas Priest's 1984 album, Defenders of the Faith.
The album had this quote on the back cover:
"Rising from darkness where Hell hath no mercy and the screams for vengeance echo on forever. Only those who keep the faith shall escape the wrath of the Metallian... Master of all metal."
Sounds biblical, in a metal sort of way...
You also have the examples of bands with religous sounding names like Metal Church, Armored Saint, Iron Savior, and of course Black Sabbath. Sabbath is largely responsible for a lot of the religious imagery in metal. Ozzy Osbourne wore large crosses from the very earliest days of Black Sabbath.
There is also a metal obsession with angels, particularly fallen ones. You have bands like Death Angel and Angel Witch as well as albums like Angel of Retribution (Judas Priest), Angels Fall First (Nightwish) and Angel Down (Sebastian Bach). I'm sure there are literally hundreds of other examples of fallen angels in lyrics, song titles and artwork throughout the history of metal.
I'm sure the comics industry will have some sort of app/reader for comics available for the device when it finally ships (if they are smart).
One key here for me is pricing. If the price of the iSlate/iTablet/iDunno is reasonable out of the gate, or falls to a reasonable price in the next few years I'll consider getting one. I'll probably be in the market for a laptop in a few years anyway, and all the apps that will be available will just mean added value. If Marvel/DC (or any other publisher) wants to recapture lost readers (and entice newer ones) they will have to price their digital comics reasonably. They will have an opportunity here to win big, or shoot themselves in the foot.
The print version of Fantastic Four #575 will be in stores on the same day as Apple's announcement and is cover priced at $2.99, which is now pretty typical, with some titles hitting the $3.99 mark. I stopped when most titles hit $2.25-$2.50 an issue. I was reading anywhere from 10-15 titles a month at that point and spending about $35 a month on my comics habit. My choice was to cut back on titles, which I did for a while, or spend more money, which I couldn't afford to do. Ultimately I decided to pick up the odd trade paperback, OGN, or collection, and get a complete story for my comics dollar. This of course took me out of the shops regularly and my comics consumption has dropped accordingly due to the price of the books.
If an iTunes style, digital comics service could deliver a title for $.99 per issue (or less), I'd seriously consider reading them monthly again. At that price, I could afford 10 regular titles a month and the ability to sample newer releases or limited series without breaking the bank. Additionally if I find a series or story arc worth hanging on to, then I can always purchase a collected print version when it becomes available.
Another obvious key factor will be how these comics read on the device, and if the portability can help with the loss of that tactile experience of the printed page.
As a guy who digs t-shirts so much I started to design my own, I'm a big fan of the geeky shirts worn by Sheldon and Leonard on the CBS comedy 'The Big Bang Theory'. I'm not the only one. The folks over at Sheldonshirts.com have catalogued and located many of the shirts worn by the guys on the show. They've even determined which shirts are no longer available, and tracked down several of Howard's belt buckles. I myself have Leonard's Cassette tee! :
Well, the A-Team Trailer has been available here and there today:
If that one gets taken down, which seems likely, check out this fake trailer from 2007. I kind of like the idea of them keeping the team as Vietnam veterans, acting as aging Soldiers of Fortune. Morgan Freeman as B.A. seems oddly inspired:
As a high school headbanger I had no internet for keeping up with my favorite bands and the town I lived in was so small it didn't have MTV, so there were few ways to find out about new bands or even what was up with the bands I followed. I actually used to bring videotapes when I visited my sister Traci in college because she had MTV, and I'd record Headbanger's Ball to see videos of my favorite bands. I'd play those tapes over and over.
With no access to MTV, and living in a part of the country where the odds of hearing my kind of metal on the radio was impossible, I had two outlets remaining for learning more about 'my' bands. The first was the very reliable 'word of mouth'. If you had a buddy who liked a band you could always borrow the records and sample their music for yourself. If a group was good, you could then go out and buy the cassette or you could fire up the dual cassette deck and do a little peer to peer music sharing, analog style. The other information outlet I relied on lived on the racks of the local grocery and convenience stores, the heavy metal magazines. They had names like Rip, Circus, Creem, Metal Edge and my rag of choice, Hit Parader.
I never subscribed to any of these mags, but I would pick them up off the newsstand at the grocery store or Stop 'N' Shop (later C-Mart), if one of the bands I liked appeared on the cover. Hit Parader was always on the stands, where Rip and Circus were only occasionally available, and Metal Edge was expensive if I recall. I don't think I ever saw more than one or two issues of Creem in my life. So Hit Parader was usually it.
Hit Parader heavily focused on the 'hair bands' of the era, and I read the magazine in hair metal's heyday from about 1987-1991. I think they were legally obligated to put Brett Michaels (of Poison), Jon Bon Jovi, or Vince Neil (of Motley Crue) on the cover 9 months out of 12. When Iron Maiden or AC/DC made a cover you could bet I'd buy it. In fact I specifically remember having this issue featuring Angus Young of AC/DC on the cover:
I loved the magazine for being the only source of music news I could get my hands on. My sister Pam had a subscription to Rolling Stone, but it rarely featured metal even when metal was extemely popular, so it wasn't good for my needs. In a addition to news, Hit Parader had lots of filler in the form of pinups. My bedroom was plastered with pictures of AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Tesla, and of course the lovely ladies Doro Pesch, and Lita Ford.
The magazine was also well known for intellectual debates, like 'Who Rules Heavy Metal?':
These debates often played out in Hit Parader's letter page where a metalhead would write in and explain in very passionate terms why Dio 'rules', and Ozzy 'sucks'. The editor of said letters page would then usually make fun of the writer. Poison vs. Motley Crue and Metallica vs. Megadeth were also extremely popular in these diatribes, and seemed to account for about half the letters published in the magazine in any given month.
My other favorite thing about these metal mags were the ads for upcoming releases. I'd often see some horrific image coupled with a scary band name, and a release date. I bought at least a few albums based on these ads alone, music unheard. One album I specifically remember buying was 'Another Return to Church Hill' by Artch. I remember the ad being a black and white image of the albums cover, and I thought it looked totally cool, so when I saw the cassette shortly after seeing the ad I bought it immediately. It was a decent power metal record, and while I don't have it anymore I do have an MP3 of the title track.
I just learned today that Hit Parader ceased publication a little over a year ago, Circus and Rip are also gone, but Metal Edge still seems to be in publication. Maybe those high prices paid off after all.
I had a very nerdtacular Christmas this year. Various gift givers indulged my love of comics this year and I was lucky enough to receive the book of Genesis as illustrated by R. Crumb, Vol. 1 of the complete Bloom County, a volume of Moomin by Tove Jansson, and a Pearls Before Swine collection. I also received a Lego Star Wars Encyclopedia with a small Lego kit. Mrs. Disaster gave me a Wally West Flash ornament, the complete Brisco County Jr. On DVD, a Mach 5, some small JLA figures, and of course Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas. Thanks everyone! Oh, and to top it off I'm blogging this from my new phone thanks to my mom!
Anybody who reads comics for any amount of time will almost certainly run across hordes of gorillas, chimps, and other miscellaneous simians.
I was recently thinking about a duct tape based t-shirt design idea, and as I considered the term 'duct tape' my mind deleted the second 't' and I began repeating the phrase 'duct ape' which led to this t-shirt design, better than, and completely different than my original idea:
As a big comic book fan, I've always loved the stories about how superheroes became superheroes. I'm working on a series of T-Shirt designs based on those 'secret origins'. The first three are now complete and available for purchase at the Otter Disaster Designs shop.
The first design is inspired by the nuclear origins of Marvel's Incredible Hulk:
And the third was inspired by origin of the first modern superhero, and Last Son of Krypton, Superman:
I'm aiming for something iconic, but non-specific, in the realm of homage and tribute. I want to evoke the origins of certain heroes without referencing them by name...for obvious reasons. I have a few other 'secret origin' shirts in the works, that will be available over the next month or so.
