Supernatural

Supernatural is such a great show. Too bad we only have one episode left for the season. Damn the writer's strike. I'm going to have to rent the earlier seasons to get my fix.

Good comic book haul yesterday. The new issue of The Boys didn't disappoint and is one of the funnier and cruder books on the market but I love it so. Nova kicked quite a bit of ass as well and everyone should be reading that. Props to Buffy and Angel as well.

Got some worklights to help with my custom figure pics and also creation, as it gives me more light to see what the hell I'm doing at night. Hopefully I can finish one off this weekend, but that's looking unlikely as I'll be hellishly busy. Hellaciously even.

Cloverfield

I just finally got around to seeing Cloverfield, the shaky-cam monster movie from JJ Abrams that was released in January. I'm glad I waited. I would have been quite annoyed if I had to spend 20 bucks on this movie. The quick synopsis is that while celebrating a friend's imminent departure for Japan (hur hur Japan hur hur Godzilla), a monster attacks the city and some of the friends try to find their way out of the city while one of them records it with a video camera. You're in for a lot of shaky cam action and not being able to see the monster a whit through the entire film, though you do get plenty of dark scenes and slight glimpses of what might be the creature. There's not much in the answering of what or why during the film, as it's purely from the viewpoint of the survivors. Unfortunately, they're not worth caring about and don't really draw much interest save for the shots they try to get of the monster.

JJ Abrams had said he wanted to create an iconic monster and an insane experience. He and the director fail at both, as it's hardly possible to create an icon that you never get a clear glimpse of, unless you go to the Hasbrotoyshop.com site where they have a picture so you can see what the hell the point of the movie was. Also, shaky camera work doesn't really translate into insane. It mainly just gives people vertigo and annoys them. I was fairly annoyed at the first several minutes of it and it didn't get much better from there. Apparently there's a sequel in the works too, so we might see more badly shot footage from the same night. Yeehaa.

I understand what they were trying to do, focusing on the surivors rather than the scientists and army men deployed. It wasn't handled in an effective way, though, and that hurt the film. You can focus on survivors and not rely on the shaky cam technique. For a movie that does this, look at The Host, a brilliant Korean monster movie. In that film, a man's daughter is taken by a monster that appears and rampages all in the first several minutes. The family is torn and the focus of the film is on them as they try to find the monster and the daughter while she in turn tries to escape from the monster's clutches.

All in all, if you're looking for a great monster movie, you'll have to look elsewhere, as the monster in this film, even at the big reveal at the end, is almost nonexistent. It lacks the dynamic power of a Godzilla film and the shock of an appearance of the creature as well. People don't go to see monster films because of the characters. They want to see a good and scary monster. The characters are there to help the film along. In Cloverfield, neither happens and in the end, you're glad it's only an hour and half you spent on it all.

Adam Hughes

The Women of DC print that he did.

Simply beautiful.

New York Comic Con Report

For the third year in a row I have attended the New York Comic Con at the Javits Center in NYC and for the third year in a row I am impressed. From humble beginnings a brief time ago, the show has grown into a giant force on the convention front. This year, however, I was not going it alone as my friend Dave was there for his first foray into NYCC territory.

We woke up before 6am so we could get out of the house by 630 to catch a 730 train from Aberdeen. From Penn Station, we walked our way down the few quick blocks to the Javits Center. Things were immediately looking up for us as the line that was wrapping around the building and stretching down the street from last year was nowhere to be seen. Quickly, I went in to the registration disk to get my ticket as it was never delivered to my residence. Then we got into the line. It was much better this year, as they used part of the Javits Center 3rd floor to snake the line around. When we got there, the line was about half the room. By the time we exited, it was spilling out onto the street, I presume. Much more comfortable than standing outside though it was an beautiful day out in April this year, as opposed to the biting chill of February from previous years and next year.

We were in line for about an hour, most of that being prior to the show actually opening. We were entertained by people dressed as Boba Fett, Storm Troopers, Belly Dancers and really stupid Jedi. Then our wave came up and we were released onto the show floor.

The enormity of the show is apparent from the first step you take into the hall. Stretching out from wall to wall are exhibitors and dealers with the booths already showing early signs of being mobbed by those who entered before us. Dave and I had a specific agenda and we made a beeline through these displays to artists alley, where you can get signatures and sketches from comic creators. We each had lists of who we wanted to see and by getting there early we avoided longer lines where we could.

Artist's Alley at NYCC is roughly three times the size of the one at WWP and probably twice the size of last year's NYCC. It's organized into rows that you can stroll up and down until you see who you want. I had a pretty small list of who I wanted to see. I got a signature from Darwyn Cooke (New Frontier) later on in the day, since his line was long early on; a signature and print of Power Girl from Amanda Connor (JSA Classified); a sketch of Starwoman by Todd Nauck
(Young Justice); an issue of Young Justice signed by Peter David and eventually a copy of Green Lantern signed by Ivan Reis. I picked up a couple of other prints as well but these were the highlights. Dave got quite a few more but that man is a machine when it comes down to Artist's Alley.

One of the highest points of the Artist's Alley was meeting Christina Strain (Runaways, Spiderman Loves Mary Jane). In addition to being a talented colorist and artist, Christina is also getting married to my old college roommate. She took the time out to talk to us several times during the day and signed our comics to boot. She's great and it's good to see her getting lots of work like World War Hulk. Runaways is always a highlight of my pull list so it'll be nice
to see it coming out more frequently soon. If you're at a con that Christina attends, go see her. She's absolutely awesome and has plenty of fantastic prints to buy. I picked up one of Molly to hang in Cassandra's room.

After Artist's Alley, Dave and I hit up the dealers. In particular, we were looking for the cheap backissue bins and half-priced trades. We found plenty. I'm about eight issues away from completing my Starman run after this con and Dave filled up a few gaps in his list too. There were quite a few more dealers than last time and we barely scraped the surface in the brief time we were there.

Once we had our fill of comic book shopping several hours later, we decided to try and check out the rests of the booths in the exhibitors section. The booths were pretty nice and DC and Marvel had amazing spreads and quite a few crazy lines too. We didn't get too deep into those. The guys from Shocker Toys were there again and had some of the Indie Spotlight line for showing off and they look great. I can't wait to see these in stores, especially the next run with
the Tick. I visited the Koch Vision booth to pick up the exclusive Galaxy Rangers badge, a show I barely remember as a kid but I wanted the badge for a Starman outfit. :)

We went between the sections quite a bit until we deemed it was time to take the train home around 430 or so. Dave and I were pretty tired at that point and we had spent all that we wanted to and seen all that we felt like seeing. Dave approved of his first NYCC con and can't wait until next year.

All in all, the NYCC is a great new convention that has had it's growing pains but seems to be taking it in stride. They have a lot of support from the creators and companies involved and I've heard it described as almost as big or at least a big as SDCC, which is pretty damn cool. It's close, it's relatively cheap with a ticket and train ride and there is plenty to see and do.

The only down side is that it does get rather packed and I think they almost need to start monitoring the selling and amount of people on the floor or get more space for people to manuever, which they could do by opening up the hall we were initially waiting in and moving the line back outside. Not the best solution but it's all I got right now. I wouldn't mind seeing more dealers too but that might just be a logistics/pricing problem to get to the city. The food
lines were pretty crazy, so Dave and I didn't eat until we got home. We avoided this in Philly by going to one of the many eateries in the area to get a decent meal for the price of a terrible sandwich in the convention hall. I'm not familiar with any such solutions with the NYCC but I'm not sure you'd want to leave the floor either if there's a line to get in.

It's well worth going back to and I can't wait until next year. Or maybe Philly. I'm feeling the Con burn now.

Soranik Natu Custom Figure

I finished off another custom. About damn time, I know. This one is based off of the Green Lantern Corps comic and the character Soranik Natu. I've had her "almost done" for awhile now but I finally sealed her and put the ring on her finger, which looks alright but nothing outstanding, which is why I didn't photograph it. She's the first entry in my Ladies of the Green Lantern Corps series, which I'm doing because DC Direct doesn't really give us much in the way of female GLs at all.

Check out the recipe and more over in Custom Corner.

In the Hood

No, not a hoodie, or even my home, though I'm in both right now. What I mean this time is parenthood. Yes, I had been expecting for the nine allotted months and now I'm the proud parent of a beautiful baby girl, Cassanda Anne Mosher. She was born on March 18, 2008 and it feels like it's been a month since then, but we're reallly just past the first full week with her in our lives and I must say, it's been great.

Being a dad means my routine has changed quite a bit. Now I can't just come home and play video games and eat dinner. No, the baby has injected herself into this routine so now I come home, hold the baby and play video games, hold the baby and eat dinner and hold the baby and go to sleep. She's fantastic so far but I keep kicking her butt in Smash Bros. Brawl. I'll enjoy that whilst I can, since she'll probably be awesome at it by the time she's 1.

Ginkers Youtube Clip #2

It took me long enough but I finally cut together a bunch of clips from the first Ginkers interview that was done. There was a ton of footage, both pre-interview and during for me to go through and render. I think I'm going to have to capture any more footage in dv for now, since the hdv is quite a cpu hog and takes forever to edit. I feel bad that it took me so long to get this one together.

It's a little different paced than the previous video. Herman was a more concise speaker whereas Scott was more verbose and trailed you along in his story and hit you with the punchline like any good comedian. He was quite the interview and you have to realize that of these 5 minutes, I left about an hour and a half out, most of which was pretty damn good stuff. I can't wait to see it all incorporated into the bigger picture. In the meantime, enjoy the show and don't forget to click the side link to Rucksack Films and show the guys some love for letting a slacker like me play with a camera and a computer on their film.

While the audio from my onboard mic isn't the best and I was still learning the ins and outs of the camera, it's serviceable and I couldn't ask for better from my equipment. Our sound guy Bill will be cleaning it up for the film so it'll be pristine. The background music is by Dragonforce, and fits since I needed something driving and long to move everything along. Well, I probably didn't but I love music so I can't help it.