End of the World: Time to Get Started

I made a New Years resolution last year, and boy oh boy did I fail to follow it. So here’s the deal, I’m not going to make a New Year’s resolution. I’m making an end of the world decision. This is 2012. The last year on the Mayan Calender. Not that I actually believe in that tripe, but the end of the world is a good motivation. Some might say that an incoming meteor or earthquake or invading aliens provides incentive.

I am going to devote a minimum of two hours every weekday to creative flow. Everyday I am going to try to develop and execute  new ideas. For some people that means programming,  or playing music, or drawing. For me that means being a aware of my surroundings and writing whenever I get a spare chance. The results will inevitably revealed through five avenues of output:

Sounds to Occupy Toronto

On Monday October 16, I was walking towards Ryerson when I encountered a bunch of protestors sitting at Yonge and Dundas. Actually, I first noticed the buzz of a police helicopter flying above me, followed by the whistles from the policemen. What I found were Occupy Toronto members protesting the cancellation of wheel transit (buses carrying people in wheelchairs or other mobile disabilities) to 120 King Street, a church which also happens to be their headquarters. And along the way back to the church they protested anything else they could along the way.

My intention at the start was to write an article on them. But, it turned out I simply have too much sound and not enough time to write it. So instead, I’m going to give you more or less the raw footage. This work has been edited to get rid of dead air, and set it up in a chapter by chapter basis. I’ve removed parts of interviews that are too meandering to use or where I make an intrusion that doesn’t help the interview. It takes an hour and thirty minutes to listen to all of this. All of this being, protest movements, personal ramblings, interviews, and exploration. You even get to hear my horrible biases, such as when I mumble that there are less homeless people here than I expect, or my surprise that the place didn’t smell like pot.

I should note, I have no affiliation with Occupy Toronto. I do think it’s impressive, but I am doing this because I found it fascinating to witness. Furthermore, if I say anything during an interview, that is likely just to get the interviewee to talk more.

Speaking of interviews, the second one that shows up is not mine. Not mine in the sense that I didn’t conduct it. A freelance journalist (for the Star, I think) ran up to someone in charge and started talking to them. I was nearby and had a recorder. This is why you’ll here the man talking, but no one asking the questions.

As for everyone else I talk to, their names are, in order of appearance:
M. Rossi, Policeman (I read this from his jacket)
Antonin GovernmentName, Occupier and Free food organizer
Wally Williams, Homeless Worker
Celeste Bouviour (If this name sounds outrageous that’s because it’s super fake.), climate analyst
Mark Harwood-Jones, volunteer
Micheal Pinto, volunteer

If you want more information about each clip, it’ll be in the description and comments on the audio.

Comic Book Industry Hopes to Rebound Through Digital Distribution

Thousands of fans and collectors rushed into a comic book store to witness the death of an icon. They had seen it on the news, heard it on the radio, been told by their friends. Superman was dead. The cover of Superman 75 showed Superman’s torn cape blowing in the wind like a flag, while his family and friends wept in the background.

On this day in 1992, a single store in Detriot sold nearly 200 000 copies of a comic, as consumers raced to pick up that issue. The store began to see that they were running out of issues, so they marked the prices up higher and higher. By the end of the day, the issue that had started off at a $1.50 was going for twenty times its original price. This was a common sight in comic book stores across North America.

DC Comics, publisher of Superman, and comic book retailers made around $30 million in one day. This was the third time an American comic book publisher had hit the jackpot. It was also the last.

It was clear by the end of that same year that the comic market was shrinking. Sales dropped, the collectors cashed out and sent the whole system into what Grant Morrison, a writer at DC Comics, called “a death spiral.”

However, comic book creators see a way out of this tail spin through a new distribution system: the internet.

Visual Novels That Are Made in Canada, an East meets West Ideal

Game designer Alfe Clemencio sits behind a small brown desk and calls to potential customers. He has two independent games to sell, and one for which he really wants to get some attention.  Yet, how he’s attracting that attention would be considered deviant, perhaps even backwards, by North American standards. He’s trying to sell them as a disk in a box.

Clemencio feels that having a physical copy of a game, especially an indie game, immediately increases its value and uniqueness to the player. While many developers find producing physical copies to be an actual barrier to publication, Clemencio believes that this is a phenomenon unique to North America.

“Back when I took my internship in Japan, I went to Akihabara. Right when I got there, I saw a store selling independent games from local developers,” said Clemencio. Akihabara is a region of Tokyo famous for its shops that sell “niche market” or “geek” merchandise. It is no exaggeration that within this region, you can find almost every video game released in Japan.

“[In North America], you hear people yelling ‘Digital download! Digital download!’ but you almost never hear about physical copies of [indie] games,” says Clemencio.

Review: Justice League 1

The cover of Justice League 1 invites you in bold gold text to DC Comic’s “New 52″. It’s not just the headline either. The costumes look different, the attitude looks different, and we’ve even got a brand new logo for it. It’s too bad that the actual content doesn’t feel all that different. Geoff Johns provides a serviceable first issue that works as a good opener to the New DC, without trying too hard.  It’s an enjoyable read, but nothing substantial.

Justice League 1 opens big. Batman is running across rooftops trying to catch a bad guy while Gotham helicopters fly above, chasing him as if he was another criminal. The monster is about to get away, when Green Lantern smashes the beast into the ground with a green firetruck. It does the trick, but now the police see them. Batman vulnerable and the Green Lantern in plain sight, the helicopters turn their guns and fire. It’s good stuff, it just ends far too early to mean anything.

Review: Flashpoint 5

Flashpoint is one of the least impressive stories about the Flash. I want to get this out of the gate immediately. Flashpoint can hardly be called a story, it’s more like staring out of a car window as scenery passes you by. There was always great potential here, perhaps even the beginning of a great Flash story. It’s just so damning on writer Geoff Johns that he could not use this interesting new world to any greater extent than undeserved shock moments and window dressing. Johns has had an impressive run of comics so far, but this is easily his weakest. A reader will rarely be so underwhelmed by Barry Allen than in Flashpoint.

Let’s recap the story so far. There’s an alternate universe and the Flash is going to fix it with Thomas Wayne Batman. This is all that happens. There is no character development. You don’t learn anything new about Barry Allen or Thomas Wayne. There is semi-witty banter followed by screaming and death. It’s a slideshow almost, like the ones your grandparents show you about their trip to Milan. And like watching their grandparents’ trip, the reader will have the same reaction, boredom and disappointment.

Video: Fallout: Nuka Break, The Legend of One Man and His Desire for the Perfect Cola

This fan-made series is pretty hilarious. Written by Brian Clevinger, known for Atomic Robo and 8-bit Theater, it’s like a more violent, lower budget Firefly. There’s set to be about ten episodes in this series, with future episodes being 5 minutes long. I didn’t think this would be any good but colour me surprised, it is. There’s a witty script, and while the acting’s not comparable, the setting is interesting enough that I could overlook some of the mumbled lines. The props are reasonably authentic and it captures Fallout’s post-apocalyptic wasteland atmosphere remarkably well.

I recommend at least taking a gander at the first episode, especially if you’re a Fallout fan. They even use VATS in one scene, which is good, I guess. I thought it was weird, but it is pretty cool how they included that in an episode.

Review: The Ultimates 1

As I’ve stated throughout this website, I am a great fan of the Ultimates. I read all of Ultimates vol. 1 in a day, and from then on prayed every month that Mark Millar will finally get an issue done on time. Millar has since turned into a bad taste in my mouth, due to some questionable writing choices in his independent comics and his more or less apathy to his remaining Marvel comics.  This is no reflection the Ultimates, but boy, am I happy that someone who isn’t Jeph Loeb is finally getting their hands on this series.

To counter my dear love for original Ultimates series, I should also note my tepid reception of Jonathan Hickman. Despite owning most of his independent work, I have grown tired of him since discovering that he writes every single comic with the same unsubtle underlying themes.

With my own biases aside, I will now say that “The Ultimates” 1 (now finally an ongoing series) is an amazing first issue. The plot continues from Ultimate Fallout and Avengers vs. New Ultimates (though you don’t need to read those series to understand what’s going on here). Nick Fury is director of S.H.I.E.L.D., and organization which has expanded past the United States-mandate into an organization that spans the globe. The Ultimates, a team run by S.H.I.E.L.D., includes Thor, Hawkeye, Iron Man and, perhaps most significantly, not Captain America. Fury is shown to nearly have a personal empire as he commands some of the most powerful people on the planet. However, Fury fails to realize that in his expansion, he may have over-extended his reach.

Quick Review: Batman Incorperated 8

This is one of the worst things Grant Morrison has ever written. Search the Internet for spoilers, avoid the actual issue like the plague if you can. The writing is mediocre, and the art burns your eyes with the heat of a thousand suns. The issue is more or less nonsensical. Despite his attempts to make the internet look like a video game, Morrison has little to no understanding as to how a video game works. A better artist might have saved this issue, but as it stands, it only contains the worst parts of Morrison’s habits and the art of a sociopath bent on the destruction of humanity.

If you want, I can give you the only reason to read this comic right here: Jezebel Jet is alive and works for Leviathan.

There, now you never need to wonder what happened.

Score: SATAN/5

Review: Batman: Gates of Gotham 1-5

Scott Snyder has proven himself with American Vampire and his run on Detective Comics to be one DC’s best writers. Gates of Gotham, however, is not quite at that level. It is by no means bad or unreadable but it doesn’t capture the same thrill and intrigue that his other comics have done.

The story of Gates of Gotham regards the destruction of Gotham’s landmarks, where the city becomes a character in a plot that spans decades of its history. Batman (Dick Grayson) and all of his allies must stop whoever is responsible and discover their motives before Gotham becomes unrecognizable. The best attributes of the story are its characters and how it elaborates on Gotham’s past. I really enjoyed seeing Damien antagonize Cassandra Cain, and  Tim Drake’s wit and Dick trying to hold all three of them together. They all make the story interesting and better realized.