Hello Internet!
Just popping in to let you all know that I had a good Yom Kippur, with lots of prayer and study. Ready to tackle anything God tells me to.
Goodbye Internet!
August 14, 2013 by
Summer Writing Challenge
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I am pleased to announce that I have entered the Summer Writing Challenge from Speculative Faith. Simply put, an opening sentence is provided and all contestants write 100-200 words to follow. I’m actually quite pleased with my entry, but in order to win I will need lots of votes. So please go to http://www.speculativefaith.com/2013/08/13/summer-writing-challenge/ , find my entry in the comments section and give it a thumbs up. While you’re at it, give some thumbs to the other contestants and add your own. The more the merrier! Entries will be accepted until next Tuesday.
Till next time,
Goodbye Internet!
July 26, 2013 by
Comic Review: Megaman + New Computer
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Wow, I almost missed my “at least once a week” deadline. Sorry about that (even if no one seems to read this other than spammers yet), but I’ll give you this review to make up for it.
Recently me and my siblings ordered a bunch of Mega Man Graphic Novels that combine four or the comic books into one each. They arrived, and we’ve been eating them up (not literally, though they do look tasty . . . ).
First of all, I will point out that we’ve been watching reviews of these stories on Youtube, so we more or less knew what was going to happen, but I must say, other than pointing out video game references we wouldn’t have noticed, they are no substitute for the real thing. Even without the concept art and other bonuses in the back (I haven’t been able to look at those in depth yet) the art looks absolutely fantastic. Seriously, I had not expected to be blown away by the art in the first book, and it has remained great looking since then.
The story is also good, both as an adaptation of the games and in their own right. References abound, yet you don’t really need to be that familiar with the games to understand what is happening ,although I did notice that it took about half-way through the first issue for anyone to say or do anything that really shows that Rock and his sister Roll are robots rather than somewhat strange children. Also, rather than following the games verbatim, they mix it up enough to keep it entertaining for those who are already familiar with the franchise.
What I really makes these books so much fun for me though is the characters, from Mega Man himself to all the villains and supporting cast. They all have distinctive personalities, from the fan-bot Auto to the schizophrenic Crash Man to my personal favorite, Elec man. Even the OC’s (original characters) are believable and contribute to the story.
So, that’s my view. In other news, my old laptop finally got to old to be reliable, so I’ve bought a new one. I’m still getting used to it, so hopefully I won’t do or type something cow.
Till next time,
Goodbye Internet!
July 11, 2013 by
Photo
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I decided to upload a photo of myself for three reasons.
1: So you can all know I am not some alien here to study you in preparation for an invasion.
2: So if you ever see my picture on the inside or back cover on a book you’ll be able to recognize me.
3: . . . My computer class requires me to post a picture of myself off the internet, and this was the easiest thing I could think of.
Till the invasion, er, I mean, till next time,
Goodbye Internet!
July 10, 2013 by
Finished First Draft
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I thought I’d let everyone know that yesterday I finished the first draft of the first issue of my comic series, tentatively titled “Curz”. I have begun my search for someone to draw it.
Till next time,
Goodbye Internet!
July 4, 2013 by
Happy Fourth & Comic Progress
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Just got back from a fireworks show. More importantly, I have completed 13 pages in my comic script, only 10 more to go.
I’ve made an interesting discovery while working on this script. Whenever you tell a story you are supposed to show, not tell. What that essentially means is when you want to show that your character is, say, afraid of spiders, you don’t just tell your reader that he is afraid of spiders, or have him say it to another character. You put a spider near him and watch him freak out. I sometimes have trouble doing this, but not with this comic. I think it is because since I have a limited space to work with so I’m forced to cut back on any unnecessary talking. It’s pretty nice.
Anyway, enough of that. Till next time,
Goodbye Internet, and Happy Fourth of July!
June 28, 2013 by
Monster U and Comics
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I saw Monster University earlier this week, and it is great! One thing I particularly found interesting was how they managed to make a great antagonist who isn’t a villain. I’ve seen this in some other movies to a certain extent, such as the Penny’s agent in Bolt or . . . well . . . I can’t think of anyone else, and even he is nothing like Dean Hardscrabble. She isn’t malicious, her actions would be justified in most circumstances and with the possible exceptions of one or two are the correct actions. What makes her the antagonist is her belief that Mike and Sully could never make good students in the scare program, and when she is proven wrong she accepts it graciously. Simply put, she is a likable antagonist.
In case you haven’t already guessed, my faith in Pixar has pretty much been restored. If next year’s “The Good Dinosaur” is as good, I think it will have recovered completely. The only doubts I have left are because Monster U isn’t entirely original, it is a prequel, and I frankly thought the short at the beginning, while good looking, didn’t have nearly as good of a story as, say, “Paperman”.
In other news, it turns out my dad has a bunch of comics in storage, so I will be able to use those for my research.
Till next time,
Goodbye Internet!
June 24, 2013 by
Fun Research
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Over the weekend I have been checking out various christian web-comics and online samples of real comics. I must say I am impressed with a lot of what is out there, but if I really want to become familiar enough with comics to write them well I need more research. While I won’t be able to this week, next week I intend to visit the library and check out some more comics, both for fun and to conduct some analysis on how to switch from writing for books to this medium. Wow I sound formal.
Oh well.
Goodbye Internet!
June 20, 2013 by
Yesterday: Despicable Me & How to Write Comics
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I forgot to say this yesterday so I will say it now; I saw Despicable Me again, so I will be ready when the sequel comes out.
Also, I finally finished Stan Lee’s “How to Write Comics”. I learned some good things in it, both ideas that would be good regardless of genre and some that are particularly handy for comics that I hadn’t ever thought of. Looking forward to trying them out.
Till next time:
Goodbye Internet!
Pixar Theory: Plausible or Nonsense?
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The other day I read this article by Jon Negroni which made the hypothesis that all the Pixar movies are in the same universe. No really, Monsters Inc., Brave, Incredibles, Cars, etc. All one world and interconnected. It is very thorough, going into how Brave’s magic creates the intelligent animals and sentient machines, both Cars movies take place after all humans not on the Axiom died off but before they returned, and the monsters of Monsters Inc. are actually the descendants of either those humans or the animals. It is also strangely compelling, turning all the movies into one sweeping arc about the conflict between humans exploiting animals and things while at the same time being the source of the energy allowing them to think in the first place. That said, there are a couple holes in the theory. If you haven’t read it yet you may want to first.
There is life in Cars, in the form of plants. If the plants are still there then the Earth clearly hasn’t been made so toxic that humans couldn’t breathe, and no, not all the humans outside the cleanup crew were put on the Axiom. Furthermore, the Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator probes had been sent to Earth on an annual basis pretty much since the ship left, and the captains says quite clearly that EVE was the first one to come back positive, even as a “false alarm”.
Also in WALL-E, if the cockroach is an example of bugs rebounding faster from the disaster, followed by them acting as intelligent as humans in Bug’s Life, then I would expect him to show a little more intelligence. At most he seems to show the intelligence of a dog, good for a cockroach, but a far cry from human life.
Nonetheless, these are not insurmountable problems, a few tweaks in the theory could very well fix them. So on the whole, while I personally doubt this is the “truth” in the movies, it is certainly good enough for an epic fan fiction ( totally not an insult, I love fan fiction and have even written some myself). I’ll have to watch the movies with this idea in mind and see if it makes a difference. Should be fun.
In other news, I got part one of Samson the Nazirite in the mail today, I’ll have a look at it in a little bit. Looks interesting from what I saw on the website, but it may be a bit too much for children. Oh, by the way, when I ordered it there were only seven hard copies left, and now there are only three, so if you want to get a non-digital one you better hurry.
Till next time,
Goodbye Internet!