Distracted by the Shiny

Goblinbrook Comics

Posted on May 15, 2012 by C. Patrick

The primary cast of the Clam-Pet comic at www.goblinbrook.com

Some of the Clam-pets.

It just occurred to me that although you might have seen it mentioned over in my Twitter feed to the right (Over there…no, down just a bit. There, that’s the one), that I haven’t actually plugged my webcomic on this blog.

Soooo, you should check out my poorly-drawn webcomic. It’s at www.goblinbrook.com. Click on the “Goblinbrook Daily” tab. The comic stars a bunch of clams called Clam-pets. Sometimes it’s funny, but that’s not really the point.

The primary point of starting the comic was that my mum has been bugging me to do something with these guys since I started drawing them back in High School. That was over two weeks ago, at least (okay, okay, exchange “decades” for “weeks” and “three” for “two.”

Back in High School, I liked to doodle in the margins of my class notes. Robots, dinosaurs, alien tentacle things, and these clam-pet characters. I also took lots of notes, which presumably is why my science teacher would sometimes make snarky notes about my doodles like, “Lots of nice pictures here, aren’t there?” but never lower my Keeping Notes grade.

As for the Clam-pets, I can’t remember where the idea came from. But the shapes were easy enough to put together, because most of the clams’ body parts were just differently-sized versions of one another.

The Clam-pets came in handy in art class, too. One of our projects was to make a woodcut-like carving out of sponges. Again, the shapes were easy to deal with and I whipped out a Clam-pet in no time and was inking before most anyone else even had a notion of what they wanted to do.

Ahhh, laziness.

Over the years, I’ve let my drawing skills wane. I actually used to be halfway good at capturing shading and nuance in buildings and faces. Now, I doubt I could draw a barbell with any semblance of verisimilitude. But the Clam-pets still come pretty easily.

Anyway, check ’em out. Hope you enjoy.

Posted in Creativity | Tagged art class, clams, humor, satire, taking notes, webcomic | 1 Comment

Review of “The Avengers”

Posted on May 10, 2012 by C. Patrick

A Captain America cos-player at Gen Con 2011

I just saw “The Avengers” (the one with superheroes; not the one with Emma Peel and a guy with a sword umbrella). I know, I know, you’re now expecting me to gush on for about nine hundred words about how awesomely fantabulously cool it was. Well, I’m not going to do it. Other people have already done that (such as this one that doesn’t have any spoilers).

I mean, sure, as soon as I walked out of the theater I wanted to turn around and buy another ticket. Not the point. “Avengers” reviews have been going up for days and days now, most of them gushing (with this one exception that I could find, which actually isn’t all that negative but which DOES have several spoilers). No need for me to gush any more than that.

The thing is, I never even really liked the “Avengers” comic books. They seemed more like Raman noodles than beef stroganoff (to make a food metaphor, since I’m hungry). Why put a bunch of superheroes together who are much cooler when they’re separate? Or at least, why read that when you could read the X-Men? Also, I was never a big fan of the Silver Surfer. Not that that has much to do with anything.

However, “The Avengers” movie started needling into my brain early on. Oh, sure, when I first saw the after-the-credits teasers with Samuel L (I Plan to be in Every Movie That Ron Perlman Isn’t) Jackson about the “Avengers Initiative,” I rolled my eyes. “Whatever,” I said to myself. “Cheap marketing ploy for an ensemble movie that will have too many heroes and too many villains, which is what always happens to a superhero movie franchise two or three movies in (See “Spiderman 3” and the 90s “Batman” movies for examples).

But then I heard that Joss Whedon was going to be directing. I love Joss Whedon. If I were a woman, I’d have Joss Whedon’s robotic love-children. I love the actors Joss Whedon works with, I love his writing, and I love his plots (okay, “Dollhouse” was a little off for me, but that comes to us in a world that spawned “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Firefly,” and “Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog”).

I also loved Robert Downey Jr’s “Iron Man” movies, and I liked “Captain America” quite a bit, even though it seemed like (SPOILER) they had to push awfully hard and fast through the action at the end of the movie to get Cap to the present day so he could join the Avengers Initiative (END SPOILER). I can’t say I’ve been overly fond of “The Hulk” franchise, but they keep changing Bruce Banners on us. Also, the Hulk is one of the few franchises where the main character (the Hulk, not Banner) is CGI most of the time. For that, I can watch “Shrek.”

Oh, and “Thor” is good fun.

But I think what may have clinched it for me was Agent Coulson. Other than Samuel L as Nick Fury (stepping into the shoes and the patch — er, not stepping, I guess — of David Hasselhoff’s Fury from back in the late 90s), Coulson was the binding glue that held the various movies together. His wit, humor, and general good-nature made me — and nearly everyone else in the geek verse — want to see him get his own comic book series movie. And he sort of did, with a series of web shorts.

I’m glad it all came together to get me to want to see this movie. I’m even more glad that the movie was worthy of the hype: the Hulk stole the show — both human and CGI versions; the snippiness between the characters and their obvious insecurities and hang-ups made them what they needed to be — human — to hook the non-geek movie-watching folk, and their hero-ness that finally shows through leads to awesome ass-kickery that hooks the geekier movie-watching community. Joss Whedon excels at ensemble casts and letting everybody get their chance to shine — in this case, it meant that even the non-super-powered characters have their parts to play.

And Agent Coulson is cool.

But I’m not going to talk about any of that. Already been done. Don’t want to be repetitive. No, it’s completely irrelevant that I went into a movie hoping for the best (having been promised the best by critics, reviewers, and my friends) and came out filled with joy — not because the movie surpassed my expectations, but rather because “The Avengers” was a fun, joyful ode to filmmaking and heroes being heroic. In that regard, it reminded me of early Spielberg and “Indiana Jones” and the original “Star Wars” movies).

Instead, I’m going to talk about the previews.

Holy crikey, there were a lot of previews!

Go see “The Avengers”.

Posted in Reviews and Rants | Tagged Agent Coulson, Avengers Initiative, Captain America, Emma Peel, geekery, Iron Man, Joss Whedon, Marvel's The Avengers, Nick Fury, previews, sword umbrella, The Avengers, the Hulk, Thor | 1 Comment

Cutting the Cable

Posted on May 7, 2012 by C. Patrick

Cutting the cable is really more metaphorical than this, but it’s good imagery.

Recently, I cut the cable.

Well, technically there was no “cutting” involved. Really it was just a phone call wherein I said something along the lines of, “I no longer wish to subscribe to your services Mr and/or Ms cable and/or satellite provider person,” and wherein they then said, “Oh, let us offer you this six months of free [insert favored movie/porn/sports channel here],” and wherein I then proceeded to explain why I wouldn’t need that, what with me planning on selling my house and moving to the desert to live on the shady side of a cactus.

Then they offered to take me out to lunch and have my love child or something, if only I’d give them another chance and continue being the sure thing that I had been for the past five years.

Fortunately, I’d just eaten lunch, so I said, “I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s me. Turn it off.” And with that, my TV set went dark. At least until I hooked up the Blu-Ray player, the Wii, the Playstation, and the Roku box.

You see, lots of people have been cutting the cable lately — saying no to the cable and/or satellite providers’ high prices, often poor customer service, and, erm, high prices. These are tough economic times, after all, and most cable subscriptions cost in the neighborhood of $100 or more. Sometimes much, much more.

But I didn’t cancel my satellite TV because of money. Okay, maybe it was a little bit about the money. But mostly it was because I didn’t need it anymore. I didn’t need nearly a thousand channels just so that I could watch the BBC (for Doctor Who and Sherlock, mostly) and be able to graze a smorgasbord of cooking shows in the lower-numbered section of the Viewing Guide. No, I had other options.

What options? I already listed a bunch of them a couple of paragraphs ago. What, weren’t you listening.

Okay, well, Netflix was one, of course. Even hobbled by the loss of its deal with Starz [Here’s a link, if my words sound like gibberish], Netflix still offers up a formidable range of programming for $7.99 a month. Sure, I may not be able to find Eurotrip (yes, I tried), but I can watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 and any number of movies with Ron Perlman in them, so that probably balances out.

However, for my primary wired TV connection, what lured me away from satellite was Roku — a hockey-puck-sized box that promised the internet at my feet (assuming my feet were pointed at the tv, anyway). There was Amazon, Hulu (regular or Prime), Vimeo, and dozens of other sites, services, and apps that could stream all types of assorted content straight onto my television from the Roku box.

One I’d been depending on, however, was HBO Go. Unfortunately, I didn’t do my homework. Okay, I’m going to break away here for a rant:

You can only get HBO Go if you already have a cable or satellite subscription that includes HBO? Really, HBO Execs? Then what’s the point? Oh, I get it. I really do: you can’t offer HBO Go on its own (and the same goes for Showtime, Cinemax, EPIX, and any number of other movie/original content providers), because with a la carte programming, who would pay for cable/satellite?

But, but, but … then why offer it? Am I likely to be struck by the uncontrollable urge to watch Game of Thrones and True Blood and Girls at the beach? No, if I have cable, I’ll probably just record them and watch when I get back from the beach, so, seriously, why offer it at all?

Okay, rant done.

On a related note, has anyone else noticed that almost the entirety of decent original television programming comes from HBO? HBO is single-handedly propping up the cable industry?

Anyway, excluding that one glitch in my hopes of a cable/satellite free TV cornucopia of wonder (to mix a metaphor), I’ve done well without the satellite dish attached to my roof. If I can’t find a show or movie on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, or on free network over-the-air HD (hello HD rabbit ears) then I can probably find it down at my local DVD rental shop. Eventually.

Well, except for Eurotrip. Someone had stolen the shop’s copy. But, y’know what? I decided to read a book, instead. Now, where’d I put my Nook charger? Bloody battery is dead.

Maybe I’ll be heading into the desert soon, after all.