We take a little from both plates, good and bad in this extremely late Spwug posting by yours truly.

First, the bad:

Don Lafontaine, age 68 passed away from lung complications this past Monday.

The King of Voiceovers, silent.

This year so far has been a sad, sad time for some of the great legends, B-grade classics and yet-upcoming personalities. Heath Ledger, Bernie Mac, Issac Hayes, Julius Carry (Sho’Nuff?!), Estelle Getty (The Golden Girls!?) Charlton Heston…

At least they won’t have to be on standby when this thing gets turned on.

And I’ll have shown you guys the way to the good; follow me!:

So, here’s a fun little project, and we’ll kinda touch back through the week (in a shameless attempt to buy back your attention.)  A four panel comic for your perusal!

The first thing for this artist is always the dialogue.  A well-written comic will always be forgiven for any lackluster art, and a beautiful comic will forever be scorned for lame dialogue or plot.  Brevity is truly wit.  Besides, cramming huge scientific jargon blocks or flourishing prose-etry is really, REALLY hard.  At the same time those word bubbles are G-R-E-A-T for obscuring unecessary or frustrating details in a page.  People get it.  You can trust them to fill in the blanks for you.  Understanding your characters well and knowing their reactions to situations makes the dialogue not only ‘pop’, but it also kinda lays out the page in advance; their movements and facial expressions rely on matching the dialogue.

Thumbnailing the comic with quick doodles is like the wet cement to your wordy foundation — placing the word bubbles to give your characters room to move and not get in each others way is essential.  Also, any mistakes you find, you’ll have found early.  Nothing’s worse than long hours of toil, only to find out the layout’s bad or a character’s face doesn’t match the dialogue.   This is all the tough stuff up front.  Everything from here gets easier and it’s when you’ve put up the framework, that you can get to the fun of filling it all in…  that’s for the next post.

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Guh, it’s almost the end of a brutal Monday. I wish it was still Saturday night.

Because I went to 32-Bit Genocide, a video game music festival held annually in Baltimore! It was a blast! And to think it’s in this blogger’s hometown too! Cover bands like Year 200X stole the show for me personally, with heavy anthems of Journey to Silius, Lifeforce, the NES version of Ducktales (you read that correct, DUCKTALES.) and a Contra medley to finish it off. Cheap Dinosaurs was a one man digital melee, ripping the sound samples from a Gameboy cartridge to mix beats on the fly in a drum-and-bass-y style. Very, very cool performance, and about the most unique.

Other acts like The Megas, Ultraball & This Place Is Haunted brought more of the kind of gamer-meets-indy-rocker vibe that makes these shows so interesting. During those times, I was in the gallery hall to sample works by 2-D artists and craftmakers. The music acts got to graffiti the facing wall, while pretty much everyone with a working shoulder and chunk of chalk did their best. I got in the act too, dropping plenty of signature shooting game fanart. Oh yeah; Ironing bead art to the stars. You too, could have owned your very own Skull Castle.

Gotta say though, while not my cup of tea, The Protomen (one of the headline bands of the evening) impressed the heck out of me. They played hits from Queen, Kenny Loggins, a nice shift from the game-centric sound. Moreover, their stage presence, the way they handled rowdy crowds — by joining in the heady chaos(!), dealing with bum equipment; the Protomen just had a level of class that was really impressive, and one of the real highlights of the night.

In all, I had a great time — it helps that my raiding party consisted of webcomic artists, game industry heads and Mr. Magfest himself. Speaking of which, Magfest strikes at the start of 2009, so I’ll be covering that too! It’s not everyday one can plug into some Mike Tyson’s Punch Out or throw on Lifeforce (Konami Code & all) while the crowd is jumping to to a cover of The Legend of Zelda.

By all means, follow the links, find a show and enjoy!

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Ever been within inches of a passing semi truck on a busy freeway, whipping past at 70 mph? Even in your car, you get thrown around like a leaf? Yeah, that was SDCC for the remainder of the weekend.

While I’d love to share pics, I’m still on borrowed time — my flight back home departs TODAY, thus I can write to you all, but I have roughly 500 pictures to sort, weed out and organize into a functional blog. In the meantime, let me tell you all — California rolled out the red carpet, and I had THE BEST — excuse me, *ahem* THE BEST time at a convention since the Blizzard of 2003 during Katsucon. That’s no small feat.

This was geek Mecca. Direct your prayers of Dr. Horrible and new episodes of Eureka just south of the setting sun, folks. While no show is perfect, and Murphy’s Laws prevail, I will say that the positives of the experience far, FAR outweigh the negatives. In other words, don’t feel bad. Everyone else is broke too.

So, in the meantime (while I’m 30,000 in the air for several hours) here’s my take on:  FIVE THINGS I LEARNED FROM SDCC.

(1): No one in their right mind should ever move an event or convention from San Diego. It’s PRIME real estate. I’m not the man behind the wheel, so there’s no telling what the future holds — but I will say that San Diego embraced the convention with open arms, and there was PLENTY to do and see beyond the convention walls. Go to lunch at the Tin Fish restaurant. Get around on the trolleys. Check out the best damned reuben ever at The Field.  Speaking of fields, the Padres play at Petco Park right up the street (say what you like about the Padres.)  Even the train station is a photo op waiting to happen!

(2): Your Mileage May Vary.  And oh, did I rack up a few.  Now, you can actually stop and get a breather throughout a good portion of the con, you just have to be… creative about it.  And not have any hangups about sitting on cold floors, corners of huge displays or just around the corner of an artist table.

(3): You have to be extra special, determined or crazy (or maybe a heady combination of the three) to actually get the Rare Collectable Merchandise Given Out Only At The Con Wherein You Must Stand In Line For Several Hours For The CHANCE To Get It.

(4): Besides, there are scores of people hired just to hand out free flyers.  Save the earth, collect them all!  I bet you could fill a phone book with all the mini posters, cards, flyers, and extra bits.

(5): Some personal tips to share with you all:

-Bring a camera, and break a bank book on batteries.

-When you’re done packing, open your bags again, take out half the stuff you packed.  You’re not going to need it.

-Say “yes” to whatever absurd means it takes to get there, short of risk to person or possessions.  This place is worth it.

-Water.

-Plan ahead.  There is for even the regular attendees, four whole days worth of events to attend and people to see, things to buy (or have a conniption over whether TO buy) and while you CAN do it all in a day, if you’re around for the whole thing, space it out.  Get some rest.  Eat hearty.  Because TONIGHT WE DINE IN — *ahem*

I’ll be back with photos, folks!  Sorry for the delay, but right now it’s time for me to say goodbye to perpetually sunny San Diego!

(Oh yeah, and there was an earthquake yesterday.  Most bizarre damned thing I’ve ever experienced.)

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Otherwise known as the first day of the convention!

Hey readers, coming to you live from after the convention!  It’s 2am, Thursday morning of SDCC, and ALREADY it looks to be a phenomenal event.  The best of comics, animation, illustration, video games and more are front & center in sunny San Diego for — and I’m really avoiding hyperbole here — an epic, auspicious event for all of geekdom.

[0] San Diego itself deserves mention for being an absolutely BEAUTIFUL piece of real estate.  I’ve been to many, many conventions; this one is loooong on looks.   Also — and bear in mind this was the exception, not the rule — most of the registration lines were very quick and despite the sheer scale of it, for a pre-registered guest, the wait never exceeded an hour’s time.  Most of the convention center staff; much less the staff for SDCC itself seemed pretty open and receptive.  If there was a place to be, they’d point it out.  If there was somewhere someone wasn’t authorized to go to, it was handled quickly and fairly.  Kudos to San Diego for making the show a true EVENT.

[1] Did you know, I have an entry in the Street Fighter Tribute artbook by Udon Comics & Capcom?  Please ignore the shameless self-promotion, and pay attention to an encyclopedic, 320 page monster of an artbook, with nearly EVERY notable artist in the world today — from Udon’s inner circle, to most online artists, to even the likes of Jorge Gutierrez (El Tigre!)  Simply marvelous!

[2] It’s telling that the video game creators man one of the main entries to the convention floor.  Capcom, Square/Enix, Konami, Activision, Sony, Microsoft, all within spitting distance of each other, and it isn’t until you’ve plowed through the first five or so minutes of people that you reach the television and animation venues.  Just an interesting note — by all means, there are enough people to really, REALLY fill in  the space.

[3] There is no number 3.

[4] This will be a day-to-day update affair.   I’m VERY excited to upload and post pictures for you all to see!  This is more or less one of the great geek Mecca of the world, so it’s not just one minor day’s post worth of material.   I’ll be back tomorrow night with more on SDCC!  If there’s any questions you all want to ask, I’m all ears!

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San Diego Comic Con is a week from today, and DOODI’MSOEXCITED!  Got a lineup of artists to meet, apparently Seth Green stalks the halls in a Spidey costume… I’m sure there will be some big announcements, and the hallways will be chock-a-block with cool folks.  I also get a copy of the Street Fighter Tribute artbook that I submitted to!

Next week, I’ll give you the pregame show and maybe a few words from San Diego, as it’ll be the first time I’ve ever visited.    Look for me next week, on Wednesday (seriously!)

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OMGOMGOMG Thunder Force VI for real, no lie! October is the revival of THE synth butt-rock shmup!  “I saw the messenger of the new god there.”

But thinking about that, consider there’s been announcements at the start of summer of TWO Bionic Commando games for the XBOX360, a Castlevania 2-player versus fighting game in the works (what?!), and a classic style 8-bit side scrolling Mega Man 9 for the Wii — and the last 8-bit game of the series (MM6) was fifteen years ago! 

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Waugh!  Yesterday was Wednesday wasn’t it?!  Don’t you hate it when one day transposes itself over another?

Anyways, quite a few things going on worth mention:

 -The Demon Mages, Issue #2 is on the threshold of completion.  Took a little extra time, but significantly less OT than before.  Look for that in and around the time of…

 -SAN DIEGO COMIC CON!  I’ll be happy to give you readers the extended post-con coverage (August 2nd.  Let’s be fair; jet-lag) , but in the meantime, a few lead-up articles will get passed around, starting next week.  There’s not much to say here, except that packing for ten days in two bags will be… interesting.

-Almost directly afterwards is Otakon 2008.  This blogger lives moments away from it, so like the event horizon of a black hole, it seems many individuals may be drawn into it’s vortex.  Convention roundup on that one as well will be posted, come August 13th. 

-Pixiv.net & Nico-Nico Douga are neat!  Even if your Japanese is lackluster, it’s easy navigation & content abounds!  I’m there most every day!  Google searches readily turn up non-native registration instructions, so there’s little chance of getting lost.

-BONESAW IS REA-DY!!!  Tough as heck with a keyboard, a little imprecise, but still an impressive game and I chuckled at most of the humor.  A cool homebrewed time waster.

-In the spirit of our nation, I watched Paul “John Adams” Giamatti in probably my most favorite role I’ve seen him play — as the whip smart, buck-nasty Mr. Hertz in Shoot ‘Em Up.  Funny to me to see commercials for his HBO special, and super-impose Mr. Hertz’s cellphone ringing.  Or maybe an extended gunfight with Ben Franklin. 

And now, some new art!  Both done by hand, with markers & pens — the second from back on June 13-15th for the Anime-Mid-Atlantic weekend.

That’s all for now!  See ya next week!

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Greetings, Kobra Kai.

My apologies ahead of time, as there will technically be no real article from me this week.  I really don’t have much to say anyway.  You see, just a few days ago a friend and co-worker of mine – just shy of his thirty-second birthday – had a major stroke at his home.  He is currently in the ICU in critical condition and isn’t expected to make it.

I wouldn’t bring him up here in the halls of Spwug but for one reason – as I was thinking about the last 12 years that I’ve known him, I came to realize he was integral to a lot of the geek stuff I am currently into.

When I first met Scot Blair, we were both airmen in the Air Force.  It was 1996, and I had just gotten stationed at Langley Air Force Base here in Virginia.  I hadn’t really met too many people outside my job, so I hadn’t really made any friends yet.

That all changed the moment I ventured into the Day Room of the dorms to watch The Empire Strikes Back on the big screen TV.

Enter Scot – my first impression was that he reminded me of Whiz from the 80s cartoon “Kidd Video”, and he was just as smart.  He sat down beside me, introduced himself, and we watched the film, all the while quoting every line.

We struck up a friendship from that point on.  Now when I say he was integral to a lot of the geek stuff I’m into, I mean he introduced me to a number of things.  He was the one that had a small collection of anime titles that he would lend to me.  I had already wet my appetite for anime before I met him, but he was the one who pulled me in head first – Tenchi Muyo, El Hazard, Cowboy Bebop (just to name a few).  I may not be into anime as much as a lot of my friends are, but the stuff I do like I owe to Scot Blair.

He was also responsible for making me aware that there was a British TV series called Red Dwarf.  Now, I had read the two books (the only two books) that had been released in the states, and I loved both of them.  But then here comes along Mr. Blair and blows my mind with the idea of a TV show.  I watched a couple of episodes and I was hooked.  It’s one of my favorite series to this day.

I would have to say that the biggest part of my life that he had a hand in was meeting my wife.  In early 2000 I had gotten out of the Air Force and was working as a government contractor with Scot and our friend Eric.  During this time, I was in a really bad state.  I had just gotten out of a really bad relationship with a woman girl I loved very much.  The relationship was toxic and my heart had once again been broken.  I didn’t want to leave the house.  Ever.  Enter Scot, once again.  He had convinced me to go to this anime convention called Nekocon in Virginia Beach the weekend of Halloween.  At this point I was well on my way to growing my hair and beard out to become the wonderful Silent Bob look-alike you all know and love today.  I had planned on going to some costume contests and seeing if I could win some cash.  Instead, I let Scot talk me into going to this Nekocon.  I figured I would just take my poorly put-together Silent Bob costume with me to the con.

Not only was I a HUGE hit (and a staple of anime conventions for years to come), but I also met my future wife for the first time.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

Looking back on all of the above, I realize that Scot had a bigger influence on my life then I ever gave him credit for.  He’s helped make me the geek I am, and helped me take that first step into finding the woman I would eventually call Mrs. Sturges.  That is why I felt it fitting that I talk about him this week, and that is why he needs to recover (among other reasons).  I need to thank him.

Hunh.  Looks like I had a lot to say after all.

The Don offers his thoughts and prayers out to Scot Blair.

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Working on new computer, brb!

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Thanks to a medical command regarding diet and general health here at Chez Spwug my dearest and I have started on a diet. Also I am making him take a couple of short walks every day to help him get into better shape, as he is, well… prone to sitting rather than moving. Thanks to the demands of various works (including helping out with Diginin Publishing,) and then the natural desire to relax after a day full of various work, he is fairly chair-and-sofa prone. Upon reflection I realize that I, too, have gravitated sofa-ward. I mean, I even play WoW from my sofa (can I just mention off topic here how much I love love love having a laptop these days?)

This sudden need to shake that lifestyle up has coincided rather interestingly with the advent of the Wii Fit, thus making me really start thinking about geeks and health. It is, after all, a fairly well known stereotype- the overweight pimply geek that either games nonstop or hangs out at the local comic book store. We all know the image, but how many of us actually conform to it? I have a number of friends who, in addition to rather serious gaming habits manage to make time for rock climbing, for body building, and for martial arts to name a few. They are distinctly not conforming to that geek physique image. The advent of Dance Dance Revolution got millions of gamers off their butts, and the Wii Fit is sure to do the same, though for a somewhat different reason I suspect. I’m personally looking forward to seeing how it pans out. I myself need to find an exercise based fun thing that I can do to get ME off the sofa a bit more- is there anything you guys could recommend to busy chick?

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