You get what you ask for, I suppose.

That shouldn’t really surprise anyone. 4chan has long since stopped being the great unknown of the internet.  It’s one of the largest ‘community’ sites in existence, and since it has a Comics and Cartoons board, that by extension makes /co/ simply one of the places you have to know about if you’re at all interested in what’s happening in comics today – reactions, issues, what’s popular and what’s not.

Of course, anything even remotely associated with 4chan gets a bit of a rep these days. Creators poo-poo it, news sites paint it as the refuge of Internet Hate Machines and paedophiles, assuming that since /b/ is part of 4chan, all of 4chan must be /b/ (and for the record, no, I’ve never gone to /b/ ) But personally, I think it’s a fantastic resource. All these people, all these ideas. It’s a giant melting pot of piss and fire, where everyone can just throw whatever they feel like saying out there because even if it’s hated and rejected, it was Anonymous and quickly disappears underneath the next wave of botPREG and ’90s threads. Quite often to kick-start a blog post, I’ll pop over to the ‘chans and ask a question.

Being Anonymous can be a confronting thing for an aspiring creator. We like to think that we, and we alone, own our ideas. That what is ours is sacred and integral to who we are creatively, and to not only post them up on a public form, but also unattributed and anonymous, is paramount to saying “Here, I have this idea. Please take it from me. I worked hard on it so that other people could take credit for it.” Of course, one could always be a tripfag tripfriend, and validate your existence externally, but even then attribution towards an idea only lasts as long as the subject is popular.

Of course, it’s all very po-mo to start telling people that they can’t actually own an idea, nor have any original ideas of their own in the first place. And nor am I saying that /co/ is the perfect place to sound ideas and concepts off. But the next time you’re doing some research, or just trying to give an idea legs, don’t disregard it entirely. There are genuinely some decent and intelligent people on /co/, just like there are on any community site on the internet. The real trick is filtering out the idiots.

And the furries.

See, at first I thought it was just going to be a simple little shindig involving plenty of Giant Monsters from the Ultraman stable.

And then they started dancing Thriller.

I haven’t yet stopped smiling.

(via AngryZenMaster and assorted)

The most practical of solutions is often the wussiest.

But that doesn’t mean at least some bullets can be cool, right? So I’m going to troll around the internet and find some cool, comic-book science bullets. I mean, if commonly used bullets can come in plastic, rubber, and wax varieties, god knows what some mad scientist has cooked up. But first, please note that I am not a gun nut. If it comes out of a metal pole you point at bad people to make them go away, it’s bullet enough for me.

Electric bullets have always been a favourite of mine. Hell, they even sound awesome. Electric bullets? Who comes up with this shit? Most of them work according to the piezoelectric effect, which basically boils down to if you squeeze something hard and fast enough, it generates a high voltage charge, which is basically how these bullets work – smack the right kind of stuff into you hard and fast, stunning you without killing you. It’s a non-lethal round (as non-lethal as shooting someone with electric bullets sounds like it could be, anyway) although I’m sure you would comic-science it up a few thousand amps and make it definitively more lethal. Even comes in shotgun form for your convenience.

Stop, or I'll shoot tiny fluorescent satellites!

On the subject of non-lethal ammunition – or ‘less lethal’ as they are called now, as they finally clued to the fact that hey shooting anything at a person really fast could do some damage you think? – there exists all sorts of interesting applications. Everything from stink rounds to sticky foam could potentially be deployed on a personal level. Blister agents could be delivered in much the same method. Sonic and light weapons, although treading water into laser territory, are also possible in the not-to-distant future. And, at the end of the day, you could always just microwave the bastards.

Now, I’m sure we’ve all heard of Dragon’s Breath at some point of our lives. It’s pretty much the be-all and end-all for people who say to themselves “You know what? I wish my shotgun were more like a flamethrower. I really want to set the guys in front of me on fire… those jerks.” Of course, the technology used to create them isn’t that complicated – basically it’s a shell made of burning stuff. So why not apply the principle to other firearms? Whilst the prospect of a flame-throwing sniper rifle may fall flat to with some, miniaturising the technology to work in a handgun or similar could lead to one very surprising – and one very literal – up-close fire fight.

Speaking of shotgun rounds, there’s all sorts of interesting prospects, due to the short-range but high-volume nature of the shells. From SCMITR ammo – basically flechette or fragmentation rounds, alibet they shoot tiny metal arrows – to the limb-lopping nature of Bolo shells. May I suggest shooting someone with FLAVOUR? You never know when that one will come in handy.

Some fine upstanding shellheads.

Glass bullets are an interesting one. There are reports of the Germans using them in WW1, but these days not-so much. Most people tend to agree that glass lacks the strength and mass needed to stay together long enough to reach most targets, and even then, are likely to shatter on impact without doing much damage. But what if that’s what you want? If you start to look at a bullet like it was a delivery mechanism, and not the only means of injuring a target, then perhaps the possibilities of using glass bullets opens up a bit. Look at it as essentially firing test-tubes at the target – sure, the glass won’t do much, but just imagine what you could put on the inside of the tube.

Don’t forget that bullets can come in caseless and silent variations (including ones that just make the target silent, so long as they don’t snore) As well as wooden, but the effectiveness of those are rather limited, as is understandable by effectively being nothing more fancy than throwing twigs at the other guy really fast. Silver bullets are staples of many supernatural-themed stories, and it wouldn’t be an article about strange ammunition without mentioning magic and ice bullets. Hell, you aren’t even limited to cylindrical bullets these days, having the tround at your disposal.

Gyrojets are an interesting aside to ‘normal’ ammunition as they straddle the fine line between personal firearm and personal rocket-launcher. Because that’s essentially what they are – gyrojets fire rockets rather than bullets, with all that implies.

Like your bullets bigger and electronic? Try these anti-radio artillery rounds. Starshel, as they are known, are used by the Bulgarian military, and are basically signal-jamming antenna delivered by cannon. You fire them, they land, and BAM – said antenna pops out of it and gives you about an hours worth of disrupted communications within a 700m radius. The case for miniaturising these is small (do ho ho ho) but it’s an interesting technology to consider.

For those that remember them, the Adeptus Arbites from Warhammer 40k – aka the Judges from 2000AD – had the gimmick of ‘intelligent’ shotgun shells that, once fired, would correct their course and steer into the optimal position to hit their targets. Sounds far-fetched? Well, the technology is already here. Cue screams and Skynet, people. The weapons are alive.

Sure, bullets may not be the most interesting things at first glance – remember we’re talking about a world where arrows, pieces of thrown bone and punch particles from your eyes are a effective crime-fighting solution – but if you dig just below the surface, you can find all sorts of exotic tools to place at your vigilante’s fingers.

Posting this from Windows Live Writer. Figuring it’d be easier to use this. You know what I’d love? If there was some way to post directly to WordPress from Google Docs. That’d just be ace.

Picture unrelated. Although that’s the closest we got to an All-Star Wonder Woman. Also, that’d be aces.

I know that seems like a strange thing to say. I discussed in an earlier post about how I don’t like to listen to music when I’m creating, as I feel that it messes with the natural beats and rhythms of the work you’re creating, but having elevated these properties so high, why not create a musical out of them?

How would a musical on paper work, anyway? Music is more than just rhymes over time to a pattern. Each panel would have to be arranged to accommodate a certain number of beats and syllables. Pacing would be a real bitch, because everybody reads at a different pace. Even things like body language would have to be altered so there’s a clear line of movement and action from panel to panel. And of course no matter how talented you are, you’re always going to stumble at the fact that no matter how well written or recognisable, the reader still won’t be able to actually hear any music outside of their own head (and as soon as you ask people to think about something, it all starts coming down around you)

With the recent rise of the motion comic – or at least the established publishers finally cluing to the digital phenomenon – we have the curious rise of comics that have built-in soundtracks (and sound effects) These allow the writer – or perhaps a specialised comic composer? – to place measured and deliberate music and sounds in their comics. Of course, this might be a little too rigid for some creators. Some of the intrigue in the creation of a ‘silent’ music comic (the first method) is that the music becomes infinitely more personal and intimate than going “This is what it sounds like. Exactly.” A silent musical comic could become somewhat of a ‘cover comic’ phenomenon – where the creators are almost daring the readers to develop and create their own interpretations of the song presented. It’s not quite public domain, but it’s encouraging the audience to personalise and re-interpret the work to best suit their own tastes and ideas.

Of course, if I search hard enough, I’m sure I’ll come across some rap comics.

Now we are all sons of bitches.

- Kenneth Bainbridge

It’s time for a little history.

Now, as I’m sure everyone is aware, World War 2: This Time It’s Personal is a popular subject. Everyone seems to fucking love the Little War That Could, and anything to do with it is greedily lapped up. And it’s for a good reason – it’s probably the largest direct man-on-man (hello Google results!) conflict that will ever befall the Earth – these days it’s all laser-guided this, orbital bombardment that. But back then, it was all blood and piss – the only real way you could be sure that some jerk on the other side of the planet didn’t fuck you up was to waltz on over and fuck him up first. It was a time when SCIENCE! reigned supreme, as both sides of the conflict were desperately trying to come up with the Next Big Thing™ to Wreck Some Shit™.

And, of course, the biggest wrecker to anyone’s shit is a nuclear weapon.

Nuclear weapons – born of the principle of ‘if I get this shit and press it against this shit, it should HOLY AAARGH BOOOM‘ – were the holy grail of explosives all the way through WW2. They represented – and still do, to this day – the best way to get an explosion the likes of which will not only wipe your enemy off the face of the planet, but his family, his friends, his dog, and anyone else who dared to even think about existing within a 50km radius for the next thousand years. It’s the ultimate in ‘FUCK YOU AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON’ weaponry.

Now, the WW2 American / British / Stanley Cup All-Stars nuclear project – known as the Manhattan Project, which ultimately contained a disappointing amount of blue penis by all accounts – is well documented. But interest always favours the insane, so it’s the German, Soviet, and Japanese nuclear programs we’ll focus on here.

The Uranium Club: Bitches Dig Science AND Clubs

At the outbreak of World War 2, the Germans were considered to be the top dogs in nuclear tech. It was Germans who discovered nuclear fission – the principle that allows for nuclear energy – and many of the world’s leading nuclear scientists were German (most, however, had long since fled under the Nazi government’s growing politicisation of SCIENCE! in the years leading up to the war. SCIENCE! ain’t your bitch, Nazis, geeeeeez) So if you were a betting person, not many would have cocked a wary eyebrow at you for placing a fiver on Nuclear Annihilation By Germans down at the local TAB circa 1939.

But the Nazi nuclear project ran into a number of problems. One of the most prominent was that the Nazi war machine had an unsettling habit of taking the brightest, youngest scientists and seemingly thinking to themselves “shit man, if this guy can kick the shit out of equations, just imagine what he could do against Russians!” which, if you’ve ever seen a young physics student or professor, strikes you as a really bad idea. And, given the earlier brain drain of German science, meant that the pool of talent to draw upon was either not up to scratch or simply didn’t have the numbers needed to do anything quick enough for it to matter.

Another major problem is that whilst the Manhattan Project was just the cat’s meow with its supporting governments, the German project just didn’t get the attention or resources that it needed. By the time its potential was realised, Germany was already spread thin across a continent in a war that it was losing, whilst the Manhattan dudes had basically been exploding nuclear bombs for fun and profit at that point, immolating tea cups and spending most days brainstorming names for bombs and giving each other high-fives. Nuclear science, the untamed and saucy bronco that it was at the time, was simply too slow and boring for Nazi officials it seems, who were far more interested in SCIENCE! that they could see and understand, and would presumably cost a lot less.

Despite all that, the advancements that Germany had made towards its nuclear projects were a much-sought after thing in the closing days of the war. Berlin was picked clean for anything and everything interesting or even remotely related – materials, spiral notepads, people in labcoats with clipboards, rocket ships – and most of this went towards fuelling the rampant nuclear proliferation of the Cold War era.

Papa Russia Weighs In

Speaking (reading?) of the Cold War, Russia was slow to the nuclear game.  They were largely too busy fighting Germany and becoming Communists to really weigh in on it, and it wasn’t until 1942 that Joe Stalin rustled his moustache in just the right way to give the go-ahead for the appropriate measures of espionage and research.

Most of the practical elements of the Soviet nuclear programs were pilfered confiscated from Germany in the last few weeks of the war. Until local production levels could start and keep up, most of Russia’s radioactive materials for many years after the war were sourced from Germany (usually via Belgium via Congo) Russia exploded their first atomic weapon in 1949, which by all accounts, made Stalin’s lipwarmer glow with pride for days afterward, and then mysteriously fall off.

Japan Begins It’s Obsession With Destroying Tokyo In Anime

Completing the geographical arc, now we turn to the Japanese nuclear program. They ultimately faced many of the same issues that plagued the German and Soviet programs – namely, whilst the science was all very nice and impressive, the constraints of war meant that most materials and research went into more immediately practical and traditional industries. No matter how impressive the pie charts and instructional manga, it was simply easier and faster to tell people you could make a normal bomb 10% bigger this year than making a REALLY HUGE bomb maybe in 5 years probably kinda, hopefully.

But the interesting thing about the Japanese WW2 nuclear program is the surrounding urban legends. It was rumoured that Japan had not only constructed but actually tested a small nuclear device mere months before they were exposed to waaaaaay too much first-hand test data themselves. Of course, there is little practical evidence of this beyond one man’s account, but it’s an interesting story hook anyway.

Nukes, Comics, and WW2

Nuclear (or atomic, as the terms were largely interchangeable) weapons in comics during the time of WW2 were not common. Whilst the far-fetched concept of nuclear power was used on occasion, it was not until the conclusion of the war that the devastating power of nuclear weapons became wide-spread knowledge, and from there it leaked into many hero’s origins and adventures. It has not been until recently, with the constant re-telling of origins of heroes 60 years old, have we begun to see nuclear weapons directly referenced in comics explicitly set in WW2.

Often these are ‘secret’ weapons, existing largely out of context of the actual technological process of the time, and sometimes with alien or occult assistance. An example of this is the progression of the rocket that sent Captain America into deep freeze advancing from a simple powerful explosive to a prototype Atomic Bomb (made by aliens!) in his Ultimates incarnation. Often, the cause of Nazi victory in WW2 in alternate timelines is due to their eventual development of nuclear weapons. Superman and the Blackhawks (they especially having had the misfortune of having their island base destroyed by a nuclear bomb) have both apparently destroyed prototype German nuclear weapons upon being time-displaced.

Some Practicalities

• The nuclear weapons that were being built and researched at the time were pure fission weapons, not fusion (or ‘thermonuclear’ as they’re best known today) There were two main types of design – the gun-type (Little Boy) and the implosion type (Fat Man). The gun-type used conventional explosives to force two sub-critical pieces of radioactive material together, forcing them to go critical (the actual amount being only in the area of 1% of the total radioactive material). The implosion-type bomb uses an outer layer of conventional explosives to compress a piece of radioactive material into going critical. An implosion-type weapon is far more efficient.

• Apart from the above mentioned bombs, there was also a planned third whose construction was aborted once plutonium was discovered to be unsuitable for use in a gun-type bomb, known as the Thin Man.

• Germany’s much touted ‘Amerika Bomber‘ projects were never going to be capable of delivering Atomic weapons to mainland America. The vast ranges involved meant that the available payload to the bombers was in the order of 1000 pounds of ordnance – and the relatively crude design of nuclear weapons at the time put them at the 10’000 pound mark in weight. Even then, the top German nuclear scientist had miscalculated the amount of required radioactive material, placing it at several tonnes alone, meaning that from the German perspective, long-range nuclear war was never going to be a viable or practical option.

Related Linkage

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapons_program
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_atomic_bomb_project
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nuclear_energy_project

So, for the first From The Longbox, it’s somewhat fitting that the comic I pull at random holds the dubious title of ‘Comic I Own The Most Copies Of’ at thirteen. So gird your loins and lock the children in the cupboard, it’s time to plunge the X-TREME depths of:

REFLECTIVE: X-TREME

SHADOWHAWK #13

Now, I’ve not read any of the previous Shadowhawk issues, so arses if any of it’s going to make sense. I’m already beginning to dread the amount of ’90s contained within it, because on the cover alone we have POUCHES, which is comic talk for GRITTY AND REALISTIC BUT ACTUALLY JUST STUPID – and it’s guest-staring WildC.A.T.S. So, time to crack this baby open and see what it’s made of.

Okay, already. He’s apparently on a quest to find a cure for AIDS. And apparently his most hated enemy is Hawk’s Shadow. Real original there. Next issue of Action Comics is bound to feature that dastardly Man Super, and boy should Hal look out for that fearsome Lantern Green. Anyway, the issue opens with Shadowhawk tumbling face-first out of a pink energy portal (pink being the colour de jour of mysterious energies) and of course, he’s narrating to himself about what happened to put him in this situation. Exposition has always been a bitch in comics. It’s so unrealistic and yet no-one seems to bother trying to come up with a new way of doing it.

Okay, pages two and three. Apparently he’s talking to himself? Or is that his suit. Think it’s his suit. Oh, wait, it’s that Phoebe chick that has something to do with something. There’s a bit of an awkward reminder that he’s supposed to have AIDS in the second panel, having him pop some pills and going “cough”. As we’ll learn by the end of the comic, the only way he can take medication is to throw it at his face, mouth agape, and I suppose just hope it goes in. Anyway, as is always convenient, that portal thingy has dumped him next to what appears to be a warehouse where some dudes with some X-TREME ABS are holding a couple of other dudes with terrible fashion sense (seriously, blonde hair in a green suit, and green hair in a bright blue suit. Shoot the fuckers.) Phoebe makes mention that the hostage takers are called the Black Razors and they’re going to kill their hostages.

How does she know that? Either she’s in on it, psychic or she’s helpfully concluded that these guys are the worst kidnappers and / or killers ever. Anyway, cue up another cliché as Shadowhawk swoops in dramatically through a window, swinging by a line so thin that if granted to us mere mortals would revolutionise textiles technology. Oh, and Shadowhawk has claws on his fists. Did I mention that? This was the ’90s.

I really don't want to know what porno this is traced from.

Of course the blonde guy has a goat’s tuft beard and beatnik glasses. Anyway, Shadowhawk is beating up some guys and talking to himself – well, thinking to himself, more accurately, demonstrating that one of his powers must be super-accelerated thinking in order for him to get out a couple of paragraphs between throwing punches and doing splits mid-air. So Blondy and Green Hair wake up, see what’s going on, and decide to help. Blondy looks like he’s Hulking out and Greeny looks like someone’s urinating stainless steel onto him, so I’m going to go out on a limb here and say these are some of those WildC.A.T.S we read about earlier.

Traditional introductions. They are the WildC.A.T.S, surprise surprise. Two of them, at least. A Hulk and a Wolverine. Hulk is “bellowing out his rage!” which is an awkward line. There’s more muscle lines and clenched fists in these two pages than I’m sure is allowable by law these days. The warehouse seems to be pulling a TARDIS as I’m sure as fuck it wasn’t this huge. Oh, and blood! Our first gory casualty of the day. Wolver- erm, Warblade snik’d skewered a guy with his metal claws his metal claws. And Shadowhawk punched a guy so hard that speed lines came out.

And Hulk – or Maul, or Mauler, or whatever – has busted through the roof of the warehouse. There goes that TARDIS theory. Anyway, apparently he gets dumber the bigger he gets, which begs the question of “why does he need to be 40ft tall when no-one he is fighting is even 7ft” but hey, it’s a good shot of stompy action. Warblade seems unable to touch anyone without them exploding in blood, whilst Shadowhawk seems content with punching glass – red glass, mind you – out of helmets.

And here’s the rest of the WildC.A.T.S, jumping down from… nowhere, apparently, to make a dramatic and conveniently framed entrance! And more dialogue that couldn’t possibly be all said in the time it’s taking them to fight. We’ve got CHESTplate Void, Spartan, Weeaboorella Zealot, Grifter, and Voodoo, all namechecked of course for your convenience. Grifter punches a guy so hard his trench coat becomes short-sleeved and Voodoo goes to calm down and shrink Maul down to his former size, which could be a great metaphor for sex (the raging bull of instinct calmed by the soft touch of a woman), but in reality it’s probably just ANGRY = BIG = DUMB = BAD = MAKE SMALL, which is a shame.

He's always showing off his super-ventriloquism.

Anyway, Void spouts some zen nonsense as the fight winds up and Shadowhawk collapses. Spartan recognises him and Voodoo says there’s some sort of monster inside him (AIDS or something more sinister? Wait, ’90s, so yeah, it’s the AIDS) and they all teleport to Halo, INC, which is their headquarters I presume. Voodoo tries to exorcise the ‘demon’ within him, but she can’t, because Dwarf Magneto Look-Alike In A Suit walks in and announces that it’s AIDS (surprise surprise). Of course, everyone is shocked, but Spartan has a solution – they’ll just transfer his mind to one of his robotic bodies, and as we all know, machines can’t get viruses so he’ll be safe! Also, he’s a robot? I just assumed the lack of pupils was due to… yep, you guessed it, the ’90s. The Spartan is obviously a robot supremacist as he spouts some pro-robot body nonsense.

Shadowhawk conveniently regains consciousness long enough to inform them all that HE AIN’T GOT NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE, MAN so any and all ethical and moral concerns about turning a man into a robot are thrown out the window. We then move on to a double-page splash with the ‘new’ Shadowhawk standing triumphant, his new body coming with a brand new shiny metal crotch and spiked kneecaps. The rest of the WildC.A.T.S team is standing around in the background, hips and shoulders swaggered in ways that would make a supermodel cringe. Dwarf Magneto Look-Alike In A Suit – who is called Lord Emp, apparently – is standing underneath aforementioned chrome jockstrap, smoking his cigar, which is code for “he’s the boss”.

Mr. Shadowhawk, are you trying to seduce me? Lord Emp reveals a fetish for over-developed abs and spikes.

And now we come to the portion of every team-up comic where everybody fights, because that’s just what happens, damnit. Lord Emp offers the helpful advice that he’s going through transplant rejection, which doesn’t make any sense whatsoever because nothing was actually transplanted, and I can’t remember the last time someone with a new liver that didn’t take decided to begin punching people, but hey – COMICS, right? They use their fists to solve the problem and are about to kill him – bwah? – when that Phoebe woman says not to, and just transfer him back into his original body. Void says “Yeah, I totally knew she was there the whole time. I just didn’t feel like telling ya’ll, totally.” and just as fast as he was transferred into the new body, he’s transferred out (and we don’t get to see either procedure) He pops some pills – because remember, AIDS – and he teleports out of there, leaving the WildC.A.T.S standing dramatically in shadow, having obviously forgotten to pay the lighting bill. Apparently this whole experience has convinced him that there is a cure for AIDS somewhere in the world, which is a bit of a leap of logic considering that the only ‘cure’ he came close to realising in this comic was simply doing the biological equivalent of jumping ship into a shiny new metal body.

HIGH FIVE! *snuffle* Aw gross, anyone got a tissue?

So What Did You Think?

Well, the above was written pretty raw, as I didn’t want to dilute any impressions that I had by knowing what was coming next / where they were coming from, but now I’ve Googled and Wiki’d my way into a bit of background knowledge.

I suppose this was all rather topical in the ’90s, being the decade where AIDS really freaked the shit out of people when it started killing straight people they cared about instead of gay people they could ignore. Having a character with AIDS today seems cliché, but back when this was written it was probably a bit more fresh, because that’s where the cliché started. But the whole AIDS thing doesn’t really make a huge impact on the storyline – it’s more a bio-Mac Guffin than anything. It’s why he’s looking for the WildC.A.T.S and it’s why they give him a new robot body, but for something mentioned so much it doesn’t really do anything that couldn’t be replaced with “the common cold” or “techno-organic virus“. AIDS implies a certain level of intimacy and reaction on the part of society that just feels missing here. And when he lifts up the mask to take his pills, I have to say he’s certainly got a healthy complexion for someone so sick.

It’s never explained in-story just what the hell Warblade and Maul are doing in that warehouse, and Spartan’s initial reluctance to help or have anything to do with Shadowhawk because he’s a wanted fugitive is dropped as soon as it’s mentioned (and it’s even him that tries to help him with the whole robot-body thing) At least they didn’t cop out and just give him the robot body – the whole AIDS thing already felt a little undermined when Voodoo tried to exorcise it, not to mention that despite being sick, he’s still healthy enough to fight crime. I did read that eventually he dies from it, which is a nice morbid end to it all I suppose.

The whole comic doesn’t really stand out as being too bad, but it’s not too great, either. It’s part of an arc, so I suppose any momentum would have been lost on me, but as a stand-alone issue it’s readable if forgettable. Would I have done anything different?

Well I’m a stickler for moral issues and the nature of people, so I probably would have focused more on the seemingly throw-away option of just putting him in a robot shell. That doesn’t cure AIDS, just lets your mind live on beyond the death of your body. It doesn’t cure anything, and you don’t put on tights and punch people if you aren’t a bit selfless, so that wouldn’t have sat well with Shadowhawk. Spartan’s reaction intrigues me – at first he didn’t seem to like Shadowhawk, but as soon as he found out he had AIDS, he was the first to volunteer a solution. There might have been a nice character moment between the two if that was explored further. Overall it felt as though the WildC.A.T.S weren’t being used that much – they felt like a gimmick, which many team-up comics are. It’s hard to give everyone to be themselves, but it’s something I maybe would of tried to do harder. Maybe drop the completely pointless hostage opening hook and use those pages time to build up more of an interaction / conflict with Shadowhawk.

But for the first From The Longbox, it’s not entirely awful. Here’s hoping for next time, huh?

Tagged: comics, opinion, review, Shadowhawk ]]> http://sequentialdegenerate.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/make-friends-with-punches/feed/ 0 Dasleah REFLECTIVE: X-TREME I really don't want to know what porno this is traced from. He's always showing off his super-ventriloquism. Mr. Shadowhawk, are you trying to seduce me? Lord Emp reveals a fetish for over-developed abs and spikes. HIGH FIVE! *snuffle* Aw gross, anyone got a tissue? http://sequentialdegenerate.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/dr-dasleahs-hum-along-blog/ http://sequentialdegenerate.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/dr-dasleahs-hum-along-blog/#comments Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:30:12 +0000 Sexo Grammaticus http://sequentialdegenerate.wordpress.com/?p=50 ]]> Do you listen to music while you work?

It’s something that seems a bit universal amongst a lot of writers or artists – creative people in general, I suppose. Pop on some background tunes and work, paying various amounts of attention to whatever’s playing. I can certainly see why some people do it – when I’m writing these more factual blog entries and just having a good brood about something, I can quite often be found blasting music whilst doing it (and as a matter of fact, I’m listening to Chopin’s Berceuse in D Flat right now, because listening to classical music makes me one of those smart fucks who thinks they’re better than you, apparently)

When I was a multimedia student in University, it was the established norm to listen to music when working (when waiting for a render to complete, sleeping was the preferred action) – at any given day you’d walk into the lab and find people huddled over screens listening to their iPods or whatever. And that’s what I did too – whenever I needed to do anything for a period of time, I turned on the music and did it.

That was until, of course, I picked up a certain book, entitled The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams.

By all accounts, it’s an amazing book. If you deal with any sorts of visual language or motion or anything, I recommend picking it up. Everything you could ever want to learn about the whys and hows of things moving, and everything associated with it, all laid out before you by a person who knows exactly what the hell they’re talking about.

In it, there’s a story he tells about an encounter with Milt Kahl. He asks him almost casually “Do you listen to music while you work?” A fairly standard question, one would think. Milt turned and simply bellowed “LISTEN TO MUSIC? I’M NOT SMART ENOUGH TO DO TWO THINGS AT ONCE!”

I think there’s a lot of truth in that. Of course, me being young and impressionable, I tried it in turn as Williams did, hoping to absorb some form of magnificence through emulation. And, like him, the shocking thing was I actually improved in my creative work.

Why? I think it’s a combination of a lot of things. Animation is all about timing and subtlety. Even if you’re not aware of it, the timing you’re trying to create can and will be influenced by exterior forces – such as the beat of a song. However small it may be, it will skew your focus more towards the dominant beat, that being of the song. And this beat is something that’s quite important to keep internal and consistent, even if you’re just writing. You’ve got to be able to define your work’s own beat and pace, it’s rhythms and ebbs, and listening to music can influence that. You ever get a feeling that the pace of something is just a bit off? Maybe it’s the music.

A good piece of writing is like a good song – it flows, swells, dies. Dialogue has rhythm and beats of exchange. Pace flows from one page to the other, creating harmonious resonance and sometimes violent discord. Themes and ideas build with momentum until glorious crescendo and then a haunting silence. Characters march on, often to their own beat, one that may complement or undermine the beat of the story. Words form lyrics, images form orchestras of colour and power. Do you really want to leave something like that up to unconscious influence?

Now, I get music as inspiration. That’s why I’m such a fan of classical and opera, because it’s all about emotion. If I want to get into a particular frame of mind to write something, I’ll find some appropriate music, turn it up loud and go brood in the corner. But as soon as it comes time to pen that mood to paper, the music goes off. The only thing that I want to even remotely be aware of is my fingers and the screen. Anything else is a distraction that risks diluting or influencing my work. It’s own heart and soul.

I’ve heard some people raise the argument that it’s only meant as background noise, and they don’t really hear it at all while they work, so absorbed are they in the task at hand. So if you’re listening to it to not hear it…? I think you know what comes next. At the very least, give it a try. Turn the music off. You never know.

(And yes, all of the above songs are regulars on my playlist, although the one’s I’ve chosen here are a bit more crowd pleasing. At least 3/4 of the music I listen to is pre-1960, most of it being Classical or Opera)

Erm.

Anyway, one of the biggest arguments on the internet that one must apparently weigh in on is the eternal battle for or against Anime. Now, I was a weeaboo as a kid. I really was – I remember getting Akira on VHS for Christmas one morning, and trading in my copy of Street Fighter: Alpha to my cousin for his tapes of Neon Genesis Evangelion. So I was there, once. I grew up on the dubs of Sailor Moon and Samurai Pizza Cats and Voltron and all of that. Has just my perception of the genre changed since then, or has the genre itself changed, I wonder. Anyway, I was there, but these days I jokingly attribute those years to being before I developed a sense of taste.

Now I don’t hate the genre. A work should be judged on it’s own individual merits and not ignored out of hand just because of the ethnicity of the creator or animators. There are good animes out there – the problem is, just because it’s Japanese doesn’t make it any less susceptible to Sturgeon’s Law – stating, for those that are too lazy to click the link or unwilling to brave TVTropes – that 90% of anything is shit.

Now that’s no surprise. Most movies these days are undigestable pits of shame and disgust, and I certainly not need to inform you of a certain sparkly-skinned vampire wangst series and its thousands of imitators. It’s just that most media is defined by it’s loudest detractors and fans, and boy, are there some fucking loud members of both when it comes to anime.

On the one hand, we have the hardcore weeaboo. Japan is the master country, and if only they had won WW2, the world would be a much more kawaii place, you baka gaijin. All Japanese girls are cute, and wouldn’t it just be awesome if they had a Japanese girlfriend! (or hey, Japanese boyfriend! Those stoic samurai values and cool-as-ice exteriors sure do make a gal weak at the knee socks) And all that perversion and rape games? That’s just cultural man, and you can’t judge it! You’re just an outsider, you can’t comment or judge the values that they hold dear. And see, all these lolis, man, just because they look like children, doesn’t mean they are, so it’s alright to be sexually attracted to them. It’s healthier to do it drawings, anyway. Doesn’t hurt no-one, no-how. Desu desu.

And on the other hand, we have the hardcore anime hater. Holy fuck, man, it all looks the same. Big eyes, big chests, big hair – it’s all vapid wish fulfilment from a country of perverts and child molesters who think just because they can hide behind the expression of animation, it’s alright to publicly air their fetishes. They were monsters in WW2 and since then they’ve just been on the downward spiral culturally and socially until out of nowhere they find validation and acceptance in alienated youths and toy companies in America, and in comes all the money. Japanese people are xenophobes and paedophiles, and holy shit you are one too. There is nothing of any redeeming value in any anime or manga – it’s the same shit, over and over again, appealing to the socially awkward loser inside every Japanese male.

Both sides have their rights and wrongs. Of course, the real loser in these sorts of shit-slinging matches is people like me. I try to walk the middle ground. I don’t hold any animation sacred or superior just because it comes from a particular country. I just want to watch something good, and I don’t give a fuck where it comes from. If I watch it or read it, and I like it, good. If not, no thanks, next one please. I’ve written before how the only sacred thing in writing is the audience, and ideally an audience should be impartial and judge each work individually. But that’s often not the truth.

There’s something in the online air. Either you’re an anime fan, or you’re not. Why can’t I be a fan of the work, and not of the entire genre? One of my favourite films is Paradise Now, but does that mean I’m a fan of all Palestinian film? I think this is the point that both sides of the camp need to recognise. Being Japanese doesn’t make it sacred. Not being Japanese doesn’t make it sacred. Two different traditions from two different sides of the planet – why can’t we just all get along and exist happily together? Not all anime is great, and not all ‘Western’ stuff is either.

There’s enough crap to go around for everyone.

It's a furry lovefest gone horribly wrong!

Catilla is an interesting Transformer. That was my first impression, anyway. I was browsing TFWiki, looking for interesting angles to write a Mosaic about. That’s pretty much how I do it, I suppose – I look for the hook, and take it from there. Something I agree with, something I don’t agree with. Something I hate or love or think is wrong, anything that really provokes a reaction, and then I sit down and starting typing. Explore that reaction, see if it has legs. Catilla has four legs, at least in Alt / Pretender mode, which is more than most Transformers but is as about as relevant to anything as… well, nothing in particular.

So, who is Catilla? Well, he’s a turncoat. That’s an interesting point. I think for too long people have seen the Autobot / Decepticon Civil War as just a fight between robots built good and robots built bad. I know the story has changed since then, but Catilla is G1 material, and back then it was very much GOOD ROBOT vs EVIL ROBOT. So automatically we start asking questions of choice, and sentience. You can program a robot to be ‘good’ or ‘evil’, but can you program them to make the choice? And what motivates this choice – in Catilla’s instance, it was a choice born of desperation but ultimately one of respect. Basically, the squad he was in was destroyed, ignored by the Powers That Be, and they threw in their lot with an Autobot group in a similar situation. So what started out as convenience turned into something more. Respect. Admiration. Perhaps just the direct confrontation of something so new, something that could be chosen rather than enforced and demanded, perhaps that was enough.

He’s also a Pretender. Pretenders are a great metaphor – layers upon layers. Transformers are all about not trusting your eyes, believing that there is something more behind just what you see – normally a giant robot – but being a Pretender adds another layer, literally, to this. Pretender shells also tend to be organic, and in the case of the Decepticons, something fearsome. We’re already got hints of complexity in Catilla’s character, so the Pretender shell adds a nice physical metaphor for this. On the outside, he was a Decepticon, on the inside an Autobot. Deeper than that? We don’t know. Maybe that’s a question he asks himself. Underneath all the alliegences and factions, perceptions and ideals, who is he really? What does he see himself as – a Decepticon turned Autobot, or an Autobot with a Decepticon past?

His team mates have to notice this, of course. They probably fuel it – could you ever trust someone who turned their back on their team, to whom they had swore allegiance and fought alongside for millions of years? Can an allegiance even last that long? After literally millions of years, are you still fighting for a cause, or just fighting with brothers who have spilt oil and shared dark nights with? Perhaps at this point, it’s all they’ve got. The war is a stalemate. They’re fighting because they are. Their factions are their brothers, their friends. The only sense of stability and normality any of them can be bothered remembering. Maybe that’s why Catilla turned. Not because of faction or changed ideals, romanticism towards any cause or creed. He turned because his old friends were dead, and he made new  ones. And that’s the only kind of alliance that matters in a war this long. It’s not about land or politics or rights – it’s about friends. Living, dying, and fighting for friends.

Anyway, his new team mates. They’d whisper, of course. They’d huddle and point. What would this do to Catilla? Would it inspire him to go out of his way to win them over, or would he just ignore it and get on with the job, keeping only a small group of acquaintances? Springer would likely be his closest friend, being the ‘bot who offered him a place within the Autobot ranks in the first place. His word would carry a lot of weight in the Autobot camp. Expectations? He placed a lot of trust in him, and now he’s got to live up to them, and die for it, if need be.

Numbers on toy boxes. The definitive source.

His toy info, of course, doesn’t give us much. He’s a silent, patient hunter that attacks with a great explosion of energy and speed when need be. That’s pretty much it. Tie it back into the Pretender metaphor and the need to prove himself, maybe that’s what’s boiling underneath the surface – just all this energy and fire. He likes to think that it doesn’t effect him, that’s he above it all and just wants to do his job, but the truth is it does. It boils beneath his metal skin. And when he gets a chance to unleash it, bam – it all comes out. All those questions, all those doubts. All the whispers and rumours and everyone quieting up whenever he walks into a room. It’s all washed away in one brilliant burning moment of clarity – it’s just him and his target. That’s it. And he can let it all just vomit out, let it all just wash away, because it doesn’t matter any more. There’s life and death, and that’s it.

So we’re starting to get a good handle on his personality, his thought process. He’s a cool character who’s all worked up inside. He’s got something to prove, but he doesn’t want anyone to know that he does. He believes in respect and friends, and that’s why he’s an Autobot. Not because he’s a good ‘bot, but because he owes it to those he believes in (and who believe in him) to do what’s right.

So of course, how do we write a story about him? By putting these values under stress. Push him, confront him. Make him question it all. Say it with me.

CONFLICT

IS

DRAMA

So many people get that wrong. So many Mosaics get that wrong. Conflict is the core of everything. I want something, you want something. I believe in something and you don’t. I want to kill you, and you want to live. Conflict is life. It’s energy and passion and everything that’s important in the world. So, we want to tell a story, we talk conflict. Physical, emotional, ideological.

So how do we put Catilla under stress? What kind of conflict would really test him?

The obvious one is the temptation to rejoin the Decepticons. It’s a life he’s lived for so long. It’s comfortable to him. Would he really be tempted by that? I mean, he was abandoned by them in the first place. Would it be just a ruse to get him out in the open and then blast him? Or would it be all show and games, try to make an example out of him? Of course in canon we know that a Decepticon kills him when he’s trying to save his fellow outcast and former boss Carnivac, so it’d probably be a ruse on their part. But would he question it? Or would he just face all the same whispers and mistrust that he did on the Autobot side? It’s all about friendship to him. He’d probably still have friends in the Decepticon camp. But it’s a war where you choose sides, and he’s chosen.

The conflict could come a little closer to home. He was never really part of the main Autobot group during his time as an Autobot, being largely an exile with the rest of the Survivors, but we can take a little dramatic liberty here and place him in that kind of situation. He’s a former Decepticon, so let’s have some rumours of a Decepticon spy hanging about. So one of the Autobots confront him. It’d be a bit of a wordy way to do it, but it could world. Far too many mosaics are about PEW PEW PEW EXPLOSIONS LOL which is certainly an easy way to fill a page, but doesn’t make it the best way. They’re about characters, in the end. So, an Autobot confronts him. We could have a good internal rapport with him going on. He’s thinking one thing and saying another. Really help him define his character, get off some good one-liners that speak to who he really is. Maybe it’s not a spy thing, maybe they’re all just gearing up to drop into the front lines and they’re reluctant to have a Decepticon watching their backs. Maybe put it in some trenches, those are always great for forcing characters to get way too up close and personal with people they don’t like.

Yellow and black is the new green and purple.

He’s an obscure character, to a certain end. A Mosaic only has the one page to do things with, so we can’t waste all of it just telling us who he is. Words words words words is never going to make for good reading. Characters are what they do, not what they say they are. So maybe we need a bit of contrast-action going on. Intercut shots of Autobots gossiping (for lack of a better term) about him with shots of him bustin’ Decepti-chops. Or maybe put him in a position where he’s able to take out an Autobot and get away with it. Really put the pressure on him to go back to the life he remembers. He’s a hunter, he’s going to speed lots of time away from the others, alone. Comes across a wounded Autobot, Decepticons closing in. If he nails the ‘bot and drags him in, maybe they’d take him back. Or at least be confused enough to allow him more time to plan an escape. And, of course, the Autobot can muster just enough motivation to insult him and tempt him further with his insults. For some reason I get the M.A.S.H theme playing in my head when I think of this idea.

Or I dunno, make it mostly a silent comic. He’s a hunter, lots of time in the wilderness with no company but his environment. He’s chilling out, stalking, whatever. Comes across a group of Decepticons, watches them for a bit. Reminds them of the old days, and he’s tempted to just go in there, walk into their camp and just hang out with ‘bots he can identify with. But he catches sight of something – his own Autobot insignia, or one of a pile of scrap metal that the Decepticons are fooling around with (hell, maybe both) and he pauses. He’s given up that life now. It’s lost to him forever. Sort of melancholy comic. It would be tough on the artist and a real bastard to write to get across the meaning with as little exposition and words as possible, but what’s the point of writing if you don’t push yourself, huh?

Or let’s open with some action, show him on the front lines, tearing up Decepticons, being the model soldier, loved and respected by his new peers. And then real harsh cut to after the battle, and basically he’s ignored and abused because of his past. His fellow Autobots only really like him for the results he gets them, but they can’t let go of the past and ignore the fact that he was a Decepticon. A nice tinge of irony on that, because that’s basically what he’s done – he’s given up on his life as a Decepticon, left his past in his past to become a ‘better’ bot, and yet all these supposedly noble and generous Autobots won’t give him a chance to prove himself. Of course we got to end that one on a silent panel, him all alone. Perhaps staring at a chunk of torn up Decepticon hide, with the insignia on it. Really put that tangible feeling of regret in there. No internal exposition or dialogue from Catilla on this one, let the others do the talking. Really harsh.

Now, if this were a Dribble about a Golden Age character or one of my personal projects, I’d probably go on to choose one of the ideas, and then go on and talk about writing the script, the drafts and troubles, and then actually post the script up. I’d like to do that here, but since I want to make a Mosaic out of this, I’m going to have to wait for all that until after it’s been picked up, drawn, and posted. But rest assured, I do want to write those follow-up Dribbles, so as soon as I can post them, I will.