Fanboy.com

I dread looking through the Marvel covers each week because there are so many uninspired heroic images of dudes in tights — but this cover for Omega #9 caught my eye right away. Firstly the graphic designer in me loves the hand lettering at the top, it's very unslick but shows a great deal of charm. And then the illustration hits you: Our hero is having a bad time of it! Not only won't his super powers out wit the robots, but there seem to be a few working class bubbas in the horde looking for a piece of Omega. The humor is great, the draftsmanship is good, and even the crude coloring technique adds to it all. Credit for the cover goes to Farel Dalrymple and Paul Hornschemeier — and Omega hits the stores this week on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008.

It's amazing for me to think that My Neighbor Totoro is now twenty years old! I guess that's a tribute to the staying power and quality of Hayao Miyazaki and the team at Studio Ghibli. So if you'd like to tip your hat to Totoro, here's a cute way of doing it:

Totoro Plush Hat

"This hat features Totoro's face and toothy grin, along with perky ears which contain plastic to keep them upright. This is perfect for convention attendees who don't want to go all-out on a costume or for folks who want a little extra cute for puttering around town."

This is sad news, the fire destroyed a key set from the film Back to the Future although the good news is that there is a duplicate video vault:

Universal Studios Fire On Historic Back Lot

"A fire at Universal Studios has destroyed a set from "Back to the Future," the King Kong exhibit and a video vault containing more than 40,000 videos and reels. Los Angeles County fire Captain Frank Reynoso says the blaze broke out just before dawn Sunday on a backlot stage at the 400-acre property. The fire has been contained.

Officials say the iconic courthouse square from "Back to the Future," has been destroyed, and the famous clocktower that enabled star Michael J. Fox's character to time travel has been damaged. NBC Universal President and Chief Operating Officer Ron Meyer says 40,000 to 50,000 videos and reels were damaged in the video vault, but there are duplicates in a different location."

There's a great article by Charles McGrath at the New York Times on Ian Fleming the author of the James Bond books (his 100th birthday will be on Wednesday). I love how the article goes into detail on the difference between the print and film versions of the series:

That License to Kill Is Unexpired

"Albert R. Broccoli, a producer of the first 17 Bond films, could be said to be a co-creator of this other, meta-Bond. It was he or his writers who made a trademark of the “Bond. James Bond” line, for example, and who insisted on the “shaken, not stirred” business. Fleming’s Bond is not nearly so fussy about what he drinks, as long as there is plenty of it. He’s as apt to slug down bourbon as a martini. This Bond is also much more fetishistic about smoking than he is about drinking and makes a point of ordering his cigarettes (with three gold bands on the filter) from Morlands of Grosvenor Street. (In a pinch, though, he’ll also smoke Chesterfield kings by the carton, and it’s little short of miraculous that he can climb a flight of stairs, let alone swim for miles, as he so often does.) He likes fast automobiles but hates gizmos, except for the odd concealed knife, and wouldn’t get caught dead with the laser watches, ejector seats, tricked-out cars and exploding key chains the movie Bond has been kitted out with, not to mention that embarrassing jet pack."

Coco Wang is a comic book artist and animator from China, and he has an amazing collection of comics covering the earthquake. The stories are heartbreaking and touching at the same time, you can check them out here:

Coco Wang: China 5.12 Earthquake

"Thousands of heart-breaking stories are happening 24 hours non-stop everyday, some are so sad that you can hardly bear, some are incredibly moving that you just can't stop crying... I wanted to go to the front to help with all those people, some of my friends have already gone there, but I heard that the traffic needed to be kept totally clear for rescue transportation at the moment, people like me without knowledge of first-aid and experience of rescue operations going there now would cause choas and trouble... but I can't just sit at home and do nothing, I have been crying my eyes out in the past three days, I have never felt more proud of my country and people... their love, courage and kindness rock me to my core! I have decided to tell these touching stories by drawing comics. I am going to send you comic strips almost everyday from now on, I hope you could know something about the earthquake in China, although you don't have to do anything, but I hope you could feel our love and hope."

Found via metafilter.com and monkeyfilter.com.

I think my favorite Bakshi story is from Howard Beckerman: According to Howard (and it's hard for me to tell if this is just a legend or not) it seems that Ralph was borrowing mob money to finish an animated film which was way behind schedule. He would keep begging his animators to please finish the scene so he pay off his backers. But sadly the poor animators couldn't pull of the deadline and the next day Ralph Bakshi showed up in the studio with a broken arm.

This story may not be true, although it's a good reflection on just how hard it is to make an animated film — and Ralph was doing that in the late 70s and early 80s when it was very out of style and Disney was on the rocks. So it's nice to see that Ralph's work is being celebrated these days and there is a great book that's out on him:

Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi (The Force Behind Fritz the Cat, Mighty Mouse, Cool World, and The Lord of the Rings)

On a related note I discovered this great interview with Bakshi from 1982 when he had just finished the film Hey Good Lookin' which was shot by Ira Gallen:

I got quite a kick out of this video from NewScientist.com which shows off the first scientific films from the dawn of the 20th Century.

This is purrfect solution for making Kitty confetti! What makes this item special is the fact that the punched out paper is in the shape of Hello Kitty, which is a very nice touch to what might be just another cute collectable sporting a logo.

Found via kittyhell.com.

I love the power and humor in this illustration by Cesar Evangelista Bautista who is based out of Mexico City, México.

Recently I was wandering through on of my favorite local bookstores here in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and I came across a beautiful coffee table book which featured some delicious photos of vintage computers:

Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers

What blew me away about the book was the sharp design and the photographs by Mark Richards. What's amazing to me about these artifacts is that theyshow just how fast everything has changed in the world of computers in the last few decades. If you look at an automobile from 1970 the industrial design may be a bit different, but what's under the hood is pretty much the sam car that you'd see today. However with computers what would take up a room and require a team of experts to operate can now fit into a cell phone which can be operated by a child.

You can check out the website of Mark Richards here, and below are just a few of the technolicious photographs from the book:

Pouring a lightsaber out of a can just isn't any fun! After all why go with a ready made lightsaber when you can do it yourself? Well industrious Star Wars fanboys can rejoice with this new lightsaber set allows you to create your own personalized Jedi experience:

Star Wars Force FX Lightsaber Construction Set

"To be a Jedi, you must construct your own lightsaber. Finding the right crystals and metal pieces to forge your own weapon can be difficult, but the Star Wars Force FX Lightsaber Construction Set makes it easy for you. In just seconds, you can assemble 5 pieces, a blade, and some batteries to forge one of over 700 possible configurations of lightsaber! Use a variety of pommel, handle, and detail parts to create a personalized weapon that looks just like the ones that belong to Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker, or Obi-Wan Kenobi… or something totally new that's uniquely you!"

Here is a video demo:

I love the conceptual idea of taking Rubik's Cube which is an analog game and turning it into a pixel representation of Pac-Man one of the early digital video games. This sculpture was designed by Omino71 who is an anonymous Italian artist.

I got a real kick out of this graphic poster from a subway in Tokyo I'd love to own a copy! Here's a description of the artwork from the photographer who goes by the name TenguTech:

"It seems that too many Japanese do their makeup in the train. And Tokyo Metro train line want to discourage people from doing it. Must be a way to make use of all time available. "

I think I would have gotten even more into Spiderman as a kid had I known that he had a matching giant robot! This Japanese toy set is from 1978 and photographed by tOkKa.

Artist David Foox gives us his account of going to A-Kon which is the oldest continually running anime convention in North America which was held this weekend:

By the time Fanboy had requested we do an editorial/article on the Dallas A-Kon Event, I had already given the subject matter much thought. In fact, I had already drafted my overview of this fun day in my head. So putting it down on "paper", so to speak, was quite easy.

We (and by "we" I mean Jessica (my wife) and I) arrived at the Adams Mark Hotel and found ourselves thrown in at the deep end of this pool of costumes, freaks, geeks, musicians, artists, and gamers. In hindsight, I try and imagine that space prior to the event and void of all the color and realize that it really is the people, art, and games that make this event successful. A dry, dead space with a good dose of desperation/depression was overcome by livery that only hardcore gaming geeks and artist nerds (of which I am proudly both btw) could muster up in good 'ol DFW (editor's note: DFW = Dallas/Fort Worth).

The United States hasn't had a serious investment in NASA since the early 70s. Both Republicans and Democrats have never seen the spin off benefits which have been a boom to our economy. Well maybe a little bit of shock treatment might help NASA get some over due funding:

China likely to beat U.S. back to the moon, NASA says

"Here's one Olympic-style event that China is likely to win: landing the next humans on the moon. Chinese astronauts are on schedule to beat the United States back to the moon by two or three years, the head of NASA's lunar exploration program said Wednesday. "If they keep on the path they're on, they can" land before Americans do, said Rick Gilbreth, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems.

The goal of NASA's Constellation program is to return astronauts to the moon by 2020, as proposed in President Bush's Vision for Space Exploration. Gilbreth said the Chinese could accomplish that by 2017 or 2018. The Chinese lead will be even longer if the American schedule slips, as some space experts predict."

I love watching this footage — it's so sad that Jim Henson passed away so early in 1990. Henson could have gone on making Muppet films forever, but in 1982 he took a real chance and directed Dark Crystal which was so different than anything else at the time. The amount of faith it must have taken to think that puppets could sustain a serious film for over an hour. It's because of Henson that the way was paved for someone like Tim Burton to make The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Video by Ira Gallen.

As much as I hate Huey Lewis he must have been on to something as it's now over 20 years later and I still can't get the theme song from Back to the Future out of my head. Of course the film was a true classic — in fact I may be wrong but I recall another blogger Twittering how that was his favorite film of all time. And I have to say I count myself as a fanboy of that film, so if you're like me here is a chance to own your very own Flux Capacitor:

Flux Capacitor Replica

"You'll have to pump in your own 1.21 gigawatts (pronounced and written in the script as "jigowatts," which was the accepted pronunciation at the time) to actually travel in time - and that's up to you. Or you can be content to just pop in 3 AA's and use the two knobs to adjust the lights. One adjusts the sequential lights behind the temporal firing pins and the other adjusts the flash unit in the middle where the spark of chrono-spacial displacement occurs. Details down to the warning messages from Doc Brown stuck to the front door will awe anyone who sees it."

I always wondered why the cast of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy never rescued a fanboy living in Mom's basement? Although this Dr. Who cartoon by Darryl Cunningham shows what the results may have looked like.

There's something wonderful about the sense of both scale and chaos in this photograph of the Hakone Toy Museum in Japan.

Photographed by Louise who lives in London and has two cool blogs: Louise makes stuff and hole punch.

The crew at ComicMix just did a nice job of upgrading their online comic book reader. As a usability geek I like what they've done — it's a hard task to bring print to the web and the new interface helps to bridge that gap. I also love the range of titles that the site has been adding since they launched, shown below is a sample of The Adventures of Simone & Ajax: The Case of the Maltese Duck:

Shown above is the cover from Joker Comics #24 which was published in August 1947 by Timely Comics (just a little over sixty years ago!). By the way Timely Comics is still in business today, they would go on to evolve into a company called Atlas Comics which would then go on to become Marvel Comics.

Found via Jello Kitty who is based out of Dallas, Texas, USA! Check out his Flickr page here...

It's funny I've heard of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. but I never heard of The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. until I came across the above comic book cover which was found by digital archivist Frederick Barr. I did some research and it seems the spin off-series lasted for one season from 1966 until 1967 when it was cancelled due to low ratings. The show starred Stefanie Powers who would later find fame as the lead in Hart to Hart in 1979.

Below are some other covers from publisher Gold Key:

I just got back from Lolita and Maid Fashion Day which is being held at the Kinokuniya book store here in New York City. The event was held today to celebrate International Lolita Day and it was very relaxing and low key. I'm about to run off to cover the MoCCA Art Festival next, but here are some photos to give you a taste:

Above is my video review of the MoCCA Art Festival 2008 which is being held at the Puck Building in New York City this weekend. I only got to spend a few hours running around, but I have to say that this is one of my favorite shows of the year. Firstly the profits go to support The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, but secondly going to the event is like getting into the best art school in the world — only it's crammed with nothing but comic book majors! This year I was able to meet people from every place from Norway to less exotic Vermont. The creativity on display would put some museums here in Manhattan to shame, and yet most of the folks in the scene aren't doing it for money (although they may be trying).

Shown above is Keith McCleary at MoCCA 2008. McCleary is the writer and illustrator behind Killing Tree Quarterly shown below:

Shown above is Lars Jakobsen at MoCCA 2008. Lars travelled all the way from Denmark to attend the show, below is a sample of his work:

Shown above is Aapo Rapi (who is from Finland) at MoCCA 2008. He's reading the Spring 2008 issue of Kuti which is an amazing 24 page tabloid color newspaper which is a colorful collection of Swedish and Finnish comics:

Shown above is Erik Falk from Jippi Comics at MoCCA 2008. Erik was showing me a few issues of Angst - The Best of Norwegian Comics which just looked amazing. Below is a detail from a cover illustration:

Above is Jim Campbell at MoCCA 2008. In addition to his comic and illustration work Jim is in two bands: Paper Fleet and The Ottomen Empire. Below is issue #2 of his comic book Krachmacher:

Above is Alex Kim at MoCCA 2008 showing off a copy of his comic book Wall City:

Shown above is the crew behind Boston Comics Roundtable at MoCCA 2008, they were showing of their comics anthology Inbound #1:

Shown above are comic artists Jeff Mumm, Steve Seck and Sara Lindo at MoCCA 2008 showing off their books.

Shown above is Alisa Harris at MoCCA 2008. In addition to her comic book work she's also an animator and illustrator — below is a sample of her work:

Shown above is Damian McKeoun at MoCCA 2008, below is an example of work:

Shown above is Lance Hansen at MoCCA 2008. In his hand is a copy of Hayseed no. 1 which is his collection of short and humorous comics:

Shown above is Clayton Hanmer at MoCCA 2008, below is an example of wonderful whimsical style:

At MoCCA I came across Trio Magnus, a nice looking publication by Aaron Leighton, Clayton Hanmer, and Steve Wilson. The artwork in the book is a cross between comic art, illustration and fine art:

Below are two of the authors at MoCCA 2008 (Clayton Hanmer is on the right):

Shown above is Kensuke Okabayashi at MoCCA 2008, he's the author and the artist behind the book Manga For Dummies:

Shown above is Liz Baillie at MoCCA 2008 — she's one of our favorites here at fanboy.com: Indie comic book critic Jenny Gonzalez praised her as a breakout cartoonist for her work on My Brain Hurts:

P.S. Have you ever noticed that only cool people wear Black Flag t-shirts?

Shown above are Hyeondo Park and Jeanette An at MoCCA 2008. Jeanette was showing her comic book The Side Story of Mei-Lan and below is an illustration by Hyeondo Park:

Shown above is Brian Wood at MoCCA 2008, I follow Brian on Flickr so it was nice to see him in person! Below is a sample of his graphic approach to illustration:

Shown above is a photo of Craig Yoe at MoCCA 2008. Craig was asking me why more folks weren't buying Comic Arf? And looking inside the latest book to tell you the truth I was stumped, it was crammed with all sorts of goodies by some amazing comic book legends like Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman. So if you're a true comic book fanboy do yourself a favor and order a copy:

I think the best part of MoCCA 2008 was getting to shake the hand of comic book legend Gary Panter who played a major role in putting RAW magazine on the map in the 80's. He was showing off a limited edition model of his famous character Jimbo:

Quick Robin! Stop him with the Batscope! Ah yes the good old days when for a $1.49 you could battle an evil doer with your never-miss powerful Batscope that shoots darts as far as 50 feet. My favorite part of the packaging is the back which features Batman and Robin taking on everyone from the Joker to a cute fuzzy monster:

This is an interesting article: It seems that since we are in the middle of the galaxy it's very complex to reverse engineer what we're seeing — until now that is thanks to computer aided astronomy. And it seems that the results are changing the way we think about the shape of the our galaxy, it seems that the Milky Way is two large spiral arms rather than four:

The Milky Way Revised?

"Astronomy concepts are always changing as new information comes to light. The latest theory to undergo revision is our concept of the structure of the Milky Way. As we reside in the thick of it, it's tough to see the proverbial forest for the trees. New findings may make a compelling case that the Milky Way has two major spiral arms, rather than four that have been theorized in the past.

A team led by Robert Benjamin of the University of Wisconsin used the recently completed Spitzer Space Telescope infrared survey of the Milky Way, spanning 120° of sky. Previous studies led astronomers to conclude the galaxy has a pronounced central bar and four major spiral arms named for the constellations we see in their directions: Sagittarius-Carina, Scutum-Crux, Perseus, and Norma-Cygnus."

Yes I know perfectly well that the character seen above is in fact a giant hippo and not an elephant, but that doesn't take away from the high quality of this gritty cover by Rob Steen and Ladronn for Elephantmen #12 which will be released this Wednesday by Image Comics.

The Good News: CBS now has all of the original Star Trek episodes online!

The Bad News: You can't embed them into your blog!

Old media just doesn't get it — and the "it" is economics. On the web page views equal cash, so if nobody can find your video you won't do so well. You'd think with an army of Star Trek fanboys allowing embedding would be obvious, but to me it's just another sign of old media not understanding the medium. I also wish that CBS had done a deal with YouTube — as a brand CBS is dead to me because it's a TV network which is something I make it a point to skip when channel surfing (and I'm an old guy!). There's something quite sad when a show about the future is married to people stuck in the past.

The movement of these robot fish is quite creepy — they remind me of the Sentinel I-Series ("Squids") from the Matrix movies:

These distorted caricatures are great because Javier Gonzalez Burgos has taken these well known Disney icons of the 20th Century and added that extra special touch of 21st Century anxiety with just a dash of information overload. Javier is an illustrator based out of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Shown above is a wonderful photo by Inga P. of Yuki Nagato from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. I love the way Inga set up this photo, and the cute touch of the cat makes the photo. Inga looks after the biggest English speaking Pinky:st community at pinky-street.com and she's based out of Nottingham, UK.

Frankly until we're able to see a few more planets outside of our solar system up close it's a bit early to make judgement calls on what is and isn't a planet. I say we go to the Star Trek model and start to classify different types of planets by letter:

Plutoid chosen as name for solar system objects like Pluto

"Almost two years after the International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly introduced the category of dwarf planets, the IAU, as promised, has decided on a name for transneptunian dwarf planets similar to Pluto. The name plutoid was proposed by the members of the IAU Committee on Small Body Nomenclature (CSBN), accepted by the Board of Division III, by the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN) and approved by the IAU Executive Committee at its recent meeting in Oslo, Norway.

Plutoids are celestial bodies in orbit around the Sun at a distance greater than that of Neptune that have sufficient mass for their self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that they assume a hydrostatic equilibrium (near-spherical) shape, and that have not cleared the neighbourhood around their orbit. The two known and named plutoids are Pluto and Eris. It is expected that more plutoids will be named as science progresses and new discoveries are made."

Just look at how American Greetings has ruined poor Strawberry Shortcake — don't get me wrong she looked tacky back in the day (she was really a pink rip off of Holly Hobby) but this modern makeover has taken out all of the character out of the character. The modern version misses the point that a shortcake is a cake, and poor Strawberry must be allergic because her cat is out of site:

Beloved Characters as Reimagined for the 21st Century

"Strawberry Shortcake was having an identity crisis. The “it” doll and cartoon star of the 1980s was just not connecting with modern girls. Too candy-obsessed. Too ditzy. Too fond of wearing bloomers. So her owner, American Greetings Properties, worked for a year on what it calls a “fruit-forward” makeover. Strawberry Shortcake, part of a line of scented dolls, now prefers fresh fruit to gumdrops, appears to wear just a dab of lipstick (but no rouge), and spends her time chatting on a cellphone instead of brushing her calico cat, Custard. Her new look was unveiled Tuesday, along with plans for a new line of toys from Hasbro."

And here is a berry blast from the past from 1980:

When you look at the science fiction from any previous era you get an insight to what they thought was modern and thus futuristic. You also get an insight into how they looked at the future itself: This RCA Victor album cover from 1958 views modernism as a moonscape (this was the dawn of the space age after all) and the dancer shows a certain amount of humor — and with a booming economy there was good reason to be optimistic at the time.

Cover found by Thomas Hughes of the Spinto Band.

Yeah get him LEGO Batman! I like how they always have to have the ESRB rating at the front, as if we couldn't figure out that LEGO wasn't real or something. Anyway plenty of action here, the game is due out September.

As a nerd I've always hated the character of Conan who always seemed like the poser child for stupid. Shown above is my improved version of the upcoming cover of Conan the Cimmerian #0 which will hit the street on June 25th from Dark Horse Comics.

This first commercial tells a of tale of the tortoise, the hare and an underwater sea king — it's for some sort of drink.

You can tell this Jinro spot is from the 60s from the go go dancing.

This animated cosmetics spot seems to be inspired by the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The animation on the second commercial is a bit more cute.

This last spot is a public safety announcement from the 70s.

My best guess is that this photo is either from 1980 or 1983 when either The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi came out. Although if you forced me to place a bet I'd say that with her hairstyle and the t-shirts with the iron on lettering the photo is from 1980.

Photo found via digital archivist superbomba!

Big Buck Bunny is an "open movie project" which was produced by Ton Roosendaal, the author the 3D software tool Blender. It's exciting to think that these tools for doing high quality 3D character animation are getting out there, so far these films are just shorts — but we could see a full length indie 3D film one day in the near future.

Found via cgindia.org.

The above illustration is from an illustrated Spanish book from 1965. The oversized space suits remind me of the Lost in Space robot:

Illustration found by one size fits all who lives in Barcelona, Spain.

We've got everything here: the official uniform, gas pistol, shoulder holster, hat, Hornet face mask, signal watch, string ray, gas mask, phone adapter, shoes and the official ring! So who is Captain Action? He was launched in 1966 by Ideal as competition to G.I. Joe — but unlike poor Joe the Captain had outfits so he could be Superman, Batman, Captain America, Flash Gordon and even the Lone Ranger. The Green Hornet version came out in 1967 and is one of the most in demand by collectors of the ill fated action hero series. Here's a commercial from the original Captain Action sans his Green Hornet or Lone ranger uniform:

Photo via toysfortheages.