Tick! Tick! Tick!

El Estratografico collects cropped Spanish comic book images and posts them to Flickr, I just love the Roy Lichtenstein quality of his picks. What I love about the above image is how poor Bugs Bunny seems to have had his head cut off!

Universal Translator: A Reality?

It’s funny but in the last few years I’ve found Google translation tools pretty handy for looking at various websites, but the the thought of being able to turn a cell phone into a Star Trek Universal Translator would change the world:

Star Trek’s Universal Translator – Within Just a Few Years?

“Progress being made by European researchers on automatic speech-to-speech translation technology could help the EU tackle one of the biggest remaining boundaries to internal trade, mobility and the free exchange of information – language. Though the system still cannot match the accuracy of a human translator or interpreter, they’re is convinced that, with further research a commercially viable automatic speech-to-speech translator will be feasible within a few years, at least for some simpler language pairs.”

Kill the Batman!

As usual Batman works best when the bad guy steals the scenes, and this latest trailer for the Dark Knight doesn’t disappoint.

Star Wars Han Solo Animated Maquette

The Star Wars Han Solo Animated Maquette will set you back $80 — and that doesn’t even include a cute Chewie sidekick! What’s up with that?

Lucha Libre es Mucho Bien

Published by Image Comics Lucha Libre #4 hits stores this week. What I hate about so many comic books is that while the cover knocks you out the interior artwork just isn’t up to snuff. However in this case the team behind Lucha Libre (Bill, Tanquerelle, Fabien M., Gobi, Witco and Jerry Frissen) have done an amazing job as seen above. Every panel in this book looks rich and luscious which makes you want to turn the page. I also like the fact that the book doesn’t take itself too seriously and has a cartoony look to it. Shown below is the cover art:

Read more…

NYC Mayor More Worried About a Grand Theft Auto IV than Terrorism

When you’re mayor of New York City there are so many real things to worry about like terrorism, the economy, a deteriorating infrastructure, unaffordable housing for the middle class, improving our impoverished public school system and the recent disturbing Sean Bell case.

Q. So what does New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg worry about the most?

A. The videogame Grand Theft Auto IV!

Rants Begin Against Grand Theft Auto IV

“As was the case with the previous games in the series, activist groups, police, politicians, and surviving victims of violence criticized Grand Theft Auto IV last week, beginning shortly after the game was launched nationwide. Regarding the game’s violence, the NYPD association president Pat Lynch told the New York Daily News on Wednesday that, “being involved in a shootout in a video game has no consequences and that is the wrong message to send to young people.”

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and the mother of a killed NYPD officer echoed similar sentiments in the same report, saying GTA IV “doesn’t exactly teach the kind of things that you’d want to teach your kids,” or more descriptively put, “teaches children to kill”.”

Read more…

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: The Latest Trailer

I admit it: I had my doubts and frankly who could blame me for being a cynic after what happened with Star Wars? But I have to say that this new Indiana Jones flick is looking good and I’m getting the sense that Spielberg might be able to deliver the goods. Yes it looks like more of the same, but maybe sometimes that’s a good thing?

Suburban Glamour

I spotted the above gem in the preview for Suburban Glamour Volume 1 which will be out this upcoming week and is published by Image Comics. What I like about the above panels by Jamie McKelvie is that they tell a story with no words, giving you the cinematic feeling that you’d get from a well done silent movie. Too often comic books force a story along with endless talking heads only to be interrupted by fist fights. With a series of 14 panels McKelvie brings you inside the world of his teenage protagonist Astrid Johnson.

Sadly the rest of the book falls back into conventional storytelling with the talking heads which populate daytime television. In fact you’d think that the above panels were the cover art, but sadly the publisher has tucked them inside the book. McKelvie also has a good eye for fashion, although I’d love to see him take it a step further and bring some texture into the book. Yes I get the fact that he’s going for a Patrick Nagel look, but after a few pages this gives you a sort of stark look which takes away from the story. Besides you don’t have to be too slavish to the 80s. Although McKelvie does seem to be off to a good start with the series, and I’ll look forward to more of his work.

Robot XL500

Shown above is the Robot XL500 designed by LockWasher Design. What’s great about this design is that it’s sleek and futuristic, yet when you look closer you see the everyday objects that make up the details to this delicious droid.

When is the Next Comet Bombardment Due?

So if global warming doesn’t get us first we may get hit by tons of comets:

Did the solar system ‘bounce’ finish the dinosaurs?

“The sun’s movement through the Milky Way regularly sends comets hurtling into the inner solar system – coinciding with mass life extinctions on earth, a new study claims. Scientists at the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology built a computer model of our solar system’s movement and found that it “bounces” up and down through the plane of the galaxy. As we pass through the densest part of the plane, gravitational forces from the surrounding giant gas and dust clouds dislodge comets from their paths. The comets plunge into the solar system, some of them colliding with the earth.

The Cardiff team found that we pass through the galactic plane every 35 to 40 million years, increasing the chances of a comet collision tenfold. Evidence from craters on Earth also suggests we suffer more collisions approximately 36 million years. The periods of comet bombardment also coincide with mass extinctions, such as that of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Our present position in the galaxy suggests we are now very close to another such period.”

Retro Animation: The Fruit Stripe Zebra

The above commercials for Fruit Stripe Gum and Lifesavers date to the mid-70s. The design for the characters on the Lifesavers spot are wonderfully creative, it’s sad to think that so much similar food advertising today is just so bland.

Golgo 13: Coffee for Assassins

I first discovered Golgo 13 as an anime series in the 80s, but the concept dates back to a manga written and illustrated by Takao Saito in 1969. The series revolves around the adventures of Duke Togo a professional assassin, and a new animated version of the show is now running on TV Tokyo in Japan. To celebrate the series Nescafe is introducing a line of canned coffees to celebrate the stark looking sniper which is shown above (click on the image to view it at full size).

Sneak Peak at Sleestaks

It looks like Land of the Lost is in production in Hollywood. The key thing that made this old series great was that they had some A+ science fictions writers doing the scripting, I hope the powers that be keep in mind that it’s going to take more than slicker Sleestaks to keep us fanboys happy:

Kitschy ‘Land of the Lost’ gets a modern makeover

“The Land of the Lost film is now shooting on multiple sound stages at Universal Studios, and the Sleestak surface in a temple where Ferrell’s character and his two companions (comedian Danny McBride, Pushing Daisies’ Anna Friel) are hoping a giant crystal will return them to their own dimension.

The plot involves three adults (not a dad and two kids as on TV) accidentally thrust into a realm ruled by dinosaurs, monkey-men called Pakuni and the murderous Sleestak. Director Brad Silberling (Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events) says he fought to keep the human shape of the Sleestak from Sid & Marty Krofft’s original production, and not give into the urge to render them as spindly computerized beings.”

Introducing the Brand New Ultracompact Galaxy

It seems that scientists are discovering young galaxies that are smaller in scale but contain as many stars as a more mature galaxy like the Milky Way:

Tiny Young Galaxies “Full of Stars” Discovered

“While these galaxies are small enough to fit within the central hub of our own Milky Way, they each contain as many stars as larger, more mature galaxies. The light we see from the densely packed galaxies dates to a time when the universe was relatively young, less than three billion years old.

Previously observed tiny galaxies from this time period had correspondingly small numbers of stars. But the newfound galaxies—each only about 5,000 light-years across—weigh in at about 200 billion times the mass of the sun.”

Wii Fit on Yellow Cabs in NYC

It looks like Nintendo is ramping up to do a major push for the Wii Fit here in NYC. Shown above is a shot of an ad campaign that will be on top of cabs throughout the city. My gut feeling is that this product will continue to further push open the video game market, and my thinking is that in this case that’s a very healthy thing for both my waistline and the industry.

Barbie Sings!

Because girls just want to have fun! I realize that Barbie is more of a fangurl icon than fanboy material, but I was quite impressed with the above musical example of how Mattel popularized the well known fashion doll with legions of young fans back in 1961. Also as an animation fan I got a real kick out of the charming reto animated graphics used in the commercial. Here’s the actual record:

Shown below is another good example of Mattel reaching out to fangurls with an official fan club that even featured its own magazine:

Read more…

Bionics is Now Old School

This is an amazing article, according to one scientist within ten years that we will have strategies that will allow us to re-grow the bones and functional tissue:

The man who grew a finger

“The photos of his severed finger tip are pretty graphic. You can understand why doctors said he’d lost it for good. Today though, you wouldn’t know it. Mr Spievak, who is 69 years old, shows off his finger, and it’s all there, tissue, nerves, nail, skin, even his finger print. How? Well that’s the truly remarkable part. It wasn’t a transplant. Mr Spievak re-grew his finger tip. He used a powder – or pixie dust as he sometimes refers to it while telling his story.”

Six Million Dollar Man toy photo found via W!L.

The Latest Incredible Hulk Trailer

Iron Man is like so yesterday already! Shown above is the latest trailer for the Incredible Hulk film. While I think that Edward Norton is a great choice for the Hulk, the actor that I’m looking ahead to seeing in the film is Tim Roth of Reservoir Dogs fame.

Killer Queen by Lorena Alvarez

Illustrator Lorena Alvarez was inspired by Marie Antoinette when she created this sketch entitled Killer Queen. I love the fact that the sketch fuses traditional French fashion with a bit of Japanese anime and Aubrey Beardsley thrown in for fun. Lorena is from Bogotá, Colombia and also does some amazing craft work as well.