Come this September you’ll be able to get the Doctor Who Eleventh Doctor TARDIS Playset shown above. The funny thing to me about this TARDIS interior is just how steampunk it feels, although it has always been that quirky quality that has made Dr. Who feel different from all of the other shows out there. This playset is designed to work with 5″ action figures — and of course if you’re any kind of silly fanboy you’ll have the original crew of the Enterprise visiting the good doctor.
After many years of joy today was a sad day for me: My ranking as a power user on the website Digg has killed. I didn’t do too badly as I was in the top 300 — although since the elimination of shouts on the site I found my interest in Digg going down hill. And today the nail in my coffin was the launch of version 4 of the formaly social news website. Many power users have now been given a online version of a fatal dose of Kryptonite, so for my own sake I’ve attempted to reverse engineer why Digg ditched their community once and for all: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 25, 2010 in Animation
This wonderful late 70s Japanese commercial features a Space Battleship Yamato bicycle — a show which was known to early day anime fans as Star Blazers. What I love about this bike is that it seems to have included a faux wave motion gun and came with its own uniform too: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 23, 2010 in Comic Books
Many folks think that Miffy is a Japanese bunny, but that simply isn’t the case! The credit for the kawaii creature goes to cartoonist Dick Bruna who was born today in 1927 in the Netherlands. 82 year old Bruna created Miffy in 1955 when his wife and child spotted a rabbit near the holiday house which he then captured on the page. To date he has authored over 120 books including Queen Miffy which came out in 2007. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 23, 2010 in Science
I hate to use up the bandwidth on this site but do yourself a favor and look at the photos on this page at full size to really appreciate them: This first photograph of the Earth as seen from the moon was taken on this day in 1966 by the Lunar Orbiter 1 spacecraft. The real purpose of the mission was to scout out he moon for the Apollo program, but what makes this image amazing to me is that it’s the first time in history that the human race is looking back on themselves from another world. In 2008 the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project went back to the data from that voyage and produced this enhanced image which is nothing short of amazing: Read more…
The minute I looked at this illustration it caught my eye right away as the lead protagonist in the image is surrounded by a sea of screen shots of roll playing videogames and an assortment of brightly colored baubles and baked goods. This artwork is a promotional illustration for a new manga series that’s running in the latest issue of Margaret magazine and from my crude translation the name of the series is Controller Prince. From what I can see the manga focuses of the romantic adventures of a young lady online who plays “a good game of love”. Read more…
The character designs in One Piece are already quite cute to start with however these PansonWorks keychains really take kawaii quality of the manga up to the next level. There are ten designs in all with this series including Luffy, Usopp, Chopper, Zorro, Ace, Shanks, Nami and Sanji. I really love the fact that they have two poses for Luffy and Chopper: Read more…
I love the illustrational complexity of Japanese emoticons — and now you can share these silly symbols in the real world with this Ginghami Kaoiro Emoticon Stamper. To me there’s something very appealing about taking digital iconography and coming up with such a primitive analog implementation: Read more…
If Josie and the Pussycats needed a guitar tuner it would look like this! The Korg Hello Kitty Guitar Clip Tuner comes in angel white and goth black. I think the only flaw in the design is that would be nice if Kitty was able to meow her approval when you hit the right key: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 19, 2010 in Comic Books
I admit that I’m a manga fanboy at heart, but that doesn’t mean I’ll overlook a great cover illustration just because it’s published by DC Comics. My favorites are always the offbeat titles rather than the superheroes prancing around n their undies. So for your viewing pleasure I’ve gathered the six strongest starting with the above illustration by Simon Bisley for Hellblazer #273 which has a wonderful 80s sensibility to it. Read more…
In the 80s the Amiga was eons ahead of everyone else in the PC market: They had everything from the ability to play full color animations to multitasking. However this amazing platform just never took off. Why? Because the user base took advantage of the first generation of floppy disks and BBSs to pirate pretty much every last bit of software that was written for the platform. Because of this Microsoft never created a version of Word for the Amiga and WordPerfect lost a great deal of money thanks to cheap users. In fact the only winner that came away from the Amiga was the NewTek Video Toaster which was pretty much dongle protected due to the hardware aspect of the product. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 17, 2010 in Comic Books
Yes I know the that the name of this book sounds like Image Comics talked to an SEO expert and took all of the top trends and baked them into a title: However if that was true they would have included the key words Vampires and Zombies as well! This series has impressed me since it came out and issue #8 which comes out this Wednesday is no disappointment as Riley Rossmo’s drawings keep you eye moving from panel to panel in the book. The minimal color palette is also a nice touch as it add just enough to the artwork without becoming too distracting — and the drawings in those panels remind me of Bill Sienkiewicz too: Read more…
I believe very strongly that Google has an unhealthy monopoly on the internet, so for the past week or so I’ve switched all of my browsers to use Bing as the default search engine. For the most part Microsoft has done an amazing job of going from nothing to something to create a great search engine in a short amount of time, however there are still a few things that they need to beat Google. Having been born with dyslexia one of the things I love about Google is that their spell checker is amazing — in fact often when using Microsoft Word I’ll pop out of the program when I can’t get the spelling of a more obscure word. And this is the very sort of feature that not only does Bing need badly, but something that should also be incorporated into the online version of Microsoft Office. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 16, 2010 in Comic Books
I’ve been really enjoying following the comic book King City which is by Brandon Graham and presented by Tokyopop. Issue #11 will be out this Wednesday and is well worth checking out. What I love about Brandon’s work is that his drawings have a highly animated feeling to them and have just a slight sense of surrealism that reminds me of Krazy Kat by George Herriman. The only thing I regret about this series is that they didn’t color it, although the black-and-white pages show off the artwork pretty well: Read more…
Come Monday those in power in Hollywood will be looking at the box office from this weekend and the stakes are high. If Scott Pilgrim vs. The World does badly you can bet that Hollywood will never touch an indie comic book for many years to come — but on the other hand if it does well it may open the door for other indie comic books to be made info feature length films. Right now when Hollywood thinks of comic books they just see action adventure films with superheroes running around into their underwear, however if Scott Pilgrim can score stories that aren’t about “stuff blowing up” might have a fair chance at the screen. In return that would encourage more folks to read indie comics and then the big guys like Marvel and DC might take more chances. And the price for this? Just one movie ticket and a bucket of popcorn to change the world a little bit.
If you’re a Clamp fan and are lucky enough to be in japan this August you may be able to get your hands on this very cute Kobato Hanato figurine from the manga (and anime) series Kobato (こばと。). Also included in the package is the blue stuffed dog Yogisanmo and a handy traveling bag which will set you back 1890 yen: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 10, 2010 in Animation
Yes I know that the furthest thing from your mind is celebrating a happy new year — but for hardcore otaku in Japan it’s the season to start thinking about which anime calendar to select for 2011! Shown here are a preview of a few of the calendars which will be available for pre-orders in Japan on September 26th. Shown above is One Piece and below is Naruto: Read more…
The amount of $#*! that William Shatner has to deal with mind-numbing! After waiting years for a decent payday he was left out of the reboot of Star Trek last year, and then just to rub salt in his wound they let Leonard Nimoy have a major role. Then Nimoy announces he’s retiring from acting which then scuttles the next film for Mr. Shatner. But William Shatner never says die! He manages to stick it to Hollywood and land the leading role in a television series Shit My Dad Says. But some people (the folks at the Parents Television Council) were unhappy with the title — so CBS changed the title to $#*! My Dad Says. But nooooooo that still wasn’t good enough for them: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 9, 2010 in Star Wars
In the disco era this mural is what every sci fi fan would have loved in their bedroom (well every sci fi fan who still wasn’t hoping that Star Trek would come back): This Star Wars Classic Full Size Wall Mural is a huge nine-by-fifteen feet and will be available later in August. While the price tag is a bit high (over $250) what’s nice about this mural is that it isn’t peel-and-stick but is “water activated” so it’s easy to take down. Although if you’re looking for a more traditional fanboy decoration you might check out this place that offers these nifty uncut printers proof posters (which are just a tad more expensive): Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 8, 2010 in Comic Books
One of my joys is to walk through a Japanese bookstore and to gawk at all of the beautiful cover illustrations — they’re always so inspiring as a designer. Although I should note that with this collection that these these illustrations aren’t all covers for comic books — but sometimes covers for books that are done in a manga style. Shown above is Hoshikawa Ginza 4-Chome which caught my eye due the wonderful use of pastel colors. What follows are ten illustrations from Japan that recently caught my eye: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 8, 2010 in Comic Books
The second issue of X-Force: Sex and Violence will be out this Wednesday and I have to say that the artwork by Gabrielle Del’otto is some of the best work that Marvel is producing lately. Gabrielle has broken away from the pen-and-ink outline tradition of comics and every panel of this book is an action packed painting. The added realism also breaks up the absurd look of superheroes prancing around in their tights which makes so many Marvel and DC titles look laughable. In additional to that Gabrielle has taken the Japanese manga layout of pane placement to heart making each page a treat to look at: Read more…
Future Fighters is in the early stages as a film, but as a mecha fanboy who is obsessed with robots and spacecraft I really like what I see so far. This international project is being produced by British movie producer Guy Orlebar who is teaming up Korean director Nelson Shin (who was behind the 1986 animated Transformers film) and will star Japanese actress Rina Takeda of High-Kick Girl fame. But what I really love about what I see so far is the colorful anime inspired pre-production art which makes my inner geek happy: Read more…
These vintage Peanuts toys come straight from the pages of the 1968 Montgomery Ward Christmas catalog. You could get two of the characters for $5.30 or the entire set for $12.90 and as you can see you had your pick of Charlie Brown, Schroeder (sporting a Beethoven sweater), Lucy, Snoopy and Linus clutching his trademark blanket. On the same page there was also a selection of Huckleberry Hound and Pogo toys: Read more…
