After missing out on Pepsi’s popular but limited edition Pepsi Ice Cucumber flavor, I was on the hunt for a soda challenge. I guess to some extent I found it in the new Fanta Mystery Flavor from Coca-Cola Japan. Apparently it’s a combination of 2 fruit flavors but you’ll have to determine which ones by drinking it. There’s some sort of mobile phone mystery game tie in to play along with and eventually discover if your guess is right about the 2 (very artificial) flavors perhaps long after you really care to know. I notice the little fruits on the bottle have legs. Maybe they are fleeing from the scene of a crime?
I remember years ago there was an old man with a now gone shoebox sized store in Akiba. It might have been a smoking den since all I think inside there were vending machines and benches. What I remember is he had a drink vending machine with one of the display cans all wrapped up in brown bag paper and question marks written in magic marker on it. I didn’t go for it because it’s surely risking something not nice tasting.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 2, 2007 in Comic Books
On a technical level this cover by Jelena Djurdjevic is great, but the minute you see that lion thing on the shirt the whole cover becomes silly. How come in the year 2007 super heroes still need to prance around in tights? The key to making a speculative genre story work is the suspension of disbelief (i.e. taking your audience on a wild ride with you), and when you’re working in a very visual medium like comic books the devil is in the details.
X-Men: Die by the Sword #4 will be in comic book shops this week.
“Star Wars Fans!!! Nintendo Fans!!! Gamers!!! Dont miss out on this chance to own a one of a kind Item! This is an auction for my one of a kind Gamecube AT-AT mod. (AKA the AT-GC) It includes 4 wavebird controllers and the 2 memory cards that are inside the system itself (a 1019 and a 251) All the original Gamecube components are inside this mod including the heatsync and cooling fans so it will not overheat (Notice the small holes in the underside of the system for ventilation) and yes, the AT-AT pilot is also included:! All of it is in great cosmetic condition. The AT-AT itself was mint and complete before the Modification and still is (minus the electronic sound effects unit and head movement lever that were once inside) All of it’s joints are still tight and it’s paint is bright.”
“Channel 4 is to bring back 1980s creation Max Headroom to front a series of TV ads to raise awareness of the digital switchover. The campaign, which breaks this Saturday, features Matt Frewer, the actor who played the original Max Headroom. Ads will feature Headroom criticising Channel 4, which created the stuttering digital host in the 1980s, for ignoring his vision of a digital future.”
While gashapon (capsule toys) of beetles are far from uncommon, I noticed this series of dung rolling beetle miniatures utilizes the capsule as a replica of a dung ball (click on the image above to view the vending machine at full size).
There have been enough stories of actual live beetles sold from vending machines to maybe make some people believe that it’s commonplace, ranking right up there with school girl underwear vending machines. While I’m sure someone must have tried the idea, it’s a fallacy that either is commonplace. I’m sure someone must have tried it back in the 1990s sometime, but it’s more legend than something one may likely run into.
Sadly Evel Knievel has passed away, but his legend lives! No fanboy’s childhood in the 70s would be complete without wishing for an Evel Knievel toy for Christmas! Looking back at it I can see why kids liked Evel, back in the 70s it was the era of the sensitive man from Woody Allen to Alan Alda to the lovable loser Ziggy. But it’s hard for a boy to see these complex characters as role models, while Mr. Knievel’s simple philosophy was “I’m not sure if I’ve run out of bones on my body to break”. Everyone looked up to Evel, even Fonzie from Happy Days – but when Fonzie tried to imitate Evel he only managed to jump the shark. Here’s a commercial from that now gone golden age:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 30, 2007 in Comic Books
Alex Ross brings his characters to life, not just by using a photo realistic technique but through the emotions that he brings into his illustrations. On this cover for Justice Society of America Vol. 2: Thy Kingdom Come Part 1 you get a real sense of isolation and age in the man of steel. My hat is off to DC Comics for this cover, in another era this amazing artwork would have been rejected for not being upbeat enough or action packed, and the result is that we get something much more powerful and compelling.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 30, 2007 in Animation
I watched the above video clip and raced to the Anime Network website, and man was I let down! I’m what you call a pre-sold audience, I’m an anime fanboy and I love watching stuff on my computer. Well I launched their player, it started up a bit slow but so far so good. Next it played a commercial, now I’m willing to watch a bit of advertising before the show (that’s what pays the bills!) but the commercial skipped and jumped and timed out. It was for a horror film too, so I wanted to watch it but I couldn’t make out what was going on.
Next the Anime I wanted to watch started to load up – and load up – and load up – and then it crashed my browser! Nope it’s not me, I watch video all the time on YouTube, DailyMotion, and even CNN (which plays well enough that I don’t mind the commercials) and I have a broadband connection too, but the Anime Network Online Player just doesn’t like my computer. I hope Anime Network can fix the tech side of things because the service looks interesting (and would be worth a second try).
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 29, 2007 in Comic Books
It’s a trick of the trade, you see it all the time: You have an amazing cover, but then you get the olde “bait and switch” and the interior of your comic book looks like it was the intern’s lucky day. Well what I love about Archibald Saves Christmas #1 is that the interior panels look even better than the cover art! I also love the originality of both the concept and look of this book, the plot reminds me a bit of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the artwork looks like RAW Magazine from the 80s kitbashed with a black-and-white Max Fleischer cartoon. It’s nice to see Image Comics doing something innovative, and the illustrator Grant Bond and the writer Dwight L. MacPherson are worth adding to your check list.
I came across the above can of grape flavored Bingo Bongo soda that I found in an Osaka vending machine. I can’t help but to notice more than a little resemblance to Oingo Boingo’s Danny Elfman. Well as per Bingo Bongo there’s not much more to it than seeming to be a pretty odd potential infringement case…
Nick Kent is a New York based artist who works with electronic media and is an occasional pop culture pundit.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 28, 2007 in Comic Books
Back in the day (the era of Robotech) if I wanted to buy a manga I had to travel all the way into Manhattan from the burbs and hunt down one of the two or three Japanese bookstores in town. But I’m so happy to see that American publishers like DC Comics are not only bringing in manga, but shojo manga at that! Shown above is the cover for Go Go Heaven!! Vol. 5 by Keiko Yamada. I love the soft water color quality of the illustration, it’s a nice change of pace from the typical superhero stuff.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 28, 2007 in Star Trek
Shown above is the Talking Translator, which in a crude way reminds me a bit of the Universal Translator from Star Trek. Although this primitive 21st Century version will only cost you about $70. Speaks and displays 12 languages, including French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Swedish, Portuguese, Dutch and Turkish but not Klingon. Silly humans!
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 28, 2007 in Science
The good news is that this sounds like a serious proposal to go to Mars, the bad news is this is planned for the year 2031. You know I think the genius of JFK wasn’t so much announcing a moon mission, but the idea of doing it within the same decade:
“A 400,000kg (880,000lb) Marship would be assembled in orbit using the Ares V cargo launch vehicle for a 900-day mission to the red planet, according to details that have emerged about NASA’s new Constellation programme’s manned Mars mission. The spacecraft would take a “minimal crew” to Mars in six to seven months, with the crew spending up to 550 days on the surface, according to the programme’s design reference architecture 5.0, currently in development.
Each of the three to four Ares V rockets used to launch the Marship elements into low Earth orbit would need a 125,000kg payload capacity and use a 10m (32.7ft) fairing. Crews would be sent every 26 months, will need up to 50,000kg of cargo, use an aerodynamic and powered descent method and the 40min communications delay between Earth and Mars would require autonomy or at least asynchronous operation with mission control.”
“This project started with an idea to create a set of collectible dolls to capture the personalities, sites, and sounds of a rapidly gentrifying brooklyn neighborhood complete with the less-than-reliable mass transportation that we must all deal with to get us to and from our homes, works, and playscapes. The Love Train itself is of course a reflection of the vehicle of choice in our neighborhood. The experiences and characters seen within have all been observed during the frequent ventures into the dark underbelly of this city.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 27, 2007 in Animation
From 1980 comes this public service announcement showing that Spiderman would prefer an orange over a cash reward. Although I wonder how he would eat it with that mask?
I saw this giant decoration in a Sendai shopping arcade. Presumably having no Thanksgiving holiday as a start date means a couple extra weeks of Xmas decorations. Now to me this looks a lot like Buddha dressed up as Santa Claus but I don’t know.
A friend who happened to be carrying her own Chinese knockoff toy with half the features of Mickey Mouse and Astro Boy in combined into one hybrid character disagreed as to the Buddha I.D. but couldn’t explain what was going on here. So at the very least, he’s a very meditative Asian department store Santa.
Nick Kent is a New York based artist who works with electronic media and is an occasional pop culture pundit.
“Ms. Simone was talking about her rise from hairstylist to online commentator to professional comic-book author. This month she added a new title. With the publication of issue No. 14 of Wonder Woman, which hit stores two weeks ago, Ms. Simone has become the regular writer of that amazing Amazon’s super-adventures, published by DC Comics. She is the first woman to serve as “ongoing writer” (to use the industry’s term) in the character’s 66-year history. It’s an assignment that will only increase Ms. Simone’s profile. It’s also the latest move by DC Comics to push Wonder Woman, the company’s third-ranked hero, behind Superman and Batman, into the spotlight.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 26, 2007 in Science
Shown above is a photo that shows a part of the Moon’s surface from a camera aboard China’s Chang’e One lunar orbiter. I hope the Chinese keep it up because the best thing for NASA would be another space race:
“China’s leaders celebrated the first images sent from the country’s first lunar satellite on Monday, saying they showed their nation had thrust itself into the front ranks of global technological powers. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, visiting the scientists who have guided the lunar probe Chang’e 1 into space and around the moon, proclaimed the mission a success after it began to send back images, according to Xinhua news agency.
“The full success of our country’s first lunar exploration mission is helping to turn the Chinese nation’s 1,000-year old dream of reaching the moon a reality,” Wen said. The picture on the Xinhua Web site showed a patch of grey moon surface splotched with craters.”
