“Martin Nodell, the creator of Green Lantern, the comic book superhero who uses his magical ring to help him fight crime, has died. He was 91. Nodell was looking for a new idea for a comic book in 1940 when he was waiting for a New York subway and saw a train operator waving a lantern displaying a green light, said Maggie Thompson, senior editor of Comics Buyer’s Guide.
Nodell imagined a young engineer, Alan Scott, a train crash survivor who discovers in the debris an ancient lantern forged from a green meteor. Scott constructs a ring from the lamp that gives him super powers, and becomes a crime fighter.He brought his drawings and story lines to All-American Publications, which later became a part of National Periodical Publications, the company that was to become DC Comics, Thompson said.
The first Green Lantern appearance came in July 1940, an eight-page story in a comic book also featuring other characters. The character then got his own series, and Nodell drew it until 1947 under the name Mart Dellon. After its cancellation in 1949, the series was reborn in 1959 with a revised story line, and it has been revived several times. Meanwhile, Nodell left the comics field for an advertising career. In the 1960s, he was on a design team that helped develop the Pillsbury Doughboy.”
“There have been many, many Space Battleship Yamato models – Yamato is, after all, a seminal anime series – but Bandai is really pulling out all the stops for this Yamato extravaganza! This giant 1/350 scale model kit (766mm in length – that’s just over 2 1/2 feet long!) helps you relive the experience of watching Yamato, with all of its drama, romance and adventure.”
The model itself is amazing, everything works! The wave motion gun lights up and you can even launch a Black Tiger spacefighter from a hidden bay, just check out the video:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 12, 2006 in Pulp Fiction
The University of Massachusetts Amherst Library is hosting an exhibit from December 3, 2006 through January 31, 2007 featuring the art of Hubert Rogers, who painted dozens of covers for Astounding SF from 1939 to 1942 and again from 1947 to 1952:
“Originally from Canada, Rogers found fame as an illustrator in New York. His paintings and drawings appeared in the magazine Astounding Science Fiction at the moment that a group of writers who would become famous and influential around the world began to publish their earliest and most important works. Rogers created both original color paintings which were published on the covers of the magazine and black and white illustrations for the interior pages.
The exhibition will include original oil paintings, sketches and finished pen and ink drawings as well as publisher’s proofs of the color covers for the magazines. Many rare issues of Astounding magazine and other publications will be displayed, as well as books and magazines featuring his inspirational wartime posters and his work as a portraitist.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 11, 2006 in Japanese TV
In our previous entry we enjoyed clips from “Tensai! Shimura Dobutsu-en” (aka Genius! Shimura Zoo) a Japanese kids show which features a new animal each episode. In this clip our intrepid host Becky moves in with a new set of Pandas, but instead of good old fashioned Giant Panda cubs in this episode she’s hanging out with Red Pandas which look like cute oversized raccoons:
The funny thing is when I last saw some Red Pandas at the Central Park Zoo they were rather shy! I guess Becky knows how to charm ’em.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 11, 2006 in Television
Steven Spielberg is developing as as-yet-unnamed time-travel television series for Fox TV. But the plot looks more like ‘Saving Private Ryan’ than ‘Back to the Future’:
“The untitled show will revolve around two young American physicists in WWII who discover a way to pinch time and travel to the future. They wind up hopping between 2007 and the 1940s in order to aid the war effort — but in the process begin to upset the space-time continuum. Along the way, one of the physicists also enlists a woman in 2007 to help him adjust to culture shock, and the two develop a relationship.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 11, 2006 in Animation
I recently came across Zune-arts.net a ‘viral website’ designed by Microsoft to sell Zune players. And I have to say that while I haven’t been impressed by the Zune hardware, this website has an amazing collection of interesting animation and artwork! So while I’m not quite ready to recommend buying a Zune, since this site lacks obvious advertising you might want to check it out: Read more…
“To show our love for the Wii, we developed exceptional Wii skins, with maximum coverage and a precision fit to avoid huge gaps between panels. Our premium thin materials cover both sides of the console, so it’s gorgeous in or out of the stand.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 9, 2006 in Videogames
This is a very cool online Flash version of the classic run-and-gun game Metal Slug, the only catch is that the instructions are in Chinese! press the middle tab to see the keyboard controls, followed by the second tab to continue, then choose a difficulty level (easy, medium, hard – in that order):
The Japanese manga Hana-Kimi has been turned into a live action tv show in Taiwan titled ‘Hua Yang Shao Nian Shao Nu’.
The manga centers on Mizuki Ashiya, a Japanese girl who lives in the United States. One day, she sees a track and field competition on TV, and becomes attracted to one of the competitors. She begins to idolize the young athlete and eventually transfers to Japan to attend the same school. However there’s is a catch, it’s an all-boys high school! So she must disguise herself as a boy to enter the school.
Here’s a trailer for the Taiwanese drama show:
And here’s some artwork of Ashiya Mizuki from the Japanese manga:
“Several pulp heroes of yesteryear will be brought to life on the big-screen courtesy of none other than Dark Man and Spider-Man filmmaker Sam Raimi. The project would unite a number of famous pulp heroes from Street and Smith Publications, which had once been among the top pulp publishers. Characters that we were informed would be included in the film are Doc Savage, The Shadow and The Avenger, and quite possibly other (or all) major Street and Smith characters.”
Below: The December 1941 and the February 1942 issues of Doc Savage.
“New photographs from space suggest that water occasionally flows on the frigid surface of Mars, raising the tantalizing possibility that the red planet is hospitable to life, scientists reported Wednesday. The new images, taken by NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor before it lost contact with Earth, do not actually show flowing water. Rather, they show changes in craters that provide the strongest evidence yet that water coursed through them as recently as several years ago, and is perhaps doing so even now.
“This is a squirting gun for water on Mars,” said Kenneth Edgett, a scientist at San Diego-based Malin Space Science Systems, which operates a camera on the Global Surveyor. The news excited scientists who hunt for extraterrestrial life. If the finding is confirmed, they say, all the ingredients favorable for life on Mars are in place: liquid water and a stable heat source. In all of its Mars exploration missions, NASA has pursued a “follow the water” strategy to determine if the planet once contained life or could support it now.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 6, 2006 in Japanese TV
“Tensai! Shimura Dobutsu-en” (aka Genius! Shimura Zoo) is a kids show from Japan in which each episode is focused on the plight of a specific animal. In this episode several baby Panda Bears have moved into Becky’s apartment:
So you may ask just who is Becky? Becky is is Rebecca Eri RayVaughan, Born on March 6, 1984, in Kanagawa, she is the daughter of a Japanese mother and an English father. And she most often refers to herself as Bekiko (ベキ子 or 絲子). She got her start the popular children’s show Oha-Suta (おはスタ) in 1999 reading out the English names of various Pokémon characters in a section of the show called “Pokémon: The World.”
“Paramount will auction off costumes and props from various incarnations of Star Trek starting Dec. 16 on eBay and It’s A Wrap!, another online auction site. Items for sale will include costumes and props from 10 Trek motion pictures and five television series and will include furniture from Star Trek: The Next Generation’s U.S.S. Enterprise-D, a Borg alcove and prop Borg, a Starfleet rifle, a Klingon bat’leth bladed weapon and costumes.”
Below: Paramount executives inventory the merchandise.
“Remember those super-cool space ships you doodled on graph paper in Middle School? Pen strokes furiously waging massive intergalactic battles in History class with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance? Well they have sprung to life in SketchFighter 4000 Alpha!”
“NASA announced Monday it will establish an international base camp on one of the moon’s poles, permanently staffing it by 2024, four years after astronauts return to the moon. It is a sweeping departure from the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and represents a new phase of space exploration after space shuttles are retired in 2010.
NASA chose a “lunar outpost” over the short expeditions of the ’60s. Apollo flights were all around the center of the moon, but NASA decided to go to the moon’s poles because they are best for longer-term settlements. And this time NASA is welcoming other nations on its journey.”
Below: This painting was used as a visual at an April 1988 Houston-hosted conference titled “Lunar Bases and Space Strategies of the 21st Century.”
Now you no longer have to trek out to your local Planetarium! Sega has created the “Homestar Planetarium Pro” which looks pretty nifty to this astronomy fanboy. Here’s a video demo:
