Category Archives: Media

Monkey or Ape?

Posted on by
1

Silly Song: Monkey

If it doesn’t have a tail it’s not a monkey—even if it has a monkey kind of shape—if it doesn’t have a tail it’s not a monkey! If it doesn’t have a tail it’s not a monkey… it’s an ape.

Have you ever wondered how to tell the difference between the two? Larry the Cucumber comes to our rescue once again in this Silly Song from The Wonderful Wizard of Ha’s:

The kids love listening to WJTL’s Kids’ Cookie Break every Saturday morning, and this song has gotten frequent airplay. Joshua’s been walking around saying “monkey” over and over again. Especially pointing to Jakey, our stuffed gorilla (which is an ape).

Oh, and I guess since this is St. Patrick’s Day (BTW, today I’m wearing red—the anti-green!) I ought to send you off to watch Big Idea’s St. Patrick flannel-graph biography. :)

H 95040: This Means MIA

Posted on by
Reply

Rewriting H 95040, The Mysterious Mustachio

If I’ve seemed absent lately, it’s because I’m working on a bit more “comic booky” stuff than I usually tackle in a given month. I even took some work home this past week (which is something I typically try to avoid). It’s fun and all, but I just can’t get into the blogging groove with Damocles’ dagger dangling overhead… ;)

Anyway, I’m almost done and I’ll be back soon. Besides, the next version of WordPress (2.5) is going to be released soon, and I have some template cleanup work to do if I’m gonna be ready to upgrade in time!

(Pictured: Me at home. Late at night. Drinking coffee, looking over [H 95040] “The Mysterious Mustachio. Thinking of witty things to say…)

Look Ma, I Lettered This!

Posted on by
4

Day 2: Look Ma, I Lettered This!

Free Weegie has been freed! There were some shipping snafus, but Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #686 is now in stores—and we’re shipping two issues a month until we catch up (in April)!

Here’s the breakdown on the new on-sale dates:

January 9, 2008: DuckTales #3: Scrooge’s Quest
January 16, 2008: US #371, WDC #686
January 30, 2008: US #372, WDC #687, Treasures #2
February 12, 2008: US #373, WDC #688, Barks/Rosa #2
February 27, 2008: US #374, WDC #689
March 5, 2008: US #375, WDC #690
March 19, 2008: US #376, WDC #691, Spring Fever #2

Zuda, Araknid Kid

Posted on by
1

Last month DC Comics launched their indy/webcomics venture, Zuda Comics. Each month (I think) they have a competition with reader ballots and everything, and winning creators get to see their comics in print.

Josh Alves’ Araknid Kid

This month I’m excited, though, because Araknid Kid, by Josh Alves (a buddy of mine and part of the Christian comics scene) is in the running! Where most of the other offerings are moody or offensive, Araknid Kid is full of a fun kind of energy that works great without alienating young readers.

Go check out Zuda… set up an account and see all the comics in the running this month. Right now Araknid Kid is in 8th place (out of 10). Josh needs your vote! …and 30-50 of your friends’ votes, too, if he’s going to break into the top 3 at this point. So get your free Zuda account and vote for Araknid Kid!

Speed Racer?

Posted on by
3

Speed Racer: Oh no, someone found the Lens Flare tool!

I’d like to just come right out and say it: I’ve never watched a single episode of Speed Racer, so I don’t know how faithful this adaptation is. That said, something tells me the Wachowski Bros. are going a little overboard here. This looks like it’s going to be another Batman and Robin, or maybe two hours’ worth of the virtual reality sequences in Spy Kids 3.

Spy Kids 4: Don

Don’t get me wrong—it looks like it’ll be fun. I just think films like this (that try to make the real world look cartoony) and films like Beowulf (that try and make cartoons look ultra-realistic) ultimately aren’t able to hold the viewer’s suspension of disbelief. At least, not long enough to deliver an engaging story. If it’s just about being a popcorn flick, then fine… but these days it’s getting harder and harder to justify paying movie theater prices. As of right now, Speed Racer is on my “rent on DVD” list. We’ll see how things progress as the film develops. (A pun! Get it?)

But hey, don’t take my word for it! You can see the teaser trailer for yourself at Yahoo! Movies.

On a mostly unrelated note, LOST fans will he happy to know that even this trailer has a “Jackface” contribution (Matthew Fox is playing Racer X): ;)

Racer X: angry, constipated and sick of wearing spandex!

Prince Caspian?

Posted on by
8

Not Quite Prince Caspian

  • Prince Caspian reaches out to the White Witch?
  • Susan has to break the enchantment?
  • Waitaminit… Susan’s not back at the bridge with Aslan?
  • Um… eagles? Are the kids coming to rescue Gandalf from the top of Orthanc? (Oh, sorry—wrong Inkling.)

Katie and I just finished reading Prince Caspian a few weeks ago, so the book’s still fresh in my mind. I hope they don’t screw around with it too much… but it irks me that, while “book Caspian” was definitely repulsed by the idea of working with Jadis:

“So that is you plan, Nikabrik! Black sorcery and the calling up of an accursed ghost. And I see who your companions are—a Hag and a Wer-Wolf!”

…in the film it seems Caspian X’s nursemaid and Doctor Cornelius gave him a more tolerant education on Old Narnia. Why do filmmakers insist on taking successful books and messing with them, to the point of changing main characters’ motivations?

I guess I should just be glad Aslan wasn’t changed into a 2007 Camaro. :?

Yeah, Batman just liked to mess with our heads.

Posted on by
3

And here I thought I was the only one:

For those of you who don’t know what this is about, you were apparently doing your homework or something equally unimportant when the rest of us were watching “Perchance to Dream.” That, of course, is the now-infamous episode of Batman: The Animated Series where the Caped Crusader gets stuck in a Mad Hatter-induced dream world. Ol’ Brucey didn’t realize he was dreaming, however, until a crucial point where he attempted to read a newspaper (9:35 in this clip)—and the text was jumbled beyond all recognition. In the climax of the episode, Bruce gives us this encapsulated science lesson:

“That’s because reading is the function of the right-side of the brain, while dreams come from the left-side. It’s impossible to read something in a dream.”

One of the things that sets Batman apart from a bunch of other superheroes is that he’s supposed to be a detective (one of his “official” nicknames is “World’s Greatest Detective”), so when Mr. Wayne dishes out a nugget like this, his fans assume they’re being taught something that’s… well… true. The show left us young viewers under the impression that you really couldn’t read text when you were dreaming. Which meant that when I later had dreams where I could read, I took it to mean that I was special or had some sort of above-average right/left brain connection.

And now, finally, after years of bewilderment and self-doubt, my gullibility has been immortalized in a webcomic.

New from Don Rosa in Uncle Scrooge #375!

Posted on by
1

If you were thumbing through the latest issue of Diamond Comics’ PREVIEWS catalog, you may have seen this:

Uncle Scrooge #375 front cover (2008, Gemstone Publishing) © Disney Enterprises, Inc.

Uncle Scrooge #375

by Carl Barks, Cesar Ferioli & Terry Laban

Scrooge blasts off for Carl Barks’ “Twenty-Four Carat Moon.” Next, he seeks “The Laurels of Julius Pecunius,” an ancient crown with the power to hypnotize its wearer. Then the Beagle Boys swindle Scrooge with Cesar Ferioli’s “Oracle Turtle” — and Terry Laban (Edge City) pits Scrooge and Magica against each other in “Curses!”

What you won’t find in this listing is that this book is #4 of 12 in our “Scrooge’s 60th Anniversary” series, which features pinups by Don Rosa on each back cover. Here’s a peek at what you’ll find when you flip over this bad boy:

Uncle Scrooge #375 back cover

Now like I said, it’s #4. That means if you want the entire set, you’ll want to grab these other issues, too:

  • Uncle Scrooge #372
    In honor of Uncle Scrooge’s 60th anniversary, celebrate in high style with several extra-classic McDuck adventures! Carl Barks’ “Christmas on Bear Mountain” marks Scrooge’s 1947 debut…
  • Uncle Scrooge #373
    Why did the Scottish tycoon join the French Foreign Legion? Find out what “Special Agent Scrooge” hopes to gain in a feature-length adventure by fan favorites Romano Scarpa and Giorgio Cavazzano…
  • Uncle Scrooge #374
    When Scrooge finds “A Gal for Gladstone” on Valentine’s Day, he doesn’t realize he’s fixed his impossibly lucky nephew up with evil sorceress Magica De Spell…

If you want to see all the pinups we’ll be featuring throughout the year, just head on over to the INDUCKS summary. You can use it like those baseball card checklists we used to get in every other pack. Wasn’t that always a bummer, when you’d get ripped off by having a whole card wasted on a card checklist? It was almost worse than getting that 7th “Ricky Baggs” card when you were only 3 shy of a complete set. Nowadays we just put that stuff on the web! :)

Todd Klein is at my mercy!

Posted on by
Reply

Okay, not really. But one of the really neat cool awesome things about my job is when I get to handle work from the pros that hasn’t seen publication yet. Especially when it’s the work of a perennial Eisner-award-winning pro. ;)

Right now I’m merging Todd’s lettering for “Burning Hearts,” the lead story in our January issue of Walt Disney’s Comic and Stories (#689). It was originally slated for Donald Duck & Friends #348—but that series was canceled, so we had to shelve this Valentine’s Day story… until now!