Nerdiness – Page 36 – Toren Atkinson

July 25, 2006

Relax, It's Just A Time-Waster

Warren, in a previous comment on this very blog, pointed me at Project Rooftop, which I will here describe so that you’re not obliged to click the link (though you probably will after the description): cartoonists and illustrators redesign the costumes of classic (and otherwise) superheroes and villains. Some of them don’t have much of an appreciable gap between what is presented on the site and what you could expect from a given issue of the comic in question, while others are remarkably unique (Rogue and Iron Man, for example). Some, even though the costume designs aren’t strikingly new, are still great pieces of art.

I considered submitting something, and if I do get around to a finished product, it would be a sort of “What if Captain Carrot existed in my superhero world of Power Enterprise.” Well I took a stab at it today at work and here are the roughs.

Oh and I added Red Rover and Doctor Gnucleus to the WWFJ post.

July 23, 2006

Pass the G'aqh

A few weeks about my friends Tim & Carina moved. They gave me a bunch of stuff for my birthday auction (before you ask, no date set) including How to Host A Mystery, Star Trek: The Next Generation style. They made me promise that I would run it and invite them, to which I quickly agreed. Others also were very enthusiastic – so much so that I wanted to set a date as soon as possible to satiate their disturbing Trekkie needs. In hindsight I should have waited a little longer, because we played it last night and it was way way way too hot in my apartment to do anything except stay out, even with three fans going. Especially when that anything includes being dressed up in Trek costume. We should have pretended we were at Risa, or perhaps the environmental controls on the Enterprise were on the bridge.

Anyhoo I did a pretty clumsy job of running the game (the rulebook didn’t make it very easy for me, but to be fair it was my reading comprehension was not exactly at its best). It was no mention at all about whether the host should or should not play the game as one of the characters. I recommend that wherever this game goes, the host should NOT try to play the game, and should familiarize him/herself with everything, including spoiling the ending, so that he doesn’t cock up so magnificently. I wouldn’t say the night was spoiled because even with the heat and the gaffs it was still tons of fun, but how could it not be in the company of Caleb, Lani, Adam, Sheri, Stephane, Tim and Carina and all of the delicious cross-alpha quadrant victuals that came with them!

And now that I know how to host it properly, I would do so again if there is enough interest, but not until the environmental controls are under control.

July 21, 2006

Half-truths, Justice and the American Way

I was watching the first Christopher Reeve Superman flick the other night and I’d like to talk about the scene where he’s being interviewed by Lois. One of the things he says so earnestly is “I never lie.” Well, Supes, that’s almost true. In your non-lying identity. But your other identity, Mr Kent lives a life that is a constant lie. And I can also point out times when he specifically lies. So I call shenanigans on that little declaration.

Secondly, at the end of the tape (yes, I watch movies on vhs – I live for being able to fast forward through FBI warnings), were screen tests. They actually shot that scene of the rooftop interview on movie film stock with everyone in full costume for a variety of actresses. And let me tell you, when Superman has enormous wet spots on the armpits his long underwear, the best acting won’t draw your eyes away. I don’t recommend it.

July 19, 2006

Spider-Muse

The 1967 Spider-Man cartoon, despite it’s flaws in writing and animation, had fantastic music. Much (if not all) of this, I’ve come to learn, was composed by a jazz musician by the name of Ray Ellis. While trying to track down actual mp3s of the original tunes, I discovered a band called Volume which has released a CD called The Amazing Spider-Band. There are 9 tracks on the album and the song tidbits that I’ve heard seem reasonably faithful to the originals, so I thought I’d support them and buy a CD. However, the album was out of stock on cdbaby.com and so I emailed the band through their website. Here’s the email I got back:

As you know we are unfortunately out of stock at the moment. We are actually in the process of producing a full length album with Ray Ellis producing. We plan on recording in Capitol studios in LA and using the best Jazz session guys in LA. The album probably will not be out until Oct….hopefully you can wait that long…..please spread the word and thank you for your interest!
Chris

So for heaven’s sake, here I am spreading the word and by gawd I am looking forward to the result of this collaboration! I only hope it contains dozens of the songs, and every single tune from the series is a real gem. Years ago, my pal Stephane made a CD for me out of the songs he recorded from video and they get constant rotation in my iTunes. And confidentially, there’s more than one of those tracks that “inspired” Thickets tunes (i.e. blatant ripoffs. See “Yog-Sothoth“).

July 10, 2006

WWFJ The Game

Ive decided to run a World Wildlife Federation of Justice game at H.P. Lovecrafts Birthday Party (Aug 25-27). Im thumbing through my Call of Cthulhu books for a suitable adventure that I can adapt with a minimum of fuss. The characters will be pregenerated (likely Octopussycat, Haardvark, Shaolin Monkey, Crackerjackal, Tasmanian Daredevil, Micronewt, Orangutangler & Baboom) and Ill have to be careful about overpowering them, but it should be fun. The schedule for the con went up last night, by the way, for you Vancouver gamers, and we hope to have tickets ready for next weekend. www.vancouvergamingguild.com

July 6, 2006

Su – the Element of Surprise

What happens when you mix thorium, oxygen, rhenium and nitrogen? You get ThOReN, which is as close as you can get to my name by using the symbols from the periodic table of elements. I wonder what that terrible concoction would look and smell like, and what other properties it would have? Thorium is a metallic actinoid, a source of nuclear power. There is probably more untapped energy available from thorium in the minerals of the earths crust than from combined uranium and fossil fuels. Its named for the god Thor is found in thorite and thorianite in New England. Im off to a good start. Oxygen, obvious. Rhenium is another metal, with a density exceeded only by that of platinum, iridium and osmium and a melting point exceeded only by tungsten and carbon. Nitrogen, again, obvious. I went through my phone list and here are some others. Basically, if your name starts with a J, you are out of luck until they find some more elements.

Boron, Oxygen, Boron (B2O?) BOB

Neon, Aluminum NeAl

Sulfur, Americium SAm

Lanthium, NickelLaNi

Taylor comes close with TaYLr (Tantalum, Yttrium, Lawrencium). I think everyone whose name creates a compound should get a sample of that compound free from either the government or the scientific community.

July 6, 2006

Venture Bros + Rocket Robin Hood

I bought the 3rd season of Superman: The Animated Series and the first season of The Venture Bros on DVD this week. The Venture Brothers is really damn good. My only complaint is that it could use just a bit better animation, and a few more actors on the voiceover roster.

I also received the very last two episodes of Rocket Robin Hood that I needed to make my collection complete. These two were, to quote a trader friend of mine, the Holy Grail for RRH collectors, and I got them from some guy who emailed me out of the blue! So that makes me happy. RRH takes a lot of flack, and it does have the crappiest animation ever, and extremely spotty writing, but the characters are solid and it’s generally pretty fun.

I got my hair cut to day by Mr Ranger, who’s no stranger to danger. He really enjoyed Hypnopotamus. I showed him my three newest drawings (which you can see in the usual place) for Elephantom, Micronewt and Dark Horse. I also thought of some new ones. Vote now!

Warhog (like Warthog but without the T)

Komodo Dragonfly

Uberbite (German Shepherd, of course)

Moondrake

Datalynx or Weblynx (or The Missing Lynx?)
Red Rover (yeah I don’t know either, I just like it for some reason).

Karate Kid (a goat of course)

The Platinum Marmoset (the joke here being that there really is such a thing as a golden marmoset, but platinum is superior)

Cardinal Sin (yes, the bird)

Grisly Bear

I wonder if there’s some sort of grant out there that would pay for me to write and draw a WWFJ comic book. I’ll have to look into that. Maybe I’d have to throw in a beaver as the main character for Canadian content. I don’t know what his name or powers would be, but his secret base would be The Beaver Lodge.

July 4, 2006

Superman Returns, and he's a Voyeur and a Homewrecker

Okay, it’s been out for a week now, so if you haven’t seen it yet, that’s your own lookout.

Dr Plait at the Bad Astronomy blog points out some gaffs about some things portrayed in the new flick, such as Krypton exploding and launching a shuttle off the back of a jet liner. Ici.

I posted a few of my own comments but I’ll also list them here:

CGI cape aside. when Supes spaceship came tumbling down to Earth, I had to wonder what his power levels were (i.e. how much yellow sun energy can he soak up through his ship) and how much out of control does the ship have to be for him to have crash landed. The question really is, was it just luck that he survived the crash?

How Supes gets his suit, and its degree of invulnerability is a constant point of contention with me. Ive come to accept that it can never be explained realistically so I just ignore it.

Safely catching people who are falling off buildings is something that superheroes always goof up on. Watching this in Batman or Superman the animated series is even worse, because often Supes will be traveling at super speed to snatch Lois from the jaws of death. Ouch!

My big problem was with Lexs plan. I enjoyed the fact that he still is going on with the real estate get-rich-quick scheme. However, what happens after he grows the new continent? He relies (and expects us to rely) on a throwaway line that he can defend it from the rest of the world with a Kryptonian arsenal. Huh? What? How? Please to explain.

July 3, 2006

Night of the Living Podcast

If you’ve got 42 minutes to kill you can listen to me being interviewed by the gents at Night of the Living Podcast. We talk about HPL (of course) in film and gaming, Nomeansno, the origins of the band, Thickets vs They Might Be Giants/Gwar, math, acting, and Albert Finney.
http://nightofthelivingpodcast.podomatic.com/entry/2006-07-03T08_59_34-07_00

Sorry Stewie, I forgot to mention Sword of the Stars by name. I’ll make it up to you by linking to your new SotS site right now!

June 20, 2006

World Wildlife Federation of Justice and their foes

Greetings, False Believers! If you’re viewing this page from another link, there’s a much nicer and more recently updated WWFJ page here:

http://www.worldwildlifefederationofjustice.com/

Okay here’s what I did at work today. Get excited! Preston Blair’s animation book really helped me come to a happy medium between cartoony and superheroicy. More in style with Captain Carrot than my previous attempts in ’04. As many of you know, I ran a Mutants & Masterminds/Spaceship Zero game set in a “funny animal” universe which I ran at home and at VGG Game Days. These are some of the characters that were played by players, and NPCs that worried the players or fleshed out the background. I’ll be adding more characters in the not-too-distant future.

First off: Mandrill…or Astromandrill? He was a big gun in the World Wildlife Federation of Justice universe. He was actually a founding member of the WWFJ.

The Great Wolverini – Master of the Mystic Skills. Note the moustache and arcane eyebrows. Also a senior member of the WWFJ.

After looking at some cool Alex Toth drawings, here’s a redux for GW:

He’ll bite your head off, man. Dupligator is a new addition I just made up. He strikes me as a low-level hero. Maybe a part-time member or someone who hasn’t proved their worth yet.

Modelled slighty off of WB’s Junior Bear.

Who’s next? Why, it’s Stewie’s favourite (and the love child of Grape Ape and Magilla), Go-Rilla. He was part of the player character group who was striving to gain the notice of the WWFJ.

The WWFJ’s strong man, Porcules. Note the beard.

Oh my god why do I love this guy so much? And what’s going on with the costume there? A foul villain.
And why do so many of these guys have the stiff cowls? Don’t ask the ubiquitous Rhinosferatu:

He’s evil!

I’ve got so many more to go! Gnucleus…Tarmadillo…Psyrax (who knows what a hyrax is?)…Mad Cow…Haardvark…Tasmanian Daredevil…etc etc. I wanna do a comic. Even if it’s only a one-shot.
ADDENDUM:

Better that he looks like Daffy than Donald. Try to imagine green feathers and maybe a dark blue costume. I may even get rid of the shirt and just have the metal vest and belt. I picture Earthquack as a bad guy.

Sorta ran out of paper on the left there. Oops. Originally I pictured Octopussycat as sort of a Batman character. She was a gadget girl, but everything was octopus-themed. Now she strikes me more as a gal with octopus powers…camouflage, ink, sticky suction. I guess mostly I just liked the name. Cuz I’m not sold on the visuals, even though she’s got a kind of blue-ringed octopus motif going there.

Okay here’s a redux on Octopussycat:

Still not satisfied. This third version is a little leg-bendy, but my favourite so far:

MORE ADDENDUM:

Here’s one of the WWFJ’s founders, the Llamazon(ian).

Move over Gleek, Blip and Abu, here’s the WWFJ’s answer to Aquaman–Sea Monkey! Are those fins still there when he takes his costume off? I don’t know! I don’t wanna know!

What if you took Tex Avery’s big bad wolf (you know, the one from Red Hot Riding Hood) and mixed him with Wile E. Coyote and gave him a super suit? Why, you’d get Crackerjackal of course.

But is he a good guy or a bad guy? Hard to tell with that moustache.

STILL FURTHER ADDENDUM (How many more can I do?)

Woe betide the fool who crosses the infernal deviant, Elk Diablo

and his incompetent sidekick, Hellhound!

Here’s a little guy who is also destined to stay in the Sidekick Lounge, Bugbear. Note the dial on his belt that he uses for…something.

A little cutesy, I know. But wait! Here by special request is Shaolin Monkey (you can’t really see the shaved head but I did make a point of not adding hair):

One of my new favourites, Dynamole:

I was gonna give him big thick glasses, like every cartoon mole must have, but then I thought goggles were cooler, and the antenna, gizmo belt and backpack followed naturally.

But no one can trump my new favourite (except for Rhinosferatu of course), arch-nemesis of The Great Wolverini, the ruthless Salamancer:

There’s something so right about funny animal supers getting the Kirby treatment. In hindsight I should have added some extravagant technodoodle to the tip of his tail just to busy it up that one notch further.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t draw guns. Oh well, here’s The Toad Warrior:

Beware the diamond claws of Haardvark:

I like Tasmanian Daredevil, but I think he would be cooler as a she. Maybe later. Meantime:

Or, what if Tasmanian Daredevil was a woman?

Here’s Elephantom. I don’t know why I coloured in bits of him, he should be transparent. Too much like Gentleman Ghost? I think so. I’ll give him another pass later on.

Ok let’s try this one:

Here’s the evil mastermind, Dark Horse:

And the terror of tiny toon, Micronewt:

I don’t know what the deal is with the tuning forks, I just thought they looked cool.

What happens when Sylvester gets abducted by the Master Control Program? You get Datalynx.

I really enjoy Cardinal Sin, though I think his outfit needs work. Or maybe less work.

Thanks to Kerry for this one – Orangutangler:

And this one – Baboom!

The Wooly Marmot. Not to scale. (He’s huge!)

This costume is too generic for my tastes, maybe I’ll give him a makeover later, but in the meantime, this picture of Starbuck will have to do. Silly thing is while I was drawing him I thought “this one should be female” but then of course I realized that I’d have to rename her Stardoe and that didn’t have the same ring to it.

Some time later…
Tarmadillo!