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.
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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:

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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.
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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.

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

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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:

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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:

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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.

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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:

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

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MORE ADDENDUM:

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

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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!
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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.

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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

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and his incompetent sidekick, Hellhound!

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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.

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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):ironmonkey.jpg

One of my new favourites, Dynamole:

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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:

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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:

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Beware the diamond claws of Haardvark:

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

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Or, what if Tasmanian Daredevil was a woman?

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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.

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Ok let’s try this one:

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Here’s the evil mastermind, Dark Horse:

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And the terror of tiny toon, Micronewt:

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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.

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

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Thanks to Kerry for this one – Orangutangler:

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And this one – Baboom!

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

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.

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Some time later…
Tarmadillo!

More ality

In North America today, according to a recent census, there are 27 million people who are not religious and a million and a half avowed atheists. There is no evidence to suggest they are less moral than those who go to synagogue, mosque, and church everyday. Indeed, it is my contention that a truly moral person, who acts morally–not out of fear of damnation or out of promise of reward, but because it’s the right thing–if anything, is more moral. More moral. The atheist or the agnostic who throws himself in front of an oncoming bus to save a child, knowing that there is no eternal promise, that there is nothing but the grave that awaits him, is more moral than Sir Thomas More who made a cost/benefit analysis as to whether or not to face eternal damnation by disobeying the pope or face instantaneous death by disobeying the king.

uh…here. In case you care.

Jocks vs Nerds

Well up until now my resentment of hockey has been pretty passive. The sport hasn’t directly affected me except through noisy neighbors and traffic snarls. That all changed last night when our weekly Mutants & Masterminds was cancelled at the figurative last minute (more like the last couple hours but I didn’t find out until the last half hour) because our GM simply had to watch whatever game was happening. I had to call everyone to cancel but David wasn’t home so he showed up and we spent some quality time slagging Joe behind his back. Caleb was mentioning how nationalism comes into hockey, but I would take it further and say that it’s just another form of tribism that affects most if not all competitive sports. I just wish we could get over this. I just can’t get behind the “rah rah our location is better than your location because I’m in it” which makes the rivalry between Edmonton and Calgary seem…well I would say like desperate Siamese fighting fish defending their sparse aquariums, but that would be insulting to the fish. Now I know that all sports fans aren’t hooligans, but it certainly brings them to the fore. Chris mentioned the other day that he was watching as some Brazilians were driving down the street listening to Brazilian music and enjoying themselves, stopped at a light. Some British hooligan stopped, faced them, and yelled “you’re nothing!”

Milk and Licorice

The practice before last I recorded some of the new song ideas that we had come up with. At the practice, I mumbled away with some possible singing melodies, and some of them stuck. I recorded them properly with my recording setup along with the dictaphone recordings I made form the jam session. I gave the song a semblance of structure, too, in Cubase (the sound editing program). I brought it along with me to practice on Friday and we spent the session basically polishing off a new song. I’m happy with it – it’s just the right length that it keeps you hungry for more. Like all the rest of the songs we have, none of the lyrics are set. For this particular song, I only have vague placeholder ones – they sound good, but they’re completely meaningless. 

Saturday they had a big ol’ swap meet a block from my apartment, with free hot dogs which I was tragically forced to avoid. I picked up some blank journals and a gaelic primer which pictures. Looks fun.    Saturday Chris “Chappy” Woods emailed me and Stewie informing that he’d be in town on Sunday and luckily we were both free. So we spent Sunday doing lots of fun stuff. First we had breakfast at Denny’s, then we hit Zulu Records where I got rid of 28 of my old CDs (about half of what I brought) and picked up the new Supergrass. Then we went to The Comicshop where I actually bought some comics! Despite my experience at RX I found the staff at TC helpful and friendly as always. I got the two issues of Teen Titans that featured six pages of Captain Carrot & His Amazing Zoo Crew (I didn’t read the Titans story). I was a little disappointed but it was good to see those old friends anyway. I also picked up the graphic novel of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume two – the Martian one. Long overdue to have in my collection and I’m enjoying it so far.

Then we hit the candy store where I picked up some sugar free licorice and then we went to the 218 flavour gelato store where I enjoyed some sugar free chocolate gelato. Fun for the whole damn family, including Mr Tiny Peter and his many diaper changings. We serendipitously bumped into Marlo while she was riding her bike near Commercial Drive so she got to meet the drunk midget. 

I don’t know exactly what it was but I suspect that it was the gelato that had my stomach making horrific noises and more I won’t go into. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have any dairy for nigh two months (yes, Mom, I’m getting my calcium, try not to worry). I hope this experiment hasn’t made me intolerant to lactose. That would suck. 

Licorice is Yum

I’m looking for a sugarless (also preferable alcohol free) licorice flavour product that I can put in my drinks, oatmeal, etc. Mmmmmm. Any tips that don’t involve me travelling to Holland? I’ve never seen such a thing in a store, but I bet it’s out there.

Is it Over Yet?

Holy smokes. I don’t follow–I don’t even know anything about it except that it’s soccer–the World Cup, and I hear about it EVERY DAY.

Alarm clock

Does anyone use an alarm clock on their computer that they got for free off the interweb? I would like to have something to remind me when a good film is on TCM.

What's the Deal With All the Crappy Comics

While I was at work yesterday looking at comic book art I found out that there was a new series of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe out. I was so excited – I got the “deluxe” edition (i.e. the second series) and it was great. A new edition has been long overdue and I thought it would be a good way for me to find out what’s been going on in comics all these years. So I rushed over to RX Comics right after work (it’s 2 blocks away) and I saw several issues. I could have done better art than that. Seriously. What a turnoff. I was so disappointed. What looks like happened is that some art by original good artists have been retooled. Check out what Alan Davis writes on his forum:

The OHMU editor told me that he believed I deserved to be credited with any work which has been ‘resourced’ (traced or composed) from an image I had originally drawn. While I appreciate the good intention behind this gesture, as I explained in the posting on my website ‘Credit where Credit’s due?’, I don’t regard any image that does not utilise the original line work as my work– And I have asked not to be credited for the ‘swiped’ images in future. The Cerise image was drawn by Chris Marrinan and Audwynn Newman but mistakenly credited to me.

What an outrage! Unbelievable. Then I see they’ve collected the old deluxe edition into TPB volumes – only without the colour? Huh?!? I left the comic store, dejected and bewildered. I am really amazed that people like Stewie can sift through the mountains of crap at the comic store to come home with some goodies. My hat is off to you. And thank god for that ’cause I look stupid in hats.

Here’s some nice, clean, solid comic book art by Alan Davis:

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