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Art Evolution 3: Jeff Dee

Art Evolution 3: Jeff Dee

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t1-254

In the first installment of this series, I explained my plan to collect ten of the greatest fantasy role-playing artists for a shared project to illustrate a single character in their best known style. For that one I chose Earthdawn and Shadowrun artist Jeff Laubenstein.

And now the Art Evolution blog series continues into Week 3, after last week’s contribution from Exalted artist Eric Vedder.

OK, so two down and I had an ‘Exalted Lyssa‘. As pleasing as that was, I still needed more ammunition before I started blind solicitations.

In another stroke of ‘luck’ I was already a horrible failure as a writer. As such, I’d spent time marketing a wretched book I’d written in 2006 that I’d worked with Jeff Dee on some illustrations for.

To me, Dee was a must for the article, all of his work at TSR a kind of Holy Grail of RP art.

My imagination still wonders if the zombie on the cover of T1: The Village of Hommlet has grappled or bit the unfortunate warrior pictured there.

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Batman: Under the Red Hood

Batman: Under the Red Hood

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batman_under_the_red_hood_posterBatman: Under the Red Hood (2010)
Directed by Brandon Vietti. Featuring the Voices of Bruce Greenwood, Jensen Ackles, Neil Patrick Harris, John DiMaggio, Jason Isaacs, Wade Williams.

Warner Bros. Animation’s series of straight-to-video PG-13 releases set in the DC Comics universe has been a great success. Starting in 2007 with Superman: Doomsday (which completely embarrassed the previous year’s live-action Superman Returns) the team at Warner Bros. that originally kicked off the DC Animated Universe with Batman: The Animated Series has turned out high quality, adult-slanted fare that has even excited me about characters that I don’t usually care much about, like Wonder Woman and the Green Lantern.

But, no surprise, much of the new DVD series has featured Batman, the hottest property in Warner Brothers’ DC catalog because of the huge success of the Christopher Nolan-directed movies. Batman got his own compilation disc with Batman: Gotham Knight (set in the Nolan-verse and featuring a round-robin of top anime-directing talents), co-starred with Superman in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (an adaptation of the Jeph Loeb-written arc in the popular Superman/Batman ongoing comic), and played a major part in Justice League: The New Frontier and Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths.

Now Batman has his second solo-starring release in the series. Based on a recent popular storyline in Batman’s eponymous comic book that tied into the mega-crossover event “Infinite Crisis,” Batman: Under the Red Hood brings PG-13 to the small screen in a big way. In fact, the film flirts with a “soft R” rating, and it’s definitely not for children—unless you don’t mind your children watching not one but two brutal beatings with a crowbar.

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Black Gate 14 Sneak Peek: “The Price of Two Blades” by Pete Butler

Black Gate 14 Sneak Peek: “The Price of Two Blades” by Pete Butler

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twobladesclrWe finally reach the novellas as we commence Part II of our online inventory of the massive Black Gate 14, and we start with Pete Butler’s “The Price of Two Blades,” one of the most acclaimed stories we’ve published in some time. Here’s what Luke Reviews said:

A story-teller and entertainer sits down to learn a new story for his repertoire, and finds much more. This is an absolutely brilliant piece. The novella flew by, playing both with action fantasy and the art of telling stories. One of the best pieces of short fiction I’ve read from 2010, it would be an injustice for this one not to win some awards.

Over at SF Site, Sherwood Smith says:

Butler’s well-crafted, deceptively simple frame-tale holds its own with dark, convincing emotional resonance. A wandering bard arrives at a village, and is curious about its cemetery, which is full of beautiful marble headstones of the sort that only the rich can afford. When he sees that most of the headstones share the same death date, he’s determined to get the locals to give him the story… and he hears the tale of the cost people paid in evoking magic, and the gods, to get rid of a bandit lord. The story builds to a solid double-punch that lingers effectively.

And John Ottinger III at Grasping for the Wind gushes:

Spectacular… a story of a pact made with old gods that costs a high and terrible price… Butler’s clever build of suspense and mystery, use of religious magic that costs a price, and multiple viewpoint telling of the story keep the reader glued to the action as it unfolds. This is undoubtedly one of the best stories of this issue, perhaps one of the best Black Gate has yet published.

 “The Price of Two Blades” appears in Black Gate 14. You can read an excerpt here, and the complete Black Gate 14 Sneak Peek is available here. You can find additional reviews of the entire issue here.

Art by Malcolm McClinton.

The Weather: Part Art, Part Science, and Part… Magic?

The Weather: Part Art, Part Science, and Part… Magic?

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poison-study2Predicting the weather is an art and a science… yes, really, it’s a science, believe me. I spent four years at Penn State University learning chemistry, calculus, physics, thermodynamics, and fluid dynamics to earn my Meteorology Degree – I should know.

Did that transform me into a great forecaster? Er…no. So I must have relied more on my artistic side, right? Er… no again. Good thing for the masses of people that might have relied on me to forecast their daily weather that I decided to go into environmental meteorology, and work with air quality and air pollution instead. Did you hear that sigh of relief? I did.

Eventually, I ended up changing careers and becoming a writer (long story, but it involves boredom, rage, despair, dissatisfaction, and sex… you really don’t want to know, trust me). But it seems my initial love of weather and storms wouldn’t just die quietly.

No, it found ways into my writing without my conscious consent. My first book, Poison Study, has a very rare weather phenomenon that my one friend (a meteorologist that can forecast – imagine that!) has been the only person to recognize.

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Reconsiderations: The Book of The Dun Cow and The Book of Sorrows

Reconsiderations: The Book of The Dun Cow and The Book of Sorrows

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The Book of the Dun CowOne of the characteristics of a great book is that you can go back to it at different times in your life and get different things out of it. But then sometimes the reverse happens: you read a book before you’re ready. If you’re lucky, though, the book hangs around in the back of your mind, and eventually you pick it up again and find out what you weren’t able to grasp the first time around.

When I was in elementary school, someone gave me a copy of The Book of the Dun Cow, by Walter Wangerin, Jr. I read it, but I didn’t particularly appreciate it. Many years later, I bought another copy, and was much more impressed. I also understood why I didn’t care for it as a child. Not long ago, I found a copy of the sequel The Book of Sorrows. Reading the books together I was impressed again.

The books are an animal fantasy, set when “the earth was still fixed in the absolute center of the universe. It had not yet been cracked loose from that holy place, to be sent whirling — wild, helpless, and ignorant — among the blind stars. And the sun still traveled around the moored earth, so that days and nights belonged to the earth and to the creatures thereon, not to a ball of silent fire. The clouds were still considered to flow at a very great height, halfway between the moon and the waters below; and God still chose to walk among the clouds, striding, like a man who strides through his garden in the sweet evening.”

Humans have not yet been made, and the world is inhabited by animals, who talk and think. And they have a purpose, which is to act as Keepers against Wyrm, the evil that dwells in the heart of the earth and wants to ruin all creation. It is the connection between the animals — their community — that keeps Wyrm from rising. The two books describe two particularly vicious assaults by Wyrm against his keepers, and what happens to the animals as a result.

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Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 6.1 “Exile on Main Street”

Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 6.1 “Exile on Main Street”

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Season 6 starts a year after the events in the finale of Season 5, which I detailed a few days ago. This blog post is being written somewhat stream-of-consciousnessly as I watch the episode.

SUPERNATURAL
Dean Winchester (left), Sam Winchester (center), and their formerly-dead grandfather, Samuel Campbell (right)
It will contain spoilers (like the picture at the right).

You have been warned.

At the start of the episode, Dean’s been living a year with Lisa and her son, Ben, in suburbia, after his Lucifer-possessed brother, Sam, dove into a trans-dimensional prison to save the world. It’s clear that Dean hasn’t completely gotten over his past, though, as a montage relating his mundane daily tasks to his former life makes clear.

Still, he’s making friends. One in particular, a neighbor named Sid, seems to have bonded with him over regular beers, but Dean isn’t sharing anything about his past with him. He tells him that he used to be in pest control. (I, for one, am pegging Sid as a demon or something. He’s just a little too interested in Dean’s past.)

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Blogging Alex Raymond’s FLASH GORDON, Part Three: “Tournaments of Mongo”

Blogging Alex Raymond’s FLASH GORDON, Part Three: “Tournaments of Mongo”

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tournaments-big-little“Tournaments of Mongo” was the third installment of Alex Raymond’s FLASH GORDON Sunday comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally printed between November 25, 1934 and February 24, 1935, “Tournaments of Mongo” picked up the storyline where the second installment, “Monsters of Mongo” left off with Dr. Zarkov being knighted by Vultan for saving the Hawkmen’s sky city from crashing to the ground.

Before Vultan can host Flash and Dale’s royal wedding, Emperor Ming and his daughter, Princess Aura arrive with Ming’s air fleet demanding Flash be handed over. Of course, Aura wants Flash for herself while her father wants to see him dead. Vultan invokes the ancient rite of tournament to determine Flash’s fate and Ming heartily agrees, certain it will mean the Earthman’s doom.

The obvious change beginning with this strip is that Alex Raymond’s artwork is being granted more space than before as Raymond decreases the strip from nine equally-sized panels to a more inventively designed seven panels to better showcase his stunning artwork which was steadily growing in both complexity and sophistication.

Raymond began to move away from word balloons in each panel to more formal narrative in small print at the top or bottom of the panel, often relegated to a single corner. This allowed Raymond to concentrate on majestic paintings depicting Mongo’s people and wildlife in all their glory.

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Goth Chick News – Shadowland Part Deux: Thirteen Questions for Actor Jason Contini

Goth Chick News – Shadowland Part Deux: Thirteen Questions for Actor Jason Contini

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legacies-endIn case you hadn’t noticed, and I’m pretty sure you did, the Black Gate webmaster got a little worked up by my last post. Though I was telling you about my latest indy-horror obsession, Shadowland, one might have gathered from the choices of accompanying pictures, that I was instead bringing you a story about lead actress Caitlin McIntosh and her former life as a beauty queen. Somewhere, wedged between those images was my interview with Wyatt Weed, Shadowland’s writer and director; but good luck finding it.

This is what happens when there are too many boys on the staff and they are left unattended for too long.

So this week I’m personally bringing you the second installment of my Shadowland coverage; an interview with lead actor Jason Contini and co-creator of the new comic series Legacies End.

I can assure you there will be no further shenanigans involving staff members who forget their professionalism and get carried away by lust.

Now where was I…?

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Supernatural Spotlight – Season Four and Five Recap

Supernatural Spotlight – Season Four and Five Recap

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supernatural-season4Yesterday, I described the second and third seasons of Supernatural which all built up toward Dean Winchester’s death, as part of a demonic deal to save his brother.

Dean was sucked into Hell, leaving his brother Sam on Earth with the demon Ruby, who has taken on something of a friend and mentorship role with him.

More spoilers to follow …

Season Four

Season four of Supernatural began, a year after his death, with Dean crawling his way out of the grave with no real idea how he got back. But he doesn’t appear to be a demon or any other kind of beastie … so what’s going on?

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Art Evolution 2: Eric Vedder

Art Evolution 2: Eric Vedder

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exalted

Last week I kicked off the Art Evolution blog series, explaining my plan to collect ten of the greatest fantasy role-playing artists for a shared project to illustrate a single character in their best known style. For my first installment I chose Earthdawn and Shadowrun artist Jeff Laubenstein.

With Jeff Laubenstein and a ‘Shadowrun Lyssa‘ in the fold, I took stock of my list and imagined how I would gain other universally recognizable names. I determined that each name carried a ‘weight’, a kind of industry standard validity recognizable to other artists.

Remember, I was working this alone, without a single writing credit to my name, so I had to find legitimacy where I could. Understanding that, and without a previously established friendship with the lion’s share of these artists, I needed a greater combined ‘weight’ of already contracted artists to approach the next heavier weighted contributor on my list.

At this point I only had a single artist signed so I went back into the few art connections I’d made during my time trying to market my other writings. Like most struggling writers in their publishing infancy, I believed there might be a shortcut or magic bullet to getting published. J.K. Rowling couldn’t buy bread before Harry Potter, but she went out and purchased a lovely red transparent folder to place her Potter manuscript in before she sent it to a perspective publisher.

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