What our kids are wearing

Yes, yes, I know I’ve promised you Disney pictures and Baltimore Comic Con pictures, but the re-sizing of them all keeps freezing my computer up and it’ll take a little time. Sue me, I’ve been busy and 5 hours in the car to and from Baltimore knocks a lot out of you.

Buuuuuut, here’s more fun and enjoyment. You see, Halloween is right around the corner, and that means costumes. I haven’t chosen mine yet, or even if I’ll have an occasion to wear one, but it doesn’t stop me from looking. How can I not, with pop-up ads launching at every comic-themed webpage I visit? Here are a few I found this morning.

I don’t see this Joker as being that scary. In fact, I think of him more as a talk show host giving a monologue. Sure, his face is a little bobble-headed, and his mouth is a little tiny, but he’s more or less Leno. They’ve taken a truly horrifying character and turned it into…well, they cleaned him up. Purple lab jacket and green vest do not a Joker make.

The Scarecrow costume from the Warner Brothers store doesn’t fare much better. The smock is a little too nice, although they did a good job with the asylum straps. But the face? Is he Booger Head Scarecrow? Is it a leftover Star Wars mask? How do you get Scarecrow out of that? Maybe they had to clear out their stock of “Last Starfighter” masks and figured they could unload them on Bat-fans.

That’s the Last Starfighter dude. Not 100%, but way more accurate than the Scarecrow mask that, if memory serves, is supposed to be made of fabric.

Wanna know where you’ve seen Sonic Troopers before? 4th-rate costume catalogues. They are the generic versions of Power Rangers for kids who aren’t that into details. Any kid would look at these and say, “Dear God, this is a pile of rip-off s***.” I did an internet search for Sonic Troopers and the only things that came up were more costume sites offering the same knock-off crap. The scary part is that these would be perfectly acceptable costumes for a Japanese TV show. I wouldn’t be shocked if I saw these on japanese TV as some new superhero squad. As an aside, I’d like a street gang to name themselves the Sonic Troopers, kill and rape a few dozen people, then destroy a building. Then, out-of-touch grandmothers could buy their grandkids these costumes and say “oh, it’s a Sonic Trooper costume, honey,” and cause controversy.

Hey kids! Love that great movie Jurassic Park? Sure, it came out before your parents were married and you may have been absolutely frightened while watching it, but didn’t you love the triceratops? You remember, it was the dinosaur that was sick and didn’t get up and move or anything. You remember that, right? Well, here’s a costume that’s tangentially related to that movie! It’s…well, it’s a nifty triceratops mask! And pajamas with a triceratops on it! Mostly blue, not much triceratops, but it still qualifies as a costume! Mostly just the mask part. An absolute must for out-of-touch grandparents.

There’s little to be said about this Batman costume, other than he looks sad. His ears are shrunken, his nose is awkwardly pointy, and his face isn’t angry or menacing, it’s more of a “poor me” expression. Poor Batman. You look like a damn fool.

And there’s Muppet costumes too! Here’s Animal! Yes, the out-of-control drummer for the Electric Mayhem is faithfully rendered into a costume for your child by someone who has not seen an episode of the Muppets in their lives and designed the costume based on someone’s description over the phone. More or less looks like Elmo with squinty eyes, an underbite, and a unibrow. Any kid would love to wear this costume, especially if they love being stuffed in lockers and forced to eat dog poop.

But there’s not much that’s going to beat Fozzie Bear, who looks like he’s been drunk for the better part of the week. The nose is huge and red, the eyes are shifty and the wrong shade of purple, and your child will be emerging from Fozzie’s larynx. Here’s a photo of the real Fozzie for comparison:

Notice that his mouth isn’t a small red line, and that his fingers aren’t black. This costume is probably unlicensed, since the Henson company actually have some pride in their creations. Drunk Fozzie would not have passed muster.

Our Video Game History Part VI

Welcome back to another edition of “Our Video Game History,” the segment on this blog where I bring you back to the games that structured our youths, especially if our parents refused to buy us a Nintendo which we desperately wanted. To date, I have still never bought a Nintendo, but since all the games are available online, I don’t think it matters much at this point. So those of us without actual consoles had to deal in these, PC games of very, very dubious quality. Join us, won’t we?

There’s obviously a lot going on in this game. There’s a dock, a monkey statue, a cyclone, a giant woman, and some lily pads. But let me draw your attention to the characters in the foreground. I’m not going crazy, but are they performing scenes from A Streetcar Named Desire? Tell me how, aside from the monkey statue and the cyclone, this isn’t a poster for a community theater presentation of Streetcar. You’ve got the plantation house in the back, the docks on the side, Stanley beating Stella in the front and even the famous “STELLAAAAA!” scene playing behind that. My guess? This is the text-based version of Streetcar. YOU ARE IN HOSPITAL. DO YOU WANT TO DEPEND ON KINDNESS OF STRANGERS? Y/N.

This is actually the sequel, Mean Streets II: All Roofs, No Streets Per Se. It’s where the protagonist of the first game becomes afraid of roads, streets, avenues, driveways, highways, ramps, lanes, and terraces and decides to only fight crime on the roofs of high buildings. All his food is delivered.

“So what do you want to call this, the game where cavemen fly planes?”
“Megalomania!”
“Ok. What does that have to do with cavemen in planes?”
“Absolutely nothing. Just like the word.”
“Alright, I hate it. And I hate the concept too. You can’t name this Megalomania.”
“How ’bout if I tweak it a little bit? Just the title though.”
“If you can tweak the title, I’ll let you release your stupid game.”

You’re a wealthy merchant. Your ships travel all over the world, bringing tapestries, weapons, spices, art, and fantastic foods to all the nations. But then someone finds out about your daughter. The little socialite has been tarting herself up all over town. There’s even a grainy scroll circulating around the shipping lines of her engaging in a sexual encounter. Your dreams are shattered, your company is rocked by scandal. So you start drinking. Heavily. After you’ve been forced to fire the crews of 90 of your best ships, you’re so far in the bottle you’ll never be sober again. You wander into your office, where the big globe is. In an alcoholic fog you stumble over to the globe, collapse upon it, and take stock in your awful, awful life.

You have engaged the mechanical arm.
The mechanical arm is moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
Still moving.
You have successfully grasped the wrench you dropped.
Mission Accomplished!

Growing up, we kids knew two rules. 1) Bible games always sucked, and 2) the art on the box cover was a very good indication of the quality of the game. This, to every child not raised in a commune in Utah, would be an awful game, just by looking at the cover. Extraordinary things are happening with Moses’s arm - look! the tablets are shrinking! And his elbow bends in three places! Incredible! Still, even with bendy Moses, most children would prefer to do nothing than play this game.

Even if you are dead and decomposed, you can still witness for Christ.

It’s the future and you’re a narco cop. But the cops are out to get you! How will you and the rest of your police officers survive, now that the Law’s after you? Who will save the cops from the police? How will the police force react when the full weight of the city police force comes down on them? Find out in Narco Police, the thrilling game that pits police against law enforcement like never before!

“Hey guys! Do you dare go into Dr. Hammerstein’s house?”
“No, Rick, that’s dumb. I mean, that’s his house. He lives there.”
“But it’s probably spooky!”
“That may be, but it’s private property. You don’t see us wandering into every house on this block. Only Tom’s, because his mom said it’s ok.”
“C’mon guys! Chamber of horrors!”
“Rick, next time we go to Tom’s house, we’re going to take a different route.”

Rock and Roll Is Here To Stay

Waaaaay back in the 80’s, there was something called “heavy metal music.” It was loud, shrieky, fast, occasionally sentimental, and, for some reason, people took it seriously. Grown men wearing spandex, makeup, and big hair would yell about partying and girls and crowds would react positively. In retrospect, they looked like many women do in the deep South. But they were huge, with all the drugs, and sex, and money they could ask for. Nowadays, bands like Cinderella, Ratt, the Scorpions, and Winger struggle to find a bar gig, but back in the days before alternative rock, these guys were the main show.

Which is why they got their own comic books.

Rock N’ Roll Comics were the products of Revolutionary Comics, a company who also put out unauthorized histories of baseball players and porn stars. The comics consisted of the history of the band up to that point, three full-page B&W pin-ups of the band member who died, and one or two short humor pieces, usually based around whatever big-haired, interchangeable band was featured that week. They were insanely positive of whoever they were featuring, setting up each awful metal band as the greatest thing to ever happen to music. Oh, there was a New Kids on the Block issue too.

But the one thing these all had in common? Amazingly bad art.

DEAR GOD LOOK AT STEVEN TYLER’S EYES

The art was on-par with the guy in your high school who’d turn in hand-drawn notebook sketches of Ozzy for art projects about the Impressionists. Saying it was amateur was a compliment. Despite this being a biographical comic, the artist that was hired (and uncredited, as far as the Comic Book Database can tell) just simply could not capture likenesses. It was just one more shovel of dirt onto the coffin of a comic that featured Guns N’ Roses every third issue.

I own some of these issues, I got them as a joke gift from a friend who found them for about 15 cents each and all of them are atrocious. Here are some highlights from my collection:

I hesitate in this public blog to use the word “mongoloid”, but damn, something is wrong with David Lee Roth’s eyes and that’s the closest thing I can use to describe it.

We won’t spend too much time on James Hetfield’s receding Klingon hairline and will instead focus on bassist Jason Newsted. What the hell was this artist on?

A comparison:

Jason’s turned into a hastily sketched “human” thing with uneven eyes and tiny forehead. If I saw this crawling out of a military lab, I’d order it shot then burned.

Say, like Bon Jovi?

Then you’d probably hate the unauthorized comic book starring this guy:

And that’s the COVER of this book. This is supposed to make people buy this comic. They’re supposed to recognize this guy. Try it for yourself. Copy and paste the picture into a word document and then show it to people in your office. See if they correctly guess who this is supposed to be in 10 tries or less.

But who can forget Motley Crue!?!

Obviously the artist could, since he drew people who look barely even human, let alone like Motley Crue. Also, breasts don’t work that way, butts definitely don’t work that way, and the girl on the lower right looks like she has fish ribs.

The Stories Behind the San Diego Comic Con Costumes

MOTHER: Ronnie, are you sure you don’t want me to help you with your Halloween costume?

RONNIE: NO, Mom. I told you, it’s not for Halloween, it’s for Comic Con. DUH, you’re so retarded sometimes.

MOTHER: I know that you want it to be the best, and I have all this sewing equipment that I never get a chance to use.

RONNIE: I KNOW how to make a costume, Mom. I already have a pair of red cargo pants, they’re hella awesome and they totally make the costume.

MOTHER: Oh those things? Ronnie, dear, I bought those for you when you were still in middle school, they’re very faded by now.

RONNIE: No, stupid. They’re fine. I still wear them, like, all the time. I spill butter on them now and then, but you wash most of it off.

MOTHER: But the shirt you have is a much brighter red than the pants, I’d hate for you to go out and…

RONNIE: MOM! I told you already! I’m making my own costume! Damn! And it’s a Deadpool costume, it’s not like anyone’s going to care about the mask or the pants, it’s all about the guns. Why didn’t you know that, stupid?

MOTHER: I don’t really know about comic books, darling. You’d think with you living here, in my home, for 32 years I would have caught on, but no, I really haven’t.

RONNIE: Like, everyone, knows about Deadpool. Only an IDIOT doesn’t know who I’m going to Comic Con as. Now, get outta my room, I gotta scrounge up more electrical tape for my mask.

MOTHER: Just as long as it covers up your lack of chin, dear, you’ll be the handsomest boy at the show!

RONNIE: MOOOOOOOOM! It’s not a show, it’s a COMIC BOOK CONVENTION.

Disney FAIL

If you’re Disney-savvy, you know all about the issues with The Song of the South. It came out in 1946, won an Academy Award for Best Song, and then the world suddenly realized that it was racist and threw it in the basement, never to be seen again, at least until Splash Mountain came around. It’s the tale of happy slaves, and that’s not really appropriate.

I got to see Song of the South in the theaters when it was re-released in 1986, the 40th anniversary. If I’m not mistaken, it’s been closely-guarded since, and there’s intense pressure to keep it buried. And I can understand why. Uncle Remus is an unrealistic portrayal of a slave as “happy” and “well-behaved”. It’s not what Disney is all about now, and like I said, there’s pressure to keep it buried.

Still, there are websites that offer versions of Song of the South. And, sadly, not all of them are sensitive to the issues behind the film. For instance, this site.

Remastered. Nice one, guys.

The Stories Behind the San Diego Comic Con Costumes

Three days before Comic Con:

TUCKER: “Oh boy, oh boy, I have the perfect costume for Mexican wrestling night and the Comic Con! I got this great red and blue Spider-Man costume and I’m going to be mad awesome. Everyone at Comic Con’s going to be doing weird characters, but you can’t go wrong with the red & blue! Classy, classy, classy! I’ll just wear it to Mexican wrestling night then off to the con floor!”

Two days before Comic Con, at the Mexican wrestling night:

REF: And El Spidero takes a hit to the gut! And another! And another! And…OOOOOH! A knee right to the face!

TUCKER: (splutter, splutter) I can’t…(cough, retch)

REF: Looks like El Spidero’s going to be…OH JESUS CRISTO! That’s a full on boot to the face!

TUCKER: (cough) Gaaaaahhhh….(splutter, splutter)

One day before Comic Con, at the costume store:

TUCKER: Uh, hi. By dame is Tucker. I bwas id here the utha day.

CLERK: Dear Lord, what the hell happened to your nose?

TUCKER: Is broked. (cough, spatter)

CLERK: I am totally sorry, man. It’s all over by your ear n’ junk.

TUCKER: Cad I geb a refud on dis bask? (holds up blood-filled Spider-man mask)

CLERK: Dude, that’s medical waste at this point. And it’s Comic Con season, I can’t get you a new costume, those things sold out fast.

TUCKER: Crab.

CLERK: Here, I have something that might work. You need something, man, I can’t believe you’re even out of the house with a face like that. Your eye’s like all sunken in and crap. This is a Spider-man 3 mask. The rest of the costume has pee on it, so we through it out, but the mask doesn’t have as much pee on it, so we threw it in the bargain bin.

TUCKER: Thaks.

Dear God, Superman, what the hell happened?

Hey! Guess what! Toyman killed Cat Grant’s kid! Like, a million years ago, but still, it’s in continuity. I didn’t used to read Superman comics, I was more of a Batman guy, so I missed this issue. Today, sadly, I finally saw the cover.

What the hell is wrong with that kid? Aside from everything?

First off, the head’s insane. The human body is about 7x the length of the head, meaning it would take seven of your heads to equal the size of your body. A helpful guide:

This boy’s body is about 5 head lengths tall, making him a dwarf. I don’t believe that Cat Grant’s son being a dwarf was ever brought up in Superman comics, especially since every dwarf in comics either has magic powers (Mr. Mxyzptlk, Bat-mite) or smokes cigars (Oberon, Lord Emp). But that ain’t all, Superman’s hand is larger than the kid’s head is (he could palm it like a basketball, easy). My hands are about average size, 7 inches tip to wrist, which is about the size of a child’s head, give or take a few centimeters. Superman’s thumb is roughly the same size as the distance from the kid’s eye to his ear. This kid may have a big head for his body, but he’s got a tiny head to begin with.

There’s also loads wrong with the kid’s arms. Call it foreshortening all you want, it’s really just bad, Liefeld-esque art. Despite his shoulders being mostly even, he’s missing a few inches of his right arm. They might have something to do with the child’s missing wrists, I’m not sure. The left arm is just a mess. Normally, a person’s arm and hand extend to the top of the thigh. This boy is a major exception, his wrist beginning where a normal person’s hand would end. His right, baby arm is actually more in line with anatomy than his left. Elephant Man time!

The torso and the butt are disasters of Katrina-proportions (although I hesitate to use the word “proportions”, since they’re not really being used in this drawing). The boy has his torso and head drastically facing the left while his hips are pointing to the right (as evidenced by his knees bending that way). This is not a normal way for a person to turn, as the body would probably snap back to center, especially if being held aloft by someone else. The butt is either lumpy (big wallet for a small kid), or just uneven. If there was foreshortening on the left left, indicating it was bent, there would actually be less butt shown since that would have been extended forward. Say nothing of the fact that the boy’s wearing pink pants with cuffs and a red belt.

The legs are their own separate Dresden of ink and paint. The calfs are of equal length or longer than the thighs, or in the case of the one on the left, smaller than the kid’s forearm. Whereas a normal leg is 4 heads high (see the diagram again), Cat Grant’s son’s are only 2, maybe 2.5 if you’re being nice with the right one. the foot is as long as the calf. And the icing on the cake is that the kid has two right feet. Look at the curve of the shoes and tell me that he doesn’t. I dare you.

The less said about Supes the better. Of more interest is the way that Toyman is holding the knife. The thumb position is all off, the thumb only runs that perpendicular to the fingers when making a fist, not when holding a cylindrical object. If it’s holding anything In fact, the knife handle is so large that he’s only holding it with the tips of his fingers. He very well could drop it if he swung his arm around with any force. Oh, and the face on the handle doesn’t match the perspective of the blade. This might have been the way the knife was produced, as the face doesn’t have to line up with the blade at all, but it would make for a nicer knife.

So I ask again. What the hell happened? The kid got stabbed, not carved apart and sewn back together again in the dark. Who let this cover go through? It’s so many disasters, I wouldn’t even begin to know which was the worst offender.

Foul, I say, foul.

This Week in Netflix

Every week, the DVD-through-the-mail site Netflix announces new DVDs for rental. Most are films that never got a theatrical release. Ethan Kaye brings you This Week In Netflix, the most inexplicable actual description of an actual film actually posted by the Netflix staff.

This week?

Poison Sweethearts

Pushed to the limit by their abusers, six young women turn the tables on the vile men who destroyed their lives in this anthology of blood-splattered vignettes. Vengeance-seekers include a sweet girl forced to care for her depraved father, a beautiful hooker and a lonely teen who falls prey to a pair of sleazy breakdancers. Ashleigh Holeman, Roza Haidet, Laura Robbins, Jen Meissner and Raymond Turturro star.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good revenge tale (unless it stars Ashley Judd who has the acting chops of a stapler). If a woman gets “done wrong” by her man, to quote the blues, watching her bring the hammer down makes for a good movie. Thematically, it doesn’t involve a kooky best friend, a dope deal with gangsters gone bad, or cleaning up a house before parents get home.

However, the antagonists are sleazy breakdancers.

SLEAZY BREAKDANCERS. I suspect this droll description was the part of a Netflix staffer who was struggling to come up with a hook for Poison Sweethearts, since there is no nudity in it. When the best your movie has to offer is sleazy breakdancers, you better sell that new car, cause you ain’t keeping up with the payments.

I would like to play a game with you, readers. Can you come up with antagonists for a revenge movie that are goofier than “sleazy breakdancers?” If you read this entry, please post a comment with your thoughts, ideally in the “adjective occupation” format. Here are a few to get your started:

Goofier Antagonists for Poison Sweethearts

1. Schizophrenic Newspaper Magnates
2. Tired Suffragettes
3. Crippled Comptrollers
4. Waterlogged Deacons

I’d also like to point out that these six tales of revenge take place in a 70 minute movie. It’s one of those movies if you like revenge but don’t really like things like set-up or exposition. “None of this talking or explanation nonsense for me,” says the moviegoer, “just give me revenge after revenge!” Assuming that the opening and closing credits take 10 minutes total (that’s also assuming that enough people were involved with this to stretch the credits out that far), each vignette is allowed 10 minutes to get from the set-up to the (assumed) gory punchline. That means that these tales of revenge are shorter than the average episode of Yu-Gi-Oh by about 12 minutes. Hell, they’re shorter than an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

So this is a film that will not be added to my queue. Especially after the lone reviewer on Netflix wished ebola on the cast and crew. Sorry, makers of Poison Sweethearts, but the odds are against you on this one.

Copy errors, Middle Earth style

Yesterday, a news story came out about a postcard to JRR Tolkien being found in his old fireplace. You can read it here. It’s a charming story about a guy finding a postcard. Nothing special.

Of course, they had to ruin it with this quote:

Tolkien had achieved fame by the time he moved to Poole in 1968. His epic “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, already popular before the hugely successful film adaptations appeared, was published in 1954-55.

Really? And I thought it was the movie that made “Lord of the Rings” a hit. In 2001. Before that, well I just assumed I was the only one who’d heard of it.

Our Video Game History Part V

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, and when life gives you awful video game art from the 80’s and 90’s, you jump on it. You pounce on it and you make it feel bad. You tell it that it will never get chocolate again, because it is so bad.

Yes, more video game art.

Oh, this is also probably a good place to say that the opinions on this site are my own, and in no way reflect those of Wizard Magazine, Wizarduniverse.com, or ToyFare Magazine. It’s all me, baby.

So…in the future we’ll be holding these games up as the standards of the past. Well, it’s 2008 CE, and I don’t recall the gaming world being irreversibly altered by a game where a man tries to save a floppy disk from a magnet, a fat man escaping from fattening food, or Michael Dukakis. Now, I’m not totally in touch with the gaming world, but there is the chance that “Temp the Tummy: Cholesterol Blaargh” was a major hit, but I’m 99.99% sure that the makers of Halo aren’t looking to that game for inspiration.

Despite the title, it’s about 100% obvious that this kid is not having anything even remotely resembling fun. He’s in his immaculately spotless room with a ton of sports equipment on a nice day yet he’s wasting his time watching a computer shoot out sparks. And he knows that his time could be better spent. Look at his arm positioning - it doesn’t say, “I’m ready to play Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Simulator!” it says, “Curse this lupus, I am forced to stay indoors.” He could be surfing, but he’s not. He could be playing squash, but not that either. He could be skiing, but he’s not. Hell, he could even be hustling his ass down on the boulevard to pay for that sweet muscle car, but he’s not. All he’s doing is sitting there, barefoot, watching sparks fly out of his monitor. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why we needed the internet.

Heartlight: the game that undresses you with its eyes.

I suspect that this was one of those things that Kirk Cameron denounced as satanic once he found Jesus, but for the time being, he’s dressed as a teal knight being eaten by a meatball. For those of you who felt that his career had collapsed by the time his show Kirk was released, just remember that The Horde was released prior to that event. Also, some additional research turned up that when you installed early versions of this game on your computer, it would erase anything else you had saved. A perfect example of consumers actively and happily buying and installing a computer virus.

The only comment I have for the tagline to this game can best be summed up in an existing television show that used the same syntax for comical effect:

“Hey guys. I know we’ve been marketing extreme sports lately, and getting a lot of success from it, but I want to take this company in a new direction. I’m talking a sensible direction. No more wild head butts or hail Mary kicks. I want our next game to be sensible. Focus on dribbling, passing, and passively approaching the goal. There’s no need to go overboard on this at all, we just need to step back, take a breath, and play some slow, relaxed ball. Who’s with me?”

“HELLO! WELCOME TO TENNIS! YOU IS PRETTY LADY AND WE PLAY TENNIS! HELLO!”

WHA-? What the hell is this? Deformed hand baby + robot vulture + stupid geometrical house = video game. It’s in German which might explain a few things, since they like David Hasslehoff, but this is just a shoddy-looking cover. What the hell is wrong with that baby? And why did they add it to a perfectly good game cover where a giant robot vulture threatens a lighthouse? That in and of itself is cool, but the baby just ruins the game. So there’s a baby in it. Well, I don’t want to play a game with a baby, I’d rather play a game where a giant vulture robot tears up the coast. And if I find one baby in that game, back to the store it goes.

You buy this game, your name goes on a list in Washington DC. Good luck finding an apartment again, pervert.

“Hey man, got any spare gold?”

“No, I’m sorry. I’m just here to see the art gallery opening.”

“Oh, thazz ok man, thazz ok. I was jes’ hopin’ you might have some gold so I could buy a cuppa coffee.”

“Please, I’m telling you, I don’t have any spare gold. No leave me alone or I shall call the police.”

“Man, it don’t gotta be like that…why you gotta be like that? I fought in the Elf Wars. I’m a veteran.”

“I don’t believe that for a second. You probably just smoked too much pipeweed and never went to college.”

Level One: The bad guy cuts your head off.
Level Two: There is no Level Two.