Happy holidays, folks. Hope everything’s good with you all. I’m not usually the kind of guy to get into the Christmas spirit, and, well, this year is no different. I’m just a humbug sort of bloke, I suppose. But this year is especially so. I’ve been trying to finalize the character roster of the long-awaited Anime Injustice Gang, and thus I have surrounded myself in evil. I’m reading everything I can about villains in trying to pick the best lineup of evil characters, as I want to at least make a decent attempt at finishing the artwork before the year ends. After taking suggestions and researching for months, I think I’m about ready to finally make it happen.

My first term at the art academy I’ve been teaching at is finished, and quite successfully. I’m very happy there and they seem very happy with me. The results have been quite impressive in how much some of the students have improved. It looks like I’ll be working there more in the winter.

Amazingly enough, I got a nice holiday message from everyone’s favorite racist sociopath, The Stupid Samurai! He wished me a, well, less than Merry Christmas (in less then jolly terms that I will not share here) and chose to take the time to brag that he has been busy having a life. The details of this supposed life go unmentioned, so I am only left to assume what this alleged life may entail. Clearly it can not possibly be that fulfilling, as he seems to have plenty of time and pent up energy to spend writing messages rife with poorly thought-out insults and inexcusable spelling mistakes to someone he doesn’t even like (where as I, on the other hand, simply enjoy keeping a weblog when I get the chance).

I would like to remind the aptly named Stupid Samurai that The Anti-Ninjatron Clan is still awaiting his contribution, and that this would be a much better, more effective way to express his message of hatred. It does not need to be a holiday or special occasion for “The Shogun of Simpletons” to accept my invitation, and I wish to clarify that if he really believes what he says, he will sign up to the board with a valid e-mail address and post. So, unless he is a coward, he will do that. But, hey, he’s one of those rare individuals that has a life! We’ll be lucky if we ever hear from him again!

That’s it for now. See you next year. Probably.

Seeing 20 minutes of this special Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie event at FanExpo this past summer and waiting until this weekend to finally see the whole thing was absolute torture. Waiting for someone to finally upload it to the Internet was probably even worse. But watching it today (twice even) made it all worthwhile.

Epic. Turtles Forever was awesome. It was so awesome.

It’s hard to find the words to describe what this means. It may very well have been the greatest gift ever given to a fandom. I’m serious. What other fandom has ever gotten something like this that was pulled off so well?

(Semi-Spoilerish from here on. Proceed with Caution!)

The 1987 Turtles looked just like they had stepped off the old cartoon. The voices weren’t there, but I knew that going in. The goofiness and silliness of the ’87 Turtles show was played up in a major way, more so than the show really was, but they prove themselves in the end. Donatello really steals the whole movie.

So many references and call-backs, it was just a total blast to watch. Then, the original comic book Turtles appear and it becomes the biggest piece of fan service of all time. Lines of dialogue lifted straight from that first issue, repurposed for this new story as if they were always meant to be that way.

I want to talk more but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet. If you were a child of the 80’s, or just wish you were, you must see this.

Now that Viacom has purchased the rights to the TMNT, Turtles Forever truly marks the end of an era. When I first heard the news regarding the buyout, I was shocked. But after watching this, I feel really good about the whole thing. The era has ended by going back through 25 years of history and returning to the source. You just can’t ask for anything better than that. Now I can earnestly look forward to what comes next.

But I will say this. When the Turtles find out about the multiverse of different versions of themselves, the ’87 turtles yell “Awesome!“. Well, they’re right, it is awesome. It is awesome that these characters have so many different interpretations and revisions, and that they’ve entertained fans all over the world for a quarter of a century. Be they from comics, cartoons, video games, movies, and whatever else Nickelodeon will wind up doing with them, Ninja Turtles are awesome. And they will be, FOREVER!

Cowabunga.

I mean…

Sayonara.

Here is am about a week ago in my Jedi robe for Halloween.

The look clearly suits me. But soon I am going to shave the beard down to my traditional goatee.

Sayonara.

It’s been quite an eventful time.

The weekend before last I saw the Astro Boy movie. You can read my spoilerific review here. Or you can just go see it yourself, which you should do, because the movie is great, the critics who don’t like it are morons who missed the point entirely, and Astro is one of the greatest characters ever who was created by the God of Manga and thus deserves our support. So there.

After that I took part in the second Manga Workshop taught by Svetlana Chmakova. I created a manga about chefs. I’ll have to finish it some day. Good stuff all around.

Then, this past week at the art academy I teach at, I wound up working 4 days in a row. Included in those days was a special Halloween workshop, where I taught about drawing monsters. Of course, since it was Halloween, I had to wear a costume. So I went as a Jedi. I don’t have any in-costume pictures yet, but I was a pretty cool looking Jedi if I do say so myself.

Of course, to really pull of the Jedi look, I grew a full beard this month. Here’s a picture I just took.

I’ve gotten used to it and I’d have to say that it’s actually not a bad look in spite of the funny face I’m making there. Now that my Jedi performance is behind me, I could just shave it back down to my previous goatee and sideburns look. But I wonder if I should keep it for awhile longer. Hmmm. Thoughts?

Sayonara.

This week marked the very end of what was once known as Geocities, the free webspace provider once popular in the 90’s. My very first website, more than 10 years ago, was on Geocities. It came at a very important time in my life, when I was still in high school and quite directionless. Creating and maintaining that website, as basic as it was, gave me a sense of accomplishment that really helped me out at that time. As years went on I outgrew the limitations of a free website and made a new one here, and eventually Geocities gained the reputation of having really amateur websites. Its loss today isn’t really a big deal, as there are better websites out there these days, and other ways for people to communicate through the net. But still, we’re at the point now where we can say that the Internet has it’s own history and culture, and now a big chunk of that is gone.

I used my old Geocities site to show of my then burgeoning artwork, and the first piece of art I had on there was a Ninja Turtle.

It came as a huge shock last week when it was announced that the rights to the Ninja Turtles were sold to Nickelodeon. It came out of the blue and I don’t think anyone was expecting that. AT least, not now. On one hand, it’s very sad. The TMNT was the little independent property that went big, but the original studio that started it all was still at the heart of it, with many of the same people working on it that were there from the very beginning. I feel bad for the other artists who have given so much of their lives to these characters, and I’m very surprised that Peter Larid would just be so willing to give it all up like that. However, at the same time, it’s been clear for awhile that Mirage Studios was not capable of giving the Turtles their due anymore. They missed out on so many opportunities to give fans some great stuff. It’s like they saw themselves as a small entity and didn’t feel like expanding beyond that. From my perspective as a fan, they got them selves into a rut and had little interest in getting out of it. I’m not a fan of these big corporate buy-outs of intellectual properties, but now that the entire property is in the hands of a bigger, smarter entity, there’s a lot to be excited about. A new movie and TV series will be on the way, and naturally there’s a risk that they might be ridiculous, but at least this company is willing to do something with these characters and perhaps give the entire franchise a new energy.

But even if everything we get from now on is pure gold, it’s still the end of an era and it’s a little melancholy.

However, this era, right here, continues. I’ve resubscribed my website for another 2 years, and hopefully I’ll see to updating things a little.

Sayonara.