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.

With the impending release of the Astro Boy movie next Friday I’ve been quite busy with my other blog, AstroBoy World. So I haven’t much felt like blogging here. However, something related to Astro recently happened to me that was so crazy, I felt that I should share it here too.

Through my deviantArt account, someone alerted me to this interesting piece of merchandise found on eBay.

It’s a one-of-a-kind custom made Astro Boy bookmark, which was available for sale on eBay for about $4.

Isn’t that artwork something else? There is something familiar about it! Let’s take a closer look.

Hmmmmm!

Yeah, I drew that. My artwork got stolen and used without my permission by someone looking to profit from it. The fact that it was only $4 doesn’t matter. I wasn’t going to see a single penny of it, and I didn’t draw that just so someone else could use it to make money.

But, honestly, I was pretty flattered by it. I’ve had all these idiots, like that Stupid Samurai wanker, show up here to insult me and my artwork, and yet someone thought my work was good enough to steal and and try to sell. Granted, that person is also an idiot for breaking copyright laws and spitting in the face of common decency, but hey, I take what I can get. And not only is this stolen artwork mine, it’s artwork of Astro Boy, the original #1 anime superstar of all time. To me, this means that I have made it! This is the big time!

Anyway, despite being flattered, I still got my revenge. I put an end to the auction. With my fists.

Sayonara.

I am totally blown away by the sheer awesomeness of this incredible trailer for “Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legend The Movie“. This is some kind of huge Ultraman movie featuring many characters from the entire scope of the 40+ years of the Japanese franchise. Being around for so long, the Ultraman mythology has become quite complex, and much of the information about it hasn’t always been easily accessible in English. I know a fair bit about it from my own reasearch but nowhere close to everything. I don’t really recognize everything going on in this trailer, but I know enough to be able to tell that whatever is going on here, it’s BIG!

WOW!
It’s like they took all the charm and innocence of the classic 60’s Ultraman style, and rather then redesign and try to make it hip, they just let it be what it should be and instead enhanced the presentation with incredible special effects and cinematography. The result is a sumptuous visual feast of Japanese Tokusatsu Superhero excellence!

There’s an Evil Ultraman! Not a clone or a fake, a real new evil Ultra character who controls an army of monsters. All the good Ultras have to stop him! Some of them have capes, because they are awesome! But then some of them go back to their human form! Other humans discover the Ultraman world! That guy at the end is the human form of a 90’s era Ultra from a different continuity! So much Ultra-stuff to digest!

Hopefully, with this level of quality, they can get the ball rolling again on more Ultraman material being released in the English speaking world. I really want to see this! But just from watching this trailer I feel like I will have to watch about a 100 billion Ultraman episodes to really appreciate the whole thing. So I suppose that’s what I’ll have to do.

Sayonara.