Movies!

by on February 20, 2014 at 12:06 pm

So I meant to get this post written awhile ago, but I’m a terrible planner of things. So we’re doing it now.

Go see The Lego Movie.

I’m sure a lot of you have already, but seriously. It’s really good. It’s easily discounted as a movie that will amount to nothing more than a 2 hour toy commercial, which is what I was expecting. But it’s really so much more than that. I grew up playing with Lego, so sure, this movie will tug at my nostalgic heart strings a little bit. But Phil Lord and Chris Miller (who also made Clone High, which is probably one of the best cartoons ever) took that nostalgia and instead of exploiting it and making a crappy movie (I’m looking at you, every Transformers movie) they crafted something that’s really a love letter to Lego, people that grew up playing with Lego, and kids that are growing up playing with Lego now. I won’t spoil anything, but the voice acting is incredible (Will Arnett absolutely steals the movie as Batman and Morgan Freeman can be surprisingly hilarious) the animation is wonderful and it’s actually more stop motion than I was expecting, and the act 3 reveal creates this massive “aha!” moment that makes so many other things about this movie make so much sense.

Neat side note: the main villain, Lord Business, was designed so that he looks  like a necktie from the back. That’s the kind of detail they put into this thing.

Guardians of the Galaxy!

guardians header

Holy crap Guardians of the Galaxy. Having limited familiarity with the comics for this team they seemed like kind of a low-rent, intergalactic Avengers team, but man this trailer blew me away. Chris Pratt (who also plays Emmet in The Lego Movie) nails that sort of cocky-but-you-love-them-for-it space hero character as Peter Quill, Rocket Raccoon and Groot look incredible, the whole cast just looks great. Zoe Saldana really pulls of this “I could totally kill you right now” look and she’s only got maybe 10 seconds of screen time. Plus any trailer that can make “Hooked on a Feeling” work, and even kind of badass has my interest. John C. Reilly, and Peter Serafinowicz as members of Nova Corps look great and I now have far more faith in this movie than I had a year ago.  So pumped.

If you’re like me, you’ve watched the trailer a few times already, but if not you can watch the trailer here. What do you guys think? Tell us in the comments maybe?

<3

Tyler

Hey, chapter one is finished!

by on February 19, 2014 at 8:01 pm

I don’t know that the chapters I have are arranged in any meaningful structure. Some of them are really short (eight posts) and some of them are way longer (eighteen posts) and it just sort of depends on the amount of exposition that the plot needs at the moment. I have a lot of fun writing this comic, and I’m really having a good time building the world. Coming up, we’re going to see some more general samurai stuff that you might see in a movie, which is pretty fun, but also some pretty crazy surprises down the road.

Initially, I had conceived this whole story as having a lot of political intrigue and deception, but I could never really write that how I wanted. It always just sort of ended up being this generic everyone backstabs everyone plot, and I really hated how that turned out. I was always drawn to writing some Big Adventure. The Big Adventure is a wonderful plot that I think allows your Bilbo Baggins to transform from a homebody to an accomplished thief. This really appeals to me for this strip because I’m not familiar with the ins and outs of Japanese statecraft, but I am familiar with being creative and building a world that I like.

Sometimes I struggle with some of the things that are headed our way because I feel as though I sacrifice Good Story for Fun Story, but then Tyler shows me what my Fun Story looks like illustrated, and I know I’ve made the right choice, and that Good Story and Fun Story can be one in the same. I hope you guys think I’ve made the right choice as well.

End: Chapter One — Musings

by on February 19, 2014 at 8:00 am

Woo! End of Chapter One! I hope you guys are still with us and I hope you’ve liked what you’ve seen so far!

So I’ve got a little background on this arc from my perspective, for those of you who may be interested in such a thing.

Let me start by saying I can’t write a story to save my life. I can draw. I can draw all day long, but I can’t write stories. I always get really into one, but then it starts feeling contrived and awful and I get embarrassed with myself and wind up stopping. By the time Jimmy and I started making ItYotR (I’ve gotta say, I didn’t like the abbreviation at first, but it’s growing on me) I’d already been the artist of two failed comic creations. Failed not because I wasn’t producing pages, but because I wasn’t getting any story to draw. As a result I really expected both he and I to completely lose interest before it would really go anywhere.  These failed creation relationships (Creationships? Creationships) fostered what you might call a cynical outlook on the concept of collaboration. But Jimmy produced the first script as if by magic while I was asleep. He’d texted me about the concept in the early early morning one day, and my half-awake response was something like “You write it, I’ll draw it.” and by the time I’d woken up there it was. The story you’ve all been reading.

So he sends me this script and I go to work on it. Slowly. Very slowly. I was convinced, you see, that we’d both lose interest. But I was creating something so I was happy. I was about halfway through drawing the first iteration of the third page when he told me he’d written not one, but two more whole, entire scripts. It had taken me a couple months just to get 3 pages done and he’d already written more. This was no longer just a one-off, what-if story featuring a samurai with no name and a bunny with no explanation. It was GROWING. It was growing and I was helping create it.

I finished the rest of the first chapter as quickly as I could (which is probably why I went back and redrew it all 2 more times…) and Jimmy sent me the first of the next two scripts. It introduced some more characters and a new conflict and there were hints of this bigger world and bigger conflicts and everything fell into place. I was blown away. Not only was this not just a one-off to him, he’d continued writing these characters and creating adventures for them to go on. He was just as into it as I was. After a long time of trial and error I’d finally found someone who’s just as driven to create something as I am. A few years later and here we are.

I’m finally in a healthy creationship.

So here’s to all of you who’ve read it with us. Chapter 2 starts next week. It starts off a little slow, but it ramps up pretty quick and it goes alllll the way until the end of June. We’ve got some crazy stuff in store.

I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll keep saying it. Thank you all.

Thank you Jimmy.

<3

Tyler.

(p.s. drop what you’re doing and go check out the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer. I’ll nerd out about this later today)

Valentimes!

by on February 14, 2014 at 9:00 am

So It’s Valentine’s Day! Woo! Love! Affection! Tiny chalky hearts with abbreviated sentiments of love stamped in them!

I hope you’ve got plans to do something fun and romantic with your lad or lady friend of choice. If you don’t yet have a significant other it’s not too late! I believe in you, champ! I believe in you so much that I made these little Valentine’s cards featuring an adorable little bunny you might be familiar with. Because who could say no to a cute little fluffy bunnyface Valentine’s card?

Give ’em to your friends. Give ’em to your loved ones. Give ’em to your enemies to make them not your enemies anymore*.

*fear!*

d’awwww

ohai

Yep! that’s the face I was referring to earlier!

Gladly.

Wow…that’s…That guy takes Valentine’s Day really serious. Really.

Click em to embiggen and spread the Valentimes cheer! Happy Valentine’s Day and thanks for sticking around for almost 2 whole months! We love you guys!

<3

Tyler

*wecannotanddonotguaranteethat,butitprobablycan’thurttotry.

 

 

Comics!

by on February 5, 2014 at 3:00 pm

Woo! Page 5! One thing I really like about this page is just the matter-of-fact way the bunny’s just like “Oh…you’re dead? Kay. *hop!*” like he knows it was them or him.

So, on top of being the artist for the comic I bet you’ll be surprised to find I’m also an avid comic reader. Shocking, right?

No?

FINE! RUIN MY SEGUE!

(side note: “segue” looks weird and makes me think segway is the right way to write it, even though I know it’s not.)

So I thought it’d be neat to write about a comic or webcomic that I’m into every now and then to show you guys other cool comics that I love that aren’t also the one I draw. For those of you that may not know me, I’m all about comics and cartoons. I have a bookmark folder so full of webcomics that Chrome asks me “Are you sure you want to open all these tabs right now? Seriously?” every time I go to get caught up with them. On top of that I read between 12 and 15 different ongoing monthly comics from DC, Marvel, Image and the other big comic houses.  It’s a really long story but from an early age comics and cartoons have been what I’ve wanted to do with my life.

So we’re going to start this thing off with the first comic I ever really got into. Growing up in the 90s I, like many kids my age, was watching Batman the Animated Series, and Superman, and the 90s Spider-Man cartoon and that was really as far as my superhero knowledge went. But my first ever experience with reading an ongoing comic was Daredevil. I love Daredevil. There’s just really something about the mix of courtroom drama, interpersonal issues and all of your typical superhero action that I just love…when it’s written well. When I was a kid, my cousin David bought me a ton of comics, and among them were most of Frank Miller’s run on Daredevil. Miller’s Daredevil is really a seminal work and he almost single handedly brought Daredevil from a b-list hero fighting guys like The Gladiator and Stilt Man (seriously, guess what his power is) to an A-list property taking on The Kingpin and joining The Avengers. The art is phenomenal and introduced a lot of the stylings that Miller would become better known for with Sin City. Then Miller left and it was…okay and then he came back with Born Again which is probably the best thing Miller has ever done.  Plus this was all before he went a little crazy…and really I could keep going but on top of really highly recommending Frank Miller’s run on Daredevil to anyone interested, it’s also probably one of the best comics Marvel is releasing today.

DD#1

In 2011 Marvel relaunched Daredevil with writer Mark Waid (Kingdom Come, Irredeemable, Insufferable (which is another great webcomic you should read)) and  Paolo Rivera with a focus on getting Matt Murdock/Daredevil out of the dark, pulpy noir place they were in (which may or may not have culminated in Daredevil going crazy and becoming the Kingpin…spoilers) and instead giving Daredevil a new outlook on life. There is absolutely nothing I don’t love about this book. The art of Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin (and Chris Samnee starting in 2014) is so wonderful and simple in a way that’s reminiscent of comics from the 60’s and 70’s. Little touches like the way Daredevil’s radar sense works and how (like in the cover above) objects in the environment become characterized by the sounds they make are just so cool and the kinds of things I totally geek out about.

The writing is fantastic. Daredevil spent most of his career being titled “The Man Without Fear” which I’ve honestly never really understood, even as a kid. I guess it’s supposed to be a play on the fact that he’s blind? Like…a blind person wouldn’t be afraid of being on top of a tall building because they can’t see how far down it goes. But Daredevil has a radar sense to compensate for his blindness so…theoretically he can. He knows exactly how high up he is and therefore shouldn’t be any more or less afraid than the next guy. But because of this it’s great that Waid’s run as writer has taken to giving Daredevil reasons to be afraid. Plots to make his friends (and himself) think he’s going crazy, villains that know how to alter how he sees the world and use that to their advantage. There’s even a great run where he completely loses his powers and has to re-learn how to interact with the world as a non-superpowered blind person. Which doesn’t sound too riveting but he’s Doctor Doom’s prisoner at the time and he’s trying to escape so it’s pretty tense. Combine this with Matt Murdock’s career as Daredevil straining his relationship with his longtime friend and business partner Foggy Nelson, (yes, Foggy. He was named in the 60’s what do you want?) having to manage legal cases while technically unable to represent his clients because he’s suspected of being Daredevil, and the larger, far more personal trial of helping Foggy after he’s been diagnosed with cancer and you’ve got a hell of a book. Something that, as Waid himself puts it “tweak[s] the adventure to depression ratio” and instead focuses on human storytelling and emotion more than gritty, noir melodrama and violence. If you ask me, this is one of the 3 books that Marvel is absolutely knocking out of the park right now. Issue #35 just came out and you can find collected editions one through six at Amazon or if you’re like me and you prefer to actually interact with people, your local comic shop.

Sorry if this was long winded. I just really like talking about comics. What about you? What are you guys reading? I’d love to hear suggestions of books you’re into or if you think I’m wrong and Daredevil sucks and I’m a dummy. See that little “Leave a Comment” link down there? Tell me! Jimmy and I are super interested in you guys and what you think of the comic and what you think of the stuff that we’re doing. Let’s get some public discourse going! Woo!

<3

Tyler