Hey champions - sorry it's been so long. Weddings. Travel. Work. Sleep. Going away parties. It's been a busy month. I'm excited to say that by the end of the week part 2 of my Marvel Comics Universe Expedition should be over, but the greatest sense of euphoria in my life is hitting the "save and publish" button at the bottom of this blog form and I miss that. So here's a little mini post about the coolest things I've seen over the past week. I think I'm going to start doing this as a casual, low-stress article because there's a lot of cool shit out there worth talking about. I think I want to call it
Coolest things of the week
I mean, at least it's direct, right?
Again - sorries to Mary, Ben and Sean - but the Marvel stuff will be up soon. In the meantime, let's talk about some cool shit.
The Tetris Effect Trailer
E3 happened over last weekend and all throughout this week. There's been tons of great looking demos, showcases, and discussions about what to look forward to in video games over the next year (or years). There was some kickass news, there was some heartbreaking news (Elder Scrolls VI has barely entered development, wtf is that about?) but there was so much cool shit there that you can tell people are breaking their backs over, stuff that they're designing from the ground up to be somebody's new favorite video game, it's awesome shit, and one of my favorite times of the year.
Before E3 kicked off proper though, Sony worked hard to make the traditionally one week event into a two week event, with new game announcements rocking headlines the three weekdays before their press conference. And one of them knocked me on my ass.
The Tetris Effect is a new PlayStation VR game from the mind of Tetsuya Mizuguchi, the dude behind games like Rez and Lumines. Based on that resume, you can tell you're in for something that will delight anyone even remotely interested in puzzles, music, or really just any kind of audio/visual pleasure.
But let's talk about the trailer. Things fall into place the way you want them to, lights pulsate in synchronicity with the music like a goddamn Michel Gondry music video, the narrator's booming voice sounds like he should be talking over an anime from 40 years ago, the build up and the anticipation of the song as the video slowly becomes more clear - it's gorgeous. These dudes took what's basically an abstract to a psychology paper and turned it into a video game trailer and for my money, everything works fucking perfectly. I sent it over to my friend Collin and this was our exchange:
It's optimistic, it's simple, it's beautiful. It's awesome, simply awesome. And that song is fucking gold.
Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse trailer
While Sony finally made nice with Disney and created a fun version of Spider-man that can hang out with the rest of Marvel's characters, they still want to squeeze as much money as they can out of the character, and they should. Spider-man is pretty fucking cool.
Into the Spiderverse is acknowleding that there's multiple realities, and there's a version of Spider-man in every single one. I don't think I've heard the words Peter Parker yet, but Miles Morales from the Ultimate Universe gets some older version of Spider-man in his world and he starts showing him the ropes (I refuse to make a 'webs' pun there). I'm going to stop talking about the story because I don't really know what it is and I'm cool with that.
So let's talk about the art direction of the trailer instead because it's beautiful. Animators have been getting bolder lately trying to get their work, their style to really stand out. Adventure Time got super popular and then that seemed like the approach to take - a simplified anatomy and proportions and make up for it with personality and writing. One standout I've seen along the way is The Amazing World of Gumball, and Spiderverse seems to be taking some cues from that show, which I'm very much here for.
The art directions contrast so much that they blend together, simply by their virtue of being so different. On top of that Jake Johnson is playing a Spider-man, we're getting a feature length film starring Miles Morales, and at the end of the trailer, one of my favorite comic characters of the last 10 years makes an appearance, and it looks like she's going to play a big role in it, which is pretty fucking fantastic for nerds like me.
Reddit Hobby Thread
Reddit kind of terrifies me. There's so much going on, the UI is a pain in the ass, and it seems like a lot of dark shit happens there. That said, occasionally there are some real gems from the site, and that's what I think this one is.
Someone put out a call for people to submit the drama happening in the world of their hobby. It was kind of fascinating hearing about all these things you've never thought about. This one dude (See below) told a James Bond style thriller story about the world of exotic and rare plant collection.
Yeah, I read a story about old people collecting hard to pronounce but even harder to find and I felt a little sweat in the palm of my hands. There are all kinds of ways to kill time in this world and reading this thread taught me about 80 new ones.
David Mack Action Comics And Superman Covers
I feel like one generation has that artist that just kicks their brain in the dick. Like, the one penciler or painter or colorist that just sums up the way they think a book should best look. Jack Kirby was one of those artists, George Perez, Jim Lee, Bryan Hitch, Frank Quitely - these artists distill the feeling of the time into tangible visual art that's so perfectly arranged it tells a story seamlessly, whether you take the time to read the words or not.
David Mack was my artist for the early 2000's/late 90's. The dude just floors me, always has, always will. There's something oddly melancholy about his work that's summed up to me as a slight failure of the character drawn. The lighter touches of Mack's hand on his line work let's you know that this character transcends reality; it's not a character as much as a concept. When he draws Daredevil not completely symmetrical it feels like what he's saying is the character himself has something broken about him, something that's missing, keeping him off balance. The dude mixes mediums together to make these collages that give off a stream of consciousness tone that I usually find more prevalent in novels than art and it's just killer.
Anyways, he drew some covers for Superman and Action Comics (which makes sense now that his pal Brian Michael Bendis is writing them) and holy hell are they gorgeous. We know Superman is iconic but it's the crest, the cape, and the bottoms. - that's what's iconic. The blurred face on each of the figures makes me feel like the concept of Superman is what's most important - it's what really slaps you in the face and I freaking love that. Superman's iconography transcends his human appearance and becomes the most important thing about him. The washed out colors show not just his age but also his longevity, making him mythic and timeless in spite of their fade.
Goddamn the dude is amazing artist. I'll stop gushing now but I will tell you that there are two more covers over here at this link.
The Bachelorette Bloodbath
I'm gonna level with you guys - I fucking love The Bachelor and Bachelorette especially. It comes on at the perfect time - just when the NBA is winding down and before the All-Star Break in Baseball, which is when a normal person should start giving a shit about baseball.
And right in that beautiful little window is the Bachelorette, which is basically clickbait the TV show. This year has Becca, the chick who won the Bachelor last season but was then dumped six weeks later for the only person somehow more boring than Ari, the Bachelor. I think it's a litttttle too soon for Becca jumping back into things like this, but also, I don't want to speak for her (on top of not being able to), which is something the dudes on the show could learn.
On the most recent episode, the editors were sick geniuses and with previews made it seem like there was a fucking murder at The Bachelor mansion. Two dudes were getting into a very uncomfortable argument about how many tinder matches one of them had. The other told Becca. There was a lot of arguing in front of other men at the house, it was really awkward, it was awesome.
But then we saw the guy who tattled to Becca getting carted out on a stretcher. The next shot was the guy he was arguing with sitting alone on the couch and they really, really made it seem like the tinder guy destroyed the narc.
Turns out? No. He didn't. The dude just fell out of the top of the bunk beds and smashed the fuck out of his face.
Goddamn these editors are incredible.
Terry Collins Mic'd up Meltdown
It's not really my last favorite thing of the week, but it's my favorite last thing that isn't a video game announcement from E3 or or a puppy I found on Twitter, so let's snap this thing off at the head and do the damn thing.
Sorry, I'm still thinking about the Bachelor.
A few years ago, a pitcher got thrown out of a game for a wild throw, and the pitcher's manager got thrown out for arguing with the ump on the pitcher's behalf. Not super special, shit like that happens every once in a while in the game.
For whatever reason, this one resurfaced recently and I am so, so, so happy it did. Because as you can tell from the video above, this exchange was mic'd up. And this exchange is the best deleted scene from Goodfellas you've ever seen.
Also, I'm not sure what the phrase "My ass is in the jackpot" means, but it's definitely made its way into my lexicon.
Also, part of me is kind of sad that Tommy and Terry didn't kiss at the end. I was really rooting for them.
Machine Impossible
This is so dumb but I love it. This guy on twitter regularly programs bots to write screenplays after making the bot consume an ungodly amount of a particular movie. He's programmed them to write a Saw screenplay after watching 1,000 hours of Saw movies, Olive Garden commercial scripts after watching 1,000 hours of Olive Garden commercials, so on and so forth.
This time it was Mission Impossible and while I'm excited to see whichever one is coming out this summer, gun to my head I'd see this one first.
And that's the coolest shit I've seen this week. See you soon, champions.