The final episode of Samurai Sentai Shinkenger aired over the weekend. I got a chance to see the raw so while I have a general idea of what went down, the details are still a mystery until it gets fansubbed. I really loved the show. This is the first Sentai series that I actually sat through the entire run. I would have laughed in your face if you told me that a modern day samurai period drama would be any good at all, but it was a fantastic run. The twists towards the end of the series I totally didn’t expect, although now looking back over the series, it was set up beautifully. Shinkenger had everything that I ever wanted in a Super Sentai series.

Tensou Sentai Goseiger premiers next Sunday and… well… I don’t know. After coming off such a big high with Shinkenger, there’s a lot to live up to. Can’t get a lot from this short preview, but Goseiger does have a few things going for it. Red has a big ass dragon. That always helps. And the big mech has a sword with real fire. Real fire is always bad ass! I’m also a big fan of card systems as henshin devices. So we’ll have to see. I’m going to give it the patent pending Mike Dent five episode rule before I make a firm decision. I hope it doesn’t disappoint.

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There was something missing from our Super Bowl celebration last night and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until just now. We didn’t have any Kamen Cider! The Kamen Cider cans feature the design of some of the most powerful Showa Riders. Each can has a little snippet of trivia on the Rider they’re designed after and little info about one of their deadly Shocker Kaijin foes.

I really love all the designs, but I think I’m partial to Nigo’s right there at the end. It’s got the typhoon henshin action that just screams RIDER KICK! If there is a Kamen Rider god, there will be cases of this stuff in the dealer’s room this weekend at Katsucon so that I may grab a case or four.

Source: Halcyon Realms

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I have yet to track down a copy of Ong Bak 2 so it’s more than likely that I’m missing something here. I mean, does this trailer spoil the ending to the previous film? Did he die at the end of 2? Did he get all captured and tortured and finally bite it? Or is this have nothing to do with the previous film much like the second had little to do with the first? So confused.

What I am not confused about is Tony Jaa fighting on top of an Elephant. That’s fucking badass. I’m totally seeing this!

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No, I will not be linking it. You’ll be seeing it during the Super Bowl this weekend anyway so you’ll be able to make your own judgment.

For me, this is not a true Airbender movie. It doesn’t at all represent a true translation of the film into live action. It’s sort of bad remix done by an over-hyped hack, sort of like when Puffy does a remix of a song, more a tribute gone horribly wrong than an actual translation. The spirit of the show is completely lost glossed over with shiny ’splosions, glowy things, and that water alien creature from The Abyss. I put the blame squarely on M. Night Shyamalan’s shoulders. He could have told the casting director to eat a full bag of dicks and go get some more brown people (and not just for background! booo!). But no.

I will not pay real money to see this thing, ever. I will not rent it, I will not put it on my Netflix queue, I will not watch it when it comes on broadcast or HBO or Showtime or the airplane. Gauging the initial reactions to this trailer, it appears that this thing will be enough of a financial success for them to make more and that makes me a sad panda, but they will do so without my financial support. Much like Alan Moore, I spit venom all over this thing.

I would like to hear from casting directors in Hollywood at some point. It occurs to me that these people may have more to do with the ethnic makeup of a film more so than the director. I’d like to ask why the casting director for this film chose the people that were chosen. Was this a conscious decision? Do casting directors feel that America is racist enough to not support a film with a predominantly Asian cast? Did they not bother seeing the original show and just cast based on the script? I’d like to candidly interview a casting director and ask them if ethnicity enters in to the decision making process at all or if it’s something they don’t really think about.

Anyway, Airbender equals big fucking fail. The trailer looks more like a special effects demo reel than a movie trailer. Bleh. Boo! Boo I say!

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AZM Ally Kensei Dave alerted me to a rumor that DC Comics is considering doing a sequel to Watchmen. Thanks to the movie adaptation, Watchmen has become the best selling book in DC Comics history. And Dan Didio wants to cash in.

There are, in fact, three constants in the Universe. Death. Taxes. Alan Moore’s hatred of DC. So we know for absolute certain fact that Alan Moore will have nothing to do with this project. The question is, will Dave Gibbons? Moore and Gibbons have the right of first refusal to take on any Watchmen comic related projects from DC. Moore is out forever. But Gibbons? Gibbons was all chuffed about the new Watchmen film and even produced new artwork to help promote the beasty. I’m sure he’d love to take another crack at the title. And I think the only way this will not be completely flawed on the internet is if Dave Gibbons draws the thing.

So who’s the poor bastard they’re going to saddle with writing the thing? Also, how do you write a sequel? I mean, sure, there are loose ends to tie up, but by the end of the book we don’t care. Those ends are meant to be open, meant to be left to our imagination. We know that the world will be at peace for at least a decade or two and that it will all possibly fall apart when the charade is discovered. But honestly, those stories don’t interest me. Watchmen is a complete work in every sense of the word. I can’t be told any better as we saw in the theaters. It’s complete. There’s no more. And to have a sequel that doesn’t feel completely forced seems like an exercise in futility.

Of course, it will be a giant hit. The mainstream press will jizz all over this. They’re all secretly giant nerds who love comics and love to cover comics and will make this a great big geeky story. The internet will be loud and obnoxious and quite upset, but the comic-buying public will eat this shit up. Dark Knight Strikes Again sold like hotcakes (I have never ever bought a hotcake. Where does this phrase come from!) even though the internet fucking hated that sequel. Watchmen 2 will be freaking big.

It may or may not be any good. But it’s gonna be big. Are you ready?

Source: Bleeding Cool

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So apparently in the future, 80’s style big hair is in! Holy crap this looks awesome. We get a lot of juicy footage of the NZ-666 Kshatriya flying around and kicking ass as well as the RGZ-95 ReZEL flying around in all its mass-produced Zeta Gundam glory. I’m guessing they’re hanging on to the Shinanju until later in the series which makes me kind of a sad puppy. Also, not a whole lot of Unicorn action in this preview, but I suspect there will be plenty of Gundam in this first episode. Despite Bandai Visual’s shitty pricing scheme, I can’t help but get excited for new Universal Century goodness! And Char clone is named Full Frontal! FUCK YEAH!

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If you recall my initial comments regarding the unfortunately dubbed iPad, despite a few personal gripes I thought that it was a solid idea. I take it all back. In my musing, I forgot that this was Apple we’re talking about. It should be called iPadLocked.

If you remember the iPhone launch, initially Steve wanted that puppy locked down. No outside apps. No dev kits. No nothing. He finally relented with the apps and released an SDK which really made the device the useful piece of technology that was promised. But to get an app on the iPhone still required Apple approval. Now while this strategy may work fine for a small portable device like an iPod or iPhone, when it comes to something that’s meant to replace netbooks and laptops, the closed system just doesn’t cut it.

The only way to get new programs for your iPad is to go through the app store which is vetted by Apple. Essentially, Apple controls the way you interact with media on their device. Now the quote “There’s no wrong way to hold it” and their entire introductory product video implies that the iPad will let you experience digital media in a manner that best fits you. This is a total lie. Sure, you can hold the fucker any which way, but you will be experiencing media in a manner that Apple dictates. Can’t change the video card. Can’t upgrade the memory to run insane things like Photoshop. Can’t put in a new battery. Nope. You get it the way Apple intended it.

Now for most, that’s perfectly fine. Most people aren’t terribly particular about how they interact with media. Show on, goood. Show off, find new show. Apple’s target market won’t give two shits that they can’t really customize their pad to fit their needs. They’ll just be happy to have the new hotness. But are the rest of us willing to let Apple dictate the way we interact and consume media?

Of course, this won’t matter a tick if the thing flops. The Cube, the Lisa, the Newton, the Air, all nifty ideas that failed to revolutionize much of anything. I think the pad is positioned to be a hit and it certainly looks pretty nifty. We’ll just have to see if there are iPhone-like lines when the thing is released, wings and all.

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Racism will probably always be a problem in this country because we are unwilling to let the past go. The times of slavery and internment are over, yet we minorities act like White people still owe us. Guess what. No one owes us shit.

Legally, minorities have the same rights as White people. We can vote. We can marry (unless we’re gay). We can serve in the military (unless we’re gay). We can sit where ever we want to on the bus. We can eat where ever we want. We can use the same bathrooms. Shit, minorities living in the 50’s and 60’s would shit their pants to see all the things we can do. And a Black President, they’d think this was some kind of science fiction fantasy. We can do anything we want to (unless we’re gay). So why do we still give White people such a bad rap?

Now it’s true that there’s a great ethnic unbalance in this country. When we’re rescuing Wallstreet, we’re generally rescuing rich ass White men who are using that bailout money to give themselves egregious bonus checks. In Hollywood, the top executives making all these horrible decisions are generally White men. Why aren’t more minorities in these positions? In this country, all of these high-powered high-profile industries were created by rich White men. Certainly during times when racism was the norm there was no way for minorities to break in to these industries. But now, when things are legally equal (unless you’re gay), what’s holding minorities down?

It’s easy to point the finger at White people, and White men in particular, because they are the invisible standard by which we are all judged. You hear about a Black President, a Latina Judge, an Asian District Attorney, a Woman Speaker of the House but when was the last time you heard of a White Male Senator? White men are easy to blame because they’re seen as the majority. But you’d have to be insanely paranoid to believe that there’s a vast White Male conspiracy bent on keeping minorities down. That’s fucking idiotic.

No. In this day and age if there’s a will, mother fucker, you will find a way. If anything is holding you back, it’s you.

If movies aren’t portraying your people in a positive light, make your own movies (more films like White on Rice and Children of Invention please!). If comics lack minority representation, make you own comics. If you find an industry lacking diversity and you’re desperate to make a change, BE that change.

I don’t feel disenfranchised as a minority. None of us should feel that way. Unless we’re gay.

And since we minorities have it so good, we should not rest until homosexuals are allowed the legal right to marry. We know what it’s like to be legally discriminated against. We know what gay, lesbian, bi, transgender people are going through. How, then, can we stand by while our people are being treated so poorly?

It’s time to stop looking for racism in every little corner. Complaining and finger-pointing gets us no where. Dwelling on the past gets us no where. Don’t believe in the change, believe in the change that believes in you!

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Yellow Peril is open for business! Not a whole lot of comics up right now (just today’s update), but there will be more coming at you Wednesday and Friday. YP will be updating three times a week as long as I can manage to keep that big ass buffer buffed. So head on over to http://ypcomic.com (someone already has yellowperil.com, the bastards, and yellowperilcomic.com is waaaaaay too long).

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Back in November (yikes! That fucking long ago?), I announced that I would be launching a new webcomic sometime in the new year. That time is now! Or more precisely, Monday!

If you poke around the production blog, you can see little art tests of the style I’m using as well as a preview of the site itself. You can also listen to me rambling like a moron about race and comics. Odd combination, I know, and equally odd to hear me talk to myself. But it’s available if you’re interested.

It’s going to be kind of a soft launch. I’ll give you all the link on Monday because you guys fucking rock. There will be only one comic available though, which is kinda lame when you’re trying to promote something. So the hard promotion push will wait until later in February when I have a bunch of comics up for people to read. The good news is that I’ve spent the last few months developing a workflow and building a buffer. I’ll be updating Mon, Wed, and Fri and I’ve got enough comics in the queue for an entire month.

In the meantime, I’ll be at Katsucon 16 with the Super Art Fight crew to promote Yellow Peril. I’ll have free buttons and moo cards to hand out (gotta design them cards soon). I’m also setting up a Facebook fanpage with a discussion board to talk about all sorts of horrible shit. I don’t much care for forums so I guess I’ll be using Facebook for random discussions as well as a formspring page to ask me questions instead of the typical FAQ.

So I’m back. It’s been a long time. I’ve been here for years. Wu Tang forever!

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