A while back, Gundam ACE magazine sold a 1/48 scale Sinanju head bust along with one of their issues to celebrate the release of Gundam Unicorn. Gunpla modeler Julius Lim decided that wasn’t enough for him so he decided to start a scratch build project to add shoulder plates and a torso all in the same scale. The work he’s done thus far is absolutely amazing. He’s even posted a tutorial on how he built the shoulder armor. I can’t wait to see the final build!

Man, just clicking around his site makes me want to get back into building. Climbing, comics, gunpla. That’s my idea of the perfect life!

From: Julius Lim

Alright, so the new logo is shit and the new 52 lick ass. I feel like I’ve kicked DC quite a bit recently. So it’s only fair to give them props when they do something right. And man, when they do something right, they go all out.

To help combat the terrible drought and famine that plagues the Horn of Africa, DC and the Justice League are raising money for Save the Children, International Rescue Committee, and Mercy Corps. These three NGOs are onsite to deliver aid. DC Entertainment will match 100% of donations and 50% of the purchase price of any products bought through the site.

From: We Can Be Heroes

What happens when you cut Star Wars: A New Hope into 15 second pieces, ask internet fans to recreate any of those pieces they like, and then reassemble them into a feature length film?

Pure. Fucking. Magic.

If you have a spare 2 hours and need to exercise your beer lifting muscles, watching Star Wars Uncut is a truly excellent way to spend that time.

From: Star Wars Uncut

Red Tails opened this weekend at number two bringing in a very respectable $19.1M. George Lucas has been trying to make this movie for the past twenty-three years and finally got so tired of the studios rejecting the idea because the cast was predominantly Black that he put up his own money. He paid for everything out of pocket, including the damn prints, to get the story of the Tuskegee Airmen into theaters nationwide.

If this is the kind of thing George is spending his prequel money on, I applaud him. It shouldn’t be this fucking difficult to make a movie about one of the most important Allied flying units of World War II. It’s about time Hollywood realizes that a good story is a good story regardless of race or ethnic background or culture. And if it takes Jar Jar Binks money to break down that door, I’m proud to give George my money.

So what’s it like flying with the Red Tails?

First, the bad news. It really pains me to say it, but, well, I didn’t think this was a good movie. Too much of it just didn’t work for me. There’s a love story that’s based on nothing, there’s a Nazi prison camp segment that seems tacked on, the characters we’re supposed to sympathize with are kind of jerk faces. Now the good news. If I didn’t like it, chances are it will do very well. I am clearly not dialed in to the pulse of most movie goers. If my tastes reflected a majority of film audiences, we’d have some really weird shit in theaters.

Normally, I’d spend some time warning you of all the painful things you will sit through should you choose to sit through two and half hours of war movie. But I really want this to do well and I think people should ultimately make up their own minds when going to the theater. And as much as I didn’t really like much of the movie, there’s one thing that kept me wildly entertained. The P-51 Mustang.

Flies Like An Angel

The P-51 Mustang is a gorgeous aircraft. I have this gigantic book of World War II airplane illustrations and the Mustang has always caught my eye. There’s a character in the film who says something to the effect that it looks like it’s speeding even when it standing still. That’s the beauty of its lines in a nutshell. It’s a sexy damn airplane and you get to see a whole lot of it throughout the film.

Certainly there was a social aspect that kept this movie from theaters for so long. But honestly, I don’t think the air battles would have looked as good as they do if this movie was made twenty-three years ago. The dog fights alone are almost worth paying full price to see them on a big screen. They way they’re shot and edited really put you in the action. There are so many shots that we’ve never seen in an air battle before. Honestly, they almost put Star Wars dog fights to shame.

The P-51 is a scene stealer. Every time you see it on the screen, you forget the cheesy dialog and the horribly written one-liners. You forget the comically evil German fighter pilot or the terrible voice-overs of the bomber pilots. You forget that you’re watching a movie and instead get absorbed by the areal ballet of bullets and propellers playing out before you. It’s a beautiful thing and it’s gotta be scene on a huge ass screen.

Warts and all, I had a good time. There were enough air battles to make me forget a lot of what I wasn’t liking. Cuba and Terrance turn in some really good performances. You can tell they had a lot of fun with this movie. It was great seeing some of the cast from “The Wire” on the big screen. I left with a smile on my face. It’s not the best war movie, but you know what you’re getting into.

A server upgrade ate two of my posts yesterday that cover the same subject so I apologize to all the RSS subscribers if this sounds like much of the same thing. But hopefully, I will bring an added level of unreasonable vitriol that shall entertain you for the brief moment you skim over this screed. So here goes.

Back in 2005, DC Comics decided their brand needed a refresh. They came out with a new logo which I refer to as the Swoosh Star. It fell very much in line with the web 2.0 aesthetic with its clever swoosh, it’s perky star, and that subtle gradient that came to define an era of questionable design. Throw in an “edgy” type face with sharp corners and aggressive curves and you’ve got a logo that looks terribly dated, as if it jumped from the screen of a design student in the 90′s. I hated it and made fun of it back when AZM was a webcomic:

With the entire reboot of the DC Universe, I was wondering whether or not we’d get a new brand identity. Sure enough, DC has been working on a new logo for the past year and this week, they unveiled it in all it’s multi-colored glory:

You can see more treatments of this thing at DC’s blog, the Source.

So what’s the deal? Why the peeling? Why the different treatments? Why does it look like a condom wrapper? From the blog:

DC Entertainment worked with Landor Associates, one of the world’s leading brand consulting and design firms, to develop an identity that creates a visual connection among the company, its three brands DC Comics, Vertigo and MAD and its vast array of properties as well as celebrates the power of the company’s stories and characters. The design of the new DC Entertainment identity uses a “peel” effect – the D is strategically placed over the C with the upper right-hand portion of the D peeling back to unveil the hidden C – symbolizing the duality of the iconic characters that are present within DC Entertainment’s portfolio.

Duality of the wibbly wobbly what the fuck?

It looks like a condom wrapper and will now be referred to as such. So, does the DC Condom Wrapper work as a logo?

Typography Fail

The type face of the “DC Comics” component is Hoefler & Frere-Jones Gotham. See what they did there? It’s super clever because it’s Gotham and Batman and ha ha it’s so NO.

NO.

The type looks like an afterthought, as if some executive said, “Well, shit, no one’s going to know what company this Condom Wrapper represents. Why don’t you tack on ‘DC Comics’ just to be sure.” The fact that the letter forms of the C in the icon and the C in the type don’t match further alienates the words from the mark. The type makes an awful “L” shape bellow the mark that throws off the balance. The placement is no better on the cover trade dress next to the mark. Below, beside, above, around, it’s clunky and doesn’t work.

Mark Fail

A strong mark evokes an idea or emotion that embodies a brand. Marks that are representational forms can easily convey figurative concepts. Nike’s swoosh is the strongest mark in sports branding. It evokes movement, speed, action, qualities that are embodied by Nike.

Marks that are literal draw focus away from the brand. DC Condom Wrapper looks like a condom wrapper. It evokes no emotions or ideas or anything remotely related to the concepts that are central to DC’s brand. In fact, it has to be dressed up in fancy colors or kitschy accessories before it starts to say anything.

When I look at the Nike swoosh, I see myself running. When I look at the DC Condom Wrapper, I see a condom wrapper.

Squint Test Fail

A successful logo is instantly recognizable from miles away. If you can’t get up and walk miles away from your computer monitor, the squint test is the next best thing. Strong logos have distinct silhouettes that don’t rely on color or glitz or any fancy dressing. They look good blurred, big, small, black and white.

When I look at the first set of colored logos, except for the yellow and orange ones, I completely lose the peel. It looks like a chopped up C. The squint test also reveals the horrible balance of the type. Together, it looks like a weird C monster with a unusually long foot.

The logos with the illustrations are even worse. I can’t even see any of the dark ones, and the ones with the bright colors loose the C shape. They look more like lopsided D’s.

Do the Logo Motion

Executive Creative Director Nicolas Aparicio of branding consultant Landor says that this logo is for the digital age:

It was our goal to capture DC Entertainment in a dynamic and provocative identity. Our solution is a living expression which changes and adapts to the characters, story lines and the ways fans are consuming content. The new identity is built for the digital age, and can easily be animated and customized to take full advantage of the interactivity offered across all media platforms.

That may very well be. I have yet to see it animate. Who knows, it might look like hot sex. I could see having a lot of fun peeling back the D on some kind of branded iPhone app. As a static logo, as something that will be plastered on trade dress of comic covers, as something that will come to embody DC print comics, it’s just not strong enough.

The Logo as a Platform

I understand the desire to create a form that can be used as sort of branding platform. I like the idea. It’s like a blank Munny platform toy. You can customize it all you want, but you still recognize that it’s a Munny.

But for a platform to work, it must be strong enough to stand on its own. DC’s Condom Wrapper isn’t strong enough of a form to stand alone. The initial black and white concept is quite dreadful and amplifies all the problems previously discussed.

Blech.

Who Cares?

It’s an interesting design argument, but in the end, does it really matter? No one makes comic purchasing decisions based on logos. The trade dress matters very little to what’s on the inside and that’s what readers or potential readers really care about.

It’s fun to rag on their new shiny toy, ultimately, it won’t make much of a difference. DC has far worse problems than a questionable rebrand.

TL;DR

Bottom line, I hate it. I’ve had my long winded say. What do you think of the new Condom Wrapper?

The January 18th protest against SOPA and PIPA was awe inspiring. I was especially heartened to see so many web cartoonists joining in the fight. But one single day isn’t enough to make Congress listen to us. We have to keep the pressure up. Sopa Strike has a tool that will let you send a message to your Congressperson voicing your opposition to the bill.

We can end this! We must end this!

When you rock out so hard that you puke out all the lame, YOU. ARE. DOING. IT. RIGHT.

Remember when you could actually see your slot car racing down the track? Apparently, those days are over. This is from a Finnish slot car race. How in the hell do they determine the winner? All I see are colored streaks whizzing by. There must be some kind of computer counter to keep track of position and laps and all that. Fucking Hot Wheels look like turtles compared to these things.

“It looks like a shiny piece of cheese!”

I’ve never watched “Pawn Stars” or whatever, but this is pretty funny. And it just goes to show how dead stupid Link is. Rupees literally GROW ON TREES and clay pots and bushes and armor and chickens and pretty much everything in Hyrule.

Also, I gotta wonder how true this is to the show. If the buyers at the pawnshop low-ball everyone who comes in, why does anyone go to that shop to sell in the first place?

Thanks to AZM Ally Wayne W for sending this along.

When I first saw the trailer for Red Tails, I thought, “It’s about damn time.” There have been two films about the 442nd. Why haven’t we had a major motion picture about the Tuskegee Airmen?

And then my friend Dern and reader Kwadwo Amo-Mensah sent me this clip of George Lucas talking about the film on the Daily Show.

For those who can’t see the clip, it’s taken George Lucas 23 years to get this film into theaters. For those 23 years, he’s been trying to convince studios to take a chance on good old fashioned war movie. And for those 23 years, the studios have rejected the project saying that they don’t know how to market this film. The reason? The cast is predominantly Black. The studios fear that the international market can’t handle a minority cast and since they make 60% of their income on foreign sales, they prefer to play it safe (read: play it White).

Finally, Lucas got tired of waiting and much like he did with the Star Wars films, he funded the project himself.

George Lucas is the exact last person I would have expected to call out Hollywood and the studios on their seemingly institutionalized racism. But there you have it. I have a new respect for the man.

Red Tails opens on January 20. It looks absolutely amazing and I am going to see it in the theaters. I think it’s going to be a really big film and I hope it proves to the studios that rejected it that a minority cast in a classic action war movie can bring home big box office numbers.

From: Clutch Magazine