rossmay

As I have mentioned before, Yu Li and I are going to California later this month to visit her relatives, see the sights, and to do the San Diego Comic Convention.

I know some people who check out my blog are either from the state or have been there, so I'm asking ALL OF YOU as to what we should be doing. To get the ball rolling, here are some things I have on a list:

Los Angeles
Hollywood Blvd. (but what to do there?)
Skirball Centre to see their comic book exhibit organised by Jerry Robinson
Chinatown
Disneyland

Hacienda Heights
Hsi Lai Temple
Puente Hills Mall (aka. Twin Pine Mall aka. Lone Pine Mall from "Back to the Future)

San Diego
San Diego Zoo
Gastown (but what to do there?)
Convention


Any advice, people? I think I'm especially at a loss at what to do in Los Angeles apart from just shopping. What special sights should we see or what activities should we do?

And yes, I have an entire sub-list on who I want to see and what I plan to do at the comic convention. I'm still open to tips for there, too. I'll post another entry soon about meeting you friendly internet people when I'm in SD.

Of course you knew this was coming.



I'm playing Ghostbusters the Video Game.

This is the best game ever based on a non-game franchise (movies, cartoons, etc.). It's that good. You get a real rush especially from trapping ghosts.


Just a few things to mention...
-If you get the Playstation 3 version like I have, be prepared for it to be glitched. Not necessarily, but some people are having issues with it in certain areas. I'm actually only halfway through the game and will remain there until Sony & Atari creates a patch. Way to go with that extra time to fix bugs, guys.

-It's interesting how the game is basically a video game/movie hybrid. It's perfect for what it is, but as others have commented the story would not stand up on its own as the third movie without serious re-working. There are plenty of better Real Ghostbusters stories in my opinion too.

-The above said, you don't come for the story. The EXPERIENCE is great, the primary two being the voices and the visceral experience of trapping ghosts.

-Alyssa Milano is not a very good voice actor. I don't blame her for it, as I'm guessing she just read the lines alone in a recording booth with nobody and nothing to bounce dialogue off of. Still, gets me back to the fact that if you want good voice acting and don't specifically NEED X celebrity voice, go with the pro voice actors. They know what they're doing and often cost less!

-Everyone else does a fantastic job voice acting! They even got Max von Sydow to voice Vigo the Carpathian, which is just great! (2 Degrees time: Max von Sydow was the villain in Strange Brew, which starred Rick Moranis, who was Louis Tully in Ghosbusters).



That's it. But the main thing is, yeah, be prepared for problems if you're playing on PS3 like me. Should be fixed in the next month or less (here's hoping). By the way, to some people I know who come here - if you want to play PS3 or Wii online with me send me an email and we can link up.

The comic shop I go to is actually in another city, so I only pick up my comics maybe once a month. Today was one such day, so I thought I'd tell you what I'm getting.

Astro Boy: I'm cautiously pessimistic about the upcoming movie, but I'm an Astro Boy fan and always love to check out the work of friend Diego Jourdan.

Brave and the Bold: One of the best titles DC is publishing.

Booster Gold: The other best title DC is publishing.

Power Girl: blushes

Sonic the Hedgehog: Not regularly, but I thought I would check in on the title for a while.

Tales of the TMNT: 'natch

X-Men Forever: A controversial series to some people, but it seems perfect for me because my knowledge of the X-Men has been largely informed by the 90s cartoon show that Claremont's stories and regular cast inspired. Plus I know the artist, Tom Grummett!

TRADES
Batman: Mad Love and Other Stories
TMNT Adventures: Heroes in a Half Shell

(I also read the best continuing comic series, Usagi Yojimbo, but I tend to wait and buy them in trades).

I've been checking at the end of every day for what's happening at the E3 convention. Man, this year seems more interesting than it's been for a long time!

-Microsoft seems to be leading the way with digital distribution. And while digital distribution is the future, too bad I don't trust it with today's technology.

-Man, I'm been waiting forever for the classic Monkey Island games to show up on a console so I can replay them without any technological issues. And the Wii and DS are perfect for... what's that? The original is only coming to X-Box? @#$@#$

-The more I see of the TMNT: Smash Up game the more I think it looks... average. It's got a lot going for it, with the TMNT property and the Brawl people behind it, but its visuals are just busy as opposed to really good and I intuitively sense more of a waggle fest/button masher than Smash Bros. proper. Maybe I'll be pleasently surprised, who knows. Play as skateboarding Mondo Gecko???? Come on people, listen to this guy here!

-I thought after the fantastic Prime games that the Metroid series had hit a design wall. What else was there? They can do their classic 2D or follow the first person Prime design. Well now there's "Other M," and I'm not entirely sure what it is but it looks fresh and brilliant. Not the most thing I'm excited from Nintendo, but definitely their most intriguing offer.

-And the things I'm most excited for would be the two Mario games! New Super Mario Bros, while I doubt will be as good as the classics, will be great for the likes of me. And my favourite game for the Wii, Mario Galaxy, is sequalized. Yoshi's there and that's cool, but I doubt it'll really be anything other than the same game with new levels, but that's fine by me. It's OK to coast for a little while. I'm actually wondering most at what the story holds, as the last one was quite mysterious in a "Little Prince" sort of way. Again, Ross's big recommendation: Make the boss...


Tatanga!

Not familiar with him? He was the alien bad guy in Super Mario Land for the Gameboy back in the day. He also appeared in several Mario comic books.



Nintendo is not like a comic company and not generally used to bringing up old concepts and characters, but they're doing it a bit more lately with Princess Daisy (coincidentally the damsel Tatanga kidnapped) and more recently Kid Icarus. Tatanga is an actual alien, and I'd love for him to be the secret villain in this game. Bowser's already tried to conquer space now, let this guy have a shot!

No longer am I the man (that can’t be right, boy? Something in between?) you knew as Ross May. Or even Ross May B.A. I am now Ross May B.A B.Ed. Tremble at my credentials, mere mortals! I can spell pretty well, and tell you how!

So yeah, I got my education degree the other day.

Now for something completely different...
-I’m a pretty big Futurama fan and have the series on DVD, but haven’t seen any of the new movies until this week with “Bender’s Game.” My quickie review? It wasn’t that great.



Which is a shame because it had a lot of things going for it. The name is inspired, and the basic premise of the gang going into a Dungeons and Dragons world sound like it has a lot of mileage. But I think they flubbed this one. Over half the movie is setup and they mostly comment on the recent-ish issue of high fuel costs. But that’s all there’s to it – apart from pointing out that fuel costs are high for no valid reason thanks to heartless corporation heads, there’s no joke to be had. And the fantasyland section, which should’ve been the main focus, was just going from point A to Z. Fry equating to Gollum and Frodo with a 20 sided die was amusing, but that’s about it. Did the other movies lose their zing like this?

-My sci fi prose story will not be included in an anthology. Booooo. And here I keep writing new stories to improve on what I’m doing. They say now you need what, 40,000 hours of practice time to have relative mastery over an art form, be it drawing, music, acting, writing, etc. That’s 4 and a half years straight. I’ve been doing this seriously since I was around 15, so I must be somewhere up there. Out of curiosity, since I know I have like 3 fans who are not family that come here, who here would read a story by me? Who would BUY a story written by me? Don’t worry, I won’t hold you to it... (sinister look).

If nothing else, my phone's low-res little camera makes uploading pictures easy (my other camera uses FILM - jeez, was I born in 1985 or 1885?)



Weather: Would you believe more snow? On May 19th? For those of you unsure yes, this is quite bizarre weather even for Saskatchewan. Things look serene here, but it was actually windy and there was some awful hale before the calm in this picture.

Prose News: Been editing a sci-fi story. Will be sending it off in a week or less. It's one of those deals where I could say more, but it's not a "done deal" so I always feel crummy if I talk about it and things fall through - which happens a LOT with writers in general, not just me.

Comic News: Marc Jameson continues to draw more of my horror story "Dark Spot on the Water" and has posted a page. Want to know what this is about? OK, it's basically Jaws on a lake. What, that sounds stupid and can't be done? That is a challenge Marc and I would like to accept! Buy it later this year and see how stupid it is or isn't! Don't worry, I'll remind you.

Game News: Playing Metroid Prime 2. It's a really good game, but did nothing that the first didn't (and might even be just a tad less impressive or as well thought out, I can't decide). I have a "stack of shame," meaning games I have yet to play through. This is on the list, and sometime later I need to tackle the third for the Wii.

Hey, Queen Victoria! How excited are you for today being your special day?



Very excited, I can tell!

Guess who finally got a cellphone and can take grainy pictures of things? This guy.

I'm still not entirely excited at the prospect of a cellphone. It'll be handy at times, for sure, but already people who know me have shifted their expectations that I should be reachable 24/7, and have been perturbed when I wasn't. Sigh. Deal with it, society. If you're wondering why I got it then, it's so that I have a work phone for substitute teaching calls.

In writing news, I'm writing two large articles for the next cereal:geek due this summer. James is saying that the next two issues will be focusing on comic books relating to 80s cartoons, so you'll see features on Transformers and Thundercats comics, etc. as well as shows based on comic characters like Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. How did I miss out on that show?

I'm writing, surprise surprise, a Ninja Turtles and Real Ghostbusters article. I have most of these comics and have read them, but it's interesting for me now to try to give their entire runs perspective for the first time. I realise little things, like that the second-to-last RGB comic has the final Samhain story in which the Ghostbusters actually blow him up rather than trap him. If you want to accept it as canon, then the Ghostbusters finally put an end to Samhain.



Where am I going with this? Oh right. Writing about all these comics, especially focusing on the RGB adaptation of Ghostbusters II, reminded me that I have a collection of Topps trading cards. Here are grainy photos from my phone!





These cards are next to worthless, yet I keep them in a nice binder and card sleeves. So here's the deal - I am missing some to make a complete set, but I also have plenty of extras, including stickers. I always enjoy trading, so is anybody interested? Heck, even if you want to START collecting these things, I can give you some. I'm after GBII Topps cards that I'm missing, but I'll go for just about anything (Ninja Turtles cards, Groo the Wanderer, Montreal Expos, heck, Magic the Gathering cards. It's all good).

Don't be shy. If you want some, even a friendly hello and an address might get you some.

Yu Li and I went to Video Games Live last night. It was a lot of fun, and we actually knew several people playing in the orchestra.

This was VGL's 101st performance. Fun things included Martin Leung soloing on piano, a game of Space Invaders by an audience member whose movements were tracked onstage, a Guitar Hero contest and, of course, plenty of orchestral music to songs you don't normally hear with an orchestra.

Apparantly they're busting out some new songs. Two series that were greatly requested, and now a part of the show, was Metroid and Chrono Trigger. Unfortunately I was a little underwhelmed by the Metroid piece. I don't know whether I'm being unfair or not, because on the one hand the series' music is mostly just meant to be atmospheric, but on the other hand it has had some pretty good tunes. I felt that they ended up picking on some of the more boring songs and then just went through the motions of translating it to orchesta. Chrono Trigger faired better, but there too it could have been improved with better transcribing and including a couple different songs (I think it was opening, Frog's theme, Millenial Fair and something else I'm forgetting). Not bad, but jamming in a couple more even for a minute or less would have been great. Plus a lot of the time the harmony drowned out the melody (for several songs, actually). I'm not sure if that was simply poor acoustics or poor sheet music.

Uh oh, negativity. We had fun! Wish they could fit another Mario song in there!

Yesterday it was above 20 celsius. Today? Minus 1 and snowing. Here's my backyard.

Yes, some of the things you have heard about Canadian weather but assumed was just jokes and hyperbole is actually the truth.

Speak of the Devil, or, umm, the thing I was talking about a while ago. Rather than bother to post sketches Marc showed me last week, why don't I direct you to him where you can now see them on his blog? Why not, indeed.

The Happiest Day of the Year has come and gone. I got my TMNT #1, sneakily grabbed the APE comic, but they were all out of Owlys. Nertz.

The Happiest Day of the Year is this Saturday! If you have your comic(s) picked out already, good for you! If not, here are some helpful suggestions from me:

APE Cartoonapalooza - I'll be honest and say this wouldn't be one of my top choices except for the fact that Elders of the Runestone will be debuting in it! This, I'm excited about. Runestone is a comic created by Quinn Johnson, another Ninja Turtles' alumnus. Its self-titled comic will be appearing later, but why not get this first appearance that I'm sure will appreciate in value (Possibly even monetarily! It certainly can't decrease!).

Owly and Friends - Seriously, these are cute. Yu Li and I like Owly, but I've been holding off buying any of his books so I can probably seek them out and get them in person in San Diego.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 reprint - 'Natch. On the one hand there is NO REASON for me to get this as I already have copies, and heck it's even online for free. But on the other hand I have EVERY REASON to get this to add it to my collection of TMNT#1 printings. Well, maybe not every reason, but what do I care? I want it!

And what's the Gemstone Disney comic? Oh, they've stopped. That's a bummer, but hopefully whatever company picks up the classic Disney comics (sorry to Boom's comics based on Pixar properties, I'm not interested) will decide to do a proper complete run of Carl Barks' work.

I want to mention some people. First is Marc Jameson a fine artist who is illustrating a horror story I wrote for Resolution Comics. Marc just sent me character sketches and they're looking great! Four canoeists go on a journey far away from civilisation... Huh, you know it's kind of hard to tease any more. It's short and it's horror, so if I gave away anything beyond the setting I'd ruin everything! I'll ask Marc and the eds later if it's OK to post some teaser images here.

I love making new artistic friends (other friends are OK too). Meet Rolo Ramis, who's got a fun cartoony style (in addition to other artistic talents). We're teaming up for a new project and again, I received some character sketches that makes me very excited! Oh, and Rolo is another person I'll be meeting in San Diego this July!

Good old Pedro Figure continues to bring the heat as he sends more work my way on our "devilish" project. I've seen one nearly finished page complete with colour (which he is phenomenal at!).

Sorry for being so secretive. At least you can check out their sites and see examples of their work so you can get a feel for them. Wow, I've got a lot of things on the go now! Thank goodness I'm out of university!

Today the Empire State Building is being lit up green to celebrate St. Patrick teaming up with King Kong to drive the snakes out of... oh, I mean for the Ninja Turtles. My mother and sister are in New York right now and happened to buy tickets to go up there on this very day. Weeks from now I might post some pictures of this green hued historic event.

In other news, pretty awesome that a live action Ninja Turtles film is in the works (I'll forego linking - find it yourselves you lazy blog readers!). I'm sure everyone will being wondering 1. What the suits will be like (assuming they USE suits and not CGI turtles in a real world) and 2. What the story will be since this is another origin story.

I guess it's likely a full revamp of the movie franchise, which is OK, because you couldn't really do a Ninja Turtles movie prequel unless it was ONLY based around say, the turtles fighting the Purple Dragons. They wouldn't be able to fight the Foot Clan, and the second movie already precluded any possibility of utroms (and sort of by extension Triceratons, etc.). My hope is actually for that, that the movie's story will pretty much be their journey into space and encountering those aliens and maybe the Fugitoid. That would probably make this the most expensive Ninja Turtles movie, but one can dream.

So Corner Gas is over. If you don't know, Corner Gas is the most successful Canadian sitcom in recent years, which brings the number of successful Canadian sitcoms to... three, I think. The reason I'm mentioning it is because it was filmed and set in Saskatchewan, and while that wasn't a focal point of the comedy it was nice to see.



Oh, my one story. On the show Brent would frequently be holding a comic book, so I thought they'd probably enjoy getting a comic by Saskatchewan writer to use as a prop. I sent a copy of Tales in and got some emails from a production person thanking me. The production company then wanted to get a release from Mirage. Mirage and the TV production company both got to talking and didn't like each others' paperwork. I thought it was all pretty bizarre, and goes to show how red tape can get in the way of doing the simplest of things. I guess I wasn't alone either, as Brent Butt had wanted to use comics drawn by Tom Grummett but Marvel made some crazy legal demands just in order to use a Marvel comic as a prop (and not even be shown close up).

Click

Spider-Man's mom is dead.

I always knew you were an ass, Billy.

I'm at it again with the Ninja Turtles anniversary blog here. This will be my last post there for the foreseeable future, seeing as how I can't think of anything else to write about!

Not that this is particularly newsworthy to anybody, but since I'm talking turtles... I've been looking around lately, particularly on the net, trying to fill in some of the missing pieces in my Ninja Turtles' comics. I was pleasently surprised to find a few gems at a store yesterday including Mighty Mutanimals 8 and 9, some Archie Specials, and even the Conservation Corps. of all things (don't worry, I didn't pay much for them). This is all stuff that you can't find online if you tried (or at least I've been unable to), so yay.



Speaking of me being OCD, I finished playing Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages for Gameboy. For those of you who don't know these came out at the height of the Pokemon fad so even Zelda tried to copy the formula by having these two games connect, unlocking secrets and even a new final bossy (hint: it's Ganon). The games were pretty good, but nowhere near as great as my favourite for Super Nintendo - "A Link to the Past." The connecting business is half gimmicky and half worthwhile and interesting, but mostly gimmicky when it comes to swapping mostly useless items like special rings you're supposed to collect. Nothing great about these games particularly standout, but the worst part has to be the boss battles. The bosses are mostly weird looking squiggly things and it's hard to tell when you're hurting them or not.

I just finished reading a collection of all the Bran Mak Morn stories. He’s a warrior created by Robert E. Howard (of Conan the Barbarian fame). Howard’s three brutes with swords – Kull, Bran Mak Morn and Conan – can all be argued as being the same character set in different eras of pre-history.

I started writing a couple of paragraphs explaining Bran but seriously, just go to Wikipedia and read up on him if you’re so inclined. The thing about Bran is that, even more so than Kull or Conan, he represents Howard’s ideals with all his macho manliness but brooding depression ‘cuz society’s crumbling and I’ll just go ahead and kill myself should my mom die. The Picts, of which Bran is the leader, was also Howard’s favourite subject and bordered on fetishism if you asked me (You know, like how those kids today are reaaaaly into Japanese culture. Not that it’s wrong, but seriously kids, maybe you should broaden your tastes).

I really enjoyed his Kull stories and heard Bran was Howard’s favourite so I checked it out and... was kind of underwhelmed. The problem is that, like I said, Bran IS too close to Howard’s own personal thoughts. Kull is cool because it alternates between fantastic action and adventure and Kull musing on surprisingly deep philosophical topics (“Mirrors of Tuzun Thune”). Here, all of Howard’s sexual desires are laid bare (is it funny or sad that I can tell he had a Lolita complex?) and much worse, his racism. Him trying to construct “histories” of ancient tribes is pretty interesting but then he goes and ruins a lot of it by making non-white groups out to be less than human. The only funny thing about all this is that he, being into eugenic theories of the day, makes out the few “pure” Picts like Bran to be the best examples of their race while those who also have a little Gael, Celt and Norse in them look like cave men. It’s the opposite of how genetics actually work, making the most inbred out to be the best specimens (no offence to all the royalty reading this).

I don’t want to sound angry or down on the guy. It’s funny because I really like Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft when they’re at their best. At the same time I recognise them to be such snivelling little emasculated jerks who needed ways to make themselves feel big and strong. Part of that through fantasy and part of it was in assuming the larger identity of their entire culture and race and saying that whites are best. I was talking to James Eatock about this when discussing Lovecraft for Real Ghostbusters and told him, “I admire their work when it’s good, but if we went to high school together I swear I’d be giving them swirlies.”

There's a guest posting by me at the Ninja Turtles' 25th Anniversary blog:
www.tmnt25.com or directly here

That's a cute picture of me as a kid, but apart from me mentioning seeing the first movie as a child it doesn't really fit with the article at all. It's a fun little piece that's supposed to introduce the fact that there are multiple continuities in the TMNT, so it's really for kids who are just familiar with the new cartoon show.

My favourite continuity? Of course I was introduced to the cartoon show first, so it has a special place in my heart. The Mirage comics are awesome ("Return to New York" is my fav turtle story) and have a fantastic origin that's better than all the other versions. Even the movie version, essentially the same, loses a little Shakespearian touch from the abscence of Oroku Nagi. I was so taken with Nagi's character that you can see why I wanted to write "A Ghost Story."

Firefighter dresses as Spider-Man to save child from third story ledge. Awesome.

Not that I really need to say it, because if you bother to read my blog you're probably paying attention to a gent named Tristan Jones (look to yer left). A Tales of the TMNT is currently out by him and he was recently interviewed about it too. I'm sad to say that I have NOT read his latest issue yet (I'll snag it this Friday), but I have psychic powers so I can already tell you that it's fantastic!

No, really! I AM psychic and it IS good!