Michael Turner

Michael Turner, in my opinion one of the greatest comic book artists of the past 20 years, passed away on Friday after a long battle with cancer. He was only 37 years old.

I had the pleasure of meeting Mike a few times and own a few pieces of his art. He was truly a nice guy, always had a smile despite sitting at a table and signing for hours on end and dealing with the everyday pain of his cancer. He even took the time to show up at last year's San Diego ComiCon, still bald from chemo, to assure fans he was getting back to work and excited to finish his cover series for Marvel and Soulfire #10. The man's talent always blew me a way, for someone who didn't even start drawing in comics until his twenties he quickly became a superstar in the field with Witchblade and his creator owned titles Fathom and Soulfire.

I'm not sure what else to say about this, other than that I'm extremely sad for the loss of a talented artist and all around excellent person. Hopefully you're resting easy now Mike, you'll be missed.

Anime Fest '08

That may sound like a super fantastic Otaku nerd convention in Tokyo, it's really just referring to an anime kick I've been on for the past month or so. It's actually quite unusual for me, I'm not a big anime or manga fan and the art style in general doesn't appeal to me at all. However I've managed to watch two full length movies, complete an entire season of one series and start a second one, with a third in the proverbial queue. Here's a quick breakdown and my impressions of each.


Series - Ergo Proxy
This is the show that started me on this downward spiral. Interestingly enough, I discovered this series by seeing the cover of a DVD at Best Buy. It looked cool so I downloaded an episode when I got home. I watched it and promptly returned to Best Buy to purchase the series. The quick and dirty on the show is this: Main protagonist Real Mayer is investigating a mysterious creature known to her only as a Proxy. Things quickly progress into a dark futuristic view of dystopia and some very deep theological and psychological ideals mashed in with classic Japanese sci-fi. I was very impressed with the animation and thankfully it never strayed into "huge eyes" territory, which is one of the reasons I stay away from most anime. Combine that with excellent voice acting and a satisfying conclusion that made me wish for a continuation of the series and I had found a true gem. I will probably watch through the 24 episode season again just to pick up on details I know I missed the first time around. I highly recommend this.

Movies - Appleseed & Vexille
I'm combining these two since they are both produced by the same studio and are really very similar in most every aspect. For me, Appleseed was more satisfying mainly due to better characters, tighter story and more cooler robots. Robots go a long way in making something cool. Both are visions of a post-apocalyptic Japan (as was Ergo Proxy) which sure seems to be a major theme with Japanese entertainment. Appleseed does a better job than Vexille in explaining the situation at hand and then resolving the story. Vexille really had me going "huh?" for most of the movie, be it with gaping plot holes, completely uninteresting characters and really stretching at times to make us care about anything in the movie. At least Appleseed makes you want to jump in a mech and kick ass, Vexille just makes you want to smack someone. If it wasn't obvious already, Appleseed is my recommendation. I have picked up it's sequel and will post an update when I watch it.

Series in Progress - Witchblade
This series is based on the American comic books from Top Cow. The comic was one of my favorites years ago when Michael Turner was handling the art chores, and recently it's been getting rave reviews under new writer Ron Marz. I had heard of this anime version when it first came out but wasn't really interested until now. Play magazine has given it glowing reviews twice so I figured I'd check it out while my appetite for anime remained high. I'm three episodes in right now and have to say I think I'm hooked. While completely different than the comics, the animation is intense with a building story line of the Witchblade vs escaped genetically enhanced weapons. There's also a certain, ahem, adult flavor to the show, with strategically placed camera shots and the almost erotic manner the main character exhibits while in combat. It sounds like a weird mix and it is, but somehow it's working. I'll update again when I finish the series.

Stuff in the Queue - Blood the Last Vampire and Blood +
The movie (Blood the Last Vampire) and series (Blood+) based on a young girl caught up in the discovery of monstrous vampires and her mysterious ability to kill them. I happened to catch about 15 minutes of this on cable one night and didn't know what it was at all until I saw the same clip on YouTube. Gotta love the intarwebs. The main thing that intrigued me was the vampires. These aren't your romantic, debonair Anne Rice vampires that have been so popular. Rather, these things are nasty, violent, and barely humanoid in appearance. I found them much more interesting and saw great potential for scary stuff to happen here.

So there you have it. I'm sure my anime obsession will burn itself out soon and give way to another push into novels or games, but for now it's keeping me entertained.

Hut hut hut hut....

While not quite as earth shattering as Greg's announcement of a new Beyond Good & Evil game, I was equally excited today to learn there will be a new Tecmo Bowl released for the Wii next year. Although it's overly simplistic and graphically inferior to pretty much every sports game released today, the original Tecmo Bowl games are still some of the most entertaining football games ever. I still fire up Tecmo Super Bowl on my PSP every once in a while (via a nifty SNES emulator).

IGN broke the news and there is next to no actual information about the game other than the confirmation it will be made. I'm still excited though, I haven't really played a football game since EA killed the genre with it's exclusive NFL license and endless boring Madden rehashes. Let's hope it makes creative use of the Wii's motion controls!

Baby Talk and the Holy Spirit

No, that title doesn't refer to the latest Indiana Jones movie or a hot new inspirational self-help book. In reality it's just about a couple of recent, highly enjoyable events in my life. And just to mix things up, I'll start with the last one first!

This past weekend was my daughter Coral's First Holy Communion. For the non-Catholics out there, this is the holy sacrament where a child takes the body and blood of Christ for the first time. Now, I'm not a super religious person, but I do hold to my traditions and this is an important one for all of my family. Cori looked beautiful and she was very poised throughout the entire Mass. She did make me laugh a bit at the end, as she asked me if she could go pee about five minutes before receiving Communion. As much as would have liked to relieve her, there was no way she was getting up at that stage of the game. So, she toughed it out, took her first Communion and then sprinted for the restroom directly after. She always has a way of making events memorable!

The reception was held at our home afterwards and one of the best nights I've spent with friends and family in a long time. Everyone ate, drank, laughed and just enjoyed each other's company for a few hours. We don't entertain at our house very often but I'm glad we did, it was nice that everyone could have a good time in our home. You can find some pics of the gala event here.

Now, on to the second part of my post, the wonderful phenomenon of baby talk. My youngest daughter Camryn is 10 weeks old now, and is quite the chatterbox for such a little person. I'm not just talking about the standard baby cooing that all infants will start vocalizing around six weeks old. This is seriously full blown baby-to-parent communication. I swear she's trying to imitate what we're saying and form words of her own. The eyes are excited, the mouth is working, the tongue is trying to make the sounds and she's chatting away. If her little body were capable of it I'm confident she would be talking in complete sentences already.

Now I know what you're thinking. This is just daddy gushing about his perfect baby, everyone's baby makes noises at that age and no baby can actually talk at only ten weeks. Ok, maybe that's sorta right, but I don't believe it :) I'm pretty sure she knows what exactly what we're saying and is really a little adult trapped in a baby's body. I'm betting her first actual words will pop out in about six months, and it'll be something like "May I have an additional four ounces of that exquisite formula?" Seriously.

Game Review - Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is the latest in a series of games based on and around the events of the original Final Fantasy VII. This game, for the Sony PSP, is actually a prequel to FFVII and is centered on Zack Fair. While he only appeared in flashbacks in the original game, Crisis Core explores his character further and his influence on Cloud and Sephiroth.

The game consists of two main components: the primary Story mode and a side-quest style Mission mode. The story mode is the meat of the game and is where you’ll be getting attached to these now iconic characters all over again. Mission mode, on the other hand, is a long series of one-off mini levels that have you battling for unique materia, equipment and even bosses as you go. There are roughly 300 missions in this mode and each take about five minutes to complete.

In my opinion, Mission mode was a genius addition to the game, especially on a handheld system when 5-10 minutes might be all the time you have for a quick game. Not only can you knock out a few missions and get that all consuming sense of accomplishment, you can also build your character for the encounters you’ll face in Story mode. All of the leveling and equipment you gather applies to both modes of gameplay. Even after completing the main story mode, I still want can’t leave the world of Crisis Core thanks to these nifty little missions.

The gameplay here is actually pretty simplistic. This is real-time combat, not the turn based fare we know and love from most of the other FF games. So, this plays roughly similar to FF XII except you only control one character. You can queue up moves as you fight and scroll through abilities, materia, and potions with the L/R triggers. There are no complex combos or mini-games to learn, however you must understand the type of monster you are fighting and adjust your tactics accordingly. Materia and gear must be equipped before an encounter so this keeps you constantly thinking about how to best outfit Zack as you progress through the game.

Graphically this game is amazing. I’d say it’s right on par with God of War: Chains of Olympus in being one of the top two best looking games for the PSP. The in-game graphics are superb, with excellent characters, backgrounds, monsters and spell effects. The scenes that present the major materia summons are breathtaking and the CG portions of the game are straight out of Advent Children, so they are as good or better than anything you’ve seen in the theater. Most of the in-game cinematics are even done right in the game engine and everything still looks amazing. Square is one of those few developers that can perfectly capture emotion with their animation. I found myself locked into the facial animations of the characters during these scenes, just because they were so perfectly expressive.

As with most RPG’s, Crisis Core is fairly lengthy. I completed the game along with about 50% of the side missions in just over 35 hours, and could probably have done the core game alone in 25. For a handheld title this is pretty impressive, especially considering the tons of in-game and CG cut-scenes packed onto the disc.

Of course, the real reason to play any FF game is for the dramatic storyline. This game does not fail there, and even knowing the gist of what I should expect, Square Enix once again sucked me in with stunning visuals, incredible CG cutscenes and even the humor mixed in with the over-the-top Japanese style dialog. I really enjoyed Zack’s clichéd characteristics, for some reason in these games you just couldn’t have it any other way.

There is a ton of replay value here as well. Once you complete the game you can go back and replay it on Hard mode, while keeping your DMW, materia and stats. There is also the aforementioned Mission mode. There is a final boss in Mission mode not included in the main game, Minerva, who is undoubtedly the most difficult boss in the entire game. Clocking in with over two million hit points, it’ll take a lot of grinding and materia fusing to defeat her. I plan on working my way towards this goal now that I have the main campaign out of the way.

If you are a RPG fan, or a Final Fantasy Fan, or just looking for a great game to play, you should really try Crisis Core. Adam Sessler be damned, this is one of the best games for the PSP and would make a kick ass PS2 game as well.

Is this thing on?

So, um, it's been a while since I've even thought to post here. Not that I haven't wanted to, but this little person, namely my now two-month-old daughter, popped into my life and things just haven't been the same since. I think my brain is just now returning from Super Happy Fantastic Baby Land, so I plan on posting more of my favorite random things here again. I think my first post back will be a game review (shocking!), then some comic book updates (uncanny!) and then whatever falls out of my head after that.

So, I am off to do some writing and pretend to work, and will leave you with a picture of my new favorite distraction.

Foppa Returns!

Some folks may not know this, but I'm a huge sports fan. My favorite professional sports are football and hockey, in that order, but I'll watch the NBA and even some pro baseball if I feel like taking a nap. However, yesterday some news made me giddy about sports again. My home team, the Colorado Avalanche have resigned Peter Forsberg and Adam Foote. Yippee!

Now, anyone that followed the Avs during their glory years from the late 90's/early 00's will realize how huge these signings are. Forsberg was arguably the best player in the world during those years and Foote was the soul of the Avs defense. Of course, neither of them are the player they were 5 years ago, but honestly they don't need to be. This is going to be a huge emotional lift for the players and the fans and it couldn't come at a better time. With the Avs two points out of the final playoff spot it's time for them to make a huge push during their last 17 games.

Whether they make the playoffs or not, I'm more excited to watch Colorado hockey than I have been in a long time.

Recommended Read - The ClanDestine

Today I'm particularly giddy over a fun comic that recently crossed my radar. This title is ClanDestine, a book written and drawn by Alan Davis and originaly published way back in 1994. The title is seeing a new series released this month, but I had never read the first run and figured I'd check it out before deciding to purchase anything new. Thankfully, I was once again pleasantly surprised by the work of Alan Davis.

The story revolves around the Destine family, an enormous family of folks who all have various super powers. At first they appear to be mutants, but their powers are inherited from an immortal and invulnerable father and a mother who was an actual genie. The family lives in secrecy and hides their powers so their legacy will not be discovered. They live by the code of the Relative Stranger Protocol, where everyone has a fake identity and even newer members of the family have no idea who their relatives are and what exactly their relation is. This where things start to fall apart for the Clan Destine.

The main characters in this story are Rory and Pandora, teenaged twins just discovering their new powers who decide to take up costumed crime fighting after school. Of course, as with most teenagers, they end up getting in over their heads during a robbery and inadvertently reveal the identities of their family members. This leads to the death of their "grandmother" who actually turns out to be their older sister, and the dirty family secrets start to flow from there. The story takes off as we meet more Destine family members, learn of their unique powers and relationships as a mysterious evil force emerges intent on hunting and killing the entire family.

What I find the most fun about this series is that it takes place in the current Marvel Universe (circa 1994 at least) yet the Destine family have no desire to be superheroes. There are appearances by Silver Surfer, Spider-Man and the Avengers, but nothing is tied strictly into their individual universes. This gives The ClanDestine a completely fresh slate of characters and situations to work with, which is something seldom seen in a Marvel comic. Each character has a unique personality and the family dynamic is reminiscent of Fantastic Four, where they are at each others throats as often as they are fighting the bad guys.

However, the most enjoyable aspect of this book is Alan Davis. He has such a knack for characterization, both in his writing and his art. Every character has a unique look and the world Alan draws around them is detailed but not distracting. The story moves along a decent clip with just the right amounts of action and back-story. My first exposure to his work was with Fantastic Four: The End which is actually a very recent release in his career but had me hooked on his artistic style and storytelling right away. He's one of those artists that makes sci-fi and fantasy look so easy, you almost forget he's created entirely new worlds and characters right in front of your eyes.

This book is collected in trade format now, but you could probably find it in the $1 bin at your local shop. There are only 12 issues in the original run so it won't be very difficult to put together. I highly recommend hitting eBay or your comic store for a copy of the original series, it's required reading for any Marvel fan.