Comics - Batman, The Tick and Comic Artists

As I devote more of my disposable income towards toys, I have almost given up on collecting comics. At one time, I was buying toys and comics (including Hong Kong comics, translated manga - yeah, it's a crazy time), and the toll was too much. So I decide to cut back (note, not give up) on the comics. I still like the art in comics, so I buy very selectively, only if a certain artist is doing certain mainstream characters.

I keep myself informed by visiting sites like Comics Continuum and NEWSarama. They are pretty informative sites.

DC Comics had just released some preview of their comics arriving in Feb 2007, and Batman #663 caught my attention, because it is drawn by John Van Fleet.

I like JVF's style, and he mixes a lot of black and 1-3 colour tones to bring out the mood, and this complements well with his Batman stuff, which usually is set in a dark mood.

Coming back to Batman #663, it seems that he is using a different style/approach, going for a more realistic or illustrative direction, and less of a comic book feel. It's a nice change, and it is good to see him doing some comic work.

This brings me to another comic book which I saw solicited. It's The Tick's 20th Anniversary Special Edition. Honestly speaking, I do not know much about The Tick, besides being popular in the 90s, having its own animated and live-action TV series and an unsuccessful toy line. Anyway, the only thing I was interested in this issue is the cover artist.

It is painted by none other than Simon Bisley, the versatile artist from UK. His work is the catalyst that started my foray into the comics arena. His painted and line work is absolutely gorgeous. His style has evolved throughout the years - from his early days drawing for Fleetway's ABC Warriors, Judge Dread, painted Slaine, to DC's Lobo, Batman, dozens of comics covers, and collaborations with his friend Kevin Eastman, including Melting Pot and TMNT (yes, them turtles in half shell). His best works were with writers Keith Giffen and Alan Grant. These guys are hilarious. Check out the DC's Lobo, and you know what I mean.

The sad thing is these artists use the comic medium as a spring board, to propel them into the spotlight, and then move on to more commerical work, like music covers, commerical illustrations, game designs, and so on. Artists like Dave Mckean (Sandman, Batman: Arkham Asylum), Kent Williams (Meltdown, Blood Ties, The Fountain). Maybe the amount of money in comics is not fantastic to sustain a reasonable standard of living. Some also could have move on to achieve their personal goals (eg Dave Mckean making a movie Mirror Mask out of his work with Neil Gaiman). So I guess seeing them them making an appearance on and off is good enough, and hopefully they have not totally abandon this industry.

Original articles on the above can be found here:
The Tick's 20th Anniversary Special Edition
Batman #663

Haul of the Day - 03 Feb 2007 Part 2

Saw this at Bricksworld Marina Square branch during lunch, with my colleague shopping for LEGO for her kids.


And later in the day.


This is a series called Creator, and you sort of get pieces that allows you to create x different models.

The one I got just arrived in Jan 2007, and it is the Mini Construction. You can construct a digger, forklift or truck with an open trailer. The digger was too cute to pass on.

Next up, Cool Cars ? Maybe.

Haul of the Day - 03 Feb 2007

After meeting a Finanical Planner this morning to talk about retirement plans, investments and a free cuppa, I took a walk around the shops in Northpoint Shopping Centre, and went to Comics Connection to see if the latest comic book had arrived. No such luck, but I managed to buy one Naruto and Bleach character figures.

The Oreo waffer sticks are a snack. A bit sweet, but nice nonetheless.

The Naruto is a 2-figure pack, with a main character and an animal which they can summon, after signing a contract with them. The figure that I wanted was Kakashi, and his pack of cool dogs, but they did not have it. So I bought the next most wanted figure, which is the Third Hokage and Monkey King Enma.


The Bleach is a also a 2-figure swing set, meaning you can attach this to your bags, handphones, clothings, and what not. I am not sure if these are blind boxes, or if the figures are displayed on the top. I just randomly choose one, and got exactly what was displayed at the top. I do not know their names, as I am not familiar with Bleach, but I got the white hair boy and the lady with the big knockers.

Haul of the Day - 29 Jan 2007

Finally managed to find time again to pop by TFH to make a long overdue payment for a HyperHobby mailaway Masked Rider and pick up the stuff that had arrived a few weeks ago.

Top, left to right:
Transformers Titanium War Within Starscream and RID Optimus Prime, Transformers Classics Jetfire (a surprise find), Kaiyodo Revoltec 019 Convoy, Transformers Classics Ultimate Battle Optimus Prime vs Megatron, and exclusive Kaiyodo Revoltec 019 Ultra Magnus (repaint Convoy).

Also picked up the following, thanks to Shaun.

Had been looking high and low for a Mattel Superman Returns Barbie Lois Lane at clearance price. If anyone can find it, it's good old Shaun. Thanks man ! No more bitching from me, that is until I can find the Mattel Ken Superman. He also picked up a retard 12" naked Brad Pitt while scavenging for naked bodies and clothings for his new 12" fetish. Hoping to kitbash into a Fight Club Tyler Durden.

In the meantime, hop over to his blog and see the cool stuff he has done:
World's Finest
Bruce Wayne
Retard Pitt
Get SHAFT.

Haul of the Day - 23 Jan 2007

Just picked up 2 of the latest action figures from the Ghost Rider movie assortment - Raging GR and Scarecrow.

The Raging GR is quite neat as it has 2 light switches behind its back, which turns on a red and orange led in the head of the figure, besides being super articulated.

Scarecrow is a decent villian, with good articualtion, and currently only a human form of Blackheart was available. Might pick him up later. The lack of a good neck articulation prevented me from sweeping him off the peg. The rest of the figures like Flame Fist GR, Vengenance, Fire Blast GR, Chain Attack GR, Flame Cycle with GR lacked the articulation and any other play value to be worth picking up. Caretaker was no where in sight. Chain Attack GR has a good Nicholas Cage-likeness swappable head (which was goofy looking with the skinny GR body), but the lack of a shoulder articulation also made me put off the purchase for the time being.

There is also the ultimate 12" GR with Flame Cycle, but the price tag of S$99.00 was way to much to invest in. Marvel Legends ICONS only cost S$19.90.

No pictures just yet.

The movie starring Nicholas Cage, is set to hit the big screen in Feb 2007 in US, and should be making its way locally later this year. View the teaser here.

Batman vs Pokemon

The sister usually bring her boys over the weekends when they have the time or in the neighbourhood to catch up with the family.
I was fiddling with TheBatman animated figure, trying to see if there was any way to make the cape cover the figure in those cool comic poses. Not much success with this one.

But after some effort, I thought this is nice, although the cape was too short. By the way, the cape is held behind by a pin.

And the boys, being the boys they are, also wanted a piece of the action. So they lined up the toys they had brought along and requested for a photoshot.

They are mostly Pokemon figures from those gashapon machines, with a rubber snake and Rockman figure thrown in for the fun of it.

Puss in Lift

The weather for the past months have been very wet and cold, with unseasonal rain pouring almost every other day, and sometimes non-stop for days. These caused floods in some areas, and has hit our neighbour up north pretty bad. With such weather conditions, it is no wonder the neighbourhood strays would find alternative refuge.

Haul of the Day - 19 Jan 2007

Picked up these new Star Wars Lego battlepacks from the local Lego store Bricksworld at S$24.90 a box. Only managed to get hold of the 7654 Droids pack, and still looking out for the Clones pack, which incidentally is out at the other departmental stores. So much for being the exclusive Lego store, huh. Anyway, still waiting for the nice lady at the Marina Square branch to give me a call when the stocks arrive.

The Driod battle comes with 4 Battledriods, 3 Super Battledriods and their transport vehicles. These are not new figures, and have been packed along with other Stars Wars sequel Lego sets. Wish they had at least painted one of the driods to be in the commander colours. For those who missed out on the EP1 Battledriod pack, this would be the next best army builders alternative.

Haul of the Day - 07 Jan 2007

Finally found some time off to make a trip to Falcon's Hangar aka TFH to pay for the stuff that came out the last 2 weeks. And surprisingly found that they had a Medicom RAH 12" Jedi Luke for a surprisingly good price. That's why it always pay to frequently visit TFH and be a loyal customer, because the good folks will always pass on good deals to good regulars. They also had a good deal for a Medicom RAH 12" ROTS Darth Vader, but I had to pass, for now.

Pictured above are the stuff I brought back home: SideShow 12" Darth Maul Inclusive Edition (could not resist after comparing with the normal version) and the mentioned Medicom Jedi Luke.

Other hauls (not pictured) included Fewture Getter-3, Marvel Legends ICONS Series 3 Spider-man (one for Shaun as well), a normal set of 6 Marvel Legends Modok series 15 and all 3 sets Marvel Legends Face-Off 2-pack series 1.

A very large haul, and it could have been even larger, if I did not put off some pruchases like SIC vol 35 and KISS Transformers AutoLooper.

Shoutbox Tryouts

Just found out about these niffty shoutboxes that can be added to the blogs, and just in time. I was wondering if there were any features in the blog hosts that allow anyone to post messages without having to reply as a comment on the blog entries. So far I have found 2, one called Chatterbox and another Cbox.

Chatterbox interface looks fairly simple, while Cbox has abit more elaborate features available for its basic free version. There is a premium version (for US$2 per month) which enables more of the features. The basic version is also ad-supported by the way.

I have added a CBox version on the sidebar for trial.

If you have any other recommendations, please let me know.

Bliss and Happy New Year 2007

Just came back from a wonderful wedding dinner of Shaun and his lovely wife Weiping. Congratulations and best wishes to the couple !!!

2006 is now offically last year, and 2007 is now this year (well, at least for folks here in Singapore). Wishing all a new and exciting year ahead !

Magazine Recommendation - International Artist

While browsing through the magazine section of a local bookstore during lunch time a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled onto this magazine. The artwork on the cover caught my attention, and I picked it up and flip through the pages.

The quality of the art featured in the magazine was astounding, and best of all, it offered a step-by-step look at an evolution of a painting from various artists. It also features artists and their works, explaining their inspiration and style. It was a bit difficult to follow as they assumed the reader has some level of proficency in the arts. But nevertheless, the art works featured in the magazine itself is good enough to pick it up.

Bi-monthly, at a cover price of S$14.50. I bought my copy at Times the Bookshop.

Haul of the Day - 18 Dec 2006

Finally, Kinokuniya Singapore announced its public 20% storewide discount on Sunday, but only for a limited 2 day period. I was scanning through the Sunday papers, and did not notice until I saw it in the Chinese edition. It was then already too late for me to go on Sunday, so I had to make another trip on Monday (which is the last day) to the Orchard branch to get the books I had been holding out for so long.



From the top left, HyperHobby December 2006 edition, Graphic Novel The Fountain and trade paperback Essential X-men Volume 1.

I bought HH for a coupon for a magazine exclusive mailaway Medicom RAH DX Kamen Rider No.2 (old version), which TFH will help process for its members.

The Fountain is a movie adaptation of the same name, starring Huge Jackman (this guy is everywhere), about the fountain of youth. It is illustrated by Kent Williams, one of my favourite comic artists (reason why I picked it up).

Essential X-men vol.1 collects some Uncanny X-men story which I read in some UK comic magazines I bought ages ago. The story arc was illustrated by John Bryne, and I was simply amazed by the black and white artwork then. So I had to pick it up for the complete story. But I think John Bryne's artwork now is not as good as what he had done during those days.

I was also contemplating to get Frank Cho's Women, Halo GN (hardcover which I did not really fancy), IDW's Popbot Vol2 or Popbot Collection (a tpb of Vol1 and 2), but my wallet said "Woah, buddy. That's enough for today. Any more and I'll self combust."

DVD - The Batman Complete Third Season

The box art has been released by Warner Bros, and the DVD will hit the streets on April 10, 2007. The collection consists of 2 discs and all 13 epsiodes.

Anime Review - Naruto Movie 2

The show starts off with a battle between the Village of Sand and a mysterious band of warriors from a unique looking ship. As the battle reaches its climax, we move on to see Naruto, Sakura and Shikamaru on a mission to retrieve a ferrat. In the mist, they come into contact with the mysterious warriors and a boy in armour with special skills.

During the battle, Naruto and the armoured boy, Temujin, falls off a cliff and is saved by a caravan.

Shikamaru and Sakura, on the other hand, find themselves standing in front of a huge moving fortress. Shikamaru decides to embark on an inflitration mission to find out more.

As the story advances, it will be revealed that all the elements of Temujin, the fortress, the caravan people, and the man behind the whole scheme of things are all related, and the story cumulates in a secret ruins, and the power it kept.

The animation, compared to the first movie, is much better, and the action sequences are great as usual. The background is more detailed, and adds depth to the movie.
The animation sequence involving Sakura's battle in the ruins seemed to be animated differently.

The introduction of Garaa and Kankurou is a nice touch, and it was great to see them in action. Not much was revealed about the powers of the 3 ladies, but it has some resemblance to Dracula and the 3 witches. And surprsingly, none of the senior Shinobi from Konoha were featured, even for a brief moment.

The story was nothing much to get excited about. It still revolved around the theme of blind faith and ambition, exploitation and redemption, much like in the anime.

Overall, it was an enjoyable movie. Personally, I would rank it as a B-.

Anime - Blocker Gundan (Corps) IV Machine Blasters

I remember when I was a kid, I used to catch this anime religiously, over the Malaysia channel. It was dubbed in Malay, so I did not understand anything. But I still liked the show due to the mecha. They were so cool then, and till todate, I still think they are cool.

I used to draw the robots, and I still have a pencil sketch of Bosuparuda that my uncle did.

By the way, I was able to sing the opening and ending themes, in Japanese, then, even though I had no idea what I was singing.

With the advances in technology, I am able to relive my childhood memories, courtesy of youtube. :)

Opening theme


Closing theme


Now my only wish is to have toys of these mecha remade, along the lines of Bandai's Soul of Chogokin. (And hopefully Japan would release this show on DVD, like that it is currently doing for some of the more popular anime from the 70s and 80s.)

Video - Faithful

This is the short version of the Merc commerical that was aired locally quite sometime ago. It has a very nice background score, and personally the whole commerical was done very nicely. Enjoy.



PS. I do not know the title of the score. I think it was specially commissioned for this commerical. Also, I am just sharing the commerical, and in no way affiliated to the car manufacturing company in any way or form.

Figure Stands

I am not sure why the local toy shops do not stock up on figure stands. The only stands I see readily available are 12" figure stands - those with the adjustable waist/chest grip or Y-shaped crotch supports, not those for the common 6" to 8" action figures. No demand ? I am not sure.

Though, nowadays some toy company are packing in a stand with the figures - Toybiz's Marvel Legends, Takara's MicroAction series, Kaiyodo's Revoltech, and so on, there are still lots of figures that do not come with a stand and it makes posing them a tad difficult.

After searching through the net, I finally found something that was close to a perfect stand: Hasegawa's Flexible Stand Robot type A. It could fit most figures and I see a quite a number of Japanese toy purchasers use it in their toy galleries.

I bought this from a model kit shop, and when I wanted to get a couple more, they were sold out. Effort to source for more from a local toy shop is still in progress.

While searching through the net, I also came across some interesting stands from Hobby Base:

The last one is a mini MS stand which comes with a nice storage compartment to keep those little loose parts you might have.

I actually have the first 2 stands - the first one which I had bought much earlier via a mass order by Shaun from TFH; the second one when I made a trip to Hong Kong in the middle of the year, in anticipation of the BandaixMedicom 1/6 Project Kamen Rider The First 12" figure.

Digging through my stuff, I also found another stand which I was my first stand purchase - a flight base from Kotobukiya.

Haul of the Day - Oct 18

Another eventful and painful haul for today from The Falcon's Hangar - The latest Transformers Classics series from Hasbro.
Top row, left to right: Wave 1 Deluxe series Starscream, Bumblebee, Astrotrain and Rodimus.
Middle row: Wave 1 Voyager series Megatron and Optimus Prime.
Last row: An unexpected purchase. World's Smallest Transformers Dinobots Slag, Snarl and Grimlock from Justitoys.

Haul of the Day - Oct 16

From left to right:
Kaiyodo Revoltech 013 EVA-04 (Silver), World's Smallest Transformers (WST) Sunstorm, Kayiyodo Revoltech 012 Levi from Black Lagoon, Fewture Getter-2, and lastly Sideshow Star Wars 12" Qui-gon Jin for Shaun (again).

This is a killer 2 months due to big items arriving one after another. First MP-3 and MP-4. Then came Fewture Getter-2. Later this week will be all the Transformers Classics Voyager and Deluxe figures, and sometime this week or next will be Hottoys ED-209 from Robocop.

Haze of the Day

Since everyone's posting pictures, and this is the current talk of the town, I thought I also join in the bandwagon. Taken from office window.

Haul of the Day - Oct 14

Well, not exactly my haul, but for Shaun.
Only one on a pile of series 4 Brainiac and Superman, the 2-pack rehash.
Still looking for the elusive Darkseid.


Was on my way to a friend's house to take a look at her new house before all the renovations are completed. Decided to take a detour, and sometimes you just need to take that extra effort to score.

DVD - The Batman: The Complete Second Season

The Complete Season 2 DVD has hit the streets in the USA on Sep 19, 2006.

The 2-disc set collects all the 13 episodes, and has only a disappointing primary extra "Catching Up with...The Batman," a montage of clips -- with episode titles attached -- from the first season.

It's SRP is US19.98, with the appropriate discounts available at the online stores.

Other DVD features like subtitles: English, Spanish, French and audio tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround) are not something to go wild about as well.

Well, it's still a cartoon, and cannot expect much from Warner Brothers. Now will just wait for that 20% promotion at www.deepdiscountdvd.com.

Haul of the Day - Oct 04

1.
2. Masterpiece MP-4 Perfect Edition Convoy
3. Pinky:st rmp001 Nazuna (quite a bland packaging for a Japanese product)
4. Pinky:st Pinky with Rabbit Scooter Ver.2

Haul of the Day

- Ultra Cryo Scourge (repaint Cybertron Scourge)
- Deluxe Smokescreen (repaint Cybertron Crosswise)
- Deluxe Optimus Prime (repaint Beast Wars 10th Anniversary Optimus Primal)
- Deluxe Megatron (repaint Beast Wars 10th Anniversary Megatron)






Power Girl (yes, I got this figure mainly because of the *ahem*) But seriously, this figure is a good sculpt, among the DC Direct figures released so far.




EX Weapon Set MMS Type Rabbit Waffebunny






- Keroro Head Series 3 Trading figure
- Random gashaphon figure from a pile of gashapons

Google Box - Miami Ink

Miami Ink is both the name of a tattoo shop on Miami Beach, and the title of a reality show on TLC which films the events that take place there. The shop is co-owned by artists Ami James (2nd from left) and Chris Nuñez (3rd from left), and also features artists Kat Von D, Chris Garver (last), Darren Brass (4th from left) and Yoji Harada (first). The show exhibits the process and finished work of these entrepreneurial tattoo artists by featuring a number of customers along with their backstory and motivations for their tattoos.

Ami James incidentally was Chris Garver's apprentice, and Yoji Harada is now Ami's apprentice.

Season one is currently being re-run on Starhub channel 16 Discovery Travel and Living, every Sunday 11:00pm.

Have a look, and it will change your perception on the world of tattoo.

Artist - Daniel Dociu

I like this artist's style. It reminds me of Roger Dean (though the style is somewhat different), and the arcade game Darius.

www.tinfoilgames.com

Anime - BLEACH TV Series

Bleach the TV series is currenting screening on the local cable channel (CH 56). Having heard so much rave reviews about the show, which has over taken the ratings from Naruto to be the number one anime in Japan, I decided to have a look. Before that, it has not impressed me much based on the story and animation (after watching one episode sometime ago).

The current show time is 6:30pm, and a repeat on an ungodly hour of 00:30am, 5 days a week, Mondays to Fridays. By now, I have watched about 9 episodes, and frankly, it has not impressed me as much as the first time I watched Naruto.

Maybe this is just a slow beginning, so I will keep watching, as long as I can keep my eyes open. These late night repeats are a killer. I doze off half the time.

The animation is not as good as Naruto, and it is also not as hillarious as Naruto as well. But on the plus side, the animation is consistent. Naruto sometimes tend to have some bad animation. But when an epic battle ensues, the animation is superb.

The opening an closing themes as nice, but again, not as nice as Naruto, in terms of the songs and animation. The only 2 I liked so far is the 4th Opening "Tonight Tonight Tonight" by the Beat Crusaders and the 6th Ending "My Pace" by Sunset Swish. Both are catch tunes and the animation is great !

4th Opening Theme


6th Closing Theme

Music Recommendations - Jay Chou's Latest Release

Wow, it's been so long since I updated this site. I need to get off my lazy arse.

Anyway, Jay Chou has just released his latest album 依然范特西, and the first single is a collaboration with 费玉清 called 千里之外.












A friend's sister actually bought this new album for S$10 ! It's an authorised China version. But I guess you could have gotten it even cheaper if you were in China.

Here's the track list:
1.夜的第七章
2.听妈妈的话
3.千里之外
4.本草纲目
5.退后
6.红模仿
7.心雨
8.白色风车
9.迷迭香
10.菊花台

I managed to listen to a few songs, and frankly, there is not much difference from his previous ablum. Still the fast rap, R&B and slow song mixes.