Happy Birthday Nicole and Judy

Two very special Leaguers have their birthdays this weekend. Happy, happy birthday to both Nicole and Judy (Jamie's mom).



The only cake we felt was appropriate for a Nicole birthday



And here's a picture of the Helen Corbitt cake Jamie made for Judy

Bully, the little stuffed bull, is at ComicCon. He's doing a phenomenal job covering the Con from the floor.

Here's the first post, and here's the second.

Batman: Brave and the Bold Trailer

Oh my Awesome.

New kid-friendly Batman cartoon coming this fall. Batman: Brave and the Bold



And did you see the guest stars? Plastic Man? Green Arrow? BLUE BEETLE!!!?

I know there will be many more guests, as I've heard Aquaman will be on the show. I think the idea is the same as the 70's-era "Brave and the Bold" comics. Batman + guest star, rotating almost every week.

I am quite psyched for the kids (and me). This looks like so much fun, and the design work on this clip is really spectacular.

Coffee with JenIn

Facebook is funny. Not only have I recently got back in touch with Mere, but I'm also now back in touch with a former KOHSer, JenIn. I haven't seen much of Jen since her Freshman year at UT (she's a year behind me), but as I understand it, she's got all kinds of book learnin' under her belt these days and is still in Austin.

Anyhoo, I'm grabbing coffee with her tomorrow, if anyone wants me to pass along a message.


ComicCon is On

Comic Con International has started in San Diego, and once again, I am not there.

That's okay, though, because you can usually get all the Con news I'd care about within 8 hours or so on the interwebs.

There was some good information on what us Superman comic fans can expect.

And Johns and Van Sciver on Flash. (That Flash image alone gives me hope)

Johns and Morrison are saving the DC line of comics, in spite of itself. Apparently the reception for Trinity (Busiek) and Final Crisis (Morrison) is pretty mediocre, according to reporting on the DC Nation Panel. Honestly, I've loved my Final Crisis reading, so I'm not sure what the deal is there. Trinity... may not be my cup of tea. Which is weird, because I do like Busiek's stuff, and it stars Bats, Superman and Wonder Woman.

I'm also increasingly excited about the reporting and images for DCU Online. Holy smokes, does this look like fun. (And, Hey Sony Online Entertainment! I'm available!)

They also had this to say about character design:

When asked about the creation of customizable characters, Chris Cao explained that there would be two different ways to generate an avatar for the game: a “free form method” that is completely customizable and an “inspired method” that allows for theme based concepts to be employed which allow a player to be “like Batman if they want to be.”

Rad.


Hello, Dolly!

It rained like crazy here today. And by crazy, I mean in brief, violent spurts on and off throughout the afternoon and evening. We need the rain. That's good. Unfortunately I think it messed up the travel today for Jamie (coming back from San Marcos), KareBear (coming back from New Braunfels), and The Admiral (flying back in from Brazil). I think Jamie was stuck on a 2 mile stretch of road for about an hour and a half today. Apparently a bus drove into a semi and spilled oil all over I-35.

But its also been so @#$%ing hot and dry here this summer, we needed every drop of the deluge. Austin gets its water from the Edwards Aquifer, which sits under the town. If it doesn't rain in Austin, we don't have water. When I lived in Phoenix, the city was living under a sort of mass denial in regards to their water sources and would become agitated if you pointed out: (a) we're using more water here than is probably smart in the desert, and (b) we're sort of wasteful with the water here in Phoenix, what with things like that cannon fountain in Fountain Hills, and the blue-dyed ponds in all the posher neighborhoods (seriously, gross).

Anyone whose lived in Central Texas for a while is pretty aware of the water issue. Sometimes you let your lawn die, because you'd rather take showers and have drinking water. And we tend to get our dander up when developers try to pave over the recharge zones or run-off areas. It isn't some crazy environmental issue, so don't get your political dander up. This is pretty straightforward stuff. If we want to have drinking water, we have to be careful with our natural spaces and consumption. And we have to be a little happy when the rain comes down.

Smash Comics!

A little while ago I did a post over at Comic Fodder on how today's comics might relate to kids.

One of the things that I mentioned was that I thought was that kids might not have spinner racks at drug stores, but they do have internet connections. A little while after I posted the column, I was contacted by the team at SmashComic.com. They're doing an all ages comic, and, seriously, this looks like a lot of fun. Maybe in the spirit of "HeroBear and the Kid", with a pretty sharp injection of Calvin & Hobbes' "Stupendous Man".

There's not a ton of content up yet, but from what I see, I absolutely love the art style. It's a great mix of cartooning and superhero-style artistry. And the design for our title character is perfect.



So, parents, kids, Leaguers... Check it out! I think this is really cool not just from a storytelling perspective, but from a distribution model.

Unemployment Chronicles: I need a job

I apologize for the radio silence the past few days. I don't have a particularly compelling reason WHY I was unable to post. I just sort of looked at the blogger editor and that flashing cursor, and, man, I had nothing to share.

Sometimes being jobless means there's very little going on. Then, last night, I was struggling with a post for Comic Fodder, and finally finished it up tonight. I feel the post is a little incoherent, as I had to give up several times and come back to the post, but hopefully I made my point.

Working out

I started working out this week for the first time in two years. I've made two jabs at running since I moved back, but I get bored running, so I'm trying some exercises that I can do in the house that I used to do at TKD. Unfortunately, this has meant that the past two days, my abs, neck and tri-ceps have hurt. Hurray, exercise.

Unemployment has meant that I'm buying cheaper food and getting out of the house less, which means I'm a bit concerned about atrophying into a person-blob. And while I know Jamie would still love me if I turned into Jabba the Hutt, I think I can do her a solid and not just merge with the couch (although Jeff the Cat would make a nifty Salacious Crumb analog).

I'm also getting tired a lot earlier at night, which I'm figuring has to be a good thing.

I dunno. I don't mind a certain panda bear shape, but when I start looking like "My Neighbor Totoro", it's time to start cutting back on the potato skin sour cream bombs.

Bat Commentary of the Day

I've also been pondering how to follow up on some of Steven's comments from a few days ago regarding his reading of The Dark Knight. By and large, I agree with him. I don't think it's unique to DC's pantheon of characters that their bigger characters and their conflicts can draw out these kinds of readings. Maybe Spidey or Cap could do the same at Marvel. But I do think that characters who've become modern myths, such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman (and even Flash and GL) lend themselves to working as both icon and character in a way that other superheroes may not.

I really, really want to see the movie again. And maybe that'll get me going on that second post on Dark Knight. We'll see. It's also in IMAX here in Austin, so I suspect that'll be my excuse for going back to see it.

I'm also enjoying seeing people actually take to Batman as I've known him since the mid-80's. Not all writers handle the character terribly well, or even seem to get the character entirely as he's been defined for the past 30 years. But it's gratifying to see a film maker who is seemingly unconcerned that someone might laugh if he takes the character seriously (and let's be honest, that's what happened with the Schumacher movies), and to see people discussing the movie the same way Bat-geeks have discussed Batman and his rogues gallery all their lives.

TV I've Been Watching

BBC America has been running episodes of "Spaced", the Simon Pegg sit-com from a few years back. Comic geeks have known about it for a while as Pegg's character is a comic artist/ asst. manager at a comic shop. So there's some reference to comics, etc... but mostly its just pretty funny, so far.

I've also been watching a LOT of "Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares". It's a weird show as I really know absolutely nothing about cooking, and I've never seen "Hell's Kitchen". But, I always end up watching shows about people in the workplace (I find the vocations of others endlessly entertaining in small bursts), and I think its interesting to watch people have to actually think about what they've been taking for granted as part of their process and go through the mental change required to keep their business from imploding. Food just happens to be something everyone touches to a degree, so you can keep up.

I don't know if I even recommend the show, because, seriously... its a show about restaurants being run into the ground. But its probably better for me than Jerry.

The Job Hunt

Here's my basic job hunt schedule:

Monday - Pretty much all day, on and off while I'm awake. This can go from 11:00 AM to 2:00 AM. A few hours for dinner.

Tuesday - Usually from 1:00 - 5 or 6:00. Usually again after 11:00 PM.

Wednesday - Maybe some in the morning.

Thursday - 1:00 - 4:00.

Friday - By the end of the week, you've seen the postings for the week and you're not seeing much new. I'll look again, maybe Sunday, but with how things seems to work, the posts mostly go up Monday and Tuesday, with a decreasing number of new listings after Tuesday, slowing down to nothing by the weekend.

Things that blow my mind:
-When employers won't let you just upload your resume and want you to fill out their weird form
-The Craigslist postings where they neglect to tell you how to contact them
-wonky websites that fail multiple times after you spent all the time filling out the weird form
-a list of skills and attributes, degrees etc... that anyone would be proud of, and then listing a salary somewhere near the poverty line (see: UT)
-filling out a job form, and then realizing you took the bait for some spammer before Craigslist flagged the post
-Jobs listed in Austin, which really aren't

Things that are nice:
-Sites where you can upload your resume and cover letter
-job descriptions that make sense
-job descriptions with a salary range listed
-Sites that have a follow up question or two to make sure you're the right candidate to begin with, and nobody is wasting anybody's time
-call backs

Comic Fodder

There's a new post up at Comic Fodder, where I wisely describe what DC needs to be doing for their movie projects, and why.

Here.