Shiny Bloody Cartoons
Can it be? Am I actually posting two rants on two consecutive weekends? Yes! Not bad considering I was
emitting primal screams over the massive workload I came back to this last week. In any case, as the
title might suggest, this rant is probably on the heavier side, so for those on narrowband, it might
be a little before the graphics finish loading up, and if you happen to be the one person using iCab on
a lousy connection, get ready for a jar when the huge scary pic pops to full size, and give me back that
tee-shirt I let you borrow!
Hmm... Cafepress, purveyor of the cheesy merchandise none of you want to buy sells more kinds of stuff now... I should add more, that or stop posting this futile link.
Moving along, you may or may not have noticed that today's Slime World looks a bit different. This is the result of my playing around with a couple features that were added when I upgraded my incredibly bare bones graphics program. Specficically, I actually used some anti-aliasing, and didn't compress the jpg when saving, thus removing that murky grainy look. I also drew Nt'Billi's eye for the second time ever, breaking from a running gag that nobody ever really picked up on. Anyway though, the main point is that I didn't compress the jpg. If you actually care, send me your opinion on that. Personally, I actually LIKE the grainy murky look my usual jpg compression gives the strips. Seems to give the right texture to the slimes, and it helps mask just how terrible my drawing style is, but if enough of you actually prefer it this way, I'll keep it looking clean. It's no secret that I have no real love for the things, and only keep drawing them to draw people into reading the rants and looking at the scary pics.
Next on today's schedule, I simply MUST tell you all about Johnny The Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez. When my family came to visit this month, my cousin Kristin handed me the compilation of this. It has this whole Tim Burton style of art and humor going for it, which makes it pretty darn amusing, but yes, if you were wondering, it IS about some guy named Johnny who goes around senselessly killing everyone in sight, mostly with knives hooks and chains. That said it's surprisingly dialog heavy, which is noteworthy since for the mostpart, the title character speaks only to the plaster pillsbury doughboys who constantly argue over whether he should kill himself, and the severed head of a bunny he bought fed once and nailed to a wall a year before it starts. It's... interesting. Anyway though, the most significant fact about all of this is that Nickelodeon gave the guy who came up with this his own cartoon. It's called Invader Zim, and it's by far the most watchable thing on the channel right now. Too bad it comes on at the same time as the only show I currently watch religiously. Farscape for the record, which they just started showing from the beginning weekdays at 8 Eastern.
Speaking of cartoons and senseless violence, I recently recieved a copy of Conker's Bad Fur Day, which verified my suspicion that Rare RULES. You've probably heard of CBFD somewhere or other. It began as a cartoony 3D action game with a cute animal mascot as a main character, then upon meeting with a... less than enthusiastic response, it was completely retooled into a cartoony 3D action game with a cute animal mascot as the main character... who drinks, smokes, swears, blows the heads off zombies with a shotgun, urinates on his enemies a couple of times, and makes dirty jokes. Actually, now that I think about it, all the dirty jokes are made by other cute cartoon critters. Upon hearing this, you, like me, probably gave a disdainful glance and continued ignoring the game. If so, let me fill you in on some of the details most people overlook. First of all, the humor that permiates the game is actually funny. It takes a lot to make me actually laugh out loud, and I did so several times while playing this game. Keep in mind that Rare is based in the same country we get Monty Python's Flying Circus from. Next, there's the gameplay. The first half of the game is spent solving bizarre puzzles, that would be right at home in a game like, say, Sam & Max, but with more gorey explosions of barnyard animals. These then give way to some action scenes that really remind you that this game comes from the same people as Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. Then of course the whole game culminates in an absolutely WONDERFUL spoof of a particularly popular movie.
and now...
here it comes...
courtesy of "Delta"...
the only fan submitted scary pic I can recall getting that doesn't involve Sailor Moon...
oh and by the way...
I should probably mention that I finally got a day job...
that'll seriously hinder the odds of me updating this page any given week...
so you have 3 weeks to send me another scary pic before update guilt loses it's influence over me...
here it is...
Neon Genesis Ranmangelion
