All posts by Seany Flamingo

Dark Moon Review (Issues 1-3)

Combining two different elements into one can make for some amazing results. Put Wolverine and Spider-Man together and you get Deadpool. Mix burritos and deep fryers and you get chimichangas. (Yay!) Combine horror with comedy and you get Batman Forever. I think my point has been proven. Now introducing Dark Moon, a motion comic that combines horror and science fiction, created by Freematik with artwork by Benedick Bana.

The premise here is pretty interesting. Earth is about to be destroyed (allegedly) and in a last ditch effort to survive, seven(?) people teleport themselves to a moon where they are alone and possibly being hunted.

The addition of music and some sound effects is a very nice touch that definitely sets this digital comic apart from any physical comic. Most of the time the music does a beautiful job of keeping me completely immersed in the comic. However, there are a few times where the music doesn’t quite fit with what’s happening or doesn’t match the tone that the comic has set. For example, in certain parts, when the music leans a bit too far towards hip-hop, it snaps me out of the mood of the comic. Although, even with the few missteps, the music is by far the strongest part of Dark Moon.

dark moon interesting
Interesting indeed. 

Another great aspect of the web comic is the art. Where the artwork really shines is in creating creepy images. The comic isn’t overly gory, but there are some very chilling moments, with some credit to the music as well, that will definitely get a reaction out of you. Bana does a great job of portraying the bleakness and hopelessness of the moon, using different shades of black and grey, with a splash of red or blue; however, there are a few backgrounds that are a bit plain or the same color as everything else in the panel. Also, an image throughout the first three issues shows a far away shot of our main characters surrounded by nothing. This constant image focuses on the fact that these people are trapped by themselves on this desolate moon. The first time was a cool picture, but after seeing it a few more times it became redundant.

dark moon lazy
This looks like a kid scribbled something in Microsoft Paint. 

There was a generic tadalafil tablets huge rise in the sale of the drugs.It is the only medication that has sold in more than 100 countries and has achieved the best selling tag. Treatment:- Treating ED in men involves understand the underlying cause of the online prescription viagra pain and provides for a complete rehabilitation. These curvatures are very often caused on a physical level by myofascial tissue which has become “wound up” by mental and emotional “tightness” and a order viagra you could look here lack of “new” chi energy circulating in those tissues. There are cialis tablets india several ways to avoid this illness Joint Pain, affecting one or more joints is a main cause of many health issues. At times some of the characters look a little lazily drawn.  Everyone wears a full space suit and never takes the suit off (cause you know, space). Because of this, unless you study the character sheet (something that was released separately to help you learn the names and notice the slight variations in the characters’ suits), all of the characters blend into the same person. Each character needs something distinctive to set them apart at a glance. The artist really could’ve taken a page out of the Ninja Turtles books and given each person a specific colored decal or design on their suit. Some of them have slightly different personalities, but nothing too distinctive, except the leader. Nothing here is bad enough to make you stop reading, but if the artwork is what you look for in a comic, then this might not be the best choice for you. With that said,  Bana is an extremely talented artist. Having  to work within the restrictions of a space setting, it feels like he had to hold back a lot compared to his other work.

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The lovely character sheet. 

Now the real problem with this series is the dialogue. Sometimes the dialogue is too cringe-worthy to even keep reading. When every speech bubble after the beginning exposition is something along the lines of “This sucks”, “Look at all of this technology” or ” What do you think? I don’t know what to think”, then there’s a problem. Although, the lack of giant word bubbles does help, a lot.

I don’t mind a horror story not being some deep and moving piece, but I do expect it to at least introduce me to the main characters. Again, unless you read the character sheet, then you will have no clue who anyone is. It’s not even clear at first how many people are in the comic. For most of issue one, I was convinced there were only four characters, and some weird artwork choices made it look like maybe seven or eight. To clarify, I’m pretty sure there are seven main characters. Don’t hold me to that.

Someone may be bleeding to death
Someone may be bleeding to death

Regardless of how good a story might be or intense the situations, if readers don’t care about the characters, or even know their names, then readers won’t care if something bad happens. There really isn’t a  proper introduction until about halfway through issue three, and that’s only for about five of the characters.

Based off of the premise alone, if you’re into science fiction, horror or both, then you should definitely read at least the first issue. I love the inclusion of music into comic books. Like I said, the music is the best part of this series and it really helps to immerse you into the story. It would be the perfect experience if only there was actually a good story or at least decent dialogue exchanges to keep you interested.

Waris: The Poison Ivy Story Fan Fiction

Fan fiction is great for many reasons. It can give any writer a preexisting world in which to tell stories. Or it can allow a story to exist for that random character, whom you see pass by on screen for eight seconds in a film. Here we have a writer telling a story about Poison Ivy, a top villain in DC Comics and more specifically, Batman comics. The title is Waris: The Poison Ivy Story written by Maude Delice.

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The story is kind of all over the place, but in the defense of the writer, it isn’t finished yet. This tale is definitely one told in the same vein as a Tarantino film. This is not a bad thing by any means, and is actually kind of smart. When you are teased with seeing only parts of a story instead of the whole, you’re going to keep reading. It’s the same thing comics do all the time, and since this is based on a comic character, I have no beef with it. I do have beef with the inconsistent writing style. In the same chapter the story can go from detailed dialogue, to a generic scene description, and then end with a paragraph from a novel.

There is definitely a lot of aspects of this story that let you know right away this is from the mind of a fan. A naked woman laid across a bed smoking weed is the first thing that happens in chapter one, and it immediately sets the tone for the rest of the story. Everything, in all of the chapters, is very sexualized: a different Poison Ivy than we’re used to seeing. So far, the story is far beyond (BEYOND!) just the origin story I went in expecting. It’s more of a new take on the life of Ivy.
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While there isn’t much of it here, the art is, a thing. I don’t care for it and in my opinion it doesn’t really capture who Poison Ivy is. I’m sure many out there will love the abstract style that is used, but it just isn’t for me. Whenever pictures do show up they just distract me and take away from the story rather than help.

The best (and most appealing) thing about fan fiction is that the fans are in control of the story. Although it’s generally not for me, I think fan fiction has it’s place and it’s definitely not going anywhere. I’m always up for reading a good story, regardless of who wrote it. This story, however, is not quite there. It doesn’t appear to be close to the end so it could easily pick up. I’ll keep a look out for more of it. If you are interested in checking it out for yourself then you can head over to theivyleaguegrad.tumblr.com and read the first four chapters.

DC Comics: Super-Villains: The Complete Visual History Review

Heroes and villains: two sides of the same coin. Although, one side of that coin is clearly much more important: without villains there could be no heroes, but without heroes, villains would still exist. Look at any battle between good and evil; it’s always the bad guy leading the show. The villain chooses who, what, and when to attack or steal something and the hero just reacts and tries to counter. This chase continues on until one side is ultimately victorious. This isn’t just in comics either. It happens in film, television, books, games, and even wrestling. The bad guys are always the star in these situations. They are the ones dictating where the story goes next, not the hero. That’s why a great villain is important to have, and when it comes to creating an awesome rouge gallery for heroes to fight, DC Comics is definitely one of the best. That brings me to a new book by Daniel Wallace: DC Comics: Super-Villains: The Complete Visual History.

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Even if you don’t read a word of this book, it’s still worth checking out all of the great art. The book is full of the iconic comic covers villains have graced, along with a ton of awesome pictures featuring these characters. The pictures range from the villains’ origins to their current incarnations. Seeing how drastically most of these characters have changed is extremely interesting and is such a great addition—proves my point: comics look so much better nowadays. Also, being able to see how lighthearted most comics were before compared to how serious they all are now is great. Although, admittedly there are some comics now that would benefit from taking themselves less serious, but that’s an argument for another time.

Since I spend most of my time explaining comic origins and story lines to people, the idea of books like Super Villains is much appreciated. Unfortunately, this book suffers from the same problem as others like it: there’s just not enough information about each character. Now I understand you can’t cover every story or appearance of any one villain, but I found myself wondering why so many key moments for these characters were left out and less important moments were included.

There are more DC villains than I can count who are omitted from this book. Sure every bank robber or murderer doesn’t need a page, but I would say Hugo Strange, Amanda Waller, and Paralax all definitely deserve a spot.
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Focus is something this book is really lacking. I can see the ambition here, and it’s admirable. From what I can tell Wallace wanted to include each villain’s history. Not just from the comics, but also from film, television, and games. While the book covers the characters’ notable appearances, you don’t actually get as much info about that character. Instead of talking about every person who has played the Joker, I wish the book focused more on the incredibly messed up things the Joker has done (e.g. how he “created” Oracle). It also would’ve helped if the book focused on either Pre-New 52 or Post-New 52. Instead, we get a mix of both origins for these characters. With the way it’s written, the book reads a lot like a Wiki article and less like the encyclopedia that I was expecting. Considering the lack of focus, the weird mix just makes it even harder to really find out much about these characters beyond (BEYOND!) a few basic points.

Joker

Overall the book is interesting, and while it won’t serve much use to somebody attempting to learn the history of these characters or to someone who already knows the history, it is a great coffee table book. This book has awesome artwork both fans and people who have never read a comic in their lives can flip through and admire, while they wait for you to finish making the chimichangas.

Enter the Tengrade

Tengrade is a tool that allows users to rate various things such as TV shows, movies, and games on a scale of, you guessed it, zero to ten. You can literally rate anything from something as vague as a pen to something as specific as Sal’s Italian Pizza (my awesome local pizza place). Another great feature is the ability to  compare how other users around the world—or just your friends—rate the things you rate and other things you like. If you’re skeptical about dropping the clams on that new game or trying out that new restaurant, then just check the ratings on it and see what others think about it.
Tengrade tornado
There is no app download or anything like that. You simply sign up on the Tengrade site and start giving out grades. Now I think the site is great with its fancy tornado graphs and what not, but the real potential here comes from linking your account to your Facebook and/or Twitter account. Once you do, you’ll have Tengrade on the go. Simply add a Startag (a star followed by a number from zero to ten) after any hashtag and your grade will be recorded, e.g. #Deadpool *10. If you want to know what the world thinks of Deadpool, simply swap out the number for a question mark like so, #Deadpool *? and Tengrade will send you the ratings.

#Deadpool: The World – 10; My Gender – 10; My Age Group – 10
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I’m a sucker for stats and ratings so Tengrade really does speak to me and makes me want to use it. I think it has great potential and could definitely be a great add-on, more so for Twitter users than the Facebook crowd. The downside I see is if it really catches on, my news feed is going to be full of Startags.

#SeanyFlamingo *10

Batman: Assault on Arkham Review

So, you enjoy watching movies involving D-list comic villains, whom you’ve probably never heard of, being ordered around by B-list villains whom you may recognize? Oh and you like Batman movies that really don’t focus much on Batman? Well have I got the movie for you! Batman: Assault on Arkham is the most recent DC animated film starring, nope not Batman, the Suicide Squad. I’ll give you a second to Google them .

Too lazy? Alright. The Suicide Squad is a seemingly random assortment of villains being controlled by the U.S. Government, or more specifically Dr. Amanda Waller, to carry out black-ops style missions around the globe. The entire team is expendable, members who are are able to complete the given mission and make it back alive get time shaved off of their sentence. Not too bad of a deal at first glance.

vlcsnap-2014-08-08-19h01m17s58Allow me to break the ice.

The Squad this time around in Assault on Arkham consists of seven members. They are all relatively unknown to most with the exception of Harley Quinn and Deadshot. Their mission is to break into Arkham Asylum and steal The Riddlers cane, which contains a flash drive. Sounds easy enough except they have to do this without alerting the guards at Arkham or Batman. There is also a subplot involving Batman attempting to find a dirty bomb that Joker hid somewhere in Gotham before it explodes. Typical boring stuff. Honestly the story here is pretty dull all around. The action and some of the one liners are really what you’re here to see, and in that sense it does not disappoint.

For any non believers out there who still think DC’s animated films are for kids, this movie will prove you wrong. It feels like the writers were trying to do everything they could to be non-kid-friendly, with all of the topless women (though nothing is shown) and death that takes place. Let the record show that I am in no way complaining about any of that. It was nice to see this movie go the more mature route, which does make sense since the film takes place in the Batman Arkham universe rather than the usual DC animated universe. This story is set to take place after the events of Batman: Arkham Origins.
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vlcsnap-2014-08-08-19h08m04s248Can you hear me now?

Taking a page from the games, some of the same voice actors were re-used for this film. I can’t help but feel like someone really dropped the ball with some of the casting. Sure the greats are here: Kevin Conroy (Batman: The Animated Series) as Batman, Troy Baker (The Last of Us) as The Joker, and even Nolan North (Uncharted series) as The Penguin and KGBeast. My issue is with the casting choice for Harley Quinn. It’s not that the actress did a bad job, it’s just that her voice seemed off. Since she’s a main character, it was hard to ignore. Now I’m sure most out there aren’t as particular as me and can get beyond (BEYOND!) her voice, but for everyone else it will definitely take some getting used to.

All in all Batman: Assault on Arkham is a great film. It has plenty of action and comedy to keep you interested plus a few throwbacks for those who played the games. How can I not support something attempting to bring the Suicide Squad to the general audience. I highly recommend this to all comic book movie fans.