Things I Liked from Comic Con...or just the past week.

Aahhh, Comic-Con. A word...or two...that just seeps geekiness. Comics, television, film, video games, the works, all in one place. Big announcements, panels with writers and artists, etc. It's a place I've never been and don't really want to until I'm someone who people are asking stupid questions like "Where did you get the idea for The Alternative?" While most of the news from the show so far has just been a bit average, I have seen two things this week that either surprised and found me interested, or caused me to drool like an idiot dog deciding which car to chase.

The first of these was the Ouya, however you pronounce such a bizarre word I can't really tell you other than its probably the worst big name on peoples lips since the WiiU. Still, like the WiiU it seems poised to challenge the industry with some kind of change. In this case its "free video games". While I could easily get excited about such a concept, it's a bit too early to see what is really going to happen. I have gotten a bit ahead of myself so let me step back a bit, because, as anyone who has slogged through this mess of opinionated garbage, I never edit my blogs. It's not like I've ever broken ten readers on a single article anyway.

The Ouya is an indie console for indie developers who make indie games for a buck on cell phones and the like. They are posing the idea that all of the games of our memory were played on the television, in our living rooms. Well, I can't argue there. They are convinced that they can be an industry player too, which is a great thought on paper. Given their position in development, they are missing one very important thing: the big industry names. I don't think we will ever see a Nintendo name on this thing, but I do think that they should have hit up Sega about putting Phantasy Star Online 2 just so they can attach what appears to be a promising game onto their console very early. It won't be hard to get this rolling either, since the console runs on the Android OS.

From the creative perspective, this device is fascinating, in that it seems driven to be a market for independent developers, as the iPhone, and Android cell phones have been for the past couple of years. Ouya is trying to bring the enemy into the very place that other games are trying to keep alive. While I truly detest the idea of bringing a million Angry Birds clones to my television, my indie developer aspirations are fueled by the idea that I don't have to play a game I made on a telephone. I can download it to the little plastic box and give it a spin there.

Tradition and the modern meeting for mass consumption is a nice thought, so let me put the sweet chocolate sauce on this: the console is available to be bought for $100 right now. Just jump over to their kickstarter page (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console), and you can pay for a console early, meaning you have one on launch day, or maybe even earlier. Since they have more than surpassed their goal, you are just insuring that you will jump into an interesting new landscape for gaming.

But I am a touch skeptical...more on that as the Ouya thing develops...

And now that I'm down considering the possibilities of the Ouya, it's time to tell you why I'm due to return to the comic shops in a stupid, gaping jaw, salivating all over Batman back issues and crying in joy when I get home to open it, why yes it's a new Sandman comic story. Not only is it a new Sandman story, it's a new Sandman story written by Neil Gaiman! If that isn't enough to get you excited, then clearly you either haven't read Sandman, or you just don't like it. If it's the latter, I am sad for you, because I loved about 93% of the original run of Sandman. Yeah, there were a few issues that just kind of dragged for me. For the most part though, Sandman is a bulletproof book, and hearing that we are getting more stories of Morpheus, it's a good time to be a comics fan.

Oh, and there is this awesome Brian Wood comic coming out...Star Wars, during the time of the Galactic Civil War...I'm there for that too.

I might have more to say about that one when it starts coming out. For now, I pause, step back and ...hit the post button.

Star Wars Comics

Obviously, I enjoy Star Wars more than the average person does, and this drags me into quite a bit of a mess sometimes. Arguing with Star Trek fans aside, the dirty business of trying to keep up with the canon in some way tends to be the most painful thing that a Star Wars fan has to do. Verbally assaulting Trekkies (Trekkers...whatever) isn't that big a deal in comparison.

Dark Horse has held the Star Wars license for twenty years, and has done a lot with the franchise. From sweet adaptations of the films and the Thrawn trilogy, to recent ongoing works like Legacy and Knights of the Old Republic, they treat the property with a lot of respect, providing readers such as myself with a diverse selection of material to read when I drop by my local comic shop. Then there are the recent books that make my eyes roll directly out of my skull.

Now let me say this first: none of these books are innately bad. They just don't reach the level of quality of the other books from the Star Wars franchise. For example, KOTOR writer John Jackson Miller is writing a new series called Knight Errant, focusing on new character Kerra Holt, a Jedi knight who is going to fight Sith and blah blah blah, oh dear God why is this series about another bloody JEDI! Knights of the Old Republic was a great series, and it ended. Most writers would want to move onto new material, or at least make it seem fresh. Kerra Holt is a largely uninteresting character, and I'm rather bored with Knight Errant, and there's only been six issues. Miller is a great writer, and knows the universe well, so I can't help but wonder why this series is so unbelievably dull.

This isn't the only Jedi focused attempt at cashing in on the Clone Wars television craze. An Episode I precursor about Qui-Gon Jinn is coming up later this year, and I'm not exactly excited about this one either. I'm going to read it, yes, but that doesn't mean I have high hopes. There doesn't seem to be any reason why it should exist, other than to tell another story about another Jedi.

That said, Dark Horse does have two series with Jedi in them that don't irritate me. One of those is Dark Times, a particularly dismal take on the period between episodes III and IV, about a wayward Jedi, redefining his role in the universe after the fall of the Jedi order. Sixteen issues, and it's a far cry from Knight Errant, with great characters, fantastic writing, and everything I love in a good Star Wars comic. The tone of the story sits somewhere between classic Samurai film and a good Spaghetti Western. If you haven't read this one, you are missing out on what is easily the best Star Wars book running.

The other end of the quality Jedi-ish books are the Legacy series, which received an absolutely pointless restart after issue 50, which was supposed to be the finale. Considering the delay of the last issue, I think that there was a decision made somewhere to extend things, and a convenient little six issue mini series was dictated at the proper move. Well, I'm going to say that the mini has been just as good as the fifty issues that preceded it, but it still stings going through my comic boxes, and there is a renumbered ending for the end of a series. It looks odd, and now I'm just showing my insane OCD behaviors, which only exist for my hobbies! Aside from that, Legacy is a blast, riding on the vibe that you are actually supposed to be enjoying this rather unwholesome galaxy that exists when the focus isn't directly on the Jedi. It's also nice to see a Skywalker with personality. We haven't got one of those since Luke Skywalker, and thankfully Cade isn't exactly like his lineage would suggest.

Now that I've got my Jedi bashing out of the way, it's time to poke the giant elephant in the corner with a javelin--Blood Ties was terrible. It's unforgivable fan service pointed directly at the possibility of selling a book just because Boba Fett is on the cover. I am probably in the minority in saying this, but I feel like Fett is far less intimidating since AotC. Gone are all of the possibilities of his origin that could have been far more exciting, just like the neutering of the Clone Wars, which were always hailed as a far more interesting time than the Robots Vs Stormtroopers bit that we got instead. Anyways, let's get back to mark here.

The Darth Vader mini-series running right now is actually pretty good. I have to give them credit here: they are trying something different with the character, which allows him to be the cold hearted killer that we remember from the first film over thirty years ago, all the while giving us the inner turmoil of the past he could have had as Anakin Skywalker, with only one child that shows Jedi potential (nice move on writer W. Haden Blackman's part). Blackman is making strong strides for the quality of writing in the Star Wars universe, although I question his decisions in the production of Force Unleashed II. But that is beside the point. He's doing good things. Next target, please.

John Ostrander, who is responsible for Legacy, is putting a new book out that is set in the classic Rebellion/Republic era. It's called Agent of the Empire, and that's pretty exciting to me. Star Wars usually is at it's best in this era, at least for me. Empire/Rebellion were two fantastic books that delved into territory that hasn't been touched enough--the period between IV and V. There's little information on the series right now other than it's coming out this year, and crowding my box at the shop, along with...

CRIMSON EMPIRE III. Yeah, they are bringing this one back. Here's hoping they reprint the first two volumes, as I missed out on those back in the late nineties, aside from a great article in Star Wars Insider, covering the launch of the series. There is a preview of the series coming out next month in Dark Horse Presents no. 1, so maybe I'll stick a review of it up here.

I also read in Previews this month that there is to be another arc of The Old Republic comics. This hurts me quite a bit actually, as the first six issues were horrible up to merely acceptable in quality. When great things are happening in the Star Wars universe, and this is the stuff that they send for me to read, it's easy to be disappointed.

And that's what is in store for Star Wars fans who read comics this year, and why I'm skeptical. Well, not as skeptical as I could have been. I could just write off the whole franchise right now, claiming that the giant arc focus of the novels makes it almost impossible for me to get into any of the new stuff, and the mediocre selection of comics makes me cringe when I see that I have to drop three more dollars on another story about someone swinging a sword made of light against another sword made of light while talking about how they will be killed and Sith and dull and why am I still typing this sentence? I know I don't have to buy these books, but I will, and hope that they grow into something. I'm just dying for Dark Horse to impress me once again. They've done it, and they do it often, so I just want them to get on with it!

Recent Acquisitions

Just added two complete Sega CD games to my collection, Sonic CD and MegaRace. Also, the beautiful girlfriend added Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow to my collection, which has eaten up my attention for the past four days. It is quite fun, but the story is inconsequential to my experience, and the touch screen stuff is pretty pointless, and breaks the flow of gameplay. I am about half through the game.

Tomorrow is the $1 Box Sale, and I can't wait. Maybe I can put a hurting on those near-complete runs that I have been building for the past two years. Maybe I'll add to the Sandman collection a bit? Any of these things will be exciting. If you are somehow reading this, come down to Fanboy Comics in the morning an check it out.

Alright...bye.

Logistics

I keep reading about Kickstarter, and hearing how everyone seems to be putting projects through this page and installing an audience through this lovely internet grassroots bit that everyone seems to fall in love with. I can't say that I don't support it. As a matter a fact, had I the money to pour into some of these projects, I would do it in a heartbeat, such as Michael Zulli's graphic novel The Fracture of the Universal Boy ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1151517311/michael-zulli-the-fracture-of-the-universal-boy ) .

Obviously, I'm going somewhere with this.

My team of artists are hard at work on getting our webcomic off the ground as I type this, and we're preparing some stuff as a preview to what we hope to accomplish with The Alternative. Also, there is a little mini-series that is currently rushing it's way towards production called Unabducted, which plays with the alien abduction story a bit, and I have loads left to do on it, but it's taking shape. If we can get ahead on the webcomic, it's going to come out this year, all three issues, and possibly a collection if there is interest in such a silly thing.

What I am sitting around thinking about is the possibility of doing a kickstarter fund for Unabducted, obtaining our fanbase for Alt through it's production and sales. Mind you, the sales would be absolutely moot considering if people donate money, I'm going to give them the bloody comic. I mean, I'm not some prick who wants people to pay me five bucks to see something happen, and then another four for a copy of it.

That said, here's the math, and why I think it's actually possible.

500 copies of the book, full color, will cost about 1600 dollars. Of course, there are fees, shipping costs, and other things such as the fact that I'm sure the artists would love to see a few bucks poured into their pockets. If I can raise $2000 through this website over the course of several months, I can line the artists pockets a bit, make the books, and have a name amongst...well...five hundred or so people.

If it's not yet obvious, I'm more interested in building a following. I want people to read this book, The Alternative, and help me find publication for the aforementioned sci-fantasy epic that I'm scribbling away at in several notebooks and on my computer. I'm trying to get started in this tiny little field known as comics, and make a name for myself as a writer.

Of course, all of this would be more likely if I spent more time scripting and writing prose than blogging and other stupid things. I would also have more time for all of it if I wasn't in school. Then comes the other end of the vicious cycle, work. If I didn't spend forty hours of my week at CVS, I could spend that same forty hours working my way through scripts and prose, all powered by my delicious muse, espresso.

Well, the only way to know if this is a good idea is to try it. Of course, I want to have something concrete before I go off trying something crazy like this...alright everyone, stay tuned.