Tiny Super Heroines

I thought I'd mention this site today, whose address is Better Supes but whose official name is Little Girls R Better At Designing Heroes Than You, because I like the thought process that went behind it: superheroes drawn based on pictures sent in of little girls wearing costumes.

It negates the need, desire and tendency to add unnecessary boobage, cleavage and under-dressing those who would hypothetically save our measly lives. The only quip I have is that they ed up looking a bit like generic comic teens (i.e. default lack of boobage because too young to have them):

But there were instances where the end result was nothing short of spectacular, including one ''evil doctor'' I encourage you to seek out on their site. My personal favourite is this one:

The initial drawing is exactly like the picture, so it really is that girl, and you can really see her giving it her all for whatever cause she wishes to defend or attack; the added 8-bit Castlevania-like video game character design is just added fun.

Big fan of the Pink Knight.

It's Summer In Saiyan

Toledo police have released this surveillance footage, probably because no one was able to catch this crazy woman's licence plate:



It started innocently enough: she really wanted Chicken McNuggets. Really. Intensely. As if her life depended on it, I guess.

Then she blew a gasket and went apeshit. And, to a certain extent, that's cool too. I mean everyone loves Falling Down, perhaps Michael Douglas' good best film. It's when she turns into the Hulk that it goes overboard. Well, when she realizes she can't turn into the Hulk - or as she calls it super saiyan, so when she realizes, perhaps for the first time in her life, that she is not a Dragon Ball character - then she has to throw something to break the teller's window. Good thing she didn't have a gun.

I do not miss working in Customer Service.

Defending Batfleck, Part 2

Instead of writing a full column about Ben Affleck being chosen to be the next Batman and the internet going aflame, I half-assed included it in my Top 10s last week. I threw Christian Bale a (well-deserved) sucker punch while I was at it, because the most-overrated actor of his generation always should take hits.

Jordan Walter at FHM went all-out, though, as you can see here.

A few highlights:

On Daredevil:

But look at it from his point of view. He was paid a ton of money to dress up, fight crime and get it on with Jennifer Garner – nobody in the world would turn that down. 

Yes, it was bad but, it was probably loads of fun to do.

Don’t hate the playa.

On Gigli:

If your superhot girlfriend asks you to star in a film opposite her, you do it. No matter how shit the film is.

He didn’t make this for us. End of argument.

On Bale:

Sorry? Christian Bale was the worst thing about the recent Batman movies. He was overacting, didn’t look like he was having fun and had the most continuity defying yet consistently annoying voice ever committed to celluloid.

The great thing about those Batman movies were Christopher Nolan’s jawdropping set-pieces, Anne Hathaway and awesome people like Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. And the Bat Pod.
Never the Bale-meister.

 I'd substitute Gordon-Levitt for Gary Oldman, but that's just because I'm a man of taste.

Walter also goes on about how Ledger was also decried by the internets when he was picked to be the Joker. Good stuff.

The Photography Of Ian Reyes

Ian Reyes is a photographer from Puerto Rico. He caught my eye recently with his pastiche of superheroes called Heroines, which is awesome. It's also, by far, his best work. Here are a few samples (t-shirt and underwear is a good concept):

A lot of his other works are over-the-top with Photoshop and other effects, and the fact that the images look more like drawings turns me off completely.

I Smell A Crossover

Along the inevitable road to ''One Company Owning All Humans'', Disney announced it has taken over/merged with Marvel Comics. That's right - the empire that once brought critically acclaimed animation (and now only brings you safe, retarded-family-friendly material) has taken over the once mighty and almost fallen but now regarded as safe haven for serious writers place of creation/revisitation comic-book giant, home to roughly 5000 characters.

I guess they can stop stealing from Hans Christian Andersen and other cultures' mythology, at least for a few months.

But we're talking about a corporation that owned Miramax and wouldn't release Kids, Dogma, and Fahrenheit 9/11, arguably three of the most important films of the last 15 years. And I will argue it, if need be, in a later column. Three works of great artistic merit, one that served as a wake-up call to just how fucked up teens were getting in the mid-90s, one by Kevin Smith, one of the best writers (possibly the best dialogue writer) of the past 15 years, and one by money-making renowned documentary filmmaker Michael Moore - not just small names, ones that were sure to make a lot of cash.

But Disney didn't have the balls to stand up against 'parenting' and religious groups who threatened to not watch ABC (a TV network they own) or go to their movies. As a giant in the world of multimedia, Disney should have taken them on - like, really, you're gonna stop your kids from seeing Tarzan? You won't buy them the Buzz Lightyear movie for Christmas? Yeah, right. There's nothing else for them! You'll make them - and ourselves miserable! Go ahead!

But no. At every single occasion, Disney balked, backed, retreated.

Now we're talking about a publisher of comic books that has its own line of adult-oriented story arcs (Marvel Max), writers who have come back into the fold because they're finally free to express themselves completely again (after having departed to Vertigo and Image for most of the past decade), and a full line of superhero movies lined up until the middle of the next decade, in an era when superhero movies are dark, violent, psychological, and deal with real-life issues like war, terrorism, the search for one's self - where sometimes, someone good must do very nasty, evil things to get to where he's going.

And we're to believe Donald Duck and Goofy will let The Punisher torture and kill mob bosses, that Iron Man won't try to hit bag Snow White and catch some sort of disease, that Hulk won't be made into some tender beast who can snuggle up to Pluto?

Let me remind you we're talking about a corporation that turned a (family) movie franchise, and a bad one at that, into an actual professional sports team - and then took its players' names and used them in an animated TV series where they are turned into hockey-playing crime-fighting ducks, including one who sports a mullet. A show, of course, that ran on ABC.

We've had millions of examples how and why these corporations and conglomerates are not Keepers Of the Arts, but it seems even worse when the company in question is one that always pussies out.

The only way this could work out is if ALL these conditions are met:

* Disney has to keep out of all Marvel's decisions
* not the same screenplay over and over while just changing the character
* no songs sang by the cast in the movie
* having the balls to resist 'boycotting campaigns' from religious and 'parenting' groups
* a bit of the old ultra-violence
* T & A
* name directors with free reigns (as Sam Raimi in Spider-Man, Jon Favreau for Iron Man, Bryan Singer for the first couple of X-Men films...)

Only then might it work.