A dream of extraordinary magnitude

While rearranging my cluttered closet to get to my comics, I finally found the box with the 1990’s Black Lightning series by Tony Isabella (Jefferson’s creator) and Eddy Newell. It may have been brief, but damn was it sweet. Instead of going right to sleep, I reread issues one through three and it was like magic all over again. The fact that this run ended so early still irks me because a longer run would’ve cemented more of BL’s status quo here and the recent retcons would’ve been a lot less likely. I want to give this run a post of it’s own one day, but I’m posting because I just found out that Eddy Newell has a site again after thinking it had disappeared from the ‘net. That’s one huge upgrade! I’ll have to peep that out when I’m not working on something because I truly need time to browse. I’m joining that board, too!

Evorgleb from Highbrid Nation (which I just had to add to the Blogroll) inspired some rare envy in me by linking to a great interview he had with Mele Mel of the Furious Five. As always, Mele Mel had some important points about the current state of Hip-Hop. He also dropped a few jewels on crowd psychology and other seemingly-lost arts of Hip-Hop performances. That interview is further proof that the group deserves to be the first Hip-Hop group in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame.

Gotta get back to the artwork. Later!

Categories: Comics, Hip-Hop by PrimeOp

Why is this badly-drawn man smiling? You’ll find out on April 1st, 2007. Well, you’d have to go here then to get the full effect of actually seeing it. Not promising the funny here, but it’ll give you a slightly better understanding on how Nutroll works through one of his side-effects. Yes, there are side effects of Nutroll’s mere existance and the story that you’ll see in late April/early May will explain it all like Clairissa. Best of all, I figured out a way to screw with people’s heads with the preview. Hopefully, doing this will get me back in the swing of art things. We’ll all find out together, I guess. BTW: Smiley McNewsguy over there is now officially named Cliff Bannon. Yeah, that works.

Even though the Vs. Faker generator is on the backburner again, I made a few improvements and added a few people (Chun-Li, Zangief, War Machine, Armored Spidey, etc.). It needs tweaks here and there but it’s still pretty fun to mess around with.

Meanwhile, this is probably the most sickening remake I’ve heard in a long time. I’ve never wanted to punch modern R&B in the face so much in my entire life. I’m serious. It’s sounds glossy, manufactured, and without spirit. I know what you’re saying. “Damn, Op! That’s wrong of you to put unsoulful music in my brain! How I can wash the taste of that commercial out of my mouth?” Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. Didn’t that feel good? Remember that you can never truly realize how great things are until you’ve seen them turn to complete crap.

Categories: Music, Nutroll, Uncategorized, Video Games by PrimeOp

Seeing as how I’m sure this won’t be the last time, I’m calling this theme, “Too busy for a theme pt.1” I’m just going to link to a few videos related to what I’m thinking of right now. Lazy? Yep. I’m working on a story, so this is merely a shifting of the lazy.

Whodini – the Freaks Come Out at Night If you have a station in your area that airs the long-running Soul Train program, watch it this week to see Whodini gettin’ down. To hold you over ’til then, watch that video.

Cameo – Candy Since I’m still funkin’ out to the Cameo CD I got earlier this week, that’s a link to their video for Candy. Why Candy? Because too many people only know Cameo for ‘Word Up’ and those people border on running it into the ground.

Minnie Ripperton – Reasons And now I combine the topics of ‘Soul Train’ and ‘you should know more than one song by this person’ with this clip of the late, great Minnie Ripperton. No, this isn’t the same Reasons that EW&F did. While I’ve been thinking of her classic Memory Lane this week, this is the best non-“Lovin’ You” video I could find (and a damn good one, too).

Sorry for cuttin’ it short, party people, but I have to be productive right now. Y’all have a good weekend and I’ll hopefully have some interesting artwork waiting for you next week.

Categories: Make the Music, Music Posts by PrimeOp

First of all, I need to hunt down whoever it is that’s been beating me in the head with a cinder block as I sleep. That’s just what it feels like right now. It’s as if someone said of me, “And you can’t beat that with a stickball bat!” and some jackass took them up on the challenge. So if the culprit is out there reading the blog, know you this:messin’ with me is a contest that many have entered and few have won. Okay, not really, but I just thought of that line and wanted to have it somewhere before I forgot it.

I was going to post a link to a Davey D story about Immortal Technique being blocked from performing at an anti-War demonstration by a maze of misdirection courtesy of the authorities, but there’s a ton of new stuff that I don’t have time to read yet. I’m dying to read the “Confessions of a BET programmer” stories that I didn’t notice last time. I love the fact that there are sites like Davey D’s and Playahata.com (which I keep forgetting ot add to my redone blog’s link list) out there exposing nonsense and bringing light to some of the positive stuff out there.

I’m working on the April 1st Nutroll preview and it’s pretty news-heavy. I have to keep looking at pictures of news desks and news anchors. The news anchors I’m drawing aren’t just plain characters in my head any more and have taken on a life of their own with frightening results. Some of the page layout may make it impossible to preserve a perfect TV screen shape, but there’ll still be lots of screen graphics cluttering things up just as in real life. More on that later.

Categories: Hip-Hop, Nutroll by PrimeOp

After years of artist’s block, writer’s block and just the overall feeling that I’m about to just go completely insane and lose my groove forever, I finally came up with a GOOD way to start one of my characters’ stories off. No, it’s not perfect and it’s not great. Unlike the other stoies I think it’ll work much better as an introduction. All the other stories just threw too many characters into your face at once. This one? It gives you the basic gist of the main character without a ton of supporting cast clutter while still having a story where said main character gets to do his thing. Which character am I speaking of? This one:

While his section of my website needs updating, you can learn a bit about him here. Ugh, I just noticed some mistakes there that need to be taken care of, too. Oh, and there’s a super old preview of his crazy self here.

There’ll be a goofy 1-page teaser on April 1st to buy me some time and get people in the mood for it. Then, probably in the middle of April, you’ll get your first chunk of an actual story. I’m both glad and scared at the same time because I have no idea if I’ll completely screw this up. Still, doing something is better than doing nothing and I’ve been doing nothing for a long, long time. So… yeah. Ten days until I finally kick this off. Besides polishing up his section of the site, there’ll be other additions to the main spot in April, too. But for the most part, April wil be the month of Nutroll.

Nutroll © 2007 James Beaver. All characters used with permission because, well, I made them up myself

Categories: Comics, My characters, Nutroll, Uncategorized by PrimeOp

BOOYEAH!!! I got my order from Amazon.com in early today. The main course is Justice Leauge Unlimited’s final season. Lacking cable at that time, I missed the entire season except for the last moments of the last episode. I pre-ordered it for $18.99 and I’ll be watching it later this week. With any luck, I’ll be able to round up some other people and make a big whoopidy-doo about it. My love for the 90’s/2000’s DC animated universe runs deep. It’s one of the things that kept my love of comic books alive during a point where the actual books from both DC and Marvel weren’t doing much for me. Until recently, it had the only version of Batman that I gave a damn about. Yes, I know that lots of people love the emotionless, bland Batman that popped up a lot through the 90’s, but I prefer the DCU version a lot more. But JLU brought life to so many other characters that it’s magic fun candy for an old-school comic geek like me. I’m sure I’ll be yammering about this at a later date, but I’m just going recommend that you get JLU season 2 in advance because you know it’s good. It has the DCAU version of the Legion of Doom. I was made to love this. Amazon.com has it for $19.99 now, so get it while it’s still cheap!

As I side dish (and to bump the order up enough to get free Super Saver Shipping), I got something that’s just as tasty. It’s Cameo: the 12-inch collection and more. This kinda/sorta/perhaps replaces the regular Cameo Greatest hits CD that was stolen over 10 years ago. A lot of these seemed to be engineered for DJ use and more club-friendly, but in a good way. In fact, the shortest song on the CD is still over five and a half minutes long. This CD has the extended versions of my favorite non-ballad songs of the group including I Just Want To Be, Candy, and Rigor Mortis. Unlike most people, Word Up isn’t one of my favorite songs by the group only because I like the other songs that more and a lot of people seem only know Cameo for that song. My all-time favorite may be She’s Strange which, strangely enough, gets TWO alternate versions here. The one titled She’s Strange has a lengthy, extended intro and a deeper echo on the synth kick drums that probably vibrated quite a few dance floors back in the day (and probably even now). The second version is called Room 123 (She’s Strange) and features an extended rapping section to it. I love both versions for different reasons, but I like the Room 123 version a bit better. I’m going to be groovin’ off this for a long time. Amazon.com’s reviewer Rickey Wright hit it dead on: “Despite the absence of the anti-Reagan “Talkin’ Out the Side of Your Neck,” The 12″ Collection all but renders The Best of Cameo moot.” Now that I have these exclusive versions, I can skip that collection and get the individual albums. It’s just good to hear Larry Blackmon yell, “OOW!” again.

Categories: Funk by PrimeOp
Tags: DCAU

I got a Bricklink order in the mail that included stuff to improve that building background I’m slowly working on, blue round open-ended bricks (and wait until you see what THAT’S for) and other random parts. From Toys ‘R Us, I got The Imperial Landing Craft set with a $5 off coupon. I didn’t even build the set. I’m still in the middle of separating all the parts into various baggies with a few parts going right into stuff that I’m working on now. In fact, that set gave me two grey tiles that I needed for that building backdrop’s sidewalk. Now I have 5 Stormtroopers which is good enough for any crowd scenes I need to do at this point. This was the biggest set that I’ve ever bought myself and I only bought it because I had a coupon. If I had more money, I probably would’ve gotten one of the bigger Batman sets. If my batteries don’t fully die, I’ll take some more Lego pics this week.

At Splitstone Entertainment in Hermitage, PA, Raijin spotted the mighty Street Fighter Alpha 2 guide by Versus Books and, well, there was no way I could pass that up. More than a collection of tips and combo instructions, it’s packed with official Capcom artwork including the line drawings of some sprites, in-game portraits and cinema scenes. I’m pretty sure this is the same book that I saw once at Babbage’s and said, “I’ll get this one next time.” only for the next time to be about a decade later. It’s worth the wait for the artwork alone. Despite being warned against it, I also picked up the live-action version of Double Dragon on DVD just so I can properly review it for ScrollBoss. While it completely fails as an adaptation of the game, it’s a cute movie for kids that were probably digging TMNT at the time. It’s almost like they were going for a TMNT movie vibe with it. Plus, it has Alyssa Milano in shorts. Besides, nothing is as bad as House of the Dead.

Categories: Haul, Lego, Video Games by PrimeOp
Tags: Double Dragon, Street Fighter

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five are in the Rock and Roll hall of fame. I’m still in shock and I’m sure that other people are insanely pissed off. Personally, I’m proud. The first time that I’d ever heard Hip-Hop wasn’t even Sugar Hill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight, but it was the Message. I’m pretty sure that I heard it first on the now-defunked defunct WDMT FM 108 out of Cleveland. I was just a kid back then, so I thought it was just funk with talking instead of singing. It was also the first song where I’d heard a loud BEEP instead of a word. To this day, I’m still not used to hearing it not bleeped out. Of course, everyone knows that there’s a whole point to the song and I think it’s fitting that the first group to be inducted in the name of Hip-Hop be a group that proved you could break ground, move the crowd and deliver a message all at the same time. After all, the story goes that group member Cowboy (R.I.P.) led to the term Hip-Hop. So today’s music post is dedicated to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

YouTube videos:
The Message – Take every so-called relevant song on the Mainstream Rap charts now, put them all together and they still don’t say half as much as the Message. Period.

Grandmaster Flash in the movie Wild Style

Grandmaster Flash – You know what time it is. A crazy, animated video for one of Flash’s later joints. I’ve always dug this one.

Official site for Grandmaster Flash

I’d like to post more, but I’ve been having CRAZY trouble with anything embedded right now. I’ve restarted my computer 4 times today and I’m not in the mood to do it again. I may update this mofo later tonight if I can get things stabilized. Have a good weekend!

Categories: Uncategorized by PrimeOp

Essential Godzilla – I had a few of the original comics when I was a kid and just had to get the Essential trade with the whole series. Written by Doug Moench and mostly drawn by Herb Trimpe (also the original artist on my favorite Marvel tie-in comic ever, G.I.JOE), it details what something that seems impossible: what would happen if Godzilla existed in the Marvel Universe. Yes, back in the day, many of Marvel’s tie-in books took place in the canonical Marvel Universe .

On the first page of the first issue, breaks out of an iceberg and wrecks up the joint! My friends, that’s how you start off a comic. S.H.I.E.L.D. creates their own anti-Godzilla force led by Dum Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones and Jimmy Woo. They’re assisted by three characters with opinions that correspond to different eras of Godzilla flicks. Dr. Yurkio Takiguchi knows Godzilla as the original destroyer, his 20’s-ish female assistant Tamara Hashioka sees him as the later misguided battler of other monsters while the doctor’s grandson Robert is Godzilla’s number one fan and is much like little Ichiro in Godzilla’s Revenge. Everyone will remind you of a character from an actual Godzilla movie with action hero Woo wooing (I’m sorry!) the beautiful scientist lady and Gabe getting Dugan to admit his grudging respect for the beast. Then there’s the Big G himself who seems to act like a cross between sly, savage monster-battler and the champion of children. So this book is less like a Marvel book that happens to have Godzilla, but a Marvel adaptation of a Godzilla movie with Marvel Characters in it. And I can dig that.

Godzilla’s two year world tour has him trampling a path through S.H.I.E.L.D., the Army, the police, many other giant monsters, Yetrigar (a Kong-sized Yeti), Dr. Demonicus, the original Champions, Devil Dinosaur (who later becomes an ally), the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. He gets shrunken down to the size of a rat (and then battles a rat), travels through time, is pulled into outer space and even gets entangled in cattle rustling story. Yes, I’m serious.The coolest development of the book is the revelation that the anti-Godzilla forces have a secret weapon in the form of a samurai-like Super Robot named Red Ronin. What really impresses me is that Red Ronin was made before Marvel got the license for Shogun Warriors which was also written by Moench and drawn by Trimpe. Either way, you have to give Moench props for even coming up with that. Also, much respect to artists Herb Trimpe Tom Sutton & Ernie Chan. Trimpe had a knack for always reminding you of the insanely large scale these monsters were in. Plus, having to tackle so many random settings and themes in such a rapid-fire rate couldn’t have been easy. issue #23 is one of the earliest comics I remember having (though that comic is long gone now) and is part of the reason that I love thinking about crazy crossovers and shared universe concepts. Godzilla was a crazy comic and I’m all the crazier for it.

It’s not a groundbreaking comic that changes everything forever or a deep examination of how it feels to be loved and feared by a world that will never fully understand you. It’s about Godzilla stomping through the 70’s era Marvel Universe, for @#$%’s sake. If that sounds like your kind of happening, then get the Essential Godzilla from your Local Comic Shop (even if you have to order it through them) or hunt down the individual issues.

BTW: Herb Trimpe has a website and there’s a great fan site dedicated to Doug Moench here.

Categories: Comic Review, Comics, Crossover by PrimeOp
Tags: Godzilla

So I’m using SpellCheck.com to proofread that last entry and Dr. Sakimoto catches an error that suggests Sakamoto. So I immediately panic and think that I’d been another stupid round eye making with the messed-up Japanese names. Her name was supposed to be a reference to something I’m not going to spoil but anyone with enough 80’s points will figure it out. Anyways, I put Sakimoto into Google and the first thing that catches my eye is a Wikipedia link to Hitoshi Sakimoto. The name sounded familiar, but I didn’t know who it was. As it turns out, Hitoshi Sakimoto was the composer for two of my all-time favorite games: Ogre Battle and Final Fantasy Tactics. I love the music from Ogre Battle and fully believe that man did more with the SNES sound chip than most gamers will ever know. So along with Passion Tanaka having her last name come from the legendary Hip Tanaka, Dr. Sakimoto is the second character of mine to share a last name with a favorite game soundtrack composer. I can’t believe that I’m now subconsciously making obscure in-jokes now. You’ll know I’ve completely flipped it if you see Twofold fighting Yuukichan’s Papa.

Anyway, this post isn’t as much for anyone else as much as it is for me since I’d forget all this f I never wrote it down somewhere..

Categories: Nutroll, Twofold, Video Games by PrimeOp
Tags: Ogre Battle