A dream of extraordinary magnitude

I’m sleepy. For those that know me in real life, that’s nothing new because I usually look like I’m going to fall asleep. In this case, I’m sleepier than usual. I’m making more idjit-grade mistakes than usual. It’s like the weird thing that happened to my sleeping pattern got even worse just in time for an early DST shift this weekend. At this point, I’m wobbling around like an 8-year-old strung out on strong cough medicine who is just coherent enough not to knock over his toys. Sadly, that last part applies to both the 8-year old me and the adult me.

People keep asking me what’s up with Nutroll and when he’ll finally get some online comics. What’s up is that I have three story ideas and I’m unsure of which to start with. Besides a remake of the old Escapism story, I’ve had a story idea about a therapy session between ‘Roll and Dr. Sakimoto that’d establish her role. I still call it an idea because I could never decide on how to start it and worried that it’d be too boring of a way to introduce him. That was until I came up with a new intro story idea that’d blend all the early Nutroll basics into one story that wouldn’t bore you to tears. With any luck, I’ll have news (or the story itself) in April.

On Illmosis, I added a slightly updated version of the Mindsight redesign pic and updated the Artists link page. To help spread the word of these two places (not that anyone reads this blog or anything) , I’m also posting the links here:

Nyte Varisector – An artsite/online comic/every dang thing site that belongs to Dynamowolf, one really talented and creative cat. Like Rakim, his style is identical to none and this world is better for it. Plus, his list of favorite music artists is nearly identical to mine right down to including Whodini. Gotta spread the word of any

Titanium Knights – This artist is linking to me, so I’m linking right back at him. Like Dynamowolf, he’s another creative artist with his own comic book universe. Some has a cosmic/sci-fi feel to it, but he has stuff from a bit of everywhere. I really want to see him draw more spaceship designs like the one on this page. .

Check ’em out and give them some love (and a DeviantArt add if you’re on there). Once I “get the lead out” and start producing more artwork at a higher rate, I need to draw some fan art for those two.

Categories: Comics, Hip-Hop, Nutroll by PrimeOp

First, I apologize for not doing a music post yesterday (Friday). I spent the early part of the day trying to make headway on a graphic generator that may be ready about 2 weeks from now (or sooner). As I was gathering video links, a got a phone call and caught a case of the disease that some call SED (Somebody Else’s Drama). Apparently, no one respects the fact that I have a surplus of the crazy and keep offering me portions of theirs. So as long as nothing nutty happens, I’ll have a music post this upcoming Friday. Instead of being playing the vague game with the generator I’m messing with, here’s a pic:

It’s based on the ‘Marvel Super Heroes’ VS. screen, but I’m hoping to have it imitate a few other VS. screens including some that I’ll design myself. What’s irking me now is that I had the player 1 logo working Friday, but it won’t work now. I’ll look for the glitch later in the week. For all I know, it won’t even have the MSH mode by the time I’m done since it’d require MSH-style portraits for the ton of custom characters I plan to add. And while they won’t have custom portraits (yet), they will have custom mini-logos like the ones from MSH and Marvel vs. Capcom. Of course, I’ll have to sneak some of my own characters in the mix, too.

BTW: I finally got to read the new issue of 52. Look, I love this series and I love it by the pound. But it would’ve actually been more of a surprise if that character had lived and not died. I know, everything looks less shocking in comparison to Sobek’s impression of Sir Chomps-a-Lot. It’s just that the concept of a male character’s girlfriend or wife dying to fuel the male character’s rage and guilt has been done so much that it’s almost a given now. Then again, it’s not over yet. Who knows what’ll happen and who will come back by the time it’s all said and done.

Categories: Comics, ScrollBoss, Sprite Edits by PrimeOp

Now I remember that big-deal comic book story that happened yesterday. I’ll be shocked if you haven’t heard about it by now, but not everyone can be the sharpest apple in the knife barrel like I am. Here’s a link to the news story:

Batman Defeated by Joker – Seven Decades of Superheroing Come to End

Diabolical.

When the jackassery of comics has me questioning my faith in (un)funny books, I start to reminisce of those weird days when superheroes were all about the joy and the happy and the fun. But you know what’s always fun? LEGO.

Except for Cap’s motorcycle and shield, those aren’t my originals. They’re mostly from Bricklink purchases that I’ve been making since the Lego Batman line inspired me to rebuild my Lego collection. Luckily, I still have some of my original Legos since both that shield and that motorcycle aren’t that cheap any more. But I’m slowly building a little army of custom figures. Why? Because there’s something fun about it. I’ll have more pics and posts about this at a later date.

Here’s a bonus pic of how Aquaman’s jet boat (based on Killer Croc’s mini prop boat) is coming along.

Categories: Comics, Lego by PrimeOp

Yes, another link to a Davey D blog post. With all the stuff going on in the news now, the site’s become a daily visit for me instead of my old twice a week routine.
RIAA vs. Internet Radio

From getting things yanked from YouTube.com to killing Internet Radio, the major companies are really trying to make sure that the only things we get to see are the main things that they want to shove down our throats. I stopped listening to the stations that played new music back in the mid-90’s when everything started turning to garbage and it’s not getting any better.

There’ve been new rumblings of a live-action G.I.JOE movie again with Mark Wahlberg as Duke. With word that the earlier script included bits like Destro starting Cobra instead of Cobra Commander starting it, I expect to not care about the movie in the same way as I do almost every other live-action comic, toy or cartoon adaptation these days.

You know… there was this other comics-related story that I was supposed to remember, but I’ve completely forgotten about it. Man, I was just thinking about it then it completely slipped my mind. Oh well. If it were really important, I’m sure that I’d have remembered it.

Categories: Music by PrimeOp

First of all, I’m going to hold off on “Everything is Everything” until I’m less busy. I’ve already started scanning comics and taking photos for it, so it’s definitely coming. Despite claiming not to be a daily blog, it’s been daily for over a week now while ScrollBoss has been neglected. As I work on that for tonight and tomorrow then switch back to drawn artwork for the Illmosis update. So, expect posts to be a bit more scaled back while I get productive here. Besides, it’s not like anybody’s reading this anyway.

When I heard about the Payola Settlement in the news, I knew that Davey D would have a post to break it down. , he has a blog post about the FCC giving big business another chance to keep radio in it’s brain-dead state. Apparently, part of the trick is that independant labels aren’t always small companies. Jive Records, which has Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, R. Kelly and Usher, is an independant label. So, really, they don’t have to change their playlists. Except some oldies channels and college stations, most radio stations are garbage anyway.

There’s an interesting topic on Newsarama.com called WonderCon ’07: Gender and Genre about female characters in action-based genres. A lot of good, intelligent points were brought up in the story. Of course, the response thread about the story almost completely derails on page one for multiple reasons. If anything, I’m kind of shocked that the Women In Refrigerators issue (or as I used to call it, ‘Gwen Stacy’s Disease’) didn’t seem to turn up. Yeah, I know it’s an old topic now, but it still happens and there’s at least one more disappointing instance where it looks like it’s going to happen again.

Categories: Comics, Hip-Hop by PrimeOp

So I planned to start this week off with an upbeat post and start a theme about how everything that I like is connected in my head in the same way it is in the minds of many other people out there. Then I saw this news story that I’m about to talk about and decided to do that instead. Why? You’ll see.

Last week, Davey-D drops an article called, ‘Is Hip-Hop really dead?’ that talks about how the mainstream version of Hip-Hop is finally starting to show signs of struggling after years of being creatively stagnant and mindbogglingly mindless. In an MySpace blog version of the article with another related article added, it mentions that says ‘Though music sales are down overall, rap sales slid a whopping 21 percent from 2005 to 2006, and for the first time in 12 years no rap album was among the top 10 sellers of the year.’ You can’t blame music downloading for that, because there are fewer easy methods to get it now than there were a few years before. Here’s what I think happened: the record companies built a marketbase that was easy to fool through means of over-saturation on TV and radio places that mainstream people consider to be cool. Once it’s accepted, the industry can pump out a high quantity of low-quality work with a common theme that’s easy to produce (here, thuggishness) and make lots of cash on a consistant basis. The main problem is that people start to realize that that they’re being fed garbage and move on to something else. Maybe not even another genre of music, but they may start buying more movies, games, books, etc. Why do I think that? Because we’ve seen this already.

One of the reasons that the video game industry crashed in 1983 was a flood of low-quality games. Both Atari and many 3rd party game makers tossed out games that weren’t ready and people began to get burned after buying so many flops. Things were kind of dead until the Nintendo Entertainment System hit with the Big N’s ability to have quality control on their games.

Comics gained a little attention from events like the Jim Lee/Chris Claremont X-Men #1, the controversial Death of Superman and those newsbits of somebody finding a really old comic book and selling it for $241 boozillion dollars. Suddenly, people who didn’t give a damn about comics were hitting comic shops to grab up anything with a shiny cover, a #1 on the cover, some character getting completely mangled in one way or another or various unholy combinations of all these concepts. They started creating more and more extra titles with all these things to get chumps to buy more books. Of course, this didn’t last forever and the speculators left after realizing that they couldn’t start their kids’ college fund with 500 copies of X-Force #1. Not only did the industry loose those marks sales, but they also lost a lot of loyal fans who got tired of being played for suckers. While the industry seems healthy again, you can still see those gimmicks in constant use but with less books and more talent.

For the most part, the same thing happened with various types of toys, collectible trading card and much more. When the business world sees an audience that they can turn into a consistant one, they’ll exploit it in a way that leaves the product lesser as a whole then move on to the next craze. I don’t know what’ll happen to Hip-Hop after this coming storm shakes out, but it really can’t get any worse than this.

Categories: everything is everything, Hip-Hop by PrimeOp

Heh, I was trying to get that last challenge unlocked to get this ring while having the difficulty set to Easy when it has to be on Normal. D’oh! Now I can wrestle in what looks like the Hammerstein Ballroom on steroids. Except for the need to tweak a lot of characters move sets, I’m running out of reasons to avoid doing Create-a-Wrestler mode videos.

Categories: Video Games, Wrestling by PrimeOp
Tags: final fight, Streets of Rage, SvR 2006

Didn’t hit the comic shop last week, so I did so this one.

52 (weeks 42 and 42) – Damn, Sir Chomps-a-lot.

Green Lantern – while I think everyone knew where that character was headed, I dug the issue. Pages 2 and 3 were a hoot, though. Anyone who thought that the series was going to be Hal going back to business as usual was mistaken as quite a bit of each story features Hal having to deal with his mistakes. Hmmm, methinks that Geoff Johns cat is up to something sneaky. I’ll just “Wait and see” with that.

the Brave and the Bold #1 – I haven’t read it yet, but it’s written by Mark Waid and drawn by George Perez. Somehow, I think I’m going to like it.

Essential Ms. Marvel – I just finished Essential Godzilla and this came out just in time for me. I’m not digging much of the current Marvel stuff, but they’re still getting crazy money from me with Essentials.

Also, K-B Toy stores everywhere seem to be getting Marvel Legends Showdown figures in at crazy, low prices and even include the new figures. Picked up Reed vs. Mole Man, Colossus vs. Magneto and the surprisingly good Green Goblin. I was hoping that Hasbro would pick up this line and continue it with their insane knowledge of making good, small figures. Oh well. I’m just hoping to get who I want without having to resort to the internet. I’m not in the mood to get price gouged for this stuff.

Categories: Comics, Haul, Toys by PrimeOp

I was going to do a completely different theme for this week’s music post, but I thought it’d be better if I waited until using that one for now. I have a week-long theme planned that’s related to the subject, so I figure I’d save it until then. Eh, I’m busy anyway. The apt. floor’s damp from the combo of rain melting the ton of snow we had here and the fact that these apts. have NO sub pumps. So they just got done working on that. Then I have to go to work earlier this evening, so I’m short on time. Plus, I have lots of stuff to work on. **strokes chin** Hold up… that it. This week’s theme may as well be work-related. So every video is going to roll like that whether or not working is in the song title. No genre limits this week, either. Dig? Solid.

Ghostface Killa ‘Apollo Kids’ (warning: uncensored version) – Besides being part of the playlist I was listening to today, I’m adding this one because that picture that you see up there comes from this video. No, you never get a clear, straight shot at it, so I took lots of screenshots, warped them, and cleaned them up to get as close as I could to making a normal version.

Big Daddy Kane ‘I Get The Job Done’ (Live on Arsenio) – From BDK’s album “It’s a Big Daddy Thing” comes another joint with more slick word play and references that most current rappers’ albums. It may not be the music video with sweaty women using construction equipment (because you know I looked), but hey, you get to see more of Kane, Scoob and Scrap goin’ off and Kane getting smoove with ladies in the crowd before starting the song.

Public Enemy ‘Brothas gonna work it out’ – Wish I could give you a better link, but I’m just working with what I’ve got. Besides being yet another good P.E. jam, the protest in the video is about the infamous Howard Beach incident. Yes, MTV used to show this back when it still had a spine.

Donna Summer ‘She works hard for the money’ – Allow me to get 80’s on you, even though you were probably expecting this one. Still, I’m trying to mix things up this week. Besides, Donna Summer has a damn good voice.

Daft Punk ‘Harder Better Faster Stronger’ – Remember when Toonami used to be cool and played a bunch of the animated Daft Punk videos in order? If you’re wondering what’s up with the animated video, peep this Wikipedia page about Interstella 5555.

Loverboy ‘Working for the Weekend’ Can you get more appropriate than this one? I doubt it. Did you ever think you’d see Ghostface and Loverboy in the same post? I doubt it. And here it is, defying all expectations, shattering barriers and breaking your brain like an MF.

Time to jet, party people. Be sure to keep an eye on Illmosis this weekend to see a beta color version of that Mindsight picture and maybe some other newness or old newness. Later!

Categories: Hip-Hop, Music Posts by PrimeOp

Going through more of my old artwork, I found a picture that I kinda/sorta forgot about. My memory is a bit more messed up than I let on, so forgive me for fudging the details here.

One of my aunts (Louise?) wanted me to draw a picture of Mickey Mouse in Hip-Hop clothing for the grandkids’ guest room. It had to be postersized and I’d lost the skill to draw at that size after high-school. So I decided that I was going to draw it small and blow it up at Kinko’s. Now, I don’t really draw other people’s cartoony as much as I did as a kid, so this version of the Disney mascot looks… pretty off. Seeing as how I did this in 1998, it could’ve been a lot worse. But if there’s one thing that I’m proud of in it, it’s getting another chance to put a Wu-Tang logo into something. Anyway, it all turned out to be for nothing because I couldn’t get it copied due to it being a Disney character. The person behind the counter told me a story about how Disney would send people to copy shops to try and copy Disney pictures and the ones who did were arrested and rocketed into the sun. Well, not really, but they got in big, big trouble or something like that.

Back then, I had a habit of hiding things in a lot of backgrounds, especially graphitti. Everything from my friends’ names to Mr. Yuk. But more than anything else, you’d see the Wu-Tang logo. After getting that Protect Ya Neck/Method Man single, every pic that I drew with graphitti had a Wu-Tang logo somewhere in it. Sure, sometimes you’d have to squint like an MF’er, but it’s there. There’s a lot more than the ones I just linked to, but they’re even more embarassingly bad.

Mickey Mouse © the Walt Disney company. Mickey used without permission and in the name of fan art. No claims to the mouse are being made here. Please… don’t kill me.

Categories: Art, Hip-Hop by PrimeOp