A dream of extraordinary magnitude

… which is only kinda-sorta funny if you have this funky song rolling through your head.

Seriously, I have a bad habit of being cryptic about things as if anyone truly gives a damn about what I’m doing next. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s how it looks to anyone else. That’s probably the last reason why I operate in vague mode. Usually, it’s from something being a spoiler in a comic of mine. I have loose road map of where most of these character will be and it’s mostly about trying to find the route to use as a story.

Then there’s the irritating reason that I have to be vague in the fan game community. In a few places, I’ve noticed a pattern of things being announced followed by some hack who does a quick, sloppy, poot butt variation of the other person’s idea just so they can be the first to finish it. I can’t post preview work anymore because someone will just swipe it and throw it in their project while pretending that they did it. It’s already happened to me a few times and I’ve just cancelled projects because of it. Here’s an example: the reason why I didn’t post a separate sprite of Archangel, upload the improved version of Spider-Woman or show the animation of that Batroc on this page is because they’re part of the same project I’ve been messing around with for a while. And what sucks is that I can’t even hint at it because it’d be an easy idea to copy even if the chump doesn’t have all the extra stuff for it. As you’ve probably guessed, it does take a lot of the fun out of it in a way. But when I actually finish it and spring it on people, it’s more of a surprise and people seem to dig it a lot more. I’ve traded the strong motivation of immediate public feedback to getting it done before somebody swipes it for a hentai bonus game. Eh, I’ll live.

In much less vague news, I think I’m going to draw each part of that 10K hits pic separately, show most of the parts on their own then digitally put them together. It’ll probably be the bottom one first since it has Blue Beetle and the Monarch in the same place at the same time.

Categories: ScrollBoss, Sprite Edits by PrimeOp

As a Hip-Hop Junkie from the days of giving a damn, I’ve always been fascinated with where samples came from. Hunting down the original songs would cause me to become a fan of the older artists that I’d never heard of before (like O.V. Wright and Lafayette Afro-Rock Band) or clue me in to a song from an old favorite that I’d never heard before (EW&F’s “Bad Tune” and Bob James’ “Nautilus”). If you’ve ever been interested in where the beats and samples come from, I advise you to peep Xombi’s site, the Breaks.com. It’s a huge database that you can search and go, “oooooooooooh, that’s where that’s from!” with every search.

Today, I found this interesting blog that rolls along the same track called Sample Spotters with individual posts that spotlight artists and samples. The main post that caught my attention was about a break I’d heard but never knew the origin of: the ‘Amen Break’ from “Amen Brother” by the Winstons. More than just talking about the sample and it’s use, there’s a YouTube-hosted documentary video all about that break. One very interesting thing about it is how the use of the break solidly mirrors how ideas from Hip-Hop as a whole were filtered into other genres and into the watered-down mainstream culture. Plus, it’s nice when Mantronix and 3rd Bass get name-checked.

Categories: Music by PrimeOp

What a horrible week for a curse. I’m not going to start whining about what a week it was, but I’ll just say that it wore me out and left me needing to catch up on some sleep. I haven’t done that yet, but I’ll get around to it.

I bought more stuff this paycheck than I have in quite a while. While hanging out Raijin and Melanie, it was one of those “lucky find” days. From Splitstone Entertainment (my official favorite used game/movie store on Earth) I found one of those el cheapo 10 pack of martial arts flicks that became a must-buy after seeing it included Seven Blows of the Dragon. After watching 1.5 of the others in that collection, I’m starting ot regret this one a bit. Not horrible but not special, either. I also found an episode from the DiC era of G.I.JOE. It’s the Chunnel episode, the one that most people seem to find for some odd reason. To top it all off, I found a RockVideo monthly “Rap” tape that has Gangstarr’s Mass Appeal from this week’s Funky Friday. On the way back we hit up GameCrazy’s 3-for-$10 deal where I got Run Saber for SNES (an old fave of mine that I sold during hard times long ago), Namco Museum 3 (which I needed for a ScrollBoss feature anyway) and Mega Bomberman for the Sega Genesis. I also picked up the Essential Godzilla trade paperback from the comic shop, but I’ll talk about that another day. Right now, I have more entertainment than I know what to do with.

Categories: Haul, the Haul, Video Games by PrimeOp

Haven’t really been feeling well for a couple of weeks, so almost everything that I’ve drawn looks like crap. Pics of Superman and Green Lantern flying? Crap. Picture of Kunoichi from the Punisher arcade game? That’s crap, too. And the one thing to turn out decent is something for a graphics generator that I can’t even show you yet. My head has cleared up a bit, so I finally threw together a layout idea for the 10K hit pic. Click that lil’ pic over there to see it. It pretty much features the following items:

Top: Doom cold chillin’ on a platform with a force shield, Starscream getting shot at by Space Ghost who is also shooting a wayward rocket.

Middle: the Juggernaut taking on an assault from Adam Hunter (with that Streets of Rage missile launcher that the back-up police officers used) and War Machine.

Bottom: Blue Beetle, Moon Knight, and Ken Masters all about to pounce on the Monarch who will look like he’s about to crap his butterfly costume.

There’ll be changes to it here and there, but that’s the basic gist of it. Don’t think of it as a 10K hits thank you graphic as much as a picture inspired by it. Really, you’re supposed to do those celebration pics about right after the event happens. This one? It’s gonna take a while.

Categories: Art by PrimeOp

Funky Friday is my continuing effort to start the weekend on “the good foot” for myself and anyone else bored enough to read this blog. Even though 75% of the vids from the last go-round being pulled less than one week after making the post, I’m going to take another stab at this.

Souls of Mischief – ’93 til infinity: A lot of people seem to dismiss the West Coast as nothing but brain-dead gangsta rap, but real music fans know better than that. You’d have to ignore people like the Coup, Erule, the Pharcyde, Del and the cats in this video. This brings back memories of hanging outside with my friends like Steve Skinner (R.I.P.), Terry Tyler and anybody else that was around when Steve brought that giant tape deck of his. This joint was always good Chill Tape material.

Gangstarr- Mass Appeal: Quite possibly one of my favorite Hip-Hop songs of all time from what’s definitely one of my favorite groups. It’s hard to choose a favorite from GangStarr, but this one seems to be in most fans’ Top Ten lists. For one, listen to that beat. At a time when lazy producers were looping things that people had heard boozillion times or ripping off classic Marley Marl beats, DJ Premiere pulled less than eight non-repeating seconds from an obscure jazz song’s keyboard solo and made a classic. When I say non-repeating, I mean that part only happens once in the entire song WAS NOT meant to be looped. Stuff like that is why so many Hip-Hop heads love Primo. Meanwhile, Guru threw down some lyrics about what had started getting on the true fans’ nerves. Mainstream Hip-Hop’s zombification had already begun where weak, idiotic lyrical content and those lazy beats I mentioned were taking over the radio. To add insult to injury, a lot of radio stations that wouldn’t play “Mass Appeal” would play it’s instrumental as they told you what pop song was coming up next. Just one of the many reasons that I still hate “Urban Radio” stations.

Method Man – Bring The Pain: I remember already still having my mind blown by Wu Tang’s first album when I first saw this video and how I damn near broke my neck nodding to the beat. That beat is just as “insane/crazy” as the lyrics. Listen to that “Mmm-mmmmmmmmmmm” vocal and the instruments that just lounge in the back. That’s the RZA being a mad scientist again. As usual, Method’s lyrics and delivery are perfect, but a reply on the YouTube.com page reminded me of something. After this video came hit, A lot of other rappers started moving just like that. Such is the power of Tical.

Main Source – Fakin’ the funk: So let’s close this Funkky Friday out with another song with “Funky” in the title. Another favorite group of mine with another prophetic song about commercialized rappers that still rings true. A lot of Main Source fans bought the “White Men Can’t Jump” soundtrack just for this hint at Main Source 2nd album. Unfortunately, the group broke up a while after this. Large Professor still went on to do good solo work and produce cuts for other artists including Nas, who debuted as a guest star on Main Source’s “Live at the BBQ” posse cut.

That’s it for today. Stay funky, party people!

Categories: Hip-Hop, Music Posts by PrimeOp

I did a Dreamhost Clicky McUpgradey with the WordPress blog, so it was looking a bit FUBARed for a bit. All seems to be as well as expected on a blog named Beans vs. Cornbread. If you can see this, it worked and my mention of this was pointless. If it didn’t work, then you probably can’t see this anyway which would make this just as pointless. Then again, who the hell is reading this thing anyway?

I’ll tell you who: spambots. When not eating old people’s medicine, they search the information superhighway for blogs to link to. Apparently, two found mine and one credited the post some other guy. If your so desparate for attention that you have to take credit for this crappy blog, you’ve officially hit an all-time low.

Sad news: YouTube.com had to take down a whopping 3 of the 4 videos from last week’s Funky Friday. You know, unless there are upcoming Kid ‘n Play and K-Solo DVD’s that I don’t know about or BET started showing a decent “Old-School” day while I’m still avoiding that channel, removing the videos is bass-ackwards. If it was from a request from the record companies, then they’re idiots. Having those videos on YouTube.com is pretty much free advertising on one of the most popular websites ever. It’s a shame to think that future generations may never know the glory that is the Funky Beat Puppet.

Categories: Blog business, Music Posts by PrimeOp

It’s a bit creepy how much some of the press releases from Cartoon Network sound more like solicitations in Previews. Lets take a look thanks to ToonZone.com.

Ben-10: Hero Generation

This new series will focus on a slightly older Ben and Gwen as they team up and mentor a group of children who have similar powers to Ben. The age shift will introduce new, more mature issues, but the target demographic will be the same as the original Ben 10.

Ben 10 is a pretty nice cartoon, so I’m guessing that the new version won’t be quite as emo as the press release makes it out to be. This next one just cracks me the hell up:

Kids Next Door: The End

Cartoon Network has announced that their hit series Codename: Kids Next Door will air its series finale this November.

This one-hour special event will focus on the last mission of the Kids Next Door, with one member not returning from the mission.

There aren’t enough pixels in the internet to make an :eyeroll: emoticon big enough to capture what I felt reading that. If only there were a way to give this episode a variant cover. It’s bad enough that almost every single comic arc has to have someone die or ‘never come back’ but having it happen in a cartoon like KND just makes the concept look even more ridiculous. What, are they going to… kill one of the Kids Next Door? If they do, can we get the drawn out death speech in hushed, desparate tones while a string ensemble plays in the background?

dying KND: “Don’t worry about me… **cough** I’m… I’m done for. These wounds… too much. Only slow you down. Just… just take the cookies. Those delicious… buttery Tollhouse cookies that those dirty, damned grown-up sons of bitches tried to hide from us. Us! **cough** Don’t they know who the f#$% we are? We’re the Kids, baby… **cough-cough-wheeze** we’re the kids… ” **head rolls to side and corpse turns grey**
other KND: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
**everyone outruns giant fireball as the neighbor’s house explodes**

Sigh. I miss the good old days when cartoons would just update themselves by adding annoying new characters to appeal to kids but would eventually kill the ratings or get rid of old characters when their toys weren’t being produced anymore. Oh well.

Note: yes, I know that the internet isn’t made out of pixels. So shut it.

Categories: Cartoons, Comics by PrimeOp

For those who don’t know, a “sprite edit” is when you take pre-existing animation frames (sprites) from a 2-D video game and use a graphic program to change (or edit) them into new poses or even new characters. Why use pre-existing sprite? To make the new characters look like they really belong in the game.

– For fun **raises hand**
– To be used in fan/tribute games **keeps hand raised**
– For game site graphics (still raised)
– For message board avatars **tries and fails to pretend that he gives a s#$% **
– For other people to collect and talk about how they have TEH RARE SPRITEZ **glares menacingly**

I started doing sprite edits back in the early days of my ScrollBoss game site just to class up the joint. Eventually, I started using Capcom sprites to recreate characters that I’d love to see in their fighting games. Some pop up on message boards, in sigs and on other people’s sites. If you’ve ever seen a Capcom-style Baroness animation that looks like some guy put WAY too much work into it, that was probably from me. I really got into doing these things back when I had some severe artist’s block just to keep my creativity going. The funny thing is how that’s what the few people that have heard of me know me from while I’m known as ‘that guy that draws stuff around here’ in real life. Gotta thank the M.U.G.E.N. community for that, since the spriters and editors there inspired me to get insane with it.

Anyway, here’s the latest thing that I’ve finished. I started it back in 2004 and just got around to finishing this just as I typed this. Much thanks to SHOH and ryoga&hobbes who gave good feedback that helped make a better looking Professor X.

Yes, that’s a recreation of the Jim Lee cover from X-Men #1. I kept doing sprite edits for that, but the one that held the whole thing up was Archangel. I’m pretty sure the work on this went slowly because of how I lost my ability to give a damn about the X-men a few years back. It’s a long story that I’ll save for it’s own post. The reason that I quit reading X-Men for the first time is too absurd to just mention quickly. You’ll see.

Categories: Sprite Edits by PrimeOp

Between moments of trying to salvage this pic of Hal Jordan and the one of that female ninja, I soothed my mind by gawking at Toy Fare 2007 photos. Seeng as how I wasn’t there and don’t have my own photos, I will utilize my Link-Fu Grip to hip you to the newness:

G.I.JOE: 25th Anniversary Collection – It’s as if Hasbro saw all the cool customs being done with Takara’s Microman and Microlady figures and said, “Hey… why don’t WE do that?” So they’re going to do it to it this year with 25 insanely articulated figures. If you want to see what the mock-ups/prototypes look like, I think it’s only appropriate that you check out the pics that a guy nicknamed “General Hawk” took and posted on this page.

Lego Batman: contrary to what many people on the internet will have you believe, not every fan can shell out over $70 for a set just for the minifigs that are exclusive to it. No, I don’t have the Batcave or Arkham sets or the delicious figures that come with it. As far as paying over $10 for figures from a Bricklink store? No. Luckily, Lego’s going to kick out some smaller sets that have the Riddler, the Scarecrow and the brand new Bane figure as well as a Batman with a dark blue/light grey color scheme! Booyah! Peep the gallery page on the ASM Zine site. Waiting until August will be tough, though. At least I should have the 25th Anniversary G.I.JOEs by then, so my pockets won’t be completely empty.

Categories: G.I.JOE, Lego, Toys by PrimeOp

So the 10K hits poll from Illmosis shook out like this:

Adam Hunter – Streets of Rage 17
the Monarch (Venture Brothers) 9
Juggernaut 9
Starscream (Transformers) 9
Blue Beetle 7
Space Ghost 6
Moon Knight 6
Ken Masters (Street Fighter) 6
War Machine 6
Dr. Doom 6

The only sad thing is that Starscream’s size is making EVERY layout attempt I’ve come up with impossible. As it is in my head now, it’s based in a kinda of a high-tech base, big open shaft with walkways. I can put the walkway fights in the foreground with Starscream towards the back. I’m almost sure that Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) will be facing a very nervous Monarch (“You d***!”) from the Venture Brothers and Doom will be fending off War Machine. Possible dogpile on a still-vlllainous Juggernaut and there may be an X-Men vs. Street Figther in-joke tossed in there somewhere. Yes, I’m going to TRY to draw all 10 characters in the same pic, despite how I haven’t done that since the artist’s block years ago. Prepare for complete and utter disappointment!

Meanwhile, on DeviantArt, I posted a really rough sketch of a female ninja (or kunoichi, if you’re nasty) from the old Punisher coin-op by Capcom. It was a request that I’m in the middle of right now. Hope Gargu likes the finished product.

Categories: Art by PrimeOp