Page Two

Here's the second of the first batch of Buzzboy pages that I'm coloring. I'm getting back into the swing of things, and I think they're turning out nice so far. Two more to go. As always, clicken to embiggen!

Buzzed Because

It's time for another issue of Buzzboy, and I'm back coloring again. I did a few pages for the Free Comic Book Day issue, but wasn't able to do the whole issue because of my work on my FCBD book, a little something I may have mentioned somewhere called Love and Capes.

Anyway, here's the first page. Click to embiggerize!

Bah Wah Grah Na Weep Ninny Bong!

Transformers was an interesting experience. I was incredibly jazzed for a movie that I had absolutely no expectations for. How weird is that? I really wanted to see this film, and didn't care how it was going to turn out.

I've talked about how I like seeing certain movies with my group of friends. This one was funny, that way. My closest two friends and I all had wives or girlfriends who absolutely did not want to see this film. I didn't want to take up a weekend with it. So I suggested the Tuesday night pre-premiere (before they announced a Monday release). It was perfect, I figured... they could put their kids and wives to bed around nine and head out to see a 10:00pm show. The next day was Independence Day, so none of them had to work. Why, it was artful in how perfect it was.

What I didn't expect was how perfect it would be. When all was said and done, we'd bought twenty-one tickets. Two of my brothers came. A couple of friends brought their kids, despite the lateness (and more power to them for that). My cousin was there. A whole batallion of Dulzers showed up.

Counting the after-movie trip to Steak and Shake, it was just five hours of pure fun. And, on a perfectly clear, cool night with the 80's Transformers soundtrack blaring on my convertible driving down an empty street, it was also the hardest time I've ever had driving closest to the speed limit.

So how was the movie? Does it matter, really?

It's decent. Enough of a plot to hang things on, decent characters and decent acting, great effects, great action, and everything I could have hoped for. There was a fair amount of clever to it, too, from working in a catch phrase to quoting the Transformers movie, to one character's interesting way of communicating.

Sure, there was a plot hole or maybe two, but none glaring enough that it took me out of the film, and none I couldn't explain away. I really don't have any complaints about it. Except, well…

Jazz. He wasn't my favorite toy, but he was one of my favorite characters in the cartoon. "Do it with style, or don't do it at all" was his catch phrase, and I really liked that. And, in the cartoon, he was voiced by the late, great Scatman Crothers, who could take the Autobot's few lines and give them a great spin. Darius McCrary voiced him in the film, and while he's a fine enough actor (I liked him in Committed) but, well, he's no Scatman.

Still, if that's my biggest problem, that's no problem at all.

Robots in Disguise

I appreciate cool.

I don't mean gotta have it cool, like the much-beloved iPhone, or slick cool like George Clooney. Just the whole that's just visual or neat or somehow, well, cool vibe. Like this pictured here. It's my brother Mike's car. And, you may notice, it's now an Autobot.

It's temporary, don't worry. At some point I'm sure Mike would like to have a girl in that car. It's some sort of car-art-paint that washes off with soap and water. But I have to say, it's cool.

I love that my family gets cool, too. After fixing my garage door, my Dad went to his house, and Mike asked if he could paint the Autobot logo on his Grand Am. Dad didn't say "Aren't you in your late twenties" or "that's stupid" or "I have better things to do with my time." He said, "That's cool" and then he did it. My family can appreciate a powerful squirt gun or a neat looking car design or some great looking art (wonder why that appeals to me so much). That's one of the things I love about them.

They're cool.

Button It!

You can see here the free buttons that I'll be giving away at San Diego. These are "band button" size (one inch round) and a very popular at shows. I rarely bring any home, and see them pinned all over people's shirts and bag straps. I've designed a new one this year, and will still have some of the older pink design available, too. I'm man enough to wear pink, although not often, but I wanted something a little more boy-friendly, hence the blue background version.

If you're going to be at Comic-Con, or some of the other shows I'm doing this year, be sure to come by and grab a couple.

Guess What I'm Going To See Tomorrow?

I don't expect it to be good, I just want it to be fun. It's going to be a big action version of a cartoon and a toyline I really liked growing up. Heck, my Dad made me a rockin' Optimus Prime costume (if I had a picture, I'd post it) for Halloween one year. I love that they got the voice of Optimus from the cartoons to do the voice again. I am less thrilled that Bumblebee is a Camaro and not a Volkswagon Beetle, but you roll with the punches.

Red Shirts Are For More Than Just Landing Parties

Here's the final design for the San Diego exclusive Love and Capes t-shirt. The front features the artwork you've seen before, and the back prominently displays The Hero Initative logo, and, of course, the website information for your favorite romantic comedy superhero book.

The shirts are available on the website, and then only at San Diego. Pre-order them to make sure you get your size. Or take your chances and get them there for a donation to the Hero Initiative. And please, wear them around the show.

Click on the image to see it biggerated, too.

Kneel Before the iPhone!

So, did I get one? No.

Do I want one? Hells, yes!

Will I buy it? No.

From everything I've been reading about the iPhone, it's living up to its expectations. I really think that the iPhone will raise the bar for cell phones in general. There's a lot of slickness and ease of use to it that people have been craving in a phone. Look, I like my RAZR just fine. It's a really good phone. But it's lousy at pulling e-mail where it won't read some and won't display attachments. Voice mail is decent, but man the visual e-mail on the iPhone will be so much better, so that I can skip old messages.

Heck, how cool is it that you can just buy the phone off the shelf. No asking Chad to grab a phone from some samples, assuming he's not with another customer, and then begin the long phone activation process. Now you can do that from home.

I think the limitations of cell phones are the keypads. Current cellphones have to make everything work using the number keys and a couple of extra buttons. Think of that T9 for text messaging, or triple clicking a button to get the letter "C". The iPhone dodges that problem by creating a redefinable interface where if you need different buttons, you can generate them. (Incidentally, this technology was the theory behind the displays on the Enterprise on Star Trek: The Next Generation.) I think that's brilliant. And, if you can't text by feeling the buttons, that's okay… maybe it'll cut down on the text-and-drive people.

The other thing about it is that it's not for everyone. If you don't travel, don't have a job where you need an array of communication options, then just get a regular cell phone. But, for those of us that travel to a comic book convention every couple of months and run our own business, the idea of being able to check my e-mail from the shuttle from the airport to hotel it's going to be great.

So you're probably wondering why I don't have it yet, aside from having had plans to see Ratatouille (which, by the way, was excellent) that kept me away from an Apple store? Well, it's a first-generation product. I'll let people shake it out for a while and let the fine folks at Apple make it even better. I don't like that it lack voice dialing features, as that's something I use all the time. Yes, I talk and drive from time to time, and being able to say "Call Dad Mobile". And, I think a physical "press to talk" button will be needed, rather than the touch screen, because you'll need an equivalent of the flip-to-talk feature that I have on mine.

And, my Alltel contract doesn't expire for a little while yet. I need to let that lapse as well. I'm waiting for the next revision, which I think will be killer. And if the next generation comes out before the end of the tax year, so much the better.

So how cool is it to be Steve Jobs this week? He releases the iPhone and Ratatouille on the same day.

Drivin' Like the Demon the Drives Your Dreams

My friend Mike Horkan surprised me with some pictures this week. I don't know much about video games. Tetris was probably the last one I played regularly. But Mike's big into them, and recently got Forza Motorsports 2 for the XBox 360. You can customize the cars in the game, but you can't import graphics. Everything's done with a series of pre-designed images and polygons. Mike was surprised by this because he'd seen some really creative and detailed paint jobs for the cars online. Mike became intrigued with overcoming the limitations of the graphics editor and the idea of "wouldn't it be cool if Thom had pictures of a Raider-themed race car."

I was blown away with what Mike did. He placed the decals on a Mitsubishi Eclipse, given that I drive one myself. (They didn't have a Spyder, though.) It looked great, and I sent Mike a response about how, if I got a car painted like that, I could write it off. And then I mused about putting the decals on a Pontiac Solstice which is currently one of my favorite cars on the road. The next day, some new pictures showed up, too.

I think they look great and wanted to share. Who knows, maybe my next car will look like this? (Click on any image to see a bigger version.)

So What Do You Do For an Encore?

You start the next one.

Well, not really "start" so much as do the cover. This lets me advertise it in the back of #5, and I have to have it done soon anyway, as it'll be time to send it into Diamond for the solicitation.

The story for #6 actually came as I was starting to work on #5. And it's an ending I've been planning since about the time I started the book entirely. Hopefully, I'll be able to execute is as well as I hope. As for what the book is about, here's the solicitation copy from the back of the as-yet-to-be-published #5...

Amazonia's latest book reveals her past with Mark, and Abby gets to sell it in her store. Plus, an ending that will change everything!

'Fess up, you really want to read it now, don't you?

To warn you, too, the plan is to take a break, go on hiatus as the kids say (if the kids live in Hollywood) after issue six. I've done six solid issues in a year and a half, and while it's been fun, I'm starting to char from the burnout. My tentative plan is to re-emerge with issue seven for Free Comic Book Day, but we'll see how that goes. Why, there's a whole San Diego Comic-Con to deal with before then, and, as always, that could change everything.