Finally, an Oscar-Caliber Video Game Movie

Make up your own Jonah Hill joke.

Carry On, My Skyward Sword

The latest Zelda game, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword hit stores this past Sunday, so I'm posting this watercolor illustration I just finished last week as a birthday present for a friend.

"Treasure Everything"
Watercolor & Ink on archival paper
18" x 24"

I have nothing snarky to follow up with, mainly because I haven't gotten around to buying the game yet (I was in the green room of the 2011 American Music Awards on Sunday when the game came out! I should probably do a post about that! But I'm lazy with an exclamation point! "Lazy!" the musical!). Anyway, I'm sure I'll have a snarky comment to make once some nerd in a Best Buy outfit sells me the game. Until then, just enjoy the art minus the snark.

Comic-Con 2011 - Saturday: The Dorkly Hallows

Saturday at Comic-Con is the biggest day of the show, and here's the photo roundup including Domo creator Tsuneo Goda and highlights from the 2011 Masquerade. If you like half-naked women with the clothed half being some sorta geeky superhero outfit, check out the pics after the jump.


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Comic-Con 2011 - Thursday, Part 2: Breaking Dawn

Stupid hotel internet went offline so the complete Thursday report never posted. Anyway, you can see the rest of what went down at Comic-Con on Thursday, July 21 (Elijah Wood, slave Leias, Phineas & Ferb, Designer Toy Awards and more) after the jump.

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Comic-Con 2011 - Thursday: Nerdageddon

I survived Thursday of Comic-Con 2011, so here's my photo roundup of the highlights including Monster High, Adventure Time, Transformers, The Playboy Club, cosplayers and more. 
Read more after the jump» 

Comic-Con 2011 Exclusives - Our Faves

Comic-Con 2011 is two weeks away, so we're sending Jason on his annual trip to San Diego to report on the convention, panels, premieres, masquerade and after-parties. When he's done canoodling with girls dressed like the cast of Sucker Punch, he'll be stocking up on the exclusive toys, giveaways, art prints and comics to ensure that Hands in the Air headquarters looks like it was decorated by 12-year-old Star Wars nerds.

So what should convention geeks spend their money on besides deodorant, food not found in a 7-Eleven and etiquette lessons? Don't get your metal bikini bottoms in a bunch -- our picks for Comic-Con International 2011 exclusives are listed after the jump.

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Comic-Con 2010 - Saturday: Cosplay & Effect

Saturday at Comic-Con is all about the big celebrity panels and the masquerade (and a reported nerd fight involving a stabbing in the face). BioShock costumes! Sid & Marty Kroftt! Billy Dee Williams! Chicks in skintight PVC outfits!

Keep an eye out for these pics (just don't stab yourself doing it) after the jump.

LEGO DUPLO Gallery, Pt. 2

Ronald McDonald


The Jolly Green Giant


A Target employee


A UPS delivery person


Marge Simpson


Snooki from Jersey Shore


Kid 'n Play


Edward Cullen from Twilight


Muno from Yo Gabba Gabba!


SpongeBob SquarePants


Yoda


A ninja


An embarrassed ninja


Mr. Fantastic


The Little Mermaid


Super Mario Bros.


Video game arcade

Comic-Day 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Friday at Comic-Con!



10:37am @pantsarama: There's a dude dressed as Skeletor at Comic-Con, but he's fat. It's one instance when "big-boned" could be accurate

I saw the real Stan Lee, but this dude's costume was pretty good. He's talking to the Silk Spectre. That character (both versions) was probably the most popular outfit at the show.

11:00am @pantsarama: Stan Lee just walked by and most Comic-Con kids didn't notice. It could be because he wasn't wearing his trademark Members Only jacket

Joseph Fiennes and John Cho at ABC's FlashForward panel. It's something about people blacking out, seeing flashes of their future and then ending up at White Castle.

1:01pm @pantsarama: Dominic Monaghan made a surprise appearance at ABC's Flash Forward panel. Penny from Lost is also on that show. I hope Nikki & Paulo aren't

Transformers in costume. Bumblebee is totally hot for that Coke fridge in the background.

Characters at the Bandai booth promoting Katamari Forever.

1:16pm @pantsarama: Fun fact: If you yell "Hey, nerd!" at Comic-Con, 10,000 people will flinch and crouch into the anti-wedgie defensive position.


1:49pm @pantsarama: Too soon? Click the link in a month then.


6:05pm @pantsarama: I met one of my fave artists @taramcpherson who signed&drew in her @darkhorsecomics book for me @comiconlive.I'm outta @ symbols for the day

Pan's Labyrinth maquette.

6:10pm @pantsarama: Ran into friends outside Comic-Con. They ignored me at 1st cuz they thought I was 1 of those annoying flyer people. Nope, I'm just annoying

Madame Tussaud's wax Wolverine statue made its debut at Comic-Con. Wax claws!

Storytelling R.I.P.

Storytelling, as we knew it, is over. The very idea of telling a story has been part of the human condition since man first tamed a T-Rex and rode it around, forcing other primitive humanoids to listen to his ramblings or face the jaws of his besaddled dinosaur. Since then, it has been refined. A young, Hebrew slave in ancient Egypt invented the first setting -- "anywhere that's not a fucking desert" I believe it was. An elderly woman in Elizabethan England founded the concept of character with her invention of a sexually promiscuous grandmother who seduced teenage boys by day and fought lesbian ninja vampires by night. In 1957, an American inventor named Philip Boroughs, previously known as the creator of the horseless pony ride, invented the typical plot structure found in stories everywhere even today.

All this time, the concept of story was being crafted by our collective consciousness, smoothed like a small stone at the heart of a raging river. But now that stone is so smooth it can split atoms, because storytelling has reached its zenith!

Don't believe me? Then let me present four pieces of evidence that I have recently run across.


Exhibit A: Rock Monster


For so long now, Sci-Fi Channel movies have been knocking on the door of true greatness. House of the Dead 2 alone nearly killed all storytelling forever. I don't even need to go into the innumerable ways in which Mansquito has informed modern storytelling and reminded us all how awesome Corin Nemec is. But with Rock Monster, Sci-Fi Channel was finally able to synchronize its storytelling Swatches and create the ultimate tale of hope, loss, love and triumph.

Imagine, if you will, a simpler time, when warriors battled wizards with magical powers that looked like CG effects made by guys who went to one of those colleges you see advertised during Maury. One such warrior managed to stab one such wizard right in his one such chest and the wizard died...or did he? It might shock you to learn that, in fact, no he DID NOT. Instead, his evil wizard spirit was absorbed by the very land upon which his corpse fell and thus, the Rock Monster is born. The Rock Monster is doomed to slumber until such time as the sword that killed the wizard is disturbed.

Now tell me, have you ever in your life heard a better setup for a story? No, you have not, because it's impossible to create one. It can't be done.


Exhibit B: Dolph Lundgren's Command Performance

Dolph Lundgren has almost killed storytelling about a bazillion times almost single-handedly. Rocky IV? I Come In Peace (about, I swear to God, an alien dude that injects people with heroin and then sucks their blood -- ends with the line "But you're going in pieces!")? Universal Soldier? Masters of the motherfucking UNIVERSE? Well now, he has done it. He took the bloody corpse of storytelling from Rock Monster and is about to beat it Ivan Drago style with a film that he co-wrote, will direct and star in. Dolph plays a rock and/or roll drummer putting on a concert for the Russian President when terrorists strike, meaning it's time to beat some skins -- some HUMAN skins, and all of the sensitive organs underneath them! Jason wants someone to be impaled by a drumstick, and I concur. This is set to be the best movie about drumming since the porn version of Drumline.

Beware of the gratuitous 8-minute solo in the middle of this movie.

Exhibit C: You Later


Exhibit D: 50 Cent: Blood in the Sand

Here's how this video game's plot came to be:

Game Developer 1: Oh my God! Guys, did you see the title of the new Indiana Jones movie? Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? AWESOME!

Game Developer 2: Yeah, that shit is looking sah-weet! The only downside is Harrison Ford is looking old. It's too bad that movie couldn't star someone who's a hero for the new generation. Oh well, back to making a shitty 50 Cent video game...

Game Developer 3: Wait a minute, THAT'S IT! THAT'S FUCKING IT! We're GENIUSES!

Game Developer 1: Of course! We make a video game of the new Indiana Jones movie, but we 50 Cent-ify that bitch!

Game Developer 2: Yeah, pimp that ride, yo!

Game Developer 3: That's Xzibit.

50 Cent and his crew are staging a concert in a war-torn Middle Eastern country -- let's call it Shmiraq. After raising the roof on that bitch, the crooked Arab concert promoter tries to stiff Fiddy. Obviously Fiddy is not cool with this, so he and his crew shake this guy (I like to imagine Tony Shalhoub from Men in Black) down for a national treasure of Shmiraq, the fabled Crystal Skull. But then, get this, some other Arab guy and his crew steal the Crystal Skull from Fiddy and now it's up to our 'roid-ragin' gangsta rapper hero to get his blinged-out skull back.

"That's right, I got a video game. Your move, Kanye."

I swear to God this is real. I'm not making this up, because I'm not that talented. No one is. God couldn't have created this story, it's that good. From now on, churches will replace their Bibles or Torahs -- though probably not Korans -- with this new 50 Cent video game.


So if you were thinking of ever telling a story to anyone ever again, forget it, you're too late.


Photos by Jason. Rock Monster created by Jason's Industrial Creature Shop Light & Magic.

Comic-Connage, Part 2

We've survived another Comic-Con, and I've spent another $20 here and there to buy some vinyl toy that'll just sit around my desk! As fun as it was, this year's show was pretty anticlimactic. With Hollywood geek-cinema currently sitting in limbo between trilogies and franchises, there was no big news scoop to steal the show. The only real news I have is that if you're one of the dozens of dorks who dressed up as slave Leia or a 300 Spartan, you really should've laid off the World of Warcraft for a while to do some sit-ups before suiting up.

I got the exclusive Vampire Jack Skellington.

Steve got the exclusive 300 King Leonidas.

Jenni got the exclusive Grimace toy and Castlevania figure.


Todd McFarlane out-ridiculoused himself with his upcoming
"Twisted X-Mas" figures. They're even more idiotically gory than his
Twisted Fairy Tales line of toys.

"Ho, ho, ho" is how Santa describes Mrs. Claus, Claus, Claus.

The new Pirates of the Caribbean toys.
Pillaging whoremongers never looked so huggable!

A Star Wars Lego mural. Ten years from now,
George Lucas will wreck it by adding some Lite-Brite special effects to it.

The many flavors of Artoo droid, including "lesbian."