Zub Tales

Good conversation tidbit –

Zub: I wonder if I should go get a snack or not.

Not Me: You must decide.

Zub: Actually, that would be a cool occupation.

Not Me: What would?

Zub: Being a Snackornaut. Like an astronaut, only with snacks.

Zub the media whore as of late… holy moley.

Here’s a video clip from Latest Issue Entertainment at the Udon booth during the New York Comicon.

Interview with some nerd guy.

I had a terrible time sleeping last night. Looks like repetitive typing/mouse motions from Udon work, e-mails and WoW is causing a burning pain to emerge in the middle finger/knuckle of my right hand. I soaked it in ice water last night and am trying to stretch my fingers every so often today as well as avoid massive amounts of typing in hopes that the ouch will pass.

My latest Newsarama article is up:
One Step 7: Around The Portfolio

A couple hours after the article went up I received an e-mail from an editor at a Spanish comic web magazine offering to translate all the One Step articles for their site. I’ll post links if it ends up happening.

I realized something odd.

There are a lot of clichés about women being socially competitive, one-upping each other or playing with guys’ hearts and minds to get what they want. I don’t believe all of that and have seen just as many men warp into manipulative bastards. Hell, I think I’m a manipulative bastard in denial.

But I do believe in Geek Girl clashes.

You see, in quite a few nerd groups there’s one cool Geek Girl. That one girl who can toggle in and out of geekdom, able to dance amongst the geekiness without being smelly, totally fashionably inept or socially incapable. They seem to raise the normal cred of the geek group a bit, giving them a bridge to the regular world.

But, that’s the catch… in each group there’s only one.

When nerd groups intermingle (like at a LARP, convention, housewarming or other gathering) the Geek Girls instinctively go territorial and pull out the claws on each other. First impressions between them are almost always awful. They look for flaws and circle, waiting for an opportunity to strike. They might be polite to each other on the surface, but there’s a cold destruction under their gaze as they see this upstart trying to mingle and corrupt their nerds. One will start the coldness right off the bat and the others’ neck hairs will raise – ready for the impending duel.

Only one.

Maybe the ladies will dress provocatively to get a reaction. Maybe they’ll show up unannounced. Maybe they’ll schedule multiple nerd-based events to ensure exposure to their pack. Maybe Girl A will lecture Girl B on geeky things B already knows just to make her feel inferior. They might compare conventions they’ve attended or geek celebs they’ve hung out with – all while saying it in a “matter of fact” kind of tone. Whatever the method, subtle or combative, it’s a war and to the victor goes the spoils – junk food, RPG sessions, B-Movie nights, hangin’ out on new comic book day and overall adoration.

Even more disturbing is that the men are rarely aware of what’s going on. They may know that Girl A and Girl B seem to be at odds but they’ll chock it up to misunderstanding, miscommunication, bad timing or PMS and just stupidly hope that it goes away over time. They assume that everyone will get along and marinade themselves in the hobbies they mutually enjoy. Most of these nerd men are so happy to have multiple Geek Girls in their life that they’ll blindly overlook everything up to the two girls physically beating each other up. In their world, the only people who are assholes are jerks stressing them out at work or guys who leave Cheetos stains on their trade paperbacks. Geek Girl wars are out of their scope of understanding.

On a related note: If one of the men gets a girlfriend, she must go through the extensive Geek Girl approval process. If she’s a Girly Girl and no threat to the Geek Girl’s special territory, she may be regarded as a bimbo annoyance but allowed to live. If she is too enthralling, too geeky or begins to enjoy her boyfriend’s hobbies too much then she will be marginalized or, if need be, the guy will be carefully exiled from the circle until he breaks up with Nerd Girl Competitor X.

I don’t believe it’s a case of evil. It is nature and social hierarchies. Know this and tremble. 🙂

I’ve posted up some pics of my favorite Udon-created artwork from the new Exalted 2nd edition corebook. Some of the pics are larger and more detailed than their printed versions, so I thought you guys and gals might get a kick out of seeing them:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=254340

The multitudes of weapon and armor pics were shrunk down a bunch to fit them all in, so I may post my favorite equipment pics later on this week as well.

Went home to visit the folks today. As always, it’s fascinating and amusing to watch them enjoy Dad’s retirement and the vacations they have planned for the years to come.

I’ve been able to get Dad excited about different movies or TV shows lately. Last month I got him hooked on Firefly and Serenity. This time out he asked me if I wanted to go to the movies and see V For Vendetta with him. Heh. My Dad watching comic book based movies and looking forward to more, will wonders never cease.

So anyways, V For Vendetta.

It’s good in its own way, but quite a bit different from the original. I actually think if I hadn’t read the trade paperback last week I would’ve enjoyed it more. It was a solid effort, but some of the changes were much starker since the original was so fresh in my mind.

At its core, the theme of the movie is very different and that turns the whole thing a bit askew. The difficult question of “Fascism VS Anarchy” that permeates the original story becomes one of “Fascism VS Democracy”, which is a much easier choice and one with less bite. The characters and events are more staccato, passing quickly without enough time to really dig into their motivations or emotions. I wanted to go deeper into the grit and ugliness of it where they only gave us glimpses. Show me the corruption and ignorance in society instead of the oddly placed idealism of a docile people. Show me the horror of a culture waylaid by fear instead of rising up in perfect unity. It sounds odd to say, but I wanted the audience to be pushed into imagery and emotions they hadn’t expected and, in turn, learn from them. The movie unfortunately plays it safe.

The only scene that gets the time and grit it needs, luckily, is one of the most important parts – a letter narrated detailing the breakdown of a person’s life under the new government order. That whole scene flowed perfectly, in part I think, because it was a word-for-word reproduction of the same scene in the comic. I could feel real emotion welling up and was hoping the rest of the movie would sweep from there. But once that part was over, the rapid fire events continued and didn’t fully impact the way I hoped it would.

Reading that you’re probably thinking “Did he even like it? Is it good?”

Yes, it is good.
But it had the earmarks of something great and never quite reached that for me. It’s well worth watching, but not a full on geekgasm.

The Wachowski Brothers script used the framework of the original story created in 1988 to make a very clear statement about our current world in 2006 and the American government’s influence in creating a fascism driven culture of fear. It’s a worthy message and was delivered well overall, albeit sometimes hitting points with a sledgehammer where a good tap would do. The movie is sharp in its own way but is not thematically the same story that Alan Moore created. The more you’re able to separate the two from each other, the more you’ll enjoy the V For Vendetta movie.

New Newsarama article on comic portfolio material here:
One Step 6: Portfolio

It’s been a tough couple of weeks. As is the norm when this kind of stuff hits, I’ve gone pretty quiet in general and on my journal specifically. Thanks for your patience.

Enjoy Derek Kim’s Healing Hands because it’s wonderful stuff.
While you’re at it, check out the Secret Friend Society too.

Talented folks making me ecstatic and jealous at the same time. I have to get my head out the mire and create again.

My brother Joe sent me an e-mail to help console me after the portfolio gauntlet earlier this week.

After hearing about your portfolio weeding, the girls felt that you needed to have artwork from them to make you feel better.
To quote Jennifer, “you need to see some good artwork”.
Joe

AWESOME! I’m definitely ready for another round of portfolios.