It’s been a little bit since I’ve made a post, but I’ve been busy fighting for that mythical full-time job. Good news though, totally got one! If you remember, I interviewed Becky Jewell of Graphicly a while back. I was really intrigued by their work and I wanted to get involved with their company somehow. Flash forward a bit and now I’m working as one of their Panel Cutters, slicing up comic/book pages for the optimum viewing experience on digital devices. Yessssss!
Also, less important, but it was my birthday two weeks ago. I’m now the venerable old age of 26, and the only thing that I really wanted was an El Gato video game capture doohickey. My lovely lady totally delivered. Now I can record my fighting game exploits in HD instead of balancing my phone on a DVD tower. Man that was annoying… I’ve already started recording some of my Injustice matches and I may go back to UMvC3, but hot dog is this thing fun to use. Here’s an example of what I’m up to and watch out for more fighting game stuff in the very near future!
What’s going on everyone? Some of you may recall that I’m working for this super cool comics journalism tablet magazine called Symbolia? Well we just started doing little interviews with the brilliant people behind the latest issue, Heroines.
We want to bring you closer to the story and the people actually on the ground doing the reporting. So far we’ve talked to Dan Archer, the writer and illustrator of “Meera’s Story” and Jess Rulifsson who illustrated “The Decisions.”
I tried to dig a little deeper into the motivations and feelings behind their work, and then include at least one silly question, sort of a “and now for something completely different” moment. I like the way they’ve turned out and I’m happy to share these bad boys with you. We’ll be doing one a day, so be sure to check out Symboliamag.com often for more!
Feel like you want to read up on some of this awesome comics journalism? Subscribe:on iPad // via PDF // Kindle Editions
I know you guys remember watching the X-Men animated series, thus I also know that you’ve seen the Apocalypse episodes, where Angel transforms into Archangel and goes crazy? He buys up all of those ancient Egyptian artifacts trying to find Apocalypse’s weak spot and it turns out it’s a weird little thingy behind his neck? Good times, good times…
Anyway! What I’m trying to say is remember how awesome Apocalypse and his Horsemen were? Famine, Pestilence, War, and Death were just so freaking cool, and in the latest run of Uncanny Avengers the Apocalypse Twins have raised a whole new retinue of Horsemen: Banshee, Grim Reaper, Daken, and the Sentry. That’s right, the little blighters have resurrected some seriously powerful beings to do their bidding. Not good. Kinda dickish too, turning Sean into a bad guy…
This week my favorite issue was Uncanny X-Force #34. I had been reading the book on Marvel Unlimited and it was awesome to see everything come to a head. Get out there, read my Unlimited Highlights, and let me know which of the Horsemen is your favorite!
I’ve got another review up over at DestroyTheCyborg! This time I’m talking about the monstrous and mangy cat man, Old Hob! We get a taste of his origins and his motivations and a little bit more on the side. Jason Ciaramella and David Wachter knock this one out of the park, adding a much needed something to the turtles’ previously uninspiring feline foe.
I think Carnage looks good in the red, white, and blue. Don’t you? This week is all about Cletus Kasady in Unlimited Highlights, and if you don’t know much about the fiend, this is a great place to get stated. I personally haven’t read a ton of Spider-Man/Symbiote stuff in a long while but all of these books brought a little something different to the table, expanding on the tragic and horrifying legacy of the crimson killer.
My personal favorite was Carnage’s first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #361. The way that Peter slowly uncovers more and more of Kasady’s atrocities, starting with his childhood? Man that was creepy. Well what are you waiting for? GET READING!
Today we’re shining the strobe lights on the Turtles’ premier party dude, the magnificent Michelangelo. He’s the youngest of the four, and undoubtedly the most spry. He flips, spins, and dodges Foot Ninjas with the greatest of ease, as his nunchuks e thwack and clunk off the unfortunate skulls of his enemies. He’s got speed sure, but what else does the orange-banded terapin have to offer the TMNT faithful? Let’s check it out!
Despite the heavy editing in the trailer, and the slowdown to show off Mikey’s awesome animations, you can still see how quick he moves. He’s a flurry of nunchuk-spinning pain.
Countering
Again we get a taste of the turtles’ defensive capabilities, as Mikey counters not one, but two Foot ninja attackers at once (:15)! This might indicate that Red Fly has taken a page out of the Batman book and allowed for multiple parries at once. Cowa-freaking-bunga. Is it as easy as just pushing a button?
Special Attacks
For supposedly being the turtle with the worst single enemy damage output, Michelangelo has more than a few ways to deal with crowds. Check out one beefy spin cycle at :44 and a shell sliding spin attack at :46. Mikey spins around with nunchuks out, laying low anyone in his way. Does it look like the handstand version clashes with a Foot attack? Are we seeing a little invincibility there, or did Mikey just knock him out of his animation?
Then we have the nut cracker, the oh so beautiful nut cracker (:36). I think it might be the highlight of this little vignette and I love it. Mikey also has a flash kick (:22), though he does it without the help of a bo staff. I’m not quite sure how the special moves work in this game, IGN seemed to think that they were mapped to the right stick, thus I don’t know if this is a special move or possibly a combo ender. Or maybe a command normal?
Then we’ve got the attack at :41, which I’m going to be calling the Turtle Tower, just for giggles. Mikey breaks one ninja’s guard with a powerful rising uppercut, then sweeps the leg for a knockdown while his opponent is reeling. Might be useful for those turtling enemies. Heh.
Environmental Attacks
In Raphael’s vignette we saw him leap off of a truck and embark on a beatdown of epic proportions. Mikey shows off some acrobatic flair of his own, swinging around a sign post wailing on dudes (:25). So now we know that the turtles are more than capable of using the environment to their advantage. I wonder what else they’ll be able to play with?
ZE END! There was a lot less for me to talk about in the Mikey video, I think mostly because we talked about a lot of it in the previous posts. He’s fast, agile, and brings a whirlwind of pain to the creeps dumb enough to get in his way. He also brings the party. Cowabunga.
If you guys haven’t heard, Symbolia is having a subscription sale during the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo! You better jump on this deal though, because it ends Sunday night. Normally a Symbolia subscription is $11.99 for six issues. Now you can get 6 issues of impeccable comics journalism for $5.99 – $0.99 an issue!
Hurry up team, Sunday will be here before you know it! Get it now: on iPador via PDF.
Follow Symbolia on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and be sure to pick up issues or subscribe to the magazine here!
Hey folks, I just happened to review Simon Spurrier and Jeff Stokely’s sensational new comic, Six-Gun Gorilla #1, over at DestroyTheCyborg. If you’re a fan of giant apes or gunslingers, or think you might be interested in a combination of the two, you should: 1) read my review and 2) go buy the book!
It’s more silly space-age simian fun than you can shake a stick at!
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Raphael, the turtle with the ‘tude, gets the special I Speak Comics treatment today. We’ll be looking at the furious hero’s Out of the Shadows trailer in an attempt to dissect his playstyle and see what makes him tick. Hopefully we won’t be getting a sai in the eye for our trouble. As I stated in the previous Donatello breakdown, take everything you see and read here with a HUGE grain of salt. Biggest one you can find. This is based on what? Pre-alpha footage? Everything here is subject to change. But let’s get started shall we? Check out the trailer below!
Unlike Donnie, who can use his bo staff to lay the smack down from a distance, Raphael is an in your face sort of guy, someone who likes to get up close and personal while shelling out the pain. In TMNT: Out of the Shadows, the turtles’ resident bad boy appears to be the token grappler, with a host of throws ready to send foes into a whole new galaxy of pain. Add in some brutal knees, elbows, and sais and you’ve got one mutant you do not want to mess with.
Green Zangief? What intrigues me most here is the sheer number of different throws Raphael has at his disposal. Let’s dig into this video, the first throw we see is an awesome looking izuna drop (:15). Next up is what looks like a modified, extra brutal Osoto Gari (:19). Did I mention he has a power bomb too? Check out 21 seconds in. Oh and Raph has no problem grabbing a leg and straight up giant swinging a baddie into next Tuesday (:25)! Also if you look at a few other videos, namely the IGN breakdown video, you can see him doing a suplex of sorts at 2:26 into a ground pound. It even looks like you can combo into these throws, as you can see at :29 in the Raph trailer.
He also has a throw, possibly a special move/contextual where he face slams a duo of punks into the pavement (:47). Finally, like Donnie’s parry/counter, Raph has one too. However, instead parrying and landing a single strike, Raphael counters and tosses his opponent away (:45). I like we’re seeing a different flavor of counter for each character. Just adds to the awesome.
Now that we know he has all these awesome throws, the question becomes, are they safe? So many of these have a ton of startup and the animations, while super cool, take forever to complete. Can enemies knock Raphael out of his throws? Because if so, using them will be incredibly dangerous unless you’re finishing off a lone enemy.
Muai Thai Master Raph’s fighting style looks heavily influenced by Muai Thai forms. The attack he does right after that first izuna drop at 15 seconds is a picture perfect copy of Sagat’s focus attack in Street Fighter 4. Maybe a little Brian fromAll you need to do is look at all those huge elbows and knees he’s dropping on fools to know Raph’s watched more than a couple of Tony Ja’s flicks. If we were going to compare these big knees to Batman, I have a feeling that they’re momentum based. The more you whomp on guys without getting hit and keeping your combo going, the easier it is to put down bad guys with one hit.
Special Moves
At the beginning of the video we see Raph send himself careening into foes, sais out (:11). You can bet this is a shout out to Tournament Fighters. It looks great for tagging folks and closing the distance quickly, but there is some start up on the attack so you don’t want to just throw this out while surrounded in a brawl. Also this video gives us the first real example of a turtle using the environment to attack. At 38 seconds Raph wall runs on a big ol’ truck trailer, leaps off and sais a dude in the face. He looks like he actually throws his weapons too, which is a little odd?
The Numbers Game
Finally, remember how we were messing around and broke down Donnie’s stats relative to the rest of turtles in power, range, mobility, and speed? Well if we do that for Raph, purely based on what we see here in the videos he might be – Power: 3, Range: 1, Mobility: 2, Speed: 3. You know now that I think about it, it might be better to do a 5 point scale, just so that Leo can be a 3 in ever category… Ah well.
Final Thoughts I think Raph is going to be a lot of fun to play as and brings some interesting things to the table. His throws look devastating, all his moves are brutal; he definitely appears to be channeling his rage into people’s faces. If you guys dug this little bit snippet of turtle soup, I’m going to be putting up a Mikey breakdown in the very near future, so keep your eyes peeled!
Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know that issue #3 of Symbolia hit virtual newsstands today, and this one has my name in it! But really, you’re going to want to check this bad boy out. It has work from a truly incredible array of artists, from Dan Archer to Lucy Bellwood to Leela Corman to Jeff Ruliffson, and features inspiring stories from women around the world as reported by Sara Mirk and more!
There are five complete tales inside: LUNA OF CAIRO, THE DECISIONS, MEERA’S STORY, and two different but connected stories in DECLASSIFIED. You’ll learn about the difficult circumstances of a belly dancer in Cairo, the harsh realities of life after the military and Guantanamo Bay, and the insidious human trafficking trade in Nepal. It’s a powerful issue and if you love hard hitting stories and comics, you should absolutely give Symbolia a look.
Follow Symbolia on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and be sure to pick up issues or subscribe to the magazine here!
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