Today, I am going a different direction with my artist pick. Instead of an indie or offbeat pick, I will be writing about an incredible artist that's pretty well known in a lot of circles. With an impressive resume including Marvel, DC, Image, Capcom, Udon Entertainment, Toyota, Riot Games, and more, it's safe to say that Alvin Lee's unending talent is not going to waste.
Alvin Lee is a Canadian comic artist with an anime-inspired art style. I was introduced to him on his work reviving the Street Fighter comics by Udon Entertainment. These comics floored me with the quality of art, and a list of compliments can go on for a while. What I think stands out the most with his work, is the amount of perspective work that is so elusive to many professional artists. By having a strong grasp of perspective, Alvin Lee's characters have a powerful dynamic quality that lends itself perfectly for action scenes. In the comics, page after beautiful splash page show Ryu coming straight towards the reader with movement and impact that top tier comic artists spend lifetimes to achieve. What's even more impressive is looking at his work now, he's even better.
His success led to work with Capcom doing artwork for the official Street Fighter releases. As with so many top echelon creators, Alvin Lee has moved on to do pin-ups and cover art for a wide variety of companies. Recently, he has signed on with Riot Games (of League of Legends fame) to do artwork.
I have had the pleasure of meeting Alvin Lee at the New York Comic Con, and was taken aback by how friendly and humble he is. I missed my chance to get something signed, but have made it my goal to get a signed print from him in person.
Hurray!
It is officially the first anniversary of my blog! Today I will be tossing out a few of my favourite posts from the past year. I've split them into two categories: obscure picks and nostalgic picks. Although some posts don't fit into either category, I think most of what I write about generally goes into one of the two.
Choosing an artist for this category was really tough. I love all of the art that I've been posting up, so none really outshine the others. In the end, I decided on Podgy Panda for a few reasons. First off, he's an amazing artist, and I think more people should be aware of his work. More specifically, I think that his art best represents the type of art I am naturally drawn to. Podgy Panda (or Richard Kuoch) has finished products with that are cute with clean lines. He is a person that unapologetically puts out work that touches on his interests and nostalgia. His passion for the material shows through.
Black Science is a book that was released recently by Image comics, and quickly became one of my favourites. There are three reasons this book deserves a bigger following. The first is the most obvious, the book is gorgeous. Matteo Scalera is consistently incredible. Second, the book is full of pulpy craziness in a way that only comics can pull off. Last is that the book's story is actually pretty good despite the high action and incredible art. With such focus on creating weird worlds, it's hard to flesh out a deep narrative the ties everything together. Hickman shows his experience with pulp science fiction by sneaking in surprisingly rich character moments between beautiful splash pages.
Flume holds the title as the only interest that I've posted twice. Technically, one was an album, and the other was a single with another artist. With bizarre sounds, great sampling, and a touch of hip hop beats, Flume found a unique voice in a flooded market. Also, Flume will always be the inspiration for my comic, which was the real birth of all of this.
When I took a glance at my old posts, I was convinced that it would easily be my #1 pick. Turtles in Time is is fun. Really, really, fun. I have extremely fond memories playing this game with friends in the golden age of SNES and it will always hold a special place in my heart. I honestly think that the only reason this game ISN'T number one, is because I never technically owned it. I played it a lot when I rented it or when I was at the houses of friends/family that had it.
It's very tempting for me to say "they don't make cartoons like THIS anymore", but I realize that every generation has their own golden memories. What I can say is that Dexter's Laboratory was, and is, great. The weird and offbeat humor was so drastically different than anything else on TV, and the show's creativity was only surpassed by the quality of the show. It's no wonder that so many huge names in animation have come from this show.
I really didn't want to put two games on the top 3 list, but it would have been dishonest. When I was a kid, I did pretty much three things: play at the park, watch cartoons, and play video games. Ocarina of Time took the top spot for me because I was so fanatically excited for this game. Looking back now, the game holds up, but the mechanics and RPG elements have been honed over the years. Remembering back, I remember the sense of wonder and exploration as I went through the different zones and dungeons. I spent many hours on this game, and enjoyed them thoroughly.
And that's it! I hope my picks either get you find new cool things or drum up some happy memories. Really, that's what I aim to do with my blog for the most part. I have tons of really great post ideas floating around, and haven't hit some of my favourite interests by far, so keep checking back for more and better posts. I haven't missed a post yet, but it's bound to happen eventually. Let's hope I can keep another year-long streak.
This is an arcade game that I never actually played at an arcade. A few years back I wanted to get some good multiplayer games for my arcade emulator. My fondest memories of multiplayer games back in the day hearken back to the old side-scrollers, so I picked up Aliens Vs Predator off of a top 10 list.
I never actually played an AvP arcade cabinet back in the day but I found that it was a great side-scroller that completely fell off my radar. In the end, I think I only ever played it with someone else once or twice. I did, however, play it a lot by myself and really got a lot of enjoyment beating up aliens with a giant lead pipe.
Many phases of my life can be marked by video games that I was wholly obsessed with. Games that I would come home and play for so long that I could have easily held a couple of part time jobs instead. Gunbound is recorded as one of my greatest time vampires, and yet I still can look back at it fondly.
Created by the Korean company Softnyx, Gunbound is a free downloadable game that had in-game transactions back when phones flipped open. The game was basically a take on the classic Worms game (or 'Gorillas' if you're very old-school), where players would take turns adjusting their angle and velocity to shoot at the enemy team. Players must factor in the weather conditions and constant shifting of the terrain as the game goes on. The game might seem simple, but the real meat of the game play is in the different vehicles in Gunbound.
The vehicles (called 'mobiles' in the game) all have varying types of attacks that really give each mobile a unique personality. Attacks can range from a high damage boomerang attack that is greatly affected by the wind to an electric field shot that can push or pull players off ledges. This adds a huge variation in play, especially as each mobile comes with two standard and one super attack that lets players switch up strategies every round. One round you may be trying to chip away a players health, the next you may be tunneling them down into the water.
Like most games out of Korea, Gunbound is a really cute game, using a chibi style for the characters and vehicles. This aesthetic plays perfectly with the equipment system that Softnyx put into the game. With in-game costumes and items, Gunbound gives long term upgrades and goals that keep players coming back for more.
This game was unbelievably fun (and probably still is). The game had a ton of depth of play and was balanced near-perfectly. For me, Gunbound had just the right amount of randomness and skill, with each game really giving the feeling that anything could happen. Even after all of these years, Gunbound seems to be going strong, with it's own following. The game proved a little too addicting for me back in high school and I am honestly afraid to go back and play again knowing it will suck me in.
Back in high school, I fell into a state of nostalgia and regretted deeply not keeping up with my piano skills as a kid. I decided to remedy this and bought a musical keyboard with full intention of practicing everytday. I remember sitting in front of my keyboard just searching for inspiration and drive to keep practicing. One of my best resources was called Overclocked Remix, an online community dedicated to remixes of video game music. I would spend hours sifting through remixes to Chrono Trigger and Street Fighter trying to find the gems to download. I managed to get quite a few, but realized that I was spending more time listening to the music than playing. I eventually stopped frequenting the site, but I have gotten some great songs from the site that have become quite iconic in my life.
