I somehow lost track of what day I was supposed to be drawing the comic. So much for getting ahead of schedule, I actually fell behind. But anyway, my booboo, so I just went ahead and coloured it too. So no worries fer this’n Silv, I got it ^^
Evening, organic organs.
I was plotting an update based on this and the comic hilarity surrounding the idea of cinemagoers across the USA sitting with their extra-large popcorns and barrels of Coca-Cola with around a kilos worth of ice (Stupid ripoff snack bars) sniggering and saying “Hehehe. Penguins. Hehehe”. Hell, that’s what I intend to do if that shows up in the UK.
But Lothar linked me to something that blew that away with it’s sheer comic hilarity. And comic is somewhat apt, as that’s what it’s based around. Yes ladies and gentlemen… SUPERMAN IS A DICK. Basically a collection of frames, comic covers and random images showing the sheer stupidity of comicbooks. Cheif if which is Superman being a dick, hilarious propoganda and the ever-present superheros being gay icons. It’s worth browsing, as come on, some of the stuff on there is insanely funny. Well worth your time.
However, I’ll give you some of my favourites…
Superpope
Superpopemobile
“Get into the BatKitchen bitch, and make me some Batpie!”
This is just too wrong. Make up your own caption
OUCH
Everything is better with monkeys
How the fucking hell did that get printed? Jesus
Silly Republicans
And one last one, the finest page on the entire site – Hehehe. Boner. Hehehe.
And now I’m off. I need to look for a job, but I’ll probably spend it playing World of Warcraft. And that’s terrible.
Eastwood ~ Singing in the rain
We see in today’s (not exactly brilliant) comic that Lothar’s claustrophobia shows up again today, as well as me ripping off a joke from Red Dwarf. If anyone can name the episode it is from and what characters were used to tell it, I shall tell you what one of our forum members say is the best insult ever. He said it, not me.
We have fan art, but I’m ill so I can’t be arsed farting on with the uploading. So now I’m going to post a load of random bollocks to try and pass off for a rant before I collapse in my own mucus.
Being basically a 6’4” child, I tend to enjoy watching old cartoons from the 80’s and 90’s when they come out on DVD. For example, spurred on by my love affair with the demo of the new Incredible Hulk game (“Ultimate Destruction”, FOR THE LOVE OF ZOMBIE BRUCE WILLIS, TRACK DOWN A DEMO NOW!) I picked up a DVD of the old 90’s cartoon and enjoyed watching it. Though I did again notice one thing that plagued cartoons of the era. Despite there being approximately 100 billion rounds of ammo used, enough punches thrown to lay out Tom Jones on Viagra and military equipment exploding all over the place, nobody ever gets hurt.
I’m serious, whenever the Hulk brings down a helicopter, the animators make a point of showing you that the pilots got out safely, unless they are robots which means they explode violently when hit by a light breeze.
It’s weird isn’t it? You have all these evil guys going out to kill everyone, yet they take so much care to not actually hit anyone with their bullets. And then when the good guys come out, they fight back but never actually hit the bad guys. Take the old G.I. Joe cartoon, nobody EVER got shot in that. What the hell is the point in this Cobra? You’ve got all this military-grade weaponry that you’re using to implant secret mind control technology in teddy bears or whatever your inane scheme is this week, yet when push comes top shove you can’t actually bring yourself to kill anyone? And you, G.I. Joe, one of the most effective ways to stop a bad guy is to kill them, or at least incapacitate them,. But no, you just make sure they hide behind some rocks for five minutes. The only time I’ve ever seen a person get shot in a cartoon is when they’re a super-powered being who can’t possibly get hurt by a bullet. Or in most cases, they get shot by a laser on the stun setting.
Oddly enough, most cartoons use laser more than real guns. Take the 90’s Spider-Man cartoon. The police, villains and everyone else had fucking laser guns. IN 90’S NEW YORK CITY. Why the hell are they carrying round something that wouldn’t look out of place in a sci-fi movie? Surely lasers are more expensive that proper guns? Perhaps it is because they are more humane, leaving the wound cauterised instead of just a gaping bloody wound where the target’s chest should be. AND THEY STILL CAN’T HIT ANYBODY WITH THEM!
Not that I have anything against lasers or plasma weaponry. Hell Lothar uses one in EN and Grim because it can do more damage than a ballistic weapon of similar size. But still, EN/Grim is a sci-fi universe, not present day New York. Still when the show features a guy who can walk on walls and lift up a car with little effort, I guess they think we can suspend our disbelief a little further.
No wonder it took Virus so long to do it.
Speaking of Virus and art, he’s gone back and shaded the pizza delivery comic and it looks a lot better now.
More fan art by Spring, this time of Eastwood. And some new work from Master Hunter of
I did have a rant, but I simply cannot be arsed typing it up. So I won’t. Instead I’m going to watch Nicholas Cage try to act intelligent in National Treasure. Wait, I like Nicholas Cage…dammit!
Aye, Virus wasn’t kidding when he said this comic was a bitch and then some. Took me bloody -hours-, and that was just putting it together and colouring it.
Also, making the first panel into a wallpaper took quite an extra chunk of time. But it was worth it. Available for the following desktop sizes:
Enjoy!
First up, before I start my rant which I suggest everyone reads, we have new fan art of Eastwood by hyperknux97. Who I suggest gets a new internet alias ASAP before I gut him for being so mind-bogglingly unoriginal.
Yes! You! You with two browser windows, one on here and the other open on dirtyasiancheerleaders.com! Stop masturbating for ten fucking minutes and listen!
Right, EVERYWHERE I go lately on the net, people are talking about Jack “Stick up my arse the size of an elephants first dump of the day” Thompson. You know, the lawyer who is trying to get games banned, while lying about them and emailing web comic authors and then claiming they were the ones who are harassing him?
Now I want to point out that I am SICK TO FUCKING DEATH of hearing about Jack Thompson, yes I know the guy is a fucking narrow-minded idiot with all the social graces of a Tyrannosaurus at a high-society dinner of today. And let me make this metaphor a little clearer, most T-Rexs’ are have now had their fossils compressed in to a thick black substance known as oil. So Jack Thompson is a thick black liquid whose only use is to be burnt off. Now imagine this black liquid at said high-society dinner, and its lack of social etiquette. That is Jack Thompson to the letter.
However, the thing is, no matter what Jack says, it does not affect me and many EN forum members at all. Why? Because we live in the UK, where he has zero power and influence over how our games are rated. To be fair, he technically doesn’t have any over the ones in the USA. But he’ll probably accredit the rising of GTA: San Andreas age rating to “Adult Only” there to himself. Officially, it was because of the “hot-coffee” mini-game that was left in the game, despite all access to it being disabled and the only way to actually view it being a mod for the PC version and cheat devices for the Xbox and PS2 versions.
Now I am going to tell you something that you should all think is COMPLETELY FUCKING OBVIOUIS but it seems to me that many Americans are far too concerned with their “freedoms” that they ignore something that would actually WORK.
If you legalised the ratings for computer games, people like Jack Thompson wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.
Now yes, I realise this goes against everything some Americans feel very close to their hearts, but just stop moaning and listen. If the games ratings were made by your government, that would mean Jack Thompson would NOT be able to blame the companies making the games for getting them into children’s hands as this new LEGAL system would mean if they DID have it there would be only 2 ways they could have gotten it.
1) Their parents bought if for them, and so they would be at fault.
2) Someone at the store sold it to them illegally, and it would be their fault that the child got hold of the game and they would be open for prosecution.
“But Lothar” I hear you cry. “Such a system is against our civil liberties and would not work.” WRONG! Such a system is already in place FOR YOUR FUCKING VIDEOS AND DVD SALES AS WELL AS FOR FILMS! And it works there yes? Want another example? We have had such a system in place for many years and it works fine! Hell, I work for a place that sells computer games and DVDs, so I have personal experience in this system.
I’m not going to pretend the UK is better than the USA, because NO country is “better” than any other country, perhaps aside from ones where companies like Nike pay children 50p a day to put together the shoes they sell for £50. But that is a rant for another day. The UK is smaller, has worse weather and we still insist of having a royal family despite the system being about 200 years out of date and them not actually DOING anything aside from acting like fucking snobs. But one thing I like to think is that our Government is slightly more sensible than America’s. Because of two things:
1) NOBODY is allowed to carry a gun around with them, in most cases nobody is allowed to own a gun unless for VERY specific purposes (farmers using them on their livestock in case of disease and what have you). I know some Americans love having guns, but listen to me. Less guns = less people getting shot. There is very rarely a gun related crime in the UK, I think the highest case of people getting killed by guns was around 70, and that was at least 5 years ago since then the number going down.
2) Games, DVDs, videos etc are rated by an independent Government body. They are not run by Government, but think of it as the Government hiring them to do the job and following their expert guidance. So I can’t sell porn to a 6 year old, because I’d get a £5,000 fine and jail time.
These two laws are the only ones that are actually different to the ones in the USA, and nobody in the UK feels that either are infringing on their rights. They are just common sense. For example, I can start a fight in a bar and I am 100% certain that the bloke I am fighting isn’t going to pull out a M9 Berreta 9mm pistol and give my face an extra orifice. While the second one means that lawyers CANNOT blame the games developers and publishers for the fact a kid has gotten hold of a game or for the content being too violent or rude or whatever, because they are backed by a LEGAL system that EVERY game has to go through, so it the Government has said “yes this game can be sold to people at this age, the developers and publishers have agreed to this so it isn’t their fault.”
Though I must point out, there are actually two ratings systems for the UK. The BBFC system which is the legal one used for DVDs and so on (the official BBFC site can be found here) and there is also the voluntary PEGI system, which us used in all European countries but has no actual legal backing here in the UK at least (I do not know about PEGI’s legal status in other countries).
The right to bear arms and the legalised ratings of games are the only two laws I know of that are very different to those in America. And I can tell you, neither of them make me oppressed, nor indeed feel oppressed. They’re just common sense. The main thing about the second one is that lawyers like Jack Thompson cannot build their careers on being fucking ignorant pricks. Lawyer over here just get on with their fucking jobs. Oh sure, we still have idiots like the journalists at The Daily Mail reporting that games are evil and everything, but they can’t take the companies to court as it is a waste of fucking time. The few cases against companies over here that have made it to court have just gotten thrown out! So despite their moaning, its all legal and fine and there is not a god damn thing that they can do about it except print retarded articles that nobody pays any attention to.
Some of you will remember an update that I typed up almost a year ago to the day (on this page about the Daily Mail saying Manhunt was the reason someone killed their friend (it wasn’t as you can see by reading the update). I believe Jack Thompson offered his services to the family of the dead for free. Never happened because the case was so fucking idiotic it never made it to court because the parents of the dead child had been the ones who bought the game. Rockstar had done fuck all wrong and because of the legal rating system, Thompson could not touch them. This would happen more in America if the rating system was legal, and eventually Thompson would just shut up and not bother games companies again. I know in similar cases in America have been thrown out because of “breach of the developers freedom of speech rights” or something (I don’t know what specifically) but it’s a lot easier and costs a lot less to say “Hey look! Our legal age rating system says the game can only be bought by anyone over 18. WHO THE HELL BOUGHT THE GAME FOR THE KID HMM!?” Plus it’s funny to watch the lawyers quickly run away from the court as they don’t dare say “It was the parent’s fault”, as they can’t sue their own clients for millions of pounds/dollars.
Our system isn’t perfect however, I must admit. Some games don’t need the legal age ratings, since they’re fucking harmless, like Sonic games, Mario ones, RTS games and so on. But somehow, the (rather brilliant) Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay game managed to get no official age rating at all, despite being submitted to the BBFC. The game has a lot of swearing in it, and can be sort of gory when compared to others, yet didn’t get anything. In contrast, Max Payne 1 and 2 got legal “15” ratings and I’d say Riddick is on the same level of content. But nobody tried to sue Starbreeze over Riddick, so I guess it’s a moot point.
So Americans, I would put forward the idea that a legal games rating system would in fact be a good thing, as it would stop cocks like Thompson being able to threaten legal action to every game company on the planet just because a game has guns and tits in it.
As for you, Mr Thompson, I have a proposal for you. If you’re so intent on suing games companies, sue EA for Crimes against Humanity. Have you played the latest Medal of Honour game? Or tried to play TimeSplitters: Future Perfect and Burnout 3 online? EVIL!
Fillaar. I was right, the comic is being a bitch and three-quarters. Sheer quantity
of drawings, as well as some bastard-awkward poses and angles (might get a wallpaper outta the
first panel though).
Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. Only one proper comic this week, on Friday. And me and Silv
use the extra time to get ahead of schedule by one comic. Woot? Woot.
I dunno, this one was just a pain to get done, for some reason. Of course, as is usual, I didn’t start it till late, but then it took ages. *looks at script for the next one* Ah dammit, looks like that’n's gonna be worse :p
To remind once again: the reason these aren’t shaded is cuz my graphics tablet died, so it’s a feat to even get em to this stage. I have a Wacom Intuos on its way (hopefully). Silv was shading em, but he got inundated with busy all of a sudden. He says he’ll come back and shade again next week. These unshaded ones I’ll go back and tart up when I have acquired the relevant input device.
Blargh, sleep now, rant later. New art of the EN crew by Martin Zealley of Caves and Critters. Lothar go snoozy snooze.
Edit: Right I’m back and I have no particular topic so I’m just gonna post this fan art that Spring did for us of Rogue(which kicks arse), remember that I don’t have to put up a rant if I don’t want to and continue reading the Dinosaur Comics archive.
And to be honest, I enjoyed the last Harry Potter book more than the last Discworld I read (The Truth). I love the Discworld setting, and they’re occasionally very funny (though there’s often a lot of bad puns and cheesey jokes too). But something about Pratchett’s writing style doesn’t suck me in quite the same. And I have difficulty getting attached to the characters sometimes. I’m pretty apathetic about Vimes, meself. I like the wizards, the wizards are cool. And the witches. And everybody likes Death. But I don’t really feel like I know many other characters, despite having read a good bunch of the books. *shrug* Anyway, they’re still cool all the same.
This comic was interesting. Since I can’t shade my usual way anyway, I thought I’d do something different for the expositionary panels. So it’s scratchy pencil stuff, just to be a bit grimy and atmospheric. I got to draw some nifty Grim Darkness imagery. Then, just to create more work for myself, I decided to splash a single colour on each. Which I’ve just now realised is traffic lights.
We’re #2 on Webcomics list… o.o Considering we made it to #7 last month, even when everybody else had a head start on votes, I think it shouldn’t be too hard to stay entrenched near the top, eh folks? Keep it up, you guys are awesome.
Oh, and it is my burfday. Happy My Burfday everyone.
