Late

Well, it's late. I have no idea how things will turn out. I guess I just have to pray to God and hope for the best...

TMNT---The First Sketches

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are such an integral part of geek and pop culture, it's pretty difficult to imagine a world without them. Seriously, they've influenced a ton more comics and material than you may think.The turtles had some pretty humble origins, however. Back in 1984, a couple of cool but obscure artist dudes were joking around and one of them, Kevin Eastman, sketched a turtle standing on it's hind legs with nunchucks strapped to its arms. He titled it "Ninja Turtle".

 Kevin's fellow artist, Peter Laird, liked the idea so much that he drew his own version of the "Ninja Turtle".

He also suggested that it be a "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle", for added effect. They both liked the idea and not long after decided to run with it and establish a story. Using it to parody the then-popular Superheroes and "funny animal" comics of the time through concept  (X-men [mutant], Daredevil [ninja], Cerebrus [turtles]) and execution (it was dark and gritty in style, similar to Daredevil, etc. One of my favorite stylistic parody aspects is the Noir-like narrative the turtles give as they fight the villains and roam the city. It just reeks of Watchman's Rorschach).

The original comic is rough around the edges, in more ways than one, but I personally love the style and the execution myself. Despite being a parody, it's an excellent story on it's own and the turtles have a quirky charm that makes them appealing. I think this element has been able to transcend the original material into other works of the TMNT, and thus lent to the turtles' longevity as characters, enabling them to survive several major shifts in tone, characterization, story, and style throughout the years. Whatever the medium, however, one things for sure; the turtles are cool, about as cool as it gets (even non-nerds typically end up agreeing with that in the end), and they're here to stay. Hopefully for a good long time.



Sketches found here along with the much of the story. More facts and such regarding the ninja turtles' origins can be located here.

Teengage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mirage Comics Era

Well, I really just wanted to let everybody know that some awesome person posted several of the original comics of TMNT (back when it was all  B&W and the turtles were rough tough, and not afraid to shed some blood) on Yotube, and I am now a fan.

I've posted the debut comic above (I do appologize that it will be hard to read at some points; if I find an online version in a different format, I will post it). It's incredible.

Some fans of more recent incarnations of the turtles (or of the 1987 version, in particular) who read the original comics are a little put off by the intensity of the older material, and the fact that the turtles, while they have some obvious differences amongst them, can be hard to tell apart, excluding Raph, of course; he's not easy to mistake (if you see a turtle rushing at anything that presents itself as a threat, even if he's way out matched, that's him). Me? I love the old comics. You get a sense of the original intention of the comics' tone when you read them and thus understand the turtles and their origins much better. Plus it's just plain cool. And I can tell the turtles apart generally; they all have different ways about them and the comic, though it doesn't focus on their differences in personality all that much, they do indeed have personalities that diverge form one turtle to the next, and it is aparent, in some cases more than others.

Also, did I mention that the comic's creators, Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman, after sketching a silly drawing of an anthro turtle with nunchuks and making a story out of it, printed the first 3,000 copies with the money from a tax return and a $1000 loan from Eastman's uncle? (they called thier studio Mirage Studio becuase it didn't exist.) And that these first copies sold in the first couple of weeks they were out? If that's not chicken soup for the comicker's soul I don't know what is.

Anyway, the first is one of my favorites, though I've read multiple stories now, and it's, well, the first one. Another favorite comic which I had trouble finding on Youtbe but found on this lovely site called MirageLicensing.com is Raphael's "breakout comic" so to speak-- Raphael #1-- which introduces Casey Jones and elaborates on Raph's character.

http://miragelicensing.com/comics/mirage/raphael/pg01.htm

They also have plent of other original TMNT comics if you're interested.

...

Yeah, too late. I elaborated.

The Shredder...has been shredded.

Makes Me Smile--A Dug and his Pixar

Here.

Well, it's no secret that I love Pixar, no, I adore Pixar. I've considered aiming for an internship several times.

They inspired me, in a permanent, life-changing, dream-catching, band-aid-for-the-soul kind of way. They've introduced me to fantastic worlds and exquisite characters with their funny little problems in a manner nothing short of brilliant. In the most practical sense, they've taught me what truly good writing looks like. Maybe someday, Pixar, maybe someday...

To Combat Feeling Awful, Part 1

I feel miserable right now, and I have no ability to make the situation go away. So, I'm going to apply some battlefield medical tactics to the situation and see if I can cheer myself up. Hopefully it will do the same for you, as well, if you are indeed feeling as awful as I.

1. An Encouraging Word:  Favorite, upbeat, or plain old encouraging bible verses or quotes are always good for making your sinking heart feel a little less down. I first surf Quotes of the Day to find a daily generated list of four quotes that just might make me feel a bit better. Today's Quotes (all quite funny [excluding the third, perhaps]; hey, one's even the Brigadier from Doctor Who!)
   
   Hell is full of musical amateurs.
   George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
   
   
   Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets.
   Unknown, Brigader Lethbridge-Stewart in "Dr. Who" 
   
   
   Any war that requires the suspension of reason as a necessity for support is a bad war.
   Norman Mailer (1923 - 2007), Armies Of The Night  
   
   
   Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
   Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914), The Devil's Dictionary
   
   I also try BibleGateway.com, because, they not only have a verse a day (the websites of Air1 and KLove also do, by the way), but free, search-able access to a myriad of versions of the bible, and I can search whatever verse I'd like to. Heck, I could read a whole passage or book if I wanted to! But I'm cutting it kind of close with this post as it is, so a single verse will have to do.

“Give praise to the LORD, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done.” 1 Chronicles 16:8 NIV

1.  Listening to Soul-Healing Music (even if it's Black Betty): Though I recommend listening to Christian music, at least a song that reminds you of God perspective of the situation, sometimes rocking to the Foo Fighter's "Everlong" or singing along to "Musicbox" by Regina Spektor is really, really good for your soul. For me right now, I try playing Black Betty by RamJam over and over again (sorta visualizing the two things that pop in my head when I hear that song--the first time I heard the song, while driving int he car with my aunt long ago, and that scene in the TMNT movie where Raphael gets his shell kicked by a little red Tasmanian devil thing, while the song rages in the background). Next stop, Owl City! (You know, I think I should post about my favorite Soul-Food sorta music sometime; anyway, owl City is somewhere at the top of the list. It's like listening to rainbows and fuzzy kittens and Edward Scissorhands [which, for some reason his song "Plant Life" reminds me of...]. Seriously.) So go ahead; feed your soul.
   
   Air1, KLove, and tons of other sites can give you online music (though, not all free or Christian like the two afore mentioned) to jam to all day and night. Pandora, Youtube, Napster, CDs, Ipods, the world is filled with sound! Speaking of which, after you're done with listening to music, I recommend you consider taking out the earbuds or pulling off the head phones and sitting outside, or going for a walk, something to get you outside for a little bit. The world is chock full of sounds, and not all of them are unpleasant and clamorous. Birds, cars, people talking in the distance, other people's music (i mentioned all this in my other post, "The Carving of Life" [ooh, ccontinuity! ;P]), sometimes that's kind of music in and of itself. Or quiet. silence in an increasingly voluminous world. Whatever your situation, one of these solutions can and will no doubt suit you. So give it a try! Music is good. Very, very good.



2. Getting Work Done: A tough but reliable solution. If checking some pressing task off your daily check list of ungodly length isn't therapeutic, I don't know what is. I'm making some attempt to do so right now via NaNoWriMo, Christmas planning, work, and blog posting.



3. Daydreaming: Thinking about what your future may look like at its optimal, creating a new story, art piece, math formula, method of planting thistles, etc., or just thinking thoughts that make you feel good and/or are productive for the future, near or far, is just a good way to cut loose and make yourself feel like life can, indeed, go on in a very good sort of way. I file it away for later, but vow to come back to it before the night's end.



4. Thinking Good Thoughts: Go ahead, give yourself compliments, make yourself feel good about being you! It's better than the alternative. I go into the bathroom to find the nearest mirror and tell myself "You've got this." Much more effective than it gets credit for.



5. Prayer: He may not give you what you want, but He'll always give you what you need. And sometimes, that need is a miraculous solution. Other times, it's simply a warm, comforting, indescribable presence and a listening ear. Praying for someone else is also very reparative to the soul. I let Him know how I feel. And I feel better.



6. Being Creative and/or Doing Something You Love: Bringing something new into this world, something that wasn't there before, has an amazingly healing effect on the human mind and soul. It can be anything so long as it is your thing. Trying something new, doing something old and beloved, either is good, just do something that comes from within you. Art, Writing, music, gardening, typing, etc. Alternatively, just go do something that you love and call me in 10 minutes. It feel good, doesn't it? You feel waaaay better than before, and you're probably much more ready to take on tasks and challenges. But what if you have no time to do, well, anything, you say? Just do it for 10 minutes. Time yourself. Come back. Do whatever you have to do for a bit (10, 20, 30 minutes...) . Go back and forth if you must, just do something to make yourself smile so you can get back to work feeling a little bit better inside. Me? I just wrote a blog post. Here goes nothing...

(Continues in Part 2...)

(...when I write a part 2... ;D)

Know Your Enemy by Yoko Kanno

Good for writing (particularly Greyblade), but mainly just really, really pretty.

Writing Music: Space Lion by Yoko Kanno

Mood: epic, meditative, longing, ethereal, "laid back"

Type: Jazzy, chanting, mixed (basically, Yoko Kanno XD)

Scenes I've used it for: Right now? Just the synopsis (NOT against, the NaNo rules, by the way), just to get things going. Later, probably some more specific stuff.  Really, though a nice composition in and of itself, it's just a nice atmospherical sort of background sound. It's just got the proper kind of quality to it for my kind of story. 

Posting for Posting's Sake...

It is LATE. But I can't sleep, I have writing to do! I would sacrifice nearing everything for that. Sadly, sometimes my own impulsiveness and obsessiveness gets in the way.
*sigh*
Sometimes, I just don't like myself. I really don't. No, I despise myself sometimes, and it burns me up inside. My own skin scalds caustically into my flesh, flesh into bone, and sometimes I just sit still and wait for it to burn me all the way down to my molecules and atoms, and disintegrate me. Maybe it'd stop aching so darn much.

It's not like there aren't times when I'm positively manic with glee or truly pleased with being myself. But there are so many times when its just a dull sort of numb at best and at worst I just want to curl up inside of my shell and be gone (sorry, I've got TMNT on the brain* XD). I don't know if I have an answer to this situation. I really just keep praying and watching TV and reading and drawing and writing.

Yeah, just keep writing...



:)

*I'm currently craving 80's Cartoons, gritty b&w comics, turtle action figures, and pizza. Hmm, pizza...that would be nice right now...

Dory gif courtesy of this place over here and this one over there.

Pizza gif courtesy of this place right here...

Toy Story Forever.

Just revisting my Pixar/Toy Story love...

Doctor Who: The Lost Episodes

Do any of you know about the lost episodes of Doctor Who? The missing ones, you know, the junked, erased, or just plain forgotten about? If so, you may really appreciate these next couple of videos. It's a sort of a documentary commemorating and explaining rather thoroughly, with as much objectivity as can be mustered, the details of this less fortunate part of Doctor Who's history.

If you don't know what the heck I'm talking about (and have always wanted to learn more about Who's past as a television program in the Era-of-no-Sci-fi), you could watch it anyway, see what you think. I certainly enjoyed it. But I'm...well...me. o.O

Anyway, informational, enthralling, and kind of a thrill for Classic Who fans (probably anyways; no guarantees!), let's have at it, shall we?

Doctor Who 101 (the Actual Video)

Ha! Silly me. XD I just realized I could embed this video, even though I knew how to before (well, it hasn't really worked on the Ipad so far, but whatevs...). Anyway, Enjoy! :)

Whitby Gothic Style

Dance of the Perky Goth. Being a goth, and juuust a bit perky, I approve. :)

Manos: Hands of Fate

You'l laugh, you'll cry, you'll wish it was never made.

Seriously, the only good thing about this movie is that you can make fun if it. The MST3k crew are the sole reason I don't acitvely wish it would have traded places with the Evil of the Daleks. :(

Aw, great, now I'm gonna cry again...

Oh well, MST3k is just the remedy I seek. ;D

Radioactive by Imagine Dragons

I hate to be a trend-follower, espeically when it comes to music, but I just have thing for this song; I've pretty much been lsitening to it repeatedly, almost non-stop for the past few days. The sense of epic, of enormous power, purpose, and victory is incredible and suprisingly healing of the spirit. It's great for getting the creative juices flowing if nothing else (partiuclalry when writing sci-fi/fantasy epics and such). If you haven't already, try it. I think you'll like it...

Makes Me Smile---Batman and His Villians

From the top left, Clockwise: The Bat himself (of course), The one and only Clown Prince of Chaos,
the Scarecrow, and Killer Croc

No, seriously.

Why? Because I really, really want to be Batman (indeed), but also I'm very impressed by his villains. His villains are (often) as enduring as the Dark Knight himself, in spite of the goofy costumes, the wacky evil schemes, and the Comic Book Code. Why? Because Batman's villains aren't just nefarious evil doers in ridiculous getup; They're ideas. They are the personifications of concepts that Batman must overcome and defeat, and the best work on Batman (the work that doesn't just involve another new Bat-ray pulled from hammerspace, though that's kinda nice in its own way ;P) shows him overcoming what the villains represent as much as the scheme they've planned. A lot of them just get locked up only to break out again,  like so many of our demons. But when they come out to play? They've got the Caped Crusader to contend with. :)

Oh, yes, and because of the Joker. I love the Joker. ;D

Makes Me Smile---Sokka's Art

*******

Because the poor guy tries, he really, really tries, and I have much respect for that. 

He also mangages to crack me up on a regula basis and still be awesome.

Marvelous SteamPunk C-3PO

Not According to Plan

Right now I'm in a state. Yes, one of THOSE states. Don't look at me like that. All sorts of people have states. Mine just tend to be...ugly, sometimes.

Basically, 8 days into Nano and I have not even a day's worth of words, I'm having trouble doing my work, life is frustrating, confusing and kind of, well, melancholy, and things just don't seem to get better. What's a person to do?

Oh well, press on I guess. Life's worth going forward in, I'm sure. who cares if there's monsters? If Doctor Who has taught me anything it's that there may be things hiding in the dark, but courage is having the strength to face them, even if they win sometimes...
Or you could run until you come up with a plan, that works too.

~rrc


"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Deuteronomy 31:6 (NIV1984)

Just a Thought (or Two or Three...)---The Carving of Life

Here.

I was walking along the trail behind our house, way out in the back where there's a little patch of naked hill and untouched trees and a little park bench by the concrete path that runs all through to the end of the little backway. I was going to listen to music, I really was. I had Lazy Eye, by Silversun Pickups* all ready to go. And I played it a couple of times going up that empty, wild hill. But then, looking down on the path and the trees and all the silly little houses and silly little people going about their stupid, wonderful little lives, and all this beauty, empty, empty natural beauty just a mess of it everywhere...

Well, I finally took them out and didn't end up putting them back in. I just... listened. listened to the wind blow through the hillside and the trees the rustle to leaves and carry the cawing, chortling magpies from tree to tree. Listened to the music drifting up from someone's open window as they practiced some sort of wind instrument. listened as someone sheared their yard with some noisy power-tool. And I just began to think.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think constantly; my brain won't stop yapping. But, truth be told, sometimes I just get so lost in my mind and all the little things and people that go on in there that I forget that there is an outside world, or at least one outside of dismal prospects and irritating people who can't possibly comprehend what plagues my cranium relentlessly--all day, everyday-- and foolishly insult it with their pestering. But here it was, unavoidable. No, that's not quite right; my brain has the power to block out most things (unless it's to my convenience, of course, like at social events with crowds or balloons -_-. Stupid popping balloons and crowds...), but here I was, fighting for this beauty, this healing God made with his very whisper. And I thought a lot of things, because really, I realized and felt I could think of anything, and that freedom I very well indulged myself in. And one little, silly, trivial thought that I thought was...

Music, it's just ordered sound. Just sound made in a pattern which sounds good to us (or not so much...). But the wind, the birds humming and cackling, the leaves rustling, the buzzing of the weed-whacker and the sweet melody of a wind instrument through someone's window-- the sounds of nature, the sounds of life, those are music in their own right. but instead of human beings ordering it, God is ordering it, according to what sounds best to Him, and we just happen, sometimes, to catch a glimpse of its beauty.

I guess I thought a lot of things. Another thing I thought was, I suppose the wind does have sense, order, yes? because it really describes everything it touches--it was describing the hill and the trees and the birds and the fences and the houses. It describes life itself as it carves it out through sound. And some creatures, with their brains wired a certain way, Like bats, they can hear how sound describes life. And how deaf are we? thinking wind is just wind and sound is just sound and music and all those other things are so irrelevant, when in reality...
they're so very beautiful, and so very, very signifcant.




*(which, in all fairness, I did learn about in Rock Band, BUT later fell in love with and now own an album of, so HA!)