Comfort Stand Recordings — Auld Lang Syne

Looking for a version of Auld Lang Syne for your New Year's party that's different from the same old? Check out this release from netlabel Comfortstand from 2006 for some different and interesting interpretations of the song.

Another New Year's Eve is upon us, a time to reflect on all that has happened in the previous year and to wonder about events yet to come

Tron 1.5 Soundtrack

For those wanting the direct link, go here (or click the post title).

In late 1998, I was commissioned to compile and produce the soundtrack for a sequel to the film 'Tron'. A draft of the story had already been written and early filming had begun (as reported by ZDNet on July 27, 1999). As I understand it, the film was kept in great confidence with the producers as Pixar was still in negotiations with Disney about the responsibilities of the production teams.

'Rise Of The Virals' was a fantastic, but much darker storyline from the original -- different from the 'Into The Machine' pitch made to Disney by another party. It involved updating the ENCOM universe to a networked system (thanks to the Internet), but also created a darker world -- full of programs abandoned as buggy systems (or 'mutants') and abused by corrupt users as viral systems. Furthermore, the story included the death of Flynn and presented questions about the digital life of programs lasting beyond the mortality of their creators -- the users.

My task was to compile great underground artists to create a new soundtrack for this darker world of Tron. After the completion of the initial tracklist and first production draft of the soundtrack, it seemed as if negotiations between Pixar and Disney had broken down. Funding for the project was eventually pulled.

I have been most excited to see the announcement of the third film, the new 'TR2N' (Tron: Legacy), especially with the involvement of those who will be creating the new soundtrack. It is obvious to me that 'Tron: Legacy' takes place after 'The Rise Of The Virals' without abandoning its first concept. Perhaps that is why we've seen sites like Flynn Lives creep up in anticipation of the new film.

I've decided to release the preliminary version of the soundtrack which includes a special remix of Journey's 'Any Way You Want It' produced specifically for 'Rise Of The Virals'. Journey provided two songs to the original "Tron", and their song 'Separate Ways' will reportedly be on the 'Legacy' soundtrack as well. In any case, since the story of 'Rise Of The Virals' takes place between the first 'Tron' film and the upcoming 'Tron 2: Legacy', I can't think of a better title for this material other than 'Tron 1.5'. I hope you enjoy the music these artists have put such great work into.

-- Flynn 1.5

Culture Bully's Top Mashups of 2010

Let the debate and controversy begin. There are some good mashups here, but I have to say that in the opinion of this fan of the mashup method The Kleptones' Uptime/Downtime was a game changer in the community. They raised the bar so high on multi-part mashups that I don't know if even they will be able to hit it again. To have a track no higher that #6 is disheartening to this fan.

That said, there is a lot of great music here. Go and grab it. :)

This is Culture Bully’s sixth annual list of the year’s top mashups, and this time around I thought it’d be nice to switch things up a bit. Instead of simply compiling a list of my own personal picks, I invited a slew of mashup producers to vote for their favorites from 2010. Quickly, here’s how voting worked: I asked everyone to send in a list of their favorite two or three mashups from the past year (I deleted picks which selected mashups that were released in past years). If they sent in more than three I still listed them below on their individual ballots, but only three picks counted toward the final totals. Whether the track received a first or third place vote, it only counted for one point toward the final total. I also tallied total votes for individual producers; again, only counting individuals’ first three votes. Lastly, no one was allowed to vote for themselves.

Merry Christmas From Batman

The panel is from "The Silent Night of the Batman" in Batman #219 (February 1970, reprinted in Christmas with the Superheroes #1, 1988), written by Mike Friedrich, art by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano, coloring by Jerry Serpe. Via Comics Oughta Be Fun.

Right-wing bloggers decry Nightrunner, DC’s Muslim ‘Batman of Paris’

I know a lot of geeks, gamers and comic fans prefer to ignore political matters, but then that is how this sort of idiocy starts to happen. Seriously, don't these people have some sort of real political issue that they can deal with without having to poke about in comic books for them?

A conservative blogger who earlier sounded the alarm about the perceived attack on the tea party movement in Captain America and warned of the 'anti-American nihilism' of Watchmen has now turned his attention to Bruce Wayne’s recruitment of a Muslim to be the Batman of Paris.

But Nightrunner, the parkour-trained crimefighter introduced in this month’s Detective Comics Annual #12, isn’t just any Muslim — he’s a 22-year-old Algerian Muslim living in Clichy-sous-Bois, the poor commune east of Paris best known outside of France as the epicenter of the 2005 riots. And that doesn’t sit well with Warner Todd Huston.

Don't get me wrong, people like this have as much right to spout dumb crap about comics as anyone who frequents any of the many, many comic blogs, forums and websites around the world. It's just that I have a difficulty with taking someone trying to attack the politics of Batman seriously.

Long Time DC Colorist Adrienne Roy Passes Away

Adrienne Roy, who created color designs for most of DC Comics' top comic books for more than two decades, lost a year-long battle with cancer on December 14. She was 57 years old.

A native of Verona, New Jersey and a Magna Cum Laude fine art graduate of William Patterson University, Adrienne was active in science-fiction and Star Trek fandom before she became one of the first female comic fans to break into the ranks of New York comics professionals. She initially assisted her then-husband, DC Comics staffer Anthony Tollin, with his freelance color work before she moved (rapidly) to working on her own. Before long, her work was seen on Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Warlord, The New Teen Titans, House of Mystery and many other titles but she was most often associated with the DC books featuring Batman. Amazingly prolific — and often specifically requested by artists — she was at one point the only DC freelancer with her own desk in the company's Manhattan offices. She was also the first colorist signed by the firm to an exclusive, multi-year contract.

Her long tenure on Batman (more than 600 issues of various comics featuring the character) meant that her credit appeared on more tales of the Caped Crusader than anyone else except for Bob Kane. "Adrienne made it easy to take her for granted because she was quiet, pleasant, reliable — never any fuss with her — and her work was always exemplary," former Batman editor Dennis O'Neil recalls. "It's only in retrospect that I realize what a blessing she was to my editing."

She lived her final years in Austin, TX, and is survived by her daughter Katrina Tollin, her brother Normand Roy and her former husband and art partner, Anthony Tollin. She is also survived by more than 50,000 pages of colorful comic book storytelling featuring the World's Greatest Super-Heroes. I always liked Adrienne and am saddened (but given her recent health, not surprised) by this news.

DJ Earworm “Working Feverishly” to Complete United State of Pop 2010

I'm wondering if this year's might be a little scary, due to the selections available.

Following the publication of the Billboard 100 for 2010 (USA music chart), DJ Earworm has been 'working feverishly' to complete his famed 'United State of Pop' mashup track, which seamlessly blends the top 25 tracks of the year.

Edit: If you want to keep your own watch, you can find DJ Earworm's website here.

Play This Blog

Change To Comments

I've made a change to how people are able to comment on my blog. Since the great number of anonymous comments that I receive on this blog (which is why comments have been on moderated status) are spam, I have made it so that people can no longer post anonymously on the blog. From now on, posting will require some form of logging on. Since I have taken away the ability to post anonymously, I have also taken away the moderated status for comments, and have activated the word verification instead. However, if spamming continues at the rate that it has (I receive at least five spam comments per day) I will reactivate moderation. Hopefully that won't be necessary.

Spirit of the Four Colors Update

Just a note to those who followed my start on the "Spirit of the Four Colors" FATE build. I want you to know that they project hasn't died. I've just got paying jobs in the queue before it. Look for a big update in the new year. I already have some changes I want to make to the part I've posted and I've been thinking a lot about character creation. This is definitely not a dead project.

The 50 Dirtiest Comic Book Sex Scenes

So comic books have grown beyond spandex do-gooders punching jaywalkers in the breadbasket - now they're fit to depict the full range of human experience. And that includes sex.

Captain Britain And MI:13 - 25 Comics Cancelled Too Soon

In the old days, even the dumbest comics got a chance to thrive - hell, Dazzler lasted thirty-eight issues! Unfortunately, in the post-everything America, stuff gets cancelled right and left. Here's 25 comics that should have lived longer.

It Aint Girl Talk… It's Better

I'm reposting a link to the Radioclash website (click the title above) for a series of compilations entitled "It Ain't Girl Talk, it's BETTER" put together by Tim of Radioclash (and mashup producer Instamatic), for those people who are under the misguided impression that Girl Talk does good mashups. These, my friends, are much better. Click and download. Click and download.

Well if you've been hanging around Pitchfork exclusively for the last 8 years you'd have missed all of the mixes (usually released free) by people who haven't had the handy PR-handup like Gregg Gillis has. And they can do it FAR better than he - and in most cases have been doing it longer

Superman decorations to cover Christmas tree at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport

The daughter of Jerry Siegel, the co-creator of Superman, said her father loved Cleveland because it was the first city to embrace a character who would one day be one of the most recognizable icons in the world.

While in town visiting relatives, Laura Siegel Larson attended a meeting of the Siegel and Shuster Society and said her father would be proud of the work the group is doing to promote Cleveland as the home of Superman creators Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Lou Ferrigno Joins Controversial Arizona "Posse"

Colleen Doran: The "real" victims of online piracy

For more than 20 years, I’ve written and drawn comics for a variety of major publishers: Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image and Disney. Like many artists, I’ve seen my sales figures chipped away as the print market shrinks due, in no small part, to rampant online piracy.

I tried to count the number of pirate sites that had my work available for free download, but when I hit 145, I was too depressed to go on. Pirates and impecunious fans inform me that pirating my work is great publicity, for piracy isn’t nearly as dangerous to an artist as obscurity.

Tokyo to Resubmit Bill on Sexual Depictions of Youths

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has decided to re-introduce a revised bill to restrict manga and anime with explicit sexual depictions of children during the parliamentary session that begins at the end of this month. The bill would amend the Youth Healthy Development Ordinance to add these materials to the existing 'harmful publications' classification, and thus restrict their sales and renting.

Six x-rated comics you can read without shame

Good list, except that I've never been a fan of Birdland (which I believe is the only Eros Comics publication I own). I picked up the book on the strength of being a huge Love and Rockets fan and loving the work of Los Bros Hernandez (singly and together). This list has added to comics that I want to track down with Niplez n Tum Tum and Small Favors.

Dirty comics have been around almost as long as the medium itself. No doubt a few years after the Yellow Kid first appeared, some wiseacre created a Tijuana Bible of him getting busy with Buster Brown’s mom.

Yen Press To Adapt The "Parasol Protectorate"

For those of you who fancy vampires and werewolves, parasols and tea, then you simply must meet Alexia Tarabotti. Some of you may remember reading a sample of Miss Tarabotti’s adventures in the pages of Yen Plus. In an alternate Victorian London in which vampires and werewolves have taken their place in high society, Alexia Tarabotti is soulless. That is, whenever she comes into contact with one of the aforementioned supernaturals, his powers temporarily vanish and he becomes mortal. This makes her quite a threat to the immortal set, and Alexia’s life of tea and biscuits is constantly being interrupted by all sorts of trouble. Yen Press is pleased to announce we will be adapting the "Parasol Protectorate" novels into graphic novel form. Keep your eyes peeled for an artist announcement soon!

Open Core is Dead, Long Live Open Core

Open Core was my first public attempt at a role-playing game system. In some places it rocks as a game, but there are also some places where the seems show with the welds that I did between the various open content systems that formed my Open Core rules. There are things that I would do different today, and there are things that I could probably do better today (some may argue against that!) but, all in all, for a first try it was a good little game. I got a lot of fun hours of play out of it (as have many others around the world now) and that is all that anyone can ask out of a game.

After some thought, and a brief conversation with my cohort in crime and publishing, Jonathan Thompson, I decided that it is time to close the book on this version of the Open Core system. Mind you, it isn't going to go away completely. The Open Anime game put out by Jonathan and I, and featuring the great genre advice and rules tweaks of Ewen Cluney isn't going to go away. If will live, as an ongoing testament to the capabilities of the system that started when I asked myself why a game system I was using at my gaming table didn't have the powers or magic that I really needed for a game. It is always great to see someone take what you came up with and run with it in ways you might not have expected.

Now, Open Core isn't going away, not completely. As some of you may know, I also designed a lighter version of the Open Core rules called Open Core Quick. Quick (as we've always called it internally) came about for a few reasons (one of which has always been kept a secret in public). I had been experimenting with streamlining the rules of Open Core for my personal games. The long that I'm a gamer, the less rules I seem to want at the table, so for my own play I pared and trimmed and boiled things down to their essence over time. And then we started negotiating for a licensed property and I said "Hey, I have a system I've been playing that could work for that." The license was Robotech, and ultimately there was a parting of the ways during the licensing process and you all probably know who ended up with the license (again). That left us with a perfectly good system sitting around. A few rounds of playtesting and we decided to release Open Core Quick to the world. People have liked it, too. Usually different people than those who liked Open Core, which is perfectly cool. Since parting ways with Seraphim Guard two of the primary things on my plate have been relaunching Open Core and Open Core Quick, since both of these are my game design babies. I've been puttering around with both systems trying to get them to a point where I can release them on to an unsuspecting public. Then Open Anime came out and I decided that I was pretty happy with what we had done with the Open Core system build for it, but it wasn't what I was interested in as a designer or a publisher any more. It will still live in Open Anime, and from talks that Jonathan and I have had it will get revisited by other hands.

The future of Open Core, however, is going to be Quick. For a summer 2011 release (provided further playtesting goes well when I start that up) the second edition of Open Core will be an update of what had previously been the Open Core Quick system. Open Core will continue in a new direction and with a new design imperative behind it. Will this make all of the fans of the first edition of Open Core happy? No, probably not, but change happens and I hope that once the second edition of Open Core is release the old fans of both versions of the system will find a happy place for the new game and we will be able to gather together some new fans for it as well. Open Core is Dead, Long Live Open Core.

Jerry Robinson Interviewed by Chris Mautner

Even if Jerry Robinson had initially left comics for a career in journalism as he had originally intended, he’d still be fondly remembered for his work on Batman, particularly in creating the arch-villain the Joker.

I Want A Cookie

DJ Schmolli - Ghosts And Fear For Halloween

Thinking About AD&D

I've been thinking about AD&D the last few days, since a couple of the panels at Necronomicon and the discussions we had on them. When I say AD&D I mean first edition because I never played or followed AD&D 2e. I don't think I've played AD&D since 1986 or so. My last game in the "old school" of (A)D&D was a Rules Cyclopedia game of D&D in '88 or so. But I've been thinking about it again.

Yes, the game was a mess compared to "modern" rulesets, but I don't care. I'm not going to rationalize or justify the messiness of the rules. I liked them. That's part of what made them fun.

I'm not going to analyze them either. For me, personally, that defeats the purpose of the games when I was younger. They just were. We played and had fun.

But I do now want to pull the books off the shelf and play them again. :)

Wallace Shouts "Shazam!" In 2011

Captain Marvel and the rest of the Marvel Family haven't been featured in their own, in DCU continuity, ongoing series for more than a decade, dating back to the 'Power of Shazam' series, which ran 48 issues from 1995 to 1999.

But Eric Wallace is doing everything within his power to keep Shazam! alive, first delivering the one-shot 'Blackest Night: Power of Shazam' #48 last January and then featuring Osiris – brother of Isis and brother-in-law of Black Adam – in his current run on 'Titans.' Next up, the veteran television writer ('Eureka') is telling a story featuring Freddy Freeman, Billy Batson and Mary Marvel in a 'Shazam' one-shot scheduled for January 2011.