Hey, the Afro Samurai manga is finally being released Stateside, and it’s from… TOR/Seven Seas, WTF? Not sure how that happened, but they got Joshua Fialkov on board for the adaption, and Josh is cool people.

Volume 1 includes Takashi Okazaki’s original 8 page doujin as a neat little bonus supplement — and I do mean little since they pages are more like thumbnails =/

What caught my eye was seeing how the art changed. For example, here’s a comparison of the first panel of the manga and the first panel of the original. I guess someone let Bob (I love that Okazaki’s nickname is “Bob”) know those big lips were not gonna fly with the US market…

You can click here for full-page scans:
Manga page 1 vs doujin page 1.

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Maybe I should officially stop referring to myself as a “webmonkey”, because — I imagine this is (quite?) old news — I have just found out Google has a new Open Source browser coming out called Chrome. The development team has even posted a cool online comic for Chrome introducing the browser’s origins, features and goals.

What makes this of particular interest to PCS and those who share our love of cool geek shit is that the webcomic is illustrated by Scott McCloud, of Understanding Comics fame. Definitely go check it out.

Google Chrome aims to be a bit of a revolutionary browser, and as such, the intro comic is 30 pages long or so. If you just want a quick rundown, Blogoscoped has a summary of what Chrome is all about.

Chinatown Fair in NYC got Street Fighter 4 yesterday.

(I can’t really call this a “Hands On Impression” as that might make it sound like I got to play it a few times, when in fact I only played it *once* the whole night).

By the time I got there after work (around 6:30) there were so many people lined up and crowded around the machine that you couldn’t even see the machine. Compacting this, the game is set up in two side-by-side Japanese-style sit-down “cabinets” which is cool when you’re playing, but not so much for spectating.

I’d say for the first couple hours I didn’t get to play, or even witness, the game. Most of the guys around the machine had been there since before Henry (CF tech) had even set the machines up. I put my name on the list and was #40 lol.

Eventually I finally got my turn and picked Zangief. My opponent had Ryu and zoned me pretty well. I walked into an embarrassing number of fireballs getting used to the jumps and general feel of the game. I experimented with the lariat and banishing hand (pretty effective!), managing to get in and piledrive him a few times, and I even got a super SPD on him once which especially rewarding. Sadly I didn’t get to land my Ultra (your level 3 super where the game dramatically pauses and you get the cut scene animation before it activates) and the one time I tried to use the new Focus Attack it didn’t work too well for me heh. I ended up only winning the one round and had to go to the back of the line. So I just watched the rest of the time.

I got to ask questions about the gameplay from the other guys who had played more. Despite being someone who is at the arcade playing MVC2 & CVS2 like 3 times a week, I just didn’t have much interest in SF4. Honestly up until I heard CF was getting the game I hadn’t even read any articles or watched any videos about SF4 beyond the first one they released. The graphics are decent, but they sure aren’t the game’s selling point. (There’s some serious ugly IMO). As always with SF it’s the gameplay. I agree with the assessment that the gameplay feels like a mix between 3rd Strike and Super Turbo. The new Focus Attack system seems to add a nice layer of strategy but because it takes meter it’s not something you can do over and over like parrying.

Character-wise, people were mostly picking the usual standbys from the original cast while they tried to get used to the system. A couple people picked La Fuerte and lost badly, not helping the Mexcian wrestler’s rep as lowest of low tier. No one picked Rufus (thankfully?) or Viper. Justin Wong had six wins with Abel. Justin had six wins with everyone he played. The machine is currently set so 6 is the most wins you can get, and after that your game ends — which might sound like a ripoff at first, especially when you consider the game costs $1 to play!

($1.00 a game is a lot! But I think it’s fair when you consider CF must’ve shelled out a good chunk of dough for this game/setup. And also, the machine has a built-in in dollar slot, so that pretty much sets the price…)

The win-streak cap is actually a good thing, at least for now — because the alternative is for the top players like Justin to have 20 or 30 plus wins in a row, and everyone just waiting in line to play him. Later they’ll change it, but for now everybody gets to play the new game more this way.

Like I said, I wasn’t excited about SF4, but after last night I definitely got interested and am looking forward to trying it more. Only thing is, the SF4 machine at CF is like the hottest movie right now — there’s going to be lines til it cools off. So to anyone thinking about checking it out, you’ve been warned :)

From Astonishing X-Men #26 (out 8/20):

click for full page

On a side note, I didn’t get it til this issue, but with the investigation underway I’m getting a Planetary-ish vibe from this arc. Maybe things are looking up :)

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KenKrk pointed this out to me.

OMG. That is classic lol.

We’ve never used a creator’s photo for a poster but I like how this turned out. Hey, how can you go wrong with “The Handsomest Man In Comics” (© Adan)?

Did you know Newsarama redesigned? I didn’t, till I checked our referrers and read a little rant on Between The Staples about Web 2.0 comic sites:

“I know this will get me in trouble with certain people considering I work in web development but GAWDS I hate it when websites become “beta” with the stupid sunburst behind the logo, stripes, the HUGE widescreen look. Now hey Comic Book Resources looks like Newsarama which looks like Pop Culture Shock. First it was Chud.com which did the revamp, then along came CBR and now Newsarama followed suit.”

CBR looks like Newsarama which looks like PCS? I’m not sure I follow that exactly, since I guess they are saying they’re in “beta” mode but we aren’t. Maybe it just means that PCS is a trendsetter and they’re just now catching up? Heheh. Honestly I just try to keep up with web trends in general and obviously it’s easier for me to make changes than it is for bigger sites. I wish I had time to upgrade/tweak PCS more often. I remember when we first started — back when we were “Channel Zero” — I probably did a redesign every month (not saying that is necessarily a good thing).

I always took the fact that the big comic sites are behind the times design-wise as just a reflection of the comics industry in general. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to explain some ass-backward comic industry logic to Howard, who, as our videogames editor just doesn’t get how it can be like that.

I think Marvel did a great job overhauling their site. Blogs, multimedia, feeds, digital comics — clearly someone over there (Dokes?) is very forward thinking about where they want to be. Meanwhile, over at DC… *cough*

CBR’s revamp was okay to me because it still feels like CBR, and the Comics Bulletin (fka Silver Bullet) redesign was also pretty good — at least on the surface. I can’t say beyond that as I don’t really go to any of these sites except to get review data for Comic Rankings.

About Newsarma’s redesign — I know most people would say “About time!” But I have been saying for years that I wouldn’t change anything if I was them. The way I see it they really don’t have anything to gain — except feeds and some other 2.0 type features they probably should’ve had years ago. And maybe more attractive ad space? I never understood why anybody would pay big bucks to have their ad get lost. I know Midtown doesn’t even advertise there anymore since they got acquired and they’re not the only ones. Who knows, maybe this redesign will bring some of those advertisers back.

But even if new look is cleaner and hipper, and maybe they gain a little more traction with casual visitors — more than anything I think it’s just going to disorient their core audience and give the angry fanboys something new to bitch about. The way I look at it, so what if Newsarama was just a big glorified message board? They were/are #1 easily. I looked at them like Ain’t It Cool — I don’t think anybody would ever say a site should look like AICN, but why fix what ain’t broke.

Anyways. Back to the bit about CBR & Newsarama looking like PCS. I’d really rather not be lumped in with them — unless we can somehow sell out and become a big glorified press outlet and make those kinds of bucks ^_^

Last night I attended Marvel’s NY premiere of Iron Man with some of the Midtown guys and I have to say I had a great time. Unlike the rest of the crew I wasn’t particularly hyped up for this one, but it completely won me over. Robert Downey Jr was even better than expected. Granted, no one was doubting his ability to nail the hard-drinking womanizing playboy Tony Stark’s side (would he even need to act for that?), but he turned in the complete performance, making Stark’s nobler intentions believable and more importantly, quietly showing his vulnerabilities. He and Gwyneth Paltrow had a nice understated chemistry, although she seemed a bit weak in scenes not opposite him (not sure if that is just how she was written or not). I could’ve used more Terrence Howard, but like he said — with a glimmer in his eyes as bright as the silver armor he was referring to: “Next time!”

As much as fans will get a kick out of the insider references — like War Machine, Jarvis, the Ten Rings, the requisite Stan Lee (my favorite yet lol) — the bigger picture is that anybody can get into this movie. Whether you’ve seen Adi Granov’s CG work before or not, you’ve got to love the look of the Mark III armor; as great as it looked on Granov’s covers, it’s pretty spectacular seeing it in motion. Additionally, Iron Man’s character here is free of the complexities he’s taken on in the comics — which isn’t to say I don’t enjoy those complexities, just that they rightly don’t belong in his coming out party. And speaking of intros, the origin has been nicely updated to fit post-9/11, without becoming overly political.

Honestly I can’t even think of what I didn’t like about this movie… no Ghostface cameo? Any negatives are just nitpicking. Bottom line: this movie has everything you could really ask for in a summer blockbuster — high-speed action, great effects, and plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. And who doesn’t love big kickass robots?

This was such a fun flick I’ll probably pay to go see it again this weekend, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s going to see this movie multiple times. Look for Iron Man to make Marvel a ton of well-earned money. Congrats on the studio’s first solo outing.

Even though Common Sense’s Resurrection is one of my favorite albums ever, I didn’t notice until just now that the current PCS design kinda uses the same color scheme as the cover of that classic. (Except PCS has, uh, hotter gayer pink…)

The $17.99 price tag is kinda hefty for a slim hardcover like this, but the new coloring — by artist Brian Bolland himself — on DC’s just-released Killing Joke Anniversary Edition is really impressive! Check the scans below and you’ll notice that the new coloring is often a subtractive process, making everything look less gaudy and more refined. Interestingly, the yellow oval on the Bat logo has been removed everywhere.

I might just have to buy this (especially since I gave my copy away years ago…)!

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