Kunoichi Boy


Ninja Attack!

It took me all day yesterday, but I managed to finish the inking and lettering of Kunoichi Boy Issue #1. Of course I had to simplify the grayscale 'colors' since I'll be working with xerox copiers this time, instead of a real printing house. Other than that, it's pretty cool. The first issue of KB clocks in at 32 pages, introducing to readers the character of Jin Dragu, perhaps the first metrosexual/new age ninja hero in a feudal Japanese fantasy age. This title marks a lot of firsts for me... my first Xerox comic (believe it or not), my first comic to have a male main character (albeit someone who dresses up as a girl), my first real NINJA comic (Kai doesn't really count as a ninja, come to think of it) and my first comic to actually be set in a Japan-esque world. That said, it's still a MAD comic- lots of kick-ass girls who aren't too shy (Mikoto won't be the last tough babe I'm going to introduce in the series), a bit of humor and lots of action.

Depending on how this first issue does (I'll be releasing it in Comic Quest soon after the Komikon), I'll be continuing the book in this format, most probably. It seems to work pretty well, and it should get a lot easier once I get used to the whole xeroxing thing.

Kon's on if a few hours. Gotta pack some K.I.A. and Angel Ace issues. Full report to follow.

Preparations

I'll be taking the day off tomorrow, but I won't be spending it getting R&R. I need the time to ready my stuff for Saturday's Komikon 2005.
Primarily I have to ready the Kunoichi Boy comic, which can be up to 32 pages long (the whole first story that should have appeared in Questor ME). This is actually the first time I've really produced a xerox-copy comic, and I'll see how it goes. I'll probably prep about 20 to 30 copies for selling tomorrow... that's me being optimistic. Heh.

Aside from that, I'll be packing up copies of K.I.A. and sets of Angel Ace (bundling the whole Again series with a copy of AA Next) for the Kon. That's a lot of stuff... I wonder if the Alamat booth can fit us all? Aside from me, Budjette will be showcasing his new comic Trese, a supernatural detective series drawn by artist Ka-Jo, and there will be some stuff from other groups.
I'm actually looking forward to seeing what other indie comic groups are coming up with these days... I'll probably spend a bundle on ashcans and first issues this weekend. Hoho! I'll also probably have to bring along a sketchpad or loads of bond paper to draw on. We'll see.
This early and I'm excited. I hope it all works out. It's not everyday there's an event for local indie comics. I hope this is just one of many soon to come.

Potty Training

Last night I finally finished reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (which delayed me a bit from finishing a page of Samurai Sis... Gah. The book's quite a read... in fact, I'd say it's topped Prisoner of Azkaban which was my favorite of the series up to now. The setpiece events- the World Quidditch Finals and the Tri-Wizard Tournament itself- were quite exciting and the book gets more intense as a certain Dark Wizard returns to the world of the living. Now I'm ready for the movie version, though after watching Azkaban and seeing the story aspects that got lost in the translation, I'm expecting a lot of stuff to be left out. Still, I'm pumped at the trailer and interested to see how the new director handles things after Albert Cuaron did POA. We'll just have to see as Goblet of Fire ignites theaters next month.

Sneak Peek

Here are two sample pages from my own Project Hero story, Samurai Sis. I really went for a look that's intentionally different from the art I did for Changing Channel, in that here it's a bit more detailed (with some attempt at a background) yet less on the finesse. It's reminiscent of my very early, early way of drawing... where quantity of lines (and lots of cross-hatching) made the art look a lot nicer than it actually is. Heh. Anyway, I think the more 'messy' way the lines look gives more character to the 'messy' state of affairs the characters are presently in. And yes, I didn't ink the pencils, so these are heavily-scanned and cleaned up from the original drawings. Does it work? I think it does...

Anyway, I'll be working on Samurai Sis pages for the rest of the week, as well as trying to sneak in work on Kunoichi Boy, which I have pretty much promised for the Komikon this weekend. It's gonna be close...


A day in the life of the Sobek household.


Careful, Sissy... those aren't chopsticks. Or at least, not ordinary chopsticks...

Samurai Sis will be coming out with other cool new superhero comic stories later this year in Project Hero from the gang at Comic Quest. Wait for it!

Resurfaced

RememberKunoichi Boy? Let's reminisce. I started thinking about an idea roughly described as 'Ninja Girl Boy' months and months ago. It would be a light-hearted mixing of elements from Ninja Scroll, Inu Yasha and Ranma 1/2. The end result was Kunoichi Shonen or more simply, Kunoichi Boy. I pitched the title to then-still alive Questor Extreme Mangamania, who accepted it as part of their upcoming lineup.

Unfortunately, delays followed long periods more delays and non-activity, until it soon became apparent that Questor Extreme, along with mother mag Questor, was DEAD. As in KAPUT. That left me with Kunoichi Boy without a home, and wanting for a release.

Anyway, after all this time, I'll finally be releasing the adventures of cross-dressing ninja warrior Jin Dragu AKA The Pink Ninja as he/she travels the land on an epic quest. The first release will be, barring any delays, a 32-page photocopy sampler comic that will contain The Pink Ninja's battle with 'One-blow Mikoto', a super-strong girl with a rock-hard body. A later, more substancial release, fully-printed and containing a larger amount of pages, will hopefully be produced in the future.
Kunoichi Boy will be seeing release this weekend, October 22, at the Komikon 2005 at UP Diliman's Alumni House. Along with the KB advance comic, I'll be selling copies of K.I.A. at a highly-discounted price (Komikon-only) and back issues of Angel Ace. Most likely, I'll be selling my stuff at the Alamat Comics booth, so check us there.

Fore more info on the Komikon, click here.

Changing Channel



Chelsea Chan could easily have been just your average, normal 15 year old girl with dreams of dates with her crush. But of course, when your parents are unnaturally addicted to Television, there's bound to be something weird in the mix. Chelsea got exposed to some strange radiation from her parents' television sets (note 'sets' as in more than one) right from her mom's belly, so when she was born she had powers far beyond that of mortal men. She has the ability to summon and materialize any character from any television show to do her bidding... how COOL is that?! And so, with her Universal Remote Control in hand, Channel the TV-tuning Superheroine is off to battle evildoers everywhere!

Changing Channel is created and written by Nikki Alfar (KC Strange, Siglo: Freedom) and drawn by Yours Truly. It's just one of the many new superheroes and super-stories to be featured in the upcoming Project HERO comic anthology, out later this year from the gang of lay-abouts at Comic Quest.

While Channel's in the bag, I'm still working on my own title, Samurai Sis, and hopefully I'll be done within the week. Then I'll have time to do some stuff for the Komikon this weekend.

WOOOHHH!!! Busy, busy, busy!!!!

Speed

I've slowed down a lot since my last stretch of doing comics. Saturday was supposed to be my Now-or-Never day for finishing Project Hero, but unfortunately I slept through several hours in the late afternoon after the kids played Playstation in The Sanctum after lunch. I started doing inks late night, and it looks like that I'll be finishing Nikki's story tomorrow. I'll be starting my own Samurai Sis story as well, and hopefully will do much progress on it.

Sigh. It doesn't help that my lower back hurts, so every moment I just want to lie down and just sleep. BAH. I should get more exercise, I guess. And maybe a diet. I'm so sluggish. Well, all that can come after. For now, I have a comic to finish.

Chaos

Or, the 3-day Weekend Sale. It starts today and ends on Sunday, which just hits on a payday, which pretty much guarantees a flood of humanity to gush into the Bermuda Triangle of shopping, Ortigas Center. I don't want to waste any time- gotta make a beeline for home after work, and then sequester myself for the duration as I try to do all I can in the space of two days or so to finish my quota for Project Hero. I truly haven't been able to accomplish anything during the week- which means I have to double-triple-quadruple my efforts on Saturday and Sunday to finish 14 pages of comic book fun.

If I do manage to pull it off though, it'll mean I got my comic book groove again.

I can do it. No problem. Right. I guess. Hmmm. Whatever. Gonna be busy-busy-busy.

Tech Lust


The Video-capable I-Pod. DAMN.

Okay, hang onto those bonuses and Christmas pay, people.

The new I-Pod will be coming with VIDEO. Og! Yep, Apple just announced that the latest incarnation of the widly-popular music player will finally have the ability to play movies and videos on a 2.5-inch color screen. The new video pod will come in 30 or 60 gig-variants, which is a HELL of a lot more than any SD card or portable mobile hard drive (the recently announced HD for PSP clocks in at 4 gigs) can give. Wow. 60 gigs. 60 FRICKING GIGABYTES of video and music. My Gosh. And given the long-life of I-Pod batteries, you may actually enjoy a good number of these vids before needing to recharge.

And the kicker is, the new video-pod will be thinner and lighter than past models. It's designed like the recently-released I-Pod Nano, thinner than a box of light cigarettes, and can load 150 hours of video. MY GOSH!

Am I impressed? Yes. Am I interested? Yes. Still, the loveliness of having a phone that plays video is that it IS a phone, and you carry it along with you as a matter of course. An I-Pod is a wholly separate device, something you have to bring along because you want to play the stuff you have in it. But darn... this is awesome.

It's a toss-up now. Xbox360 or I-pod Video. Heh. Why not both? We'll see. We'll see. HOHO!

Fembot

Here's an update on the Dead or Alive-HALO connection. Remember when I reported that there will be a character from the Halo universe guest-starring in DOA4? We were all expecting hologram-babe Cortana to be the one, but it appears we were all wrong (goes to show that the most obvious choice is seldom the right choice).

Nope. According to the latest Game Informer magazine, complete with pics, the Halo guest character is none other than a Spartan, or Spartan 458 to be specific, which is, as Halo gamers would know, a female version of the game's main character, Master Chief. From afar it's kinda hard to distinguish that the bulky battle-armored borg is actually a babe, but that's the fact. Now, while it's not likely that the Spartan will have a bounce, I'm actually looking forward to seeing this cyborg in action against the rest of the DOA ladies.

Dead or Alive 4 is slated for release later this year along with the launch of the new Xbox360.

Aaaaaaawwwww...



Darn, isn't she so cute? The Japanese just do cute so well. This is actually from the anime Basilisk, a pretty violent and action-oriented ninja anime along the flavor of Ninja Scroll. The cutie is a kiddie version of the show's female lead, Oboro. Basilisk is one of the latest anime by Gonzo (Hellsing, Gatekeepers, Samurai 7), and is about a war between two ninja clans and the love of their two leaders caught in between.

Gah! She's so cute! Musn't... look... into... eyes...

Board Games

Zathura is the story of two young brothers who, along with their entire house, get transported into space when they start playing a mysterious, retro-scifi boardgame named Zathura. If this whole thing sounds suspiciously similar to Jumanji, wonder no more- it's written by the same author. Anyway, substitute aliens and meteor storms for lions and flash floods and that's pretty much what Zathura is. Still, it looks interesting so I'll probably check it out when it shows in theaters this November.
So what's next? How about a CLUE boardgame murder mystery movie? Or a Dungeons and Dragons-type game? Or RISK?

Silent Hill


Tough ladies battle spooks to rescue a little girl in the Silent Hill movie.

The eerie survival-horror videogame series Silent Hill from Konami bucked the trend started by Capcom's Resident Evil. From gory monster mashes, SH instead went to more visceral, more psychological sources for it's scares. Well, after several games, the franchise has finally spawned a movie. The film version of Silent Hill stars Radha Mitchell (Man on Fire, Finding Neverland), Sean Bean (Boromir from LOTR) and Laurie Holden (Fantastic Four).
The story revolves around Rose (Mitchell), young mother who is desperate to find a cure for her dying daughter. She finally resolves to take the girl to a faith healer, and this leads her through a portal that sends her to the spooky town of Silent Hill. The half-abandoned, mist-shrouded town is inhabited by strange creatures and a mysterious darkness that twists and corrupts all that it touches. The only other humans in Silent Hill are fighting a losing battle against the darkness.

Soon Rose, joined by a female copy named Cybil, must make a pact with a demon to save her daughter's life. How far will these hapless prisoners go to survive? And will they be able to escape the twisted borders of Silent Hill?

Unlike other videogame movies, SH has a good chance of being a stand-alone feature that can cook up its own scares and chills without having to resort to cheezy videogame effects or out-of-place action sequences. This should be something to look forward to when it creeps into theaters in 2006.

Coming: The P990


Sony Ericsson's upcoming communicator.

No, it's not the P1000 gadget whores have been lusting for, but it's almost as good. In fact, it's just ten points away. The upcoming Sony Ericsson P990, which has just been scooped by Infosyncworld, is a long-awaited update to SE's communicator series (of which the latest, the P910i, has pretty much been overtaken by most other superphones as of late).
Incredibly enough, the P990 looks very similar to previous models, however there are significant changes. The thumbboard is now integrated into the main body of the phone, instead of on the keyboard flap. As before, you can open up the phone to use the lovely, large touchscreen (this time with 262,000 colors). A true communicator, the P990 will come with everything- texting, calling, Bluetooth, WiFi and even 3G for videocalling (it comes with a front-mounted camera just for that purpose). Furthermore, it comes equipped with a 2-Megapixel camera that's just as good as the K750 (and comes with photolight, natch). The hefty 80MB onboard memory can be upgraded by Memory Stick Pros which will go up to 4 Gigabytes (WHOA).

You'd think that I'd be excited. Not really- it's a Symbian phone (and supposedly will not run any apps made for previous P-series phones) and I just can't see myself leaving my Pocket PC for it. Still, it's a cool device and a sign of things to come... perhaps the first great phone of the next generation of superphones. We'll just have to see (as well as how much this monster will be). The P990 is due out in 2006.

Remote Control

The one really good thing I happened early today- I managed to figure out how to program the VCR in my room, so now I can set it to record shows even when I'm away at work (which is pretty much all the time). Now I can tape episodes of X-Play and FINALLY learn if indeed Jack TV has only four episodes or if they're showing new stuff on Tuesdays. Ah. This tech stuff if pretty cool.

Security

Yesterday night, I rushed over to Megamall's Cyber Zone to find myself a new holster/beltcase for my mobile. Wouldn't you know it... almost every single holster in the shop has that crappy 'clip' attachment. You know... the kind that tends to let go from your belt when you sit down, leaving your nice, shiny cellphone behind without you knowing. Why aren't there more of the standard 'loop' beltcase, which neatly fits through your belt and STAYS there until you take off your belt to remove it, or if someone either cuts it, or your belt, off. THAT'S Security. THAT is how a beltcase for equipment worth several thousand should be.
You know, I'm pretty convinced that the damn beltcase makers are doing this on purpose- the whole transition to clips and the apparent 'phasing out' of reliable loop beltcases. They do it so people will LOSE their phones and cases more often, so they buy more cases. It's a conspiracy, I tell you. It probably has the involvement of some Cellphone Beltcase Mafia and goes up into the Leather Products Industry, the Telecoms themselves and perhaps even into our black-souled government. Yes. It's true. Laugh if you will, but I believe this is so. Nothing about how evil and greedy people can be surprises me anymore.

VANISHING RAY. All of you.

Anyway, I found ONE loop-equipped beltcase and luckily, it fit my phone perfectly. Joy, joy! I'm back in business.

National Angst

I didn't get up on the right side of the bed this morning in terms of National Pride.

I hate Filipinos. We're a horrible race. Half of us are soulless plundering bastards, while the other half don't even care. Yeah, most of us who blog are part of that uncaring half. We don't care since we believe nothing we can do will help anyway. Not unless EVERYONE picks up and bodily ejects the crap from our political system.

On the radio, it's all about the government going for that 'State of Emergency' nonsense. Meanwhile, some wise guy is proposing the formation of a Railway Academy so we will never be lacking for educated train operators. WHAT THE FOCK? So how many untold millions and kickbacks will be bandied around this time for a whole school for people to operate our rotting trains?

GOD DAMN IT. I hate Filipinos. GOD DAMN IT We are so screwed. FEH.

Liability

These past few months ever since I got my O2 Mini, I've been using the leather case included with the box. The case fit with a belt clip and up to yesterday had been working pretty well. However, the clip has suddenly gone iffy on me. For some reason, the case seems to 'let go' from the belt clip pretty easily now- it's already dropped to the ground about twice, once yesterday and once today (alarmingly on the street!)- good thing the thick protective leather has kept my mobile safe and unblemished.
Then, right after we had lunch at a nearby resto, my heart pretty much leapt into my throat when I felt for my phone at my waist and found NOTHING. Again, the case clip had disengaged, but luckily my Mini was just sitting there next to me on the seat.

I have to get a new beltcase- I just don't like putting my phone in a pocket; I'm too far familiar with the skill of local pickpockets. Preferably I'll get a case with a loop- one that fits around a belt and does not 'let go' with the click of a button. The chances that I could leave my lovely mobile behind on a cab, bus or car, or worse, drop it onto the road unknowingly, are just too great. I'm headed for the phone accessory shop first thing after work.

Birthday Bash and Book Binge

Yesterday my friend and ol' college bud Pot had his birthday and the UP gang got together at Super Bowl in Greenhills to celebrate with fried rice, crispy chicken, noodles, spicy shrimp, beef n' broccoli and other Chinese food staples aplenty. Afterwards, we ranged about the Promenade mall to cap the night.

Passing by Fully Booked, I surprised myself by picking up a couple of books: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and The Thousand Orcs by R.A. Salvatore. I have always seemed to make it a point to read the actual book before watching a Harry Potter movie translation, and I don't want to break that tradition now, even as it's only a month to go to the showing of the fourth HP movie in theaters. The latest trailer was pretty exciting, so I'm pretty stoked on seeing perhaps the final movie to feature the movie series' original leads (Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint) before they turn into blooming adults.
Meanwhile, it's been quite a while since I've read the adventures of dark elf adventurer Drizz't Do'Urden, but for some reason I just felt like picking up the first chapter of the latest trilogy featuring Drizz't and his comrades. As the title suggests, the main antagonists are orcs, the footsoldiers and grunts of evil... so how formidable will these low-level baddies be against heroes who have faced drow armies, demon lords and high-level assassins and come out smiling? Well, it will be interesting to see.

I will have to try and resist pouring into these new volumes since I have to finish my stuff for Project: Hero (of which I have finished the pencilling for Nikki Alfar's story) within the week in time for Saturday's deadline. Then there's the Komikon the week after that and... AAARGGHHH...

The fun never stops in the MADman's world. MAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!

PSP Trojan

According to Malware Specialist Symantec, there now exists a trojan (a malicious program) that specifically targets Playstation Portables (PSPs). The trojan takes advantage of recent entrances to the PSP which allow users to run non-signed code (programs and apps not sanctioned by Sony). The trojan, dubbed Trojan.PSPBrick, masquaerades as a download which offers to enable additional capabilities to users. But instead of letting PSP owners execute 'homebrew" codes, the trojan deletes four vital system files required for the PSP to boot its OS, causing the device to become, literally, a useless brick.
Judging from how the trojan does not contain the means to spread to other users from affected PSP units, Symantec reports that the malware isn't causing big damage as of yet- PSP owners who refrain from using unsigned code will be safe.

WHICH leads the conspiracy theorist in me to believe that this 'trojan' may be something that could have been engineered intentionally FOR Sony's interest in punishing users who want to bend the rules a bit to get more out of their PSPs. Hmm? If players get scared of free downloads, they'll stay and use Sony's regulated software. Far-fetched? Maybe. Maybe not. Hmmm.

Now, if Sony got their act together on their portable and provided support for encoding video, internet browsing and other cool stuff, then maybe hacking or getting homebrew software won't be necessary. And maybe (but not likely given how crappy the game lineup is) I'd consider getting myself one of these bricks-er, I mean, PSPs.