Saturday, October 16, 2004

At the last Seattle ComiCard Show, I got into a little discussion about Namor with some of the artists. One of the artists admitted that she wasn't impressed with his ability to fly, as he already could breathe underwater, so what use was flying? That conversation led to this sketch of Aquaman, who may not have wings on his feet, but certainly has his own way of flying...

AQUAMAN
by Tiana Tampico
12 September 2004
(permission to post given 12 September 2004 in person)

As a reminder: Almost every sketch in my sketchbook was non-commissioned and done on the floor of a con. These are not the best works of the artists. These are only representative of what the artist can do under pressure in a loud, crowded, and often stressed-out environment. Most of them were done as quickly as possible, to prevent huge lines from forming. Don't judge any of these artists negatively by the artwork you see, instead be as impressed as I am by what they accomplished in far-from-ideal conditions.

To see all the sketches I have permission to post so far, check out my Sketchbook Page. If you have any contact information for any of the other artists I'm trying to contact, please e-mail me. Click for a random Aquaman sketch.

The Saturday Sketch ™ is brought to you by the letters "T", "T" and the number "70", and also courtesy the fine artists who pour their lives into producing wonderful comic books, then come to conventions only to get asked by geeky fangirls for a sketch of Aquaman. Support an artist, buy a comic book.

by Tegan at 10:29 PM Seattle time - Permalink   

Saturday at the con. I may only post one entry today...

Plans for today include getting some pictures (more on that after the con) and the Masquerade. There will be a Girl Genius panel today, along with hubby-Eric's Doctor Who update and a billion other things I need to attend.

More later, when I'm not actually off enjoying myself.

by Tegan at 8:32 AM Seattle time - Permalink   

Friday, October 15, 2004

Tired. So tired.

Virginia Hey is WAY cool. Must write much more about her in near future. In the meantime, go visit her website at www.whiteflowerlei.com. As an Australian actress, she doesn't actually make much money, so she has a store where she sells cool stuff including some prints of artwork she's done and some great aromatherapy products. I bought some bath salts and just inhaling the smell from the box is very very nice.

The other Farscape guest, David Franklin, has a wonderfully quirky sense of humor and a long history in TV and film. Along with playing Braca in Farscape, he was also Brutus in Xena, and had a role in Matrix Reloaded. While he doesn't have his own website, he's got a biography at Peachtree Services.

Along with meeting our two Aussie guests, I went to the Heather Alexander concert tonight and enjoyed many great songs. We were only interrupted a couple of times by the Klingons next door playing "The Weakest Link". Heather has a new album out, which I plan on buying tomorrow. I hope.

Speaking of Klingon Weakest Link, my husband has brought honor and glory upon upon our household. Yes, he won. We've got to get that boy on Jeopardy.

Tired.

So tired.

Goodnight.

by Tegan at 10:52 PM Seattle time - Permalink   

Paul Jackson is the station manager of KBTC, the Tacoma PBS station which shows Doctor Who. He's an incredibly nice guy, who listens to the fans and supports us, even allowing Klingons on air during Pledge Drives.

Last night, during a going-away party for Paul's son, who is going into the Navy, the deck attached to their house collapsed, injuring a number of people and killing Paul's father. The deck, which was installed by a contractor in 1995 according to various news reports, was not properly bolted to the house.

I have been to parties at Paul's house, and I have stood on that deck. Paul is a responsible man, and would never have let anyone on that deck if he didn't think it was safe.

My heart goes out to Paul and his family. This weekend especially, as Eric and I are about to attend Anglicon XVII, which is a fundraiser for KBTC. If anyone wants to send a condolence message to Paul and his family through this blog, I will add it to whatever effort is produced during the convention.

by Tegan at 11:00 AM Seattle time - Permalink   

• Weight = X-2
  
• Change From Last Week = +2
  
• Met Exercise Goal? No.
  Goal was fifteen minutes a day (walk/bike/swim) at least six days.
  
• Current Exercise Goal = twenty minutes a day (walk/bike/swim) at least four days.
  
• Kept food diary? No.

Ok. Enough is enough. I'm not just derailed from my exercise plan, I seem to be completely off of it. No excuses, I just can't seem to keep myself going. So I'm going to lower my expectations a bit until I can keep to the program again. Instead of six days, I'm going to require only four. I'm upping the time, but I was already well past twenty minutes on my average workout. I've started swimming once a week, which will cut into my exercise show viewing time, but the shows weren't enough to keep me coming back regularly anyway, so I shouldn't complain.

I haven't been able to keep up my food diary for some reason, but that's too important to dump. I may need to buy a notebook and start to actually write it down instead of relying on coming home to my computer and recording it in my electronic diary. If one method doesn't work, try another.

I'm adding some very low impact weight training to my program when I'm home. It's so low impact I can barely even stand to call it weight training. But those exercises, when added to my regular stationary bike or treadmill time, should help make me feel a bit better. And how I feel is the biggest concern.

by Tegan at 9:57 AM Seattle time - Permalink   

Thursday, October 14, 2004

So I stopped by in Lake Forest Park for some bread on the way home (Great Harvest Bread... I stop by every Thursday for a loaf of their sourdough) and was a little surprised at the magnitude of traffic. I managed to find a parking place, and went in, and noticed that the mall itself was jammed with people, mostly elderly. I asked what was going on and was told that the city had their allotment of the flu vaccine.

There were only 300 shots available, and apparently the line had grown to over 350 people before 10 am. People had been lining up for flu shots since 6 am. The police were going through and explaining to people who had arrived "late" that they had to go somewhere else to try to get their shots.

I've gotten the flu shot twice. The first time I got it, a week later I got incredibly sick with flu-like symptoms, then later on that flu season I actually caught the flu. I got the shot a second time after being assured that there was absolutely no way I could have gotten the flu the first time from the flu shot, and that the shot was perfectly safe. A week later I got flu-like symptoms - once again I was very sick, but I never caught the actual flu itself that year. My new doctor suspects that I was allergic to one of the ingredients in the flu shot those years, and told me that as long as I'm young and strong I should just not get a flu shot.

Some people have no choice. They work in the health care profession, or they are older folks who live and work around young children. The heartbreak of some of the people upon learning that they couldn't get the shot today was hard to see.

As an aside: Am I the only one who finds it mildly ironic that we're being told that importing cheaper drugs from Canada (drugs that are made and packaged in the USA) isn't safe, but all our flu vaccine comes from England or France? It was one of those "huh?" moments when I learned that little fact about the flu vaccine.

by Tegan at 2:01 PM Seattle time - Permalink   

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Farscape [2-05]: The Way We Weren't: Chiana finds a video of Moya's first pilot. Brutal start. And brutal much of the way through as both Pilot and Aeryn have to deal with their involvement in the death of the first pilot. There isn't a lot to say about this one except... wow. Very nicely done. This is my favorite episode so far.

Farscape [2-06]: Picture if You Will: Chiana is given a picture that apparently shows the future. And fun fun fun ensues! Ok, this one was nasty at first, particularly Chiana's fate. While watching it I got my first sense of watching old-school science fantasy a la Doctor Who, with the alternate universe-y thing and the not quite perfect effects. I mostly enjoyed that aspect, though it seemed somewhat unreal considering the age of this show. Overall, not a bad episode. Mildly recommended.

Farscape [2-07]: Home on the Remains: When the ship runs out of food, Chiana takes the crew back to her old haunts. Seeing how a couple of old friends react to Chiana fleshed out her character a bit more. But overall, this wasn't a very strong episode in my opinion. Lots of neat concepts, but it was clear from the start who the "bad guy" was, and a couple of things were left unexplained or hanging. And I'm not sure I buy the relationship forming between Chiana and D'Argo. Not horrible, but only very mildly recommended.

by Tegan at 2:53 PM Seattle time - Permalink   

Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart. I really enjoyed the mini comic that Steve Lieber sent me based on this book, so I figured I would enjoy the book. I was right.

While you come into this thinking it's a book about ghosts, it's really a book about Texas, large families, and relationships. Particularly relationships. In particular, what happens when love goes wrong.

This is not a scary book, despite the morbid ability of the lead character. It doesn't even get overly creepy, for the most part. It's a good read, but it's not high art. It's a good book to curl up with next to a fire in the middle of winter for some light reading. So I'll call it mildly recommended, and leave it at that.

by Tegan at 8:49 AM Seattle time - Permalink   

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Vagabond Vol 4: After learning that he's not as great a swordsman as he believed, Musashi takes to the road for a student journey. A whole bunch of things are happening in this volume, including Musashi's past catching up with him. There's so much in it that it's not as good as it might have been if I'd read it in shorter chunks. Still very strong, and still recommended.

Jax Epoch and the Quicken Forbidden Vol 2: Very confusing. I need to reread the first volume then go back and read this again. The artwork is wonderful, and the story is complicated enough to pull you in. While this isn't as strong as a volume as the first one, it's still very strong. Recommended.

The Ballad of Sleeping Beauty #4: I'm really enjoying this story, especially now that I think they may have reached their destination. Good art, strong story... what more could I ask for in a comic book? And I like it even though it's not a genre I'm totally enamoured with.

That's it for this week. Tomorrow's books: Bloodhound, Fallen Angel, Green Arrow, JSA, Astro City: A Visitor's Guide, Captain America, and Powers. If everything comes. Aquaman #23 was originally scheduled for tomorrow, but was delayed until October 27th for some reason.

by Tegan at 9:05 PM Seattle time - Permalink   

The Grim Grotto (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 11) by Lemony Snicket: A much thicker volume than the others, it's still a very quick read. The running joke in this one is the water cycle and how boring it is. I don't know, I find the whole thing pretty fascinating, myself. Most of the book is set underwater, as well, which is a bit of a change. You have to wonder where the last two books can possibly take the children. As I read this one, I kept thinking that this book, in particular, would make one heckuva "quest" type video game. All in all, a very good installment in the series.

by Tegan at 7:48 PM Seattle time - Permalink   

Shane Bailey is linkblogging again. Of course, the most interesting of his links this time, to me, is the John Arcudi Newsarama Article that I somehow managed to miss. I'm a little disturbed to learn that the whole San Diego thing is part of a major DC crossover... which means it won't be resolved in the next issue as I'd hoped.

Panoramically Challenged reports on what comics he'll be getting on Wednesday, and mentions Bloodhound as a particular favorite. My list for this week: Bloodhound #4, Fallen Angel #16, Green Arrow #43, JSA #66, Astro City: A Visitor's Guide, Captain America #32, and Powers #5... assuming everything arrives. Aquaman has been delayed two weeks.

Peter David reports that Fallen Angel is doing better thanks to promotional efforts. Now if only DC would collect the latest Aquaman arc and promote Aquaman the same way... (*whine*)

Surgery under the sea. This one doesn't involve Aquaman.

Polite Dissent links to a comic I'd never heard of, but it still sounds cool. I may have to check it out some time.

Want a leather jacket, but refuse to let an animal die for it? An answer is on the way. Amazing how, despite everything, my knee-jerk reaction to this was still "ug".

The Settlers of Catan is going on-line. If you don't know about this game, it's a fun one that my store sells a lot of. Popular on college campuses. Lots of expansion packs, too. I wonder how the on-line version will work?

Scientists have created a formula to define Murphy's Law, and how to avoid it. I'm impressed: ((U+C+I) x (10-S))/20 x A x 1/(1-sin(F/10)) where U = urgency, C = complexity, I = importance, S = skill, F = frequency and A = aggravation.

Stuart Hughes is going to spring around a bit thanks to his new prosthesis - the Cheetah. It's almost enough to make you want to lose a leg.

And on a very somber note: THE ULTIMATE SILENCE - October 12, 1998. Six years ago today, Matthew Shepard was murdered for being homosexual. What will you do to end the silence? Via Brill Building and Postmodern Barney.

Here's a little picture to end the post:

by Tegan at 4:36 PM Seattle time - Permalink   

Monday, October 11, 2004

I considered attempting a good link blog tonight, but I had a long swim earlier and I'm now too tired to put together anything of value. So I'm just going to write a little randomly.

See, I just joined a swimming group last Monday. I'll be going each Monday from here on out, I hope. Last Monday I went and forgot my goggles at the pool, so when I went today I hoped to reclaim them. Because of the amount of time, and the number of people who use the pool, I didn't hold out a lot of hope. But I was lucky, they'd been turned in and I happily got them back.

Once into the pool I did some underwater swimming for a bit before grabbing some barbells to work on my arms. But there was a problem. The lane markers couldn't be put up because one of the hooks was missing. The lifeguard said it was probably at the bottom of the pool somewhere, so I went hunting. I found it at the deep end of the pool, in nine feet of water. I couldn't get to it. I'm too bouyant. The lifeguard came over after two of us made efforts to dive and couldn't get down far enough. She attempted to snag it with a net, but it was too small and kept falling out. The lifeguard and I suddenly had the same idea at about the same time... why didn't I climb down the net pole? It was easy, and I noticed the added pressure only nine feet down.

Feeling even better after the dive, I spent some time exercising, then chatted with others in the group. The pool is a therapy pool and there is a second even warmer pool that the group moved to after about 40 minutes. So I basically got to sit in a hottub for 20 minutes.

I am now so relaxed that I'm finding it difficult to think.

by Tegan at 10:06 PM Seattle time - Permalink   

My friend John Schwirian has produced yet another amazing issue of The Aquaman Chronicles, one of the best fanzines out there right now. This fanzine has gotten to lucky issue #13. For a character that people claim is lame, that's a pretty impressive accomplishment. And this is not a single person effort, either... contributors include a great many fans with differing opinions on just about everything - as well as more than a few professionals lending a little knowledge. John has created an incredible legacy, far superior to my own Aquaman website. And the fanzine sometimes even manages to surprise me, with a notable in this latest issue being the news of an animated Aqualad action figure (from the Teen Titans cartoon).

My own contribution to this issue is the return of "Tegan's Tidbits" after an absence of several issues. In my essay "Aquaman: Magic or Science?" I attempt to explore the way Aquaman has been portrayed over the years as both a science fiction and a fantasy character. In addition to my two-pager, if you get this issue you'll get some "Aquatic Ramblings" from Russell Burbage, an essay on "Aquaman: Icon of Character" by D.C.Dill, a couple of great Aquaman pin-ups by Anthony Burns and Don Churby, a review by Chris Khalaf, a great article covering recent and future Aquaman appearances by Richard Duncan (and Richard's second installment of "Who Wants to Be An Atlantean Heir"), an essay by John Schwirian on Aquaman's lack of respect called "The Curse of the Super Friends", and more... that's right. MORE. This book rings in at 56 pages including covers, and it's full to the gills with great stuff. And an additional extra that came with this issue was a complete index to the first ten issues. I'm telling you, this book has to be seen to be believed. It's a fanzine, yes, but it's a great fanzine.

My contribution to this fanzine has been tiny. Mainly a handful of articles and a truckload of moral support. It's extremely heartening to me to see another Aquaman fan as rabid, or moreso, than I am out there working to be heard.

Now, as a special blog-only sneak preview, I'm going to post the beginning of my article for The Aquaman Chronicles #14. I don't know when it will come out, since John works on the fanzine in his spare time, but I'm actually ahead of deadline for the first time ever, so I'm going to share it. The actual article will be a bit longer and hopefully will have some images to illustrate ideas.

The Aquaman Movie: It's All Wet

There's been a lot of talk recently on-line about a proposed Aquaman movie. I've weighed in a couple of places on my opinion, but maybe it's time to make my stance a little more formal. That's what this article is about.

First off, there are a LOT of movie ideas in Hollywood every year. I don't know for sure what percentage of them actually get made, but I suspect that at least 99% of them don't go anywhere. Probably more. That includes ones that hit the rumor mill, even ones with producer/writer/director names attached. So the odds are very firmly against an Aquaman movie being made, even though a rumor of one has surfaced. That's why I'm not getting all excited about it. It's just not likely to happen.

Now don't get me wrong, here. I don't mean to be a spoilsport or something. I know it's fun to speculate on the nature of a movie like this. Who will star? What will they do with the character? Is it possible that they'd make it into a comedy? Speculation will only die when the last fan is dead and buried... and even then I wouldn't be surprised if it somehow managed to continue. But that doesn't change the odds. The movie is still really unlikely to be made.

Regarding the idea that an Aquaman movie would work as a comedy... guys, there just aren't enough jokes. You cannot base a whole movie around a single joke and have it be worth watching. And comedy, REAL comedy, is a heckuva lot harder than drama. No matter what you think of Aquaman as a character, I really don't see a comedy with him working. You run out of genuinely funny material way too quickly. Don't you think we already have enough lame comedies around? Please.

Moving on, there's an unwritten understanding that this rumored Aquaman movie would be live-action. I don't think that would work. Aquaman is very much a water-based character... he spends most of his time underwater. Now it's true that if you go back to the Golden Age Aquaman stories, he spends a lot of time on the surface dealing with more mundane crooks and such, but if you want to give the character any depth at all, he needs to be underwater a lot. Despite the advances in film technology there is still no way to put an actor underwater and have him give a speech without it being contrived or unconvincing.

...

There's more, but this is a peak, not a revelation. If you want to read the rest... well, there's a great fanzine that will be printing it in a few months.

by Tegan at 1:16 PM Seattle time - Permalink   

Sunday, October 10, 2004

Rest In Peace.

by Tegan at 10:46 PM Seattle time - Permalink   

Justice League Unlimited #2: Nice little story featuring Booster Gold and Superman... along with one of my favorite sets of villains, the Royal Flush Gang. Cute bit at the end. Not a bad story at all. I like seeing more of the DCU.

Swamp Thing #8: I really wanted to like this, but the artwork is so distracting I'm never really sure what I'm looking at. There was a core of a good story in there, but it never reached the point where I could see it. I'm neutral on this one.

Marvel Age Fantastic Four #7: An annoying alien threatens the FF into helping save his people. And this one is just odd. There isn't any other word to describe it. It's odd. I kept expecting a real solution. But the one that resulted was just odd. I'm not impressed. Very mildly recommended.

Still to review: Jax Epoch and the Quicken Forbidden Vol 2, and The Ballad of Sleeping Beauty.

by Tegan at 2:04 PM Seattle time - Permalink