Thunder... Thunder.... Thundercats Hoooooooo!

My poor wife has had to listen to me rave about the new Thundercats cartoon (Friday nights at 8:30pm Eastern) every day since the new show premiered (about 4 weeks now). So I've decided to share my ravings with all of you.

Just about every major cartoon property of the late 80's has resurfaced over the past few years. Masters of the Universe beat everyone out of the box from 2002-2004. Since then G.I. Joe (both Sigma Six and Renegades), Transformers (New Generation and Prime) and Voltron (the new wretched Voltron Force) have all relaunched. While some have been hits, others have simply missed (see my parens above on Voltron). All of which made me be skeptical of the new Thundercats.

I was a huge fan of the original series. I loved the opening of the show (the best animated opening of any 80's property) and thought the characters were great. Upon adult viewing, the episodes are more than a little hokey, but I still loved them. The action figures were even better (I still have my original Lion-O, Panthro, Tygra and Mumm-Ra). My love for the originals definitely made me wary of the relaunch... until it premiered.

The new Thundercats is far better (even after 4 episodes) than the original. The stories have been great. The animation is head and shoulders above any of the previously mentioned relaunches. The voice acting is amazing (Andrea Romana did a great job casting this series with former DC Universe voice actors). Everything on the show is top-notch. All of it makes for small-screen magic. To say the Thundercats is the best animated series on TV right now would be an understatement. It's one of the best series period. If you haven't yet given this show a shot, try and tune in. Better yet find "The Song of the Petalers" episode online, trust me, you won't be disappointed.

Joe Cool

If you are a G.I. Joe fan like moi, today is a monumental day. Not only do you have G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra being released today on DVD, but you have the far superior G.I. Joe Resolute.

Now I know the Joe live action film grossed over $150 million in the U.S. (and $300 million worldwide) but as I mentioned on this site when I saw the film, I was severely disappointed. The movie was a frenetic, action packed mess. It was built for the modern short attention spanned video game set. Heavy action, spandex clad women, crazy locales, little plot and no nod to the history and backstory of the Joes. In short a mess.

G.I. Joe Resolute, on the other hand, hits on just about every note. It's the Joe cartoon we always wanted to see. It's smartly written, wonderfully animated, and the Joes sound (although with a limited voice acting cast) and act just like you always wanted them to. The body counts are high, the action is heavy and for once, Cobra is badass (look at the way they destroyed Moscow and killed 10 million people). It's the best of classic Joe. You have the Duke/Scarlett/Snake Eyes love triangle (with Scarlett wrongly selecting her man). You have Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow to the death (with a proper telling of their origin, unlike the crap in the live action film). You have (simply put) the best incarnation of G.I. Joe ever.

So when you hit your local Best Buy, before reaching for The Rise of Cobra, reach for G.I. Joe Resolute. Trust me, from a lifelong Joe fan, you will be making the better choice. Yo Joe!

Mayhem of the Music Meister

Tonight finally saw the premiere of the musical episode of Batmans Brave and the Bold on the Cartoon Network. I am admittedly a music freak, and I must say I LOVED this episode. Neil Patrick Harris as the Music Meister was amazing. Grey Delisle as Black Canary was somewhat of a revelation. I had never heard her sing, but I thought she was great as well. Each of the musical sequences were great and really helped the plot move along. The music was smartly written and tried to cross over mulitple genres. A great episode of an underrated series that I think is truly hitting its stride.

Hopefully the Music Meister strikes again... soon!

Incredible Art

One of my favorite hero movies of all-time is also one of my favorite family films of all-time. Disney Pixar's The Incredibles. Simply put, it's one of the best superhero movies ever made. A much truer depiction of the Fantastic Four than anything Marvel put together with Tim Story and Jessica Alba. The characters are beautifully rendered and amazingly written. The story is a multi-layered tale of family, heroism, being true to oneself and redemption. A true masterpiece from the hit makers at Pixar.

This piece is inspired by the comic series of the Incredibles drawn by the amazing Sean "Cheeks" Galloway. I love Cheeks pencils. He has a very unique style. Loose and cartoony but still incredibly structured. Pencils took me about 1 hour. Inks took me about another 45 minutes to an hour. This picture doesn't show it, but I went back in and added layers of gray for added depth.

Top 20 of 2008: Wall-E

My favorite movie of 2008 also provided one of my favorite toys... Wall-E. My daughter actually got me this for Christmas.

This line of toys actually was created to appeal to the younger consumer, so it's a pretty simple figure. Articulation in the head and arms, as well as wheels for movement basically make up the figure. The color scheme captures the character perfectly as well. If you haven't seen this film, please do so, it was easily my favorite film of 2008 and this was easily one of the top toys.

The Incredibles

If I was putting together a list of my favorite movies of all-time, The Incredibles would be high on that list. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to pick just one Pixar film. Everything the folks at Pixar do is great. To me, though, The Incredibles was the best of the bunch. Amazing CGI animation, a wonderful story by Brad Bird, (channelling his inner Stan Lee... I mean seriously, this is the best Fantastic Four story ever told) who also wrote the underrated Iron Giant, with amazing voice acting by Craig T. Nelson (in his best role since Coach), Holly Hunter and Jason Lee.

The above figures were released as Disney store exclusives shortly after the release of the film. They all contained movie accurate sculpts, as the turnarounds for the film were used for the sculpts of the figures. As an added action feature, Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl and Dash contained LED logos on their chests that lit up when pressed. Elastigirl came packed with Baby Jack Jack and Violet came packed with a translucent "invisible" Violet (pictured left), which was by far the coolest and hardest to find of the bunch. Each of the figures also came packed with an Incredibles logo ring (way too small to fit on my finger but Scrappy loved them), as well as art deco style trading cards in the style of the art on the closing credits of the film.

Also part of this extremely exclusive line were Frozone, Syndrome and young Mr. Incredible. I own all except for Syndrome.

"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today"

In 2004 Mezco Toyz released a brilliant line of action figures based on the Popeye the Sailor Man cartoons. This line featured brilliant sculpts and accessories as well as cartoon accurate color schemes, This was one of the best action figure lines of all time.

Wimpy, was generally the straight (but often lazy and scamming) man to Popeye's over the top hero. Wimpy also had a love of burgers almost as big as my own. Wimpy came packed with burgers to hold in his hand, as well as a full plate of burger goodness. Also packed with Wimpy was the magical dog Jeep. Jeep was a gift from Popeye to Olive Oyl, and one of my favorite animated characters growing up. This figure perfectly captures the simplicity of the Jeep' look in the classic Max Fleischer cartoons.

G.I. Joe Resolute

I watched the latest rendition of G.I. Joe this morning. The new G.I. Joe Resolute cartoon shown on Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network premiered last night. All in all, I must say I was very impressed. Save for a few bits of story telling I didn't agree with, I highly recommend it to any Joe fan.

The animation and voices (while a limited cast) were top notch. Not as cartoony as the 80's cartoon. I believe the animation was done by a Japanese studio. It was a far better animated Joe than the previous Sigma 6 effort

The needless elimination of major villains (Major Bludd, Zartan and Storm Shadow all killed) and Scarlett picking Duke (major tool) over Snake Eyes (total badass) were slaps in the face to true Joe fans. Any one who has followed Joe continuity for as long as I have knows Scarlett belongs with Snake Eyes, period. In comcs lore, he lost his face and voice protecting Scarlett, therefore tying them together for life. Simply put, they belong together. Those minor complaints (and the somewhat lukewarm ending) aside, an excellent effort by Hasbro and all individuals involved. I hope to see more adventures in the Resolute format.

Thursday Night Treats Part 2... Legion

With the other picture I had drawn last night (Black Canary) not being very kid friendly, I decided to draw a piece that I could share with Scrappy and that she'd be able to appreciate. That led me to drawing the Legion of Superheroes in their animated style.

Legion is one of our favorite cartoons to watch on Saturday morning. In fact I altered my picking her up time so that I could time it to be home when the Legion started. I dig that show that much. Its also one of those things I didnt think I would ever truly see, a cartoon on the Legion amazing. As a geeky fanboy my favorite episodes are when they have lots of team members making cameos. The season finale that involved nearly everyone (poor Ferro Lad) was like a geekgasm for me. I loved it.

Anyway, here is the piece. The pencils took me a little longer than I expected. I thought I'd be able to bang out the pencils superfast, but with 7 characters it takes some time. It was probably close to an hour. The inks took equally sa long. Getting the details onto the girls flying along the top was nearly impossible. I should have drawn them slightly larger and more in the foreground. Oh well, I still love this piece. For me, it reminds me of watching Saturday morning cartoons with Scrappy.

Simpsons Avatar

I used to be a huge fan of the Simpsons. Saw every episode over the first 4-5 years. For some reason or another (probably when it moved to Sundays, which for me = sports days) I stopped watching it after a while.

I've thought the previews I've seen for the new Simpsons movie look hilarious and do intend to go pay to see that in the theater (although I've read that as much as 70% of the trailer is not in the film). Matt Groening truly is a genius in the animation field. You have to look at his work on The Simpsons and marvel at how it hasn't missed a beat. It's amazing that besides news programs or reality programs (COPS and Americas Most Wanted), The Simpsons is the longest running show on television.

Part of the push for the new film is this amazing website Simpsonsmovie.com. The site is incredibly interactive. One of the best features is that you can create your own avatar. Not only do you then get to download your avatar, but you can interact with other characters on the site. Its like a Sims game for the Simpsons. It truly is great. While we were all working here on Friday, we decided to take a break and make avatars. I thought mine was pretty right on and decided to share.

Not So Super Tuesday... Green Lantern

Yesterdays installment of Tuesday night drawing had me wanting to draw other members of the Justice League or the entire new animated Legion of Superheroes (love that new show, wish they had made more episodes). I bounced the idea around of drawing the entire new Justice League as a team, but decided I wasn't ready for that. So I decided on two members of the new team. I would either draw Green Lantern or Black Canary (saving the other for next week).

Wanting to be able to get Scrappy to bed, help make dinner and actually try and watch the All-Star game (yay American League) had me thinking I'd be very pressed for time. Seeing as how men are always easier for me to draw then women, I decided to draw a simple Green Lantern piece. Scrappy had eaten dinner at her other house so I didn't have to worry about getting ready. I did have to make rice while I waited for my love to treat me with some steak (love steak, can never have enough of it).

So at about 7:30 I found myself sitting on the couch with Scrappy watching the Suite Life when I thought I could start to work on a piece. I broke out the newly sharpened pencils (thanks baby... for some reason it escapes me on how to properly sharpen a pencil) and got to work on Green Lantern. I hit a good stride when it was time for me to start the rice for dinner. Shortly after the rice I had to give Scrappy a bath and get her ready for bed. While she was in the bath I quickly finished the pencils. The pencils probably took me 20-25 minutes total. Everything flowed really well, although I had a pretty crappy day at work my evening was turning out ok.

Got Scrappy to bed and just as we were starting the story my love showed up and we were able to tuck her in together (I love when we get to do that together... it doesn't happen very often during the week, so its special when it does). As my love was starting up the steak I was able to start inking the piece. So I inked a little, sat down for dinner, ate, had some difficult conversation then sat down and finished inking.

I think the piece suffered a bit from the fragmented inking (the total inking time was probably 45 minutes). It's by no means an awful piece, I just wish it was better. I don't feel like I captured the perspective of the piece properly. The lower half seems so small while the upper half seems so large. I tried to save it a bit by adding in greys for the musculature. It could also be that I'll always lump this piece in with everything else that was going on, so I'll have a hard time looking at it objectively. Not an awful piece by any stretch of the imagination, but definitely not something that I truly love either. It was my first ever Green Lantern piece so it becomes my best Green Lantern by default. Maybe I'll try and redeem myself and draw something else this week.

Cake, The Magic Bunny... girl

I've been posting everything I've drawn lately, so this should be no exception. Was inspired by The brilliant Charlie & Lola on The Disney Channel, and while watching an episode on July 4th I drew this bunny. Scrappy was sitting right next to me so I asked her what the bunny's name should be.

"Cake" she replied "Cake the Magic Bunny". Cake it was. About a full two minutes later she says "Cake, The Magic Bunny (small hesitation) girl".

I then went into a whole story about Cake was a bunny that was pulled out of a magic hat by a magician and decided to live in our world instead of disappearing back into the hat. Whenever the magician is not using his hat and wand then the bunny uses it to perform magic. I think I want the "Adventures of Cake" to be a regular feature on this site. Stay tuned.

Also, as you can see the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. After watching my favorite movie of the summer so far (Spider-man 3 was awful, and the Transformers was a solid B+), Scrappy came home and drew a picture of it. I thought it was a lot of fun and wanted to share.



Notice the detail on Linguini's hair. He had curly hair that flapped out from his chef's hat... perfectly illustrated by Scrappy... that's my girl.

The Clock King F-cking Sucked!

I've stated before, and will again, that my girlfriend is the best. She puts up with all my passions. She rarely complains about the closets that are jam packed with collectibles or the piles of comic books that are everywhere or my nearly limitless ability to watch anything sports or comic related. So it comes as no surprise that she is an animation fan as well. So there we were last night, watching Boomerang repeats of the old Batman The Animated Series (which she was a big fan of in the 90's... even before I was in the picture... you see, this girl is perfect.). The episode starts, and she remembers in detail the episode and goes on to proclaim "yeah, i remember this episode, the clock king f-cking sucked."... I must say, I truly do love her.