GrrlScientist has a new blarg at the Guardian. No, not a blog, a blarg… apparently it’s the more correct term. In other blarging news there’s a new Sexist Beatdown over at Tiger Beatdown.

Finally we get to see the Bargol in action. Unfortunately, Mischa’s Zerosaiko took a few hits in that last fight and she just lost her one weapon capable of targeting the cockpit.

Sean just sent a message to his grandparents using only the power of his bum. Then his mom asked him to stop sitting on the keyboard.

I’ve heard rumors that they’re thinking of doing a new Judge Dredd movie in Hollywood. This got me to thinking about how it’s possible to take 30 years worth of story and convert it into a three movie box set. To make matters worse, the source comic progresses in real time- unlike Spiderman who has been in his 20s forever, we’ve seen Dredd grow from a 30something star judge to a 60something old fogie. An old fogie who can kick your ass six ways to Sunday, but an old fogie none the less.

I’ve always thought that there were three distinct ages of Dredd: absurd Dredd, ironic Dredd, and satiric Dredd. In the beginning the comics were just plain silly. Dredd was an over-the-top future lawman whose singleminded dedication to The Law was played for laughs. At some point, though, something changed. The stories took on a darker edge.  Dredd became the villain in his own comic. This is what I refer to as the age of Ironic Dredd. I’m using the literary meaning of irony here: a discord between the ideas expressed by the character and the message received by the audience. This lasted up until the prelude to Necropolis, when Dredd began to realize his mistakes handling the democracy movement. He eventually resigned and took the long walk into the cursed earth. Thus began the age of Satire. Satirical Dredd is more human; he has to make hard decisions and he makes mistakes. This Dredd still believes that law is the best way to ensure justice, but he’s come to realize that there are problems with the Judge System.

And now my idea for the thrillogy…

Movie One would cover the first Robot War and the birth of the democracy movement. I can see the trailer now: you see something mechanical moving, the screen goes black, the voiceover says “Call me Kenneth” and suddenly there’s the sound of a drill… ooh, goosebumps. Anyhow, in this movie the setting is established and Dredd’s arse-kicking bona fides are established. All over Mega City One robots start turning on their human masters. Judge Dredd leads the fight to defeat them. While this is going on we’re introduced to young America Jara and Bennett Beeny. There’s a growing democracy movement in the city, which is boosted by the robot rebellion- after all, what’s the point in surrendering your freedom for security if the judges can’t even keep you safe? By the end Dredd stops the robots (thereby becoming a hero), and also brutally puts down a pro-democracy rally that America was attending (thereby becoming ironic).

Movie Two takes place some time later. Beeny’s musical career has started to take off, and America has gotten involved in the pro-democracy group Total War. Judge Dredd has taken on a cadet: fellow Fargo clone Judge Kraken (you think we have time to explain the Judda in a two hour movie!? Kraken is a Fargo clone here!). There’s a major threat in the city- maybe the Raptaur, I think the opening scene of that story with the eloping couple would make a nice tragic cinematic. Anyhow, while Dredd is trying to deal with the threat and train Judge Kraken, Total War is conducting a series of terrorist attacks. While dealing with all of this, Kraken proves himself to have very little regard for civilian casulties, causing Dredd to reflect on his own conduct. In the end the threat is defeated and they learn from Beeny about Total War’s final attack. Dredd promises Beeny that they’ll try to bring them in alive. The judges stop the terrorists, but Kraken shoots America. The movie ends with Dredd failing Kraken and resigning from his post, taking the long walk out into the cursed earth.

Movie Three would basically be Necropolis. A research lab or a rogue psyker accidentally unleash the dark judges on the city. In this movie continuity, let’s say that each of the dark judges killed off a different homeworld and they’re here to collect a new member. In the cursed earth Dredd feels something pulling him back to the city, but then it’s gone. Of course Kraken becomes the new dark judge, loads of people die, Dredd returns to save the day. Gotta include “Gaze into the fist of Dredd!” and Kraken’s death scene, which IMO is one of the best comic book death scenes ever. There should be an appearance by Beeny as well. In the end, the city is in tatters, the chief judge is dead, and Dredd pledges to be there for the reconstruction. Happy hollywood smiles and the promise of a brighter day as they start moving corpses to the landfill. Hooray!

After a long and tiring first week of classes, I’m finally starting to feel like a teacher again. The first few days were rough- most of the home room teachers were gone, the students were still nuts from the vacation, and to top it all off I had a cold.

My secret summer project should be ready to debut next week. Then I can start work on my secret autumn project… ah, the cycle of life.

Sean’s new hobby: placing objects in his potty and then saying “Hooray! I pooped ______”. This morning it was “I pooped dump truck”. First time I heard it I was very relieved to find out he was just pretending.

This is actually one of the best ways of dealing with a Vadel in-game: step in front, crash into it, then pound the snot out of it before it can start moving again.

I’ve started thinking about what I’m going to do as my follow-up to Voles of the Dusk. The three options I have on the table at the moment are a second Voles book, a collection of scifi+fantasy short stories, and the reworked Darcy Generic story. Mischa’s Story isn’t going to be finished any time soon, and the artwork for pages 21 through 38 badly needs to be touched up, so I’m not considering that for now.

Voles is probably the easiest. I’ve already got 40 odd pages of finished material and a bunch of stories written. The collection of short stories, on the other hand, might be more rewarding. I really like doing short form comics. I really like reading short form comics, too- I’m honestly not a big fan of multi-volume epics. Unfortunately most other comics fans seem to be… I’ve been working on the Darcy Generic story for years now so I’d like to get it out the door, but at the same time I realize that telling people you’ve got a great conspiracy story is like asking them to please put this new manuscript directly into their slush pile. It’s not the easiest thing to promote. DAN BROWN DID NOT HELP AT ALL.

Anyhow, do you have any opinions? What would you like to see me do next?

I did some t-shirt designs for Grrl and Bob over at This Scientific Life. Go take a look at ‘em.

The title of today’s strip refers to buttons, of course.

Recently my family sent me a big pile of 2000AD comics. Oh man, I love me some Judge Dredd. I think for my next comics experiment I’m gonna try to go British- short punchy stories no longer than five pages each. I can’t promise any exploding spinal columns but we’ll see.

Some thoughts on the individual stories…

Judge Dredd: Fantastic stuff, especially with John Wagner at the helm. Great seeing Judge Beeny in action as well. Nuff said.

Zombo, Zombo’s Eleven: In this chapter the eponymous zombie tags along with a group of suicidal emo kids and competes on an American Idol knockoff while a parody of Ocean’s Eleven (the original, with the rat pack) plays out in the background. Also, there’s an expy of Walt Disney’s frozen head. Thinking things over, I really didn’t care whether anyone in this comic lived or died, but it didn’t matter that I didn’t care since there was so much crazy stuff going on. Plus, the deaths were pretty interesting in themselves. A good read.

The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael: Not really my thing. Supernatural ass-kicker with mysterious secret kicks ass in the afterlife. Lots of ass-kicking, surprisingly little thrill.

Nikolai Dante, Heroes be Damned: Are they trying to create the definitive example of Women in Refrigerators syndrome? Over the past few progs nearly the entire female cast has been killed off in order to provide drama and angst for the male cast. Don’t try to tell me that Viktor was killed too- if they’ve got nanotech and you don’t see the body then they aren’t dead…

Damnation Station: Didn’t read yet.

ABC Warriors: I’m not super-familiar with this story so I didn’t really know what was going on. Still, Mek-Quake on a talk show? Absolute gold.

Y’see, that’s how you use the Taunt skill.

I got caught in a rainstorm on the way home from work today. My first clue that something was wrong was when the sun suddenly disappeared… this happens in Korea sometimes. By the time I got from my school to the bus stop (about 400m according to Google Maps), there was water rushing over my sandals and I was completely drenched from the waist down. After all the hot weather we’ve had lately it was actually kind of refreshing.

This is an appropriate comic strip for right now. I’ve got scads of correspondence to catch up on, but the thought of typing even a two sentence email makes me want to curl up into a fetal position and suck on a bottle of Pocari Sweat… Mostly it’s just the heat in the computer room and the lack of internet access in the rest of the house. Blah.

Earlier this week GrrlScientist and Bob O’Hara celebrated their first wedding anniversary. Yay! I had planned to do a special banner for them, but various other obligations intervened… So instead I’ll dedicate this block of music videos to the happy couple. Enjoy.

While in Seoul, I picked up Trans-Continental Hustle by Gogol Bordello, Total Balalaika Show by the Leningrad Cowboys and the Alexandrov Red Army Ensemble, SuperHits by Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester, and Something For Everybody by Devo.

It’s been 20 years since Devo’s last album, and their irony is sharper than ever.

I’ve found that Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester is nice music to program to. Also, Sean really likes it- he starts dancing whenever the CD comes on.

Finally, because I am dedicating these videos to a wedding anniversary, here is the most romantic song ever performed by a Finnish rock band and a Russian choral ensemble working together…