Cinema Popular: BATMAN: CITY OF SCARS And The NEW GENRE OF FAN-FILM

Ray Zablocki's quick video history of The Man of Steel is impressive enough to those of us out of the digital video loop, but guys like Aaron Schoenke take the bar of amateur production to an entirely different level. An incredible investment of time, talent, film, and financial resources (the film short cost roughly $27,000) on the one hand, Aaron Schoenke's Batman: City of Scars is, on the other, a testament comic books' enduring ability to inspire and compel their readers to create.

Fan-made films and videos based on comic book characters, popular Hollywood movies, and now even video game characters, are nothing new. (Hell, even our beloved Dabbler still talks about the GI JOE: A Real American Hero fan flick he made back in eighth grade! ) Ranging from the ridiculous and uninspired to productions worthy of discussion and merit like Schoenke's Scars, fan-made shorts - if anything - provide insight into what resonates.

Not surprisingly, Star Wars fan-flicks out-number those of any other character or franchise around; Fan Films, an online registry website, currently counts 312 fan-made Star Wars shorts. The BBC's Doctor Who comes in at second place with 128 fan works to its credit, with   Star Trek placing in third with 84. Rounding out the Hollywood-spawned Top Five are (surprisingly) Friday The 13th (64) and Indiana Jones (50).

While Batman can't beat Darth Vader on that same list, the Dark Knight does land in second place overall with 144 fan-films made. Appropriately enough, Superman ranks as the second most popular superhero for amateur interpretation: he counts 71 to his name. Spider-Man is third with 51, and relative newcomer Green Lantern asserts himself as an up-and-coming challenger with 34 -- and rising. Interestingly, despite their broad longtime popularity, only 12 fan-films on Fan Films are credited to Marvel's uncanny mutants, the X-Men.  

If 'Fan Cinema' or maybe Cinema Popular could be considered a genre unto itself,  City of Scars, currently in the midst of much comicsblogosphere debate following its debut at Daily Motion yesterday, can already count itself among the cream of the fan-made crop.  

Schoenke draws much of his inspiration from the recent blockbuster Batman Arkham Asylum video game, crafting his thirty-minutes to mesh quite well with the game's grisly, Gothic milieu.  Scars is, in fact, the first fan-made film to be set in Arkham, and Schoenke 's camera captures the setting vividly.  

It's the camera work - the mark of a good cinematographer and director - that sets City of Scars apart from the vast majority of fan film; Schoenke knows his tech and his skill using a light meter is beyond reproach.  The film, like so many 'professional' movies do, relies on its look to convince and distract, and its more than enough to capture the interest of any wide-eyed fan boy. 

But that's also the film's flaw, and Schoenke's piece - like the great majority of  amateur, student, and fan-films - doesn't transcend it's fan niche for want of a story.  While better looking and better crafted than most,  Batman: City of Scars isn't really better told.  The demands of production and editing being what they are,  Schoenke's desire to conquer the mechanics of film make him and his story victims of their own fan-boy special effects. 

Don't get us wrong: even criticism like that - if it's warranted - shouldn't truly detract  from City of Scars. Although its creator may have more lofty ambitions, City of Scars does succeed at being what is: a fan-film tribute to the medium of comic books, to superheroes, and their innate ability to convince us all that yes, a man can fly.

SYNOPSIS:

When the Joker escapes from Arkham and murders the parents of a young boy, Batman recalls the pain of losing his own parents as a child. He is pushed past his limits to the point where his focus becomes revenge on all who stand in his way, including many of Gotham’s underworld. Finally, Batman is forced to look at the psychological profile of his own mind and accept the consequences of his life to find resolve.

Check out more short films by Aaron Schoenke and Bat In The Sun Productions on their website [here]. And if you're curious about City of Scars fan-filmed Bat-competition, swing over to Batman Fan Films, an entire website devoted to the amateur Bat-genre -- [here].

The Dark Knight by Bill Sienkiewicz

MORE ON MR SIENKIEWICZ  [here]

KIRBY IS THE HERO OF DREAMLAND

LMFAO.  Ape Lad's a Southern California professional illustrator with Disney Interactive with a penchant, he says,  for drawing hobos. He's also an amazing - and rather prolific - cartoonist with a flare for caricatures.  His Jack Kirby is perfect; if the 'King' were alive today, he'd be laughing along with the rest of us. Check Mark Evanier's weblog  [here] for a thorough and straight-forward Jack Kirby primer, and Ape Lad's Flickr stream is full of talent and goodness you'll spend hours with [here].

GRAPH-ITTI: The PAC-MAN Percentile

STREET FIGHTER GUILE Says: I Am An ABBRACADABBLER...Are You?

Lastscionz Enters The Mushroom Kingdom with SUPER MARIO BROS

Although they're often overlooked as a comic book publisher, Canada's Udon Entertainment Corporation is well-known as one of the premier artists' collectives (studios) specializing in comics based on some of the world's most popular video games.  From their flagship series adapting Capcom's Street Fighter to their more recent Darkstalkers line, the Udon Crew have made names for themselves even beyond the video set.  Marvel's requested they bring their Manga flair to superhero series like X-Men Evolution and the super-popular Deadpool, while DC Direct's tapped their talent to design the company's line of Ame-Comi Girls PVC statues.

Jeffrey Chamba Cruz - Udon Crew member and known among the Deviant Art set as Lastscionz - has become the hot talk of the comicsblogosphere the last few days for his just-completed Enter The Mushroom Kingdom.  The name alone is buzzworthy, but Cruz' line work sends us over the top.  


With so many video game characters popping into comics - most recently, DC/WildStorm's sell-out God of War series - we're kind of surprised that the Super Mario Bros haven't also made the leap.  Then again, they've never looked so good or so...studly! Cruz has packed on the muscle while tossing the Bros some personality where it counts. Hmmm... could the announcement of a new Udon series be in our future?


Cruz hasn't even suggested one way or the other; he completed the 11x17  Enter The Mushroom Kingdom earlier this month, and it's intended to be a convention print.  But that doesn't mean it's not a promo for something the Udon Crew's been cooking up in secret.  Mario and Luigi have kept console jockey's hooked for nearly three decades, making Super Mario Bros one of the best-selling video games of all time.  They might not require it, but they've certainly earned it.  A rockin' comic series with Lastscionz on the art would  likely be a big seller-- and give pop culture's infamous Italian brothers all the extra lives they'll ever need.

Enter The Mushroom Kingdom 

We'll be bringing even more lastscionz art to the comics blog this week! Meanwhile, level up on Cruz's awesome stuff by checking him out on Deviant Art [here] or on his art blog [here].  For Udon Entertainment Corp, go [here].

GAME OVER For San Francisco's GIANT ROBOT

If you got game and you're in the Bay Area or plan to be anywhere near there before mid-April, abbracadabble yourself straight to Haight-Ashbury's Giant Robot San Francisco. The gallery and pop culture shop's latest display, Game Over, opened last Friday, and is already 'drawing' rave reviews of  its art exhibition which pays homage to the continuous evolution of video games and their massive influence on popular culture.  Comics fans with an indie bent especially will recognize many of the artists whose work is now on display at the Shrader Street gallery: Sean Boyles, Sasha Barr, Elayne Dixon, and Marc Johns (also GR-SF's featured flier artist, above) join about two dozen other peeps in the show, which runs through 14 April2010.

For more information on Game Over, Giant Robot SF, or Giant Robot Magazine, check them out online HERE.  Plus, you'll find some wicked reviews of the show online at Wired's blog HERE and on Kotaku HERE.  Giant Robot San Francisco is located at 618 Shrader Street in Haight-Ashbury, just around the corner from Amoeba Records and that one dude's house  where we used to light-up on Friday nights. Waaca-waaca!

Consoling Numbers: The Secret Lives of American Gamers

Probably months before it light-cycles a neon path into theaters this Christmas, the glowing world of Tron: Legacy will accessible to anyone with a PS3, an X-box, maybe even a Wii.  After all, the movie is set in a video game arcade! At least, the original Tron was, back in 1982 - a primitive time when folks had barely graduated from Pong and somehow got by with only an Atari joystick to pass the time.  We live in a very different world than we did thirty years ago, and from the looks of it, we'd better be careful or we'll end up with Tron as our neighbor. Of course, then we'd have light-cycles in our garage...and that doesn't really sound so bad. Hmmm...

Here's a designer - and informative - look into the secret life of the video game - and the people who play them - all-American style:

You Can't Go Wrong With BROWSER PONG

Do what's right. Have your fun HERE.

STAR TREK MMORPG Open Beta Is Now Available!

We're gonna get our geek on this afternoon, dabblers. Then again, we've made no secret about how much we love Star Trek; Trek even trumps our general disinterest in playing video games. Thanks to Star Trek, we're about to go where the Springfield Home Office has never been before -- into the universe of online gaming. 

Though the Star Trek MMORPG doesn't go live until next month, the game's developer Crytpic Studios made its open beta version available last night. Interested Trekkers from across the globe now have a chance to be among the first to explore the new online universe and confront the dangers therein through actual gameplay. Here's what Cryptic has to say about their game:

 In Star Trek Online, the Star Trek universe will appear for the first time on a truly massive scale.  In this massively multiplayer online game from Cryptic Studios, players can pioneer their own destiny as Captain of a Federation starship. Or, they can become a Klingon Warlord and expand the Empire to the far reaches of the galaxy. Players will have the opportunity to visit iconic locations from the popular Star Trek fiction, reach out to unexplored star systems, and make contact with new alien species. With Episode Missions, every moment spent playing Star Trek Online will feel like a new Star Trek episode in which you are the star. Immerse yourself in the future of the Trek universe as it moves into the 25th century: a time of shifting alliances and new discoveries.

For those curious about system requirements:

Star Trek's beta is already proving to be pretty popular -- over 14,000 downloads in less than a day! If you want to add to that count, you'll find the software HERE.   But before warping away on your first adventure, you'll have to set course for the game's homepage HERE to be briefed on mission plans (instructions) and to register for an Account Key. 

To make the game more playable, Star Trek Online does take one sizable departure from Trek canon by  once again making the Klingon Empire a terrible enemy of the Federation. That doesn't upset us in the least; we're just slightly disappointed we can't get our player-character to look like Chris Pine.   On that note, we're leaving drydock to do a little exploring somewhere in the Orion Nebula. For now, hailing frequencies are closed.

Exhibitionism: The Art of Video Games in 2012

If getting to the bottom of the Mayan mystery isn't enough of a reason to look forward to  2012,  we've got something else for you to put on your calendar. Beginning in March of that year, The Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, will open The Art of Video Games, the first-ever US exhibition to comprehensively examine the evolution of video games as an artistic medium. 

Thanks to Atari and the Pong revolution of  the early 1970's, video games have become an  integral part of American culture.  Over 70% of our households play video games on a regular basis - and as Nielsen's findings [below] tells us, regular is a relative concept.

Source: [link] via [link]

While the numbers have many implications, there's no denying that video games - and home computers - have had tremendous influence on two generations of Americans, an entirely new medium of imagery, narrative, action and interaction engaging audiences and shaping lives.  Ed of the Indianapolis Museum of Art illustrates the video game influence in his life and particularly on his appreciation for Japanese art on the Museum's Blog HERE. 

Ed's blog also represents the growing popularity of  video game-inspired art exhibitions, which have increased in number over the last decade.  The Art of Video Games will take a much more interesting approach to the subject: the exhibit will focus on the development of video game visual effects and aesthetics since 1970, the emergence of games as a means for storytelling, the influence of world events and popular culture on game development, and the impact that the games can have on society. 

It's a fascinating subject and although The Smithsonian may be breaking new 'exhibitionary ground' here, they're not establishing this area of study but responding to it en force. Which is great news for your dude the Dabbler, because I've been craving something new to in which to sink my academic incisors.  

Everybody in the Springfield Home Office intends to make the trek to our nation's capitol for this show. If you do, too, The Art of Video Games runs 16 March 2012 through 09 September 2012.  The Smithsonian American Art Museum is located at 8th and F Streets NW in Washington, DC.  A downloadable PDF map of the Museum and directions to it can be found at the link. [link]

Speaking of Atari and video games, as your favorite comicsblog is so inclined to do from time to time, we've been wondering what the 'grandfather' of video game consoles has been up recently.  Their mainstay logo has become entrenched in pop-culture  iconography to be sure, but we've been hoping the company's been looking as far forward as they have behind them. Still,  Atari has rolled out their online Arcade, a cool site more than worthy of our monitor minutes.  Though the selection's a bit limited (so far), Atari does have six of it more classic games high-score enabled and available for your online playing pleasure: Adventure, Asteroids, Battlezone, Lunar Lander, Crystal Castle and Yars’ Revenge.   Not that we ever have much time to sink -- always plenty of blogwork to do if we want to keep impressing our dabblers every day! But if you've got some spare time, check out the Atari Arcade HERE.

LEGO My Super Hero!

Legos haven't gone out of style; in fact, they're more popular than ever -- especially at Christmas time. They'll be plenty of boys of any age looking for the newest Batman Lego play set or TT Games' Lego Batman video game under the tree this year, thanks to the Caped Crusader leading the charge to introduce DC and Marvel Comics superheroes to the colorful world of Legos building blocks.

Ulises Farinas of the Act-I-Vate Webcomics Collective has created two 'Legostrations' that take 'super-Legos' to a whole new level of fun. His Lego My Marvel recalls the many iconic battles between the heroes of the Marvel Universe and Galactus, The Destroyer of Worlds, while he pays homage to DC's current mega-event Blackest Night with Rise.

We're getting a kick trying to spot as many heroes as we can in both of Farinas' illustrations. Seriously, they're more fun than a stack of Where's Waldo books -- and you can check both of them out here or over on Farinas' Livejournal blog. You'll find plenty of great comics art to peruse if you jump on over, but be aware that he marks his drawings suitable for mature audiences only, as a few of them borderline on adult themes. We think they're safe for work, though. You'll find his blog at the link. [Link]

Abbracadabbling at the Movies

If the unofficial if not mischievous Thor teaser we had on the blog yesterday is any indication, the superhero 'cinemaniac' crowd has Photoshop prowess - and free time - to spare. Empire had the stellar idea to tap into that talent and, as we're certain you'll agree, direct it to a very creative end. When the movie and video news site recently asked its legion of readers to get clever and mash-up classic film posters with 50 different themes - from politics to Star Trek and the Bible to cheese, the response was, well, abbracadabbling. .

In fact, so many of the submissions Empire received were so good (and overwhelming), we had a tough time picking just a few to post. In the end, we narrowed our selection down to our favorite superhero and cartoon mash-ups -- mostly.

We know blog space is at a premium these days, but we did say mostly. Plus, we'd like to see you pass-up Uma Thurman starring in Pulp Pictionary, one of the absolute best non-role-playing games invented by Man? Well, neither could we. Empire's Board Game Mash-ups are here. [Link]

We've kind of been waxing nostalgic for old Atari ever since the PlayStation turned 15 last week -- weird, isn't it? -- and after we checked out the first twenty-five Video Game Mash-ups [Link], it felt only fair to give a nod to the little guys who taught us how to use our joysticks long before puberty even hit. The pixelated ghosts up front are priceless, and we'd pay double admission to see how the father of modern horror gets those guys spooky.

For the record, no one at the Springfield Home Office comes even close to being a Mel Gibson fan. But we've got nothing against Jerry Seinfeld or his show, and we've been intrigued by crop circles and their odd appeal to little green men since junior high. While not every Sitcom on the site tickled our clever bone, there were several gems in the bunch, too. Our fave was the sign feld mash-up, but the rest are just waiting for you to see here. [Link]

Cartoon character mash-ups [Link] came in at number-two, and they, like the superhero mash-ups, are a showcase of creativity. We laughed our asses off, in fact. And yes, we can say 'asses' on the comicsblog if we want to, okay?

Watchmen, er -- Brockman (LOL) -- is a great segue for us to show you just a few of the superhero-themed mashes before you get antsy in your seat. The very subtle yet unmistakable dark humor lurking in Kryptonite, And Good Luck and About a Boy Wonder is awesome, so well done. And while Emma Frost Nixon, like Riddler on the Roof, works for the rhyming, whoever made the mash-up must have read Grant Morrison's New X-Men or even Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men. Emma's White Queen is at least as much of a bitch as Nixon ever was, and for our money, even more of one. (Is it any wonder she's also the star of Friday's Winter One-derland?)

Get yourself over to Empire and plan to stay a while. We estimate they've got at least 1,250 mash-ups on the site, and the number could reach as high as 1500 or more. They're all listed by theme here [Link]. Or cut to the chase and go right to the Superhero section, which begins here. [Link]

They Could Be... Anybody!!

via Retroist [Link]

PS: I'm Fifteen

Who's a gamer? As much as I've tried to be -- even wanted to be -- over the years (just to fit in, of course), I've never been able to develop the habit. Maybe because I've got too many other ones to worry about -- and sitting alone for hours at a time in front of a television or computer has never been my idea of fun. Then again, I've started blogging. Hmmm....

I tagged myself there -- today's a day I'll always remember. Just like my younger, non-gamer self can recall when Sony's PlayStation first hit the shelves. The original PS turned a grand 15 years old December 3rd, and wow, man, I can actually remember the day it hit the shelves. It was the same year that I moved to San Francisco, and just one year after Sony first launched their new console system in Japan. Sony's PS2 followed in 2000, and in 2001 Sony re-launched their first console as the abbreviated PS1. And I'm sure you all know what comes next -- 2007 brought us the cutting edge PS3, the PSP popped up in 2008, and for 2009, the healthier and leaner PS3 Slim.

Sony and I both had a big 1995, which is cool. The years since have been good to us both as well; we've slimmed down, gone way more high-tech, and neither of us has lost our appreciation of joysticks.

The Evolution of Video Games