Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Michelle Rodriguez = Regan Grier

I'm still waiting for Joss Wheadon to get back to me about that Lifehack movie, but I have a casting suggestion for him. My gal Regan:

To be played by Michelle Rodriguez. Okay, I know nuthin about her other than seeing her on a movie ad on TV, (Machette) and what I learned from the google results page for her, but she's known for playing toughies. And Regan's a toughie. I guess I should watch one of her movies to see if she has any talent. Derp.

Anyone else have casting suggestions for Alisia, Parker and Kris?

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Scott Pilgrim (And some Echoes news)

Quick update on Echoes of Erebus before I go on about Scott- The trade paperback edition has finally been released here, although it will be a few days before Amazon links of to my Amazon page. Well, Amazon sells it, (For some reason listing it as "Volume 1") but hasn't included it in my author page quite yet. By the time you read this, it may very well be up to speed.

Point is, it's out. All 3 formats now. Now I just have to go into the world and push it! On that note, GO BUY MY BOOKS. See? Superliminal advertising. And people say I don't sell my stuff hard enough. I even increased the font size for that. A little. I wouldn't want to seem rude.

So, Scott Pilgrim, eh? I recently got yo read the 6th book, I bought the game, and yesterday, I saw the movie. Sheep? Me? Naaaaaaahhh. OK, here we go:


The books. (Comic) Classic, to be sure. OK, not that old, but classic anyway. 6th (and final) book is very recent. Cute art, if not A-shelf, still makes the characters endearing for all their faults. Predictably enough, the books have the elbow room to explore the characters a lot more than any other form of Scottiness. Scott himself is a bit of a knob, and his childish ignorance comes at a cost to him at every turn. And he doesn't get it. His plight is just pathetic enough to trigger empathy, moments before he says or does something that reminds you that he is an idiot.

The old indie and video game references seem aimed squarely at generation X. There's websites devoted to digging out every little reference to a game or band, but many of them are right in your face. "Are we an item?" Remona asks.. Scott ponders several Mario items, cluelessly. The name of his band is the Sex Bob-ombs. Rival bands include the "Clash at demonhead" and "Crash and the boyz". If none of these ring any bells... well, you just can't appreciate SP on the levels intended... but it's still good otherwise. You might even get educated about the 80s. Come to think of it...Be afraid.



The game. Did I say 'the 80s'? Yes, I'm pretty sure I did. Strongly STRONGLY inspired by old games from the NES especially, this 2D side scrolling beat-em-up has been compared most directly to "River City Ransom", complete with shops to buy powerups and using enemies as weapons. Your easy-to-preform list of combat moves grows as you level up. I was also reminded of Double Dragon 2. As with the comic, there's a pile of different game references, down to the faux 'glitching' in some areas, and beating up giant blocks for coins. While the game isn't too bogged down in story, (about as much as those old NES games), there's tons of background appearances by other characters from the books. (For the record, the only thing the game has in common with the movie is that they're both based on the comic.)

The game also happens to just PLAY REALLY WELL. It's fun. It plays like you remember those old games playing. Here's a secret.. those old games don't actually play as well as you remember. That's the effect of nostalgia smoothing out the edges. Scott's game smooths out those edges for you. It plays as well as your faulty memory of the past. Bend your brain around that.

The movie-First, the bad. And it's not that bad. The casting of Michael Cera as Scott... well... It's really not what I pictured from the comic. He does a good job, sure. It's just not what I pictured. Same with Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona. It just wasn't what I pictured. Ramona got played much... crabbier than I saw her as in the comics. But by the end of the movie, I just sucked it up and had fun with it.

Of course anyone who's seen the TV ads for the movie know they plunk in some video game/comic special effects. They're there a lot more than the TV ad implies. The comic itself has so many 'commentary' boxes (many of which are pointless) that you really needed 2 scoops of them in the movie. The movie did a TON of things right. Things I missed were simply because... time!

Knives Chau, on the other hand, had more proportional face-time that she did in the comics, and she was painted a bit more heroically. A bit. No one's a full saint in Scott's world, but Knives takes a step closer. Close enough that you wanted to grant all her wishes by the end. But that wouldn't work, now would it?
Oh yeah, the movie, and Knives, DO have their moments of awesome.

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For some reason, in every incarnation of Scott Pilgrim- everyone can fight. (Bloodlessly) And they can fight well. Why? How? Who cares. When you get thrown a couple hundred yards against the upper reaches of a castle tower, then fall 5 or so stories, needing only to walk it off, you realize quickly that reality was not invited to this party. And that's okay.

The endings of each of the 3 incarnation are a bit different. One will give you generalized spoilers for all of them, but they all play out differently. The 'set' of the final fight in the game is entirely different that the movie, which fights much differently that in the comic, etc etc. If you liked one, you'll like the other 2 incarnations. (Unless of course, you just hate great games.)

Wow. It's almost as if they planned it that way. ;_;

I'm a sheep. I got em all. I get like this now and then. Last year around this time, I seem to remember getting obsessive over Rammstein. I get into something, and I want to absorb. I guess that's good marketing. Or I'm naturally a sheep

Bryan Lee O'Malley makes it huge with his lil indie comic, Danny LuVisi makes it HUGE with his gorgeous art, with POOF, movie and game deal.... Alright then! MY TURN!

Thursday, August 5, 2010

I-Pad. Yeah, I'm there. So.. where is IT? I'll TELL YOU!

Most of you don't know that Lifehack and Watching Yute have been available on I-pad's own e-book store thingie. iBooks. Frankly, I dunno the details... (ahem)... I have people who take care of such trifling matters for me.
(again folks... no images get imported directly to my facebook notes, so maybe you need to start swinging by my actual blog... Ozero blog )

And I've just completed the necessary steps to get Echoes of Erebus into iBooks. So soon, you will be able to read all 3 of my novels on your iPad while your own cyberbutler pilots your around the world in your Tardis-Class Flying Hummer. Thankfully the iPad can be held in one hand, freeing the other to deftly freebase ground-up unicorn horn. Hopefully you can concentrate on reading while your team of genetically engineered sex-slaves pleasure you.

Wow... just wow. I didn't know unicorns could perform the heimlich.

I guess what I'm trying to say is- the iPad's a little pricey.

...

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Echoes of Erebus behind the scenes peek-

Anyone wanna see the nitty gritty? I don't think there's any big spoilers here, but brace yourself.....


YEAH. MIND blowing, huh? Oh yeah, soak it in. (Those of you who are seeing this blog through facebook will have to go to my core blog, http://ozeroblog.blogspot.com/, to see it. Sorry. FB stinks at importing blogs...

So, yeah. See all that? I found this while 'cleaning' up my 'desk'. As far as I can tell, it's the first physical sign of this book being put into motion. Unless you count my old, old, "pre-Lifehack-as-a-novel" short story, which was the basis for the book in a lot of ways.

And what's with Quetzalcoatl? This was a 'free' notepad I customized. The customization didn't cost anything, so I dumped in the first silly thing that came to mind. Knowing about Quetzalcoatl (thank you, D&D) made me look like some arcane guru, and afforded me 15 seconds of fame in a trivia quiz at the Dueckman's monster-themed wedding reception.

Final Fantasy 8 had ole' Quetzy as a summon, and butchered him. Such is the least of my complaints about that game, but I'll avoid getting myself into a froth, and instead, point any fellow ff8 haters towards Mr. Spoony, whom I agree with 99.9% of the time. It's creepy....
http://spoonyexperiment.com/2007/04/04/final-fantasy-viii-review-part-1/
There's a huge set of these going through the whole game, and a pile of well-founded hate. Don't mind his ads, he's gotta make a buck somewhere.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Exploding Glitter Glue. (and Echoes status update)

Exploding glitter glue. Exploding glitter glue. Exploding glitter glue.

Wanna know what three words should never be uttered together? "Celine Dion album"?
(WTF happened here, Celine? Canada was already trying to distance ourselves from you.)

Yes, but also:

Exploding. Glitter. Glue.

My darling Caitlin convinced me it was painting time. We got to her little plastic easel. She brought out this bottle of glitter glue.

I hate glitter. It gets all over, and is a pain to clean up. And when you're done, you're still finding glitter peeking at you mockingly from previously innocent looking and/or cleaned surfaces for days. I avoid using glitter whenever I can, even if Caitlin loves the stuff.

Thankfully, we have a couple bottles of this glitter glue. The glitter is suspended in a colored glue. No dust ups possible. Brilliant! Lovely! she liked to get some on the page, then smear it around with a paintbrush. She couldn't generally squeeze out much from the bottle, so daddy has to help. Yes, fine. We started putting it in these little dishes that we has also been using for regular paint.

This works great! She gets her glitter fix, and I don't end up looking like I'd spent the night clubbing as a drag queen.
All is well, yes? The problem is, I'm not entirely sure where these glitter glue bottle came from. I'm not talking about China, and fears of chemical hazards for kids...
("Who you callin' a tool?")

No, I think these glitter glues were some kind of hand-me-down or something... a family member or family friend who had a bit of craft/art supplies they didn't have a use for, and kindly gave to Caitlin. Previously perhaps in a basement or garage for some time. Before that? On the shelf at Wal-mart or something for an untold time. Previous to that?

Oh yeah. China.
No escaping me, lazy western dog!

Know what happens to plastic when it gets old? It gets brittle. So, trying to make a good push on the bottle, SNAP! The bloody thing snapped right in half, and glittering, goopy doom erupted in all directions, like some clown's best impression of napalm. I took the brunt of the explosion, but somehow Caitlin didn't seem to get hit by a drop. To the left and the right of her, lots, but none on her that I could see.

Not to say she was unaffected.
She was startled, and staring at me, the mess in my hands and all around, wide eyed, quite ready to wail bloody murder. Until she looked around and realized the absurdity of it.

Due to cleanup efforts that BP could learn from, I no longer look like I slept with a nightmarish version of the patron slut in a dance club.


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I just realized that people who see my blog in facebook don't always get the inline images.. pity, that. Ozero blogger has em all in there if you didn't see any pics.

Echoes news time.

Hardcover- up and running.

Softcover- Final proof in the mail to me right now. Shortly after I get it, I play to authorize it to be sold online. It'll work its way into Amazon and such shortly after that.

Ebooks- up and running along side the hardcover. That's the nicest looking version of the ebook, but I'm busy converting one for smashwords, which has uglier, but a ton of formats for various readers... but the current PDF looks best, and MOST things read PDF.

Thassit folks!

Oh! And just another reminder that if you're local to me, and want one of my books, lemmie know before I make my big order, so I can get an extra softcover or hardcover for ya. ($15cdn and $25cdn when you get em from me, AND I'm paying the shipping from the printers) I'll have access to all 3 titles in this order, so if you've been meaning to get Lifehack or Watching Yute also... now's the time! Make a great gift! Cures acne! Scares away boogeymen!