Comic Book Cover Art

Some comics are worth buying just for the cover art.

Project Dream Girl

Dream Girl was born to Kiwa Nal, the High Seer of Naltor.

On Naltor, almost everyone has the ability to see glimpses of the future.
Naltor was settled by a race of people that had emigrated from the Sorcerer's World. Over the span of generations, Naltorians lost their power to perform magic, and only the ability to see the future remained.

Due to Naltor's population possessing the ability to predict events accurately, the planet is one of the most prosperous and technologically advanced. After all, playing the intergalactic stock market is easy when you can predict how it will perform, and innovation becomes much less challenging when you can see what technology will look like in the future.
Naltorians are especially skilled in bio-science, which is how Dream Girl managed to alter the powers of another Legionnaire, Light Lass.

More about Naltor next week.

Here's a pic of Nura:

Grown Men Being Awesome: MOTU Edition

Two things:

1. Prince Adam got a haircut. Not cool, Your Highness.

2. Hawaiian shirt and pleated khaki pants: almost as lame as Orco.

Misleading Covers

It turns out that
being tied up in your undies,
by a muscled dude in black rubber,
and getting a tongue-bath from another man
is not gay at all.

Project Dream Girl

Crickets, I am very excited.

Todd, my DM, has been the first person to submit his Dream Girl art.

Here is his message:

Here is my Dream Girl submission for Orcward. Hope you like it. I chose to focus on her martial arts skills. I love the idea that she is bad ass in battle because she can forsee her opponents' future actions.

Me too, Todd. Me too.

Here is his submission:



Thanks, Todd!

Roleplaying in a skirt

Monday night role playing went pretty well.
There was a lot of exposition, to be sure, but important things happened:

• I got to level 4, and finally got a good spell or two


• I got to play to my PC's strengths: healing, music-based magic, and being sassy.


• I didn't need to roll no stupid 20's to kick monster ass

When we finally got moving (after I told a prince from my native country that I could possibly lift a debilitating curse laid upon him by evil cultists from the mountains and healed a bunch of people that were buried in the rubble of a catastrophe), our party was set upon by horrid giants big enough to carry archers in baskets on their backs.

Certain co-adventurers needed to rely on the luck of a few random lucky throws of the dice. Some twenties were rolled.

Whatever.

Meanwhile, Harmony Icebane cast Terror on one of the beasties, which took off back up the mountain he had come down from to attack. She used her amazing power and strength of will, and quick wits to turn the almost insurmountable tide.

Singlehandedly, I beat off one of these guys (that tun of phrase was dirtier than I intended), without even drawing a weapon or making a couple of lucky rolls.

So who is more awesome? The guy with a generic big sword who makes some random rolls to his favour, or the eldrich mistress of mysticism, music, and mayhem, who makes monsters flee at the sound of her lute?

Crickets, I think we all know the answer to this.

Oh, and here is Reis, he of the splendid Geek Orthodox site, taking my picture because he was so in awe of my mad role-playing skillz:

Origami awesomeness

Thanks to Reis and to Kal, and to the dude who has a ton of cool origami on his photostream:



It's beautiful.

Half Orcs are (half) people too.

Half-orcs seem to be at a distinct disadvantage.
Sure, they're stronger than your average human, and that's useful if you like to grind through adversaries, screaming oaths to Gruumsh and hacking off extremities, but a penalty to Intelligence AND Charisma seem to limit the variety of personalities you can successfully play.

And for "Half-Porkers" (Crickets, for a lack of better slang, someone such as myself, who is attracted to half-orcs: much like a "Chubby-Chaser" or a "Chicken-Hawk") who find many Half-orcs to be quite desirable (the strong jaws! The hairy backs!) the Charisma penalty does not make sense.

I mean, take a look:



Handsome and pensive!

How about him:



Sensitive and charming!

Or this guy:



Okay, he looks like he likes killing things.
But in an earnest and primal way, right?

Rhymes with "Bitch": Naga the Serpent.

Anime tends to be kind of hit-or-miss for me.
It seems like a great deal of it is not really aimed at my demographic, what with all the schoolgirls in short skirts, and people in big fighty robot-suits firing rockets at each other.
And don't even get me started on the snoozefest that is Akira.

But when Japanese animation is good, it's very, very good.
Miyazaki is a genius, and if you have never seen Spirited Away, or Castle in the Sky, or My Neighbor Totoro, do yourselves a favor, Crickets, and try them out. Even BlackDeathUnicorn, who would typically rather clean the gutters than watch fantasy-themed animation, was spellbound by Howl's Moving Castle.

I'll get to his genius another time, though.



Today is about another amazing and hilarious anime fantasy creation: Slayers.
Slayers is essentially about a powerful red-headed sorceress, Lina Inverse, and her many adventures. She tends to attract trouble wherever she goes. This could have something to do with her Hobbit-short temper, or the nutty people who tend to fall in with her crowd.

Lina's greatest rival is the beautiful and confident Naga the White Serpent. Naga may be a fraction less talented at magic than Lina, but she has one thing that Lina does not: Big boobies. Okay, actually, that's two things.
Also, Naga has the most marvellous laugh in the history of larynxes. Her signature laugh conveys her confidence and power to all who hear it, and the sound of it can often carry as far as a neighbouring village.

Naga is actually, despite her appearance, adept at using white magic.

She is also a princess, whose mother was cruelly murdered, but she keeps this under wraps. The outfit she wears (if a few tiny strips of leather can be called an outfit) is one she found in her mother's closet after her death. The big spikes and sword are for show. In fact, she has been known to poke herself in the head with the shoulder spikes when she raises her arms up too high, and she grows faint at the sight of blood.

Although Naga is dressed like a fanboy's wettest dream, she and Lina are both, in my opinion, pretty positive feminist characters. They never defer to men, are never tied up, or abused, and they give every bit as good as they get. They are confident, enterprising, wily, tough, their characters have layers and nuances, and they are absolutely hilarious.

Watch and listen for her laugh, and fall in love.

Grown Men Being Awesome: Sub-Mariner Rocks

Who knew Namor's weapon of choice was the axe?

Here is a pic of the Sub-Mariner with his Sub-Woofer.

See if you can spot the rock....lobster.

Roleplaying with a skirt and an accent

Crickets, if I have learned anything from the latest campaign I am involved in, it's this: Playing a female PC sucks, and playing a female PC with a French accent sucks even harder.

My current PC is Harmony Icebane, a Bard/Priestess. I play females every now and then, because a)No one else in our group tends to play women, b)I like to mix things up a little, and c)I just feel so darned pretty when I'm a lady, like a beautiful blossoming ros-uh, never mind. I drew up a pic of how I wanted Harmony to look (see above), and wrote up a guide to her culture. I conceived her as worldly and charming, and a little vain, so to add flavour I gave her a French accent.

The upshot of all of this?
I quote:

Fellow Gamer: "Dude, my guy is gonna rape her"
Fellow Gamer: "Dude, you sound like Pepe Le Pew"

It's annoying and distracting for me to do the voice and accent, and I know I sound like an idiot.

Luckily, this week, Harmony kind of got to kick some butt.

For one thing, our party came up against a nasty undead vampiress, who, it was hinted at by our DM, Todd, was way out of our league.
Harmony sassed the bitch anyway, and then fired an arrow at her.
And darned if I didn't roll a natural 20 to hit.
The vampiress got taken down eventually, thanks to Reis' PC hacking off a wing (with the help of a Strength potion) and a huge hairy Yeti (Greg) jumping on her back.

A little later, an annoying NPC, a Baron who had been trying to abduct Harmony, met with an unpleasant surprise when he opened a carriage door, expecting Harmony to be trussed up and safely delivered to him, and got two of her arrows through his face instead. Take that, you lady-abducting cad.

Our adventure continues in the cave of a huge dragon, and stuff about prophecies and special rings. But that's all for next week.

Here's Todd's version of Harmony

You might be an elf if.....

Crickets, ever feel like your ears are just too pointy to not be an elf?
Here are some clues to help you figure it out.

You might be an elf if......

· You hug trees on your morning walk and they hug you back

· You ground your teenage daughter when your pet unicorn stops laying its head in her lap

· You prefer cloudy nights because starlight makes you squint



· You use the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game as a Safety Drill

· You have the Keebler cookie hotline on speed dial

· You’ve ever brought Lembas to a bake sale

· You think Lord Of The Rings is a documentary

· Your kids bring a Hobbit to “Show and Tell”

· You’ve stood in line to have your picture taken with an Enya impersonator

· You own more than 3 pairs of mithril-plated support garments

· Your grandma has started to show her age after she turned seven hundred and sixty

· You get freaked out when you see people’s footprints in the snow



· Your mom found the hidden stash of Drows Gone Wild magazines under your bed

· You have to shower daily or your "moss problem" gets out of hand

· You use the term “telperion” more than once a month

· You have a long-standing argument with your best friend about who would win in a fight: Galadriel or Drizzit

· Your mail-carrier complains about having to climb the tree every day

· The next time your brother-in-law gets drink and tells his “Balrog fart” joke, you’re gonna punch him in the face

Project Dream Girl

Crickets, ask me who my favourite comic-book character of all time is.
Go ahead.

What's that, you ask? Who is my favourite comic-book character of all time?
Dream Girl.
The answer is Dream Girl.

Nura Nal of Naltor.

She is a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes, a group of young men and women from different planets who have banded together to fight injustice and evil 1,000 years in the future.

I want to pay tribute to her by posting pictures of her by different artists. If you would like to draw a picture of her, dear Crickets, or if you already have a picture of her lying around, please consider sending it to me, and I'll post it on this blog.

I'll kick things off with one of my own. This is a badly-drawn Nura as she first appeared in Adventure Comics in 1967.



C'mon, Crickets. You can do better than that, right?

Star Trek: The Best Generation

Crickets, it's time to tell you how the new Star Trek movie was.

If you have been following my saga, you will know that Reis, he of the magnificent Geek Orthodox blog (and a close personal lackey, um, friend) has been a loser and has never been to the IMAX before.

Chapter 5: In Which WhiteUnicorn is Re-Reading Action Comics featuring The Legion Of Super-Heroes

I picked Reis up at his place (20 minutes late because I was reading comics and didn't pay attention to the time). I came to get him at the door and yelled at him for making me wait. He cried a little (definite confirmed chin-quiver).

We drove downtown to the Pacific Science Center, and...because the movie gods clearly knew that we needed to see this movie...got a great parking spot. Thanks, Movie Gods!



Chapter 6: In Which Reis Almost Kills a Large Person

We got in line at a decent time, and played a game of Magic the Gathering on the carpet in line. We were doing fine, too, except that the d-bags in line in front of us let about 5 of their buddies cut in, even though said buddies were a half-hour late. They were all large, hairy men, and wearing overcoats and stuff, and totally encroaching on our space, because they were like a small herd of gamey-smelling bison standing about in a tiny space. They got so close to trampling on our Magic cards that Reis murmured something about them coming a step closer and not being conscious to see the movie.
Reis likes violence.

Chapter 7: In Which WhiteUnicorn WON. And You Cannot Prove Otherwise

Anyway, crisis never came to pass, and I beat Reis soundly at Magic as I said I would.

Now, Reis is a terribly sore loser and may protest that he actually won the game, but he didn't. HE DIDN'T WIN.
I WON.
I know that to be a fact because Reis never took pictures and so cannot claim otherwise without proof. So it's his word against mine.

Did I mention he came this close to murder? So who do you believe?

Chapter 8: In which Reis Wants to Kill Again

There was an idiot who was yelling "Star Trek!" and standing up and hi-five-ing everyone who walked past his seat and screaming at the rest of us that we should be pumped because we were about to see Star Trek. The movie had not yet started, and Reis and I wanted to use our phasers to shoot him in the face. And none of that "Set phasers to stun" business, either.

Chapter 9: In Which the Movie Rocked So Amazingly Hard



The movie was mindblowing. Action, space adventure, explosions, great and pretty faithful characterization, a big dose of funny, a nice dollop of eye-candy (only Chris Pine gets his chest out, but it's a nice one), great cameos from Leonard Nimoy and Winona Ryder (who plays Spock's mom, and made my chin quiver). So pretty much a completely perfect Summer Movie.

Chapter 10: In Which We had a Great Time, and You Have To Go See It Too.

Crickets, the only reason you would not go see this movie is if you were allergic to awesomeness. Even then, I'd risk the rash and go see it. I'm going again, and this time I'm taking BlackDeathUnicorn.

Grown Men Being Awesome: Because Wolverine is still in Theatres

Hello Crickets!

I have not seen the Wolverine movie yet, I am ashamed to say. Maybe this weekend.
Anyway, here is this guy (he appears to be using a pencil as a cigar prop):



And here is why I really should have seen it by now.

EDIT: I just was informed that I totally ripped off a pic from a blogger whose site is awesome. I wasn't paying attention to the source of the pic, and I apologise.
Here is an artist's rendition of the pic that caused my shame and apology:

Star Trek: The Wrath of WhiteUnicorn

Hello Crickets!
I am excited today about two things that are going to happen at the same time:
Star Trek, and IMAX. Oh, and the third thing happens simultaneously as well: Saturday night.

Since the WhiteUnicorn's Significant Other, BlackDeathUnicorn, is out of town with his family on Mother's Day, I decided to let Reis, he of the fantastic Geek Orthodox fame, tag along.

Reis has never seen a movie on IMAX before *snicker*.

Now now, Crickets, lets not call him names like "loser" and "sad, sad person" and "lameoid custard-licking dweeb-farmer", however much the shoe fits.

Instead, let's be kind, and pay attention while I document a journey of galactic epicness: The Saga of Star Trek on IMAX.

Chapter 1: In Which WhiteUnicorn is Thoughtful, Sweet, and Clever and Handsome

The saga began, as all sagas do, with an email.

From: Whiteunicorn
Subject: What is that ringing sound?
To: Reis O'Brien
Date: Monday, May 4, 2009, 5:21 PM

Hey Reis
BlackDeathUnicorn will be out of town this weekend, and guess what else is happening...STAR TREK ON IMAX! Woot!

Now, if you are a complete asshat, you'll be all "But I got plans!"

But if you are awesome, you'll be all "Neato! Let's make it happen!"

Dude, seriously, don't be an asshat. Come see the movie.

Let me know if you can do it any time from Fri night thru Sun evening.

Chapter 2: In Which Reis Replies

From: Reis O'Brien
Subject: What is that ringing sound?
To: Whiteunicorn
Date: Monday, May 4, 2009, 7:41 PM

Well, despite the fact that I hate Star Trek, I have to admit that this movie looks awesome. I have plans Saturday afternoon, but my beautiful wife who is so much hotter than I deserve is going out with the girls that night. So I'll be free then.

Chapter 3: In Which WhiteUnicorn Continues to be Exceptionally Good-Looking

The saga had begun in earnest!
Our heroes had taken their first steps on their journey to the Pacific Science Center IMAX, as the prophecy had foretold. WhiteUnicorn (that's me, Crickets)sent his next email, and prayed to the Gods that Reis had survived his day's ordeals so that he might read it.

Crickets, as you may have heard, Reis is a pretty powerful wizard, outmatched only by myself. When we have our epic Magic the Gathering sorcerous duels, I tend to win. A lot.

From: Whiteunicorn
Subject: What is that ringing sound?
To: Reis O'Brien
Date: Tuesday, May 5, 2009, 6:12 PM

9:15pm Star Trek: The IMAX 05/09/09 ADULT 2

WOOT!

So seriously, if we are to get even halfway decent seats, we need to be in line about an hour before the show starts. We can sit on the floor (it's inside and carpeted).

This is the perfect opportunity for me to wipe the floor with you in Magic, and have all the people standing and sitting in line around us to watch a grown man cry like a little beeyotch.

Dude, I just saw the preview for the movie and it looks SO BADASS.

Chapter 4: In Which Reis Makes Me Laugh with Contempt and Derision

From: Reis O'Brien
Subject: What is that ringing sound?
To: Whiteunicorn
Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2009, 12:03 PM

Cool! We could probably meet up even earlier than that if you want. I have no problem waiting in line for a while.

Are you sure you want to cry like a little girl in a frilly pink dress in front of all those Trekkies? Well, okay...

Video Magic

Crickets, there are many great videos that exist in this Universe.

Here, however, is the greatest one of all.