League of Legends is What? Ok. Cool.

Here’s a fun little trailer for League of Legends Season One:

I don’t play WoW. Apparently, this is a spin-off from it, and the Trailer is marketing for the game. Which is cool.

If one peruses the LoL website, you can check out the multiple characters, and it’s pretty staggering: artistically, it’s like you took comic books, Mortal Combat, pro “wrestling”, steam punk elements, Harry Potter, Frank Frazetta, Pokemon, D&D, pin-up models, cute anime characters, and Capcom into an blender, and this is what you’d get. It’s like a unified theory of role-playing, power-wish-fulfillment, and avatar-powered escapism. And it’s pretty grand.

These MMORPG games are an artistic borg- “What? Superheros? Sure. We’ll take ’em. A He-Man-type comic Orko sprite-thing? Yep. Magic chick in an improbable bustier? Yes, please. Sauron-huge guy with proportionally ridiculous armor? Uh-huh. Werewolves? Well, WHY the f*@k NOT?!?” And I’m not even capping on the sensibility; there’s something amazingly, geeksomely democratic about the whole thing.

Watching the two teams of super-hero archetypes in fantasy-sheep’s clothing Avengers Assemble! into two fighting forces for “the Final Battle” would make Jack Kirby proud. You’ve got your huge bruiser-type, your hot-chick-who-can-best-any-man, your thief/mage, your magician, your small-yet-mighty lil’ guys- it’s the Superfriends vs. the Legion of Doom, WoW-style. When I saw it, I was like, “Of course it was heading in this direction: take the proven super-hero soap-opera, skin it with fantasy elements, add some FIGHTING…” and there you go.

When I saw BioShock a couple of years ago, I was really taken by how it combined Myst-like storytelling, remarkable cinematic design (both character and sets), with Doom and Silent Hill-like scary atmospherics and action. Intense. I think at this point, it’s beyond safe to say that the true visionaries are working in games, not movies.

Taking chances in the box, not worrying whether someone’s nephew (who got the studio job because of staggering nepotism) will greenlight a project if he can get his client/good friend on board. Game production is punk rock, in the box (the computer, rather “artistic box”), with an unlimited budget for effects, costumes, and sets.

What of story?

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Architect Gary Chang Transforms One Room Into 24

…right before your eyes. Remarkable.

Now, I’m not advocating living in boxes on top of each other- it’s my pig-headed belief that trees and restaurants make a city, not buildings (I’m from that Ray Bradbury school), but it really is an ingenious use of space, using every part of the architectural buffalo, if you will. More ideas like this, please, along with smart cars, solar paint, eco-friendly Cannonball Runs in which the victor uses the least amount of fuel versus the asinine most to simply go in a circle real-fast-like (hyuk).

And, since I mentioned Ray Bradbury, here’s a nice little interview he did with Frank Black (yes!) who’s Massiff Central is probably in my top 20 songs of all time. The album version from Show Me Your Tears is epic– here’s an acoustic version from the Christmass album.

Ray Bradbury interviews are fantastic, by the way. Just a take-no-prisoners, opinionated old codger who’s pretty much right about everything. I aspire to that level of imperious curmudgeony-ness.

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Banky’s Exit Through the Gift Shop Film Trailer

I cannot wait to see this. The scene in the trailer where Banksy scales the wall effortlessly to escape the cops is tre´ Ninja.

This, to me, is the purest example of art needing a valve. When people will risk criminal prosecution to exercise free speech, creativity, and really, hard-ass-work, I think there’s a pretty compelling case for the world always getting its prophets when it needs them.

It’s just a ride.- Bill Hicks

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Illustrator Spotlight: Daniel m. Davis & His “Monster Commute”

Stumbled upon this the other day, whilst hunting for reference photos. Daniel m. Davis’ really beautiful web comic, Monster Commute. The man’s work with illustrator is sublime and his color sense is impeccable. I’ve only gone through a number of panels, but each page is just a joy to behold. His work is just remarkable- a little J. Otto Siebold, a little Mignola, a little lowbrow, all fun and original.

Besides Monster Commute, Daniel also illustrates a staggering amount of things on his website, Steamcrow. It’s all beautiful, and all serving to squeeze envy into my hollow shell like cake-frosting. Back to work.

(Image Copyright Daniel m. Davis- No copyright infringement intended. Please visit his site and buy tons and tons of stuff.)

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Reclining Girl Wit Beasties: New Illustration

Illustration experiment, Reclining Girl Wit’ Beasties:

From a sketchbook drawing, Illustrator, Photoshop. There’s some Paul Gauguin/Gustav Klimt influence somewhere in that brain-mire. Unfortunately, there may be some Patrick Nagel, as well.

Original sketch after the jump:

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Machinarium Looks Gorgeous

I’m not a big video game player (at least not since my Donkey Kong days- the Glory!) but occasionally I fall into one like Alice down a rabbit hole. The SSX series completely had me for about 2 years, I enjoyed the hell out of the lo-fi World of Goo, loved the ambition and scope of the  claymation-meets-Edgar Allen Poe CD-ROM The Dark Eye, even if it was fairly static and uneventful.

And BioShock made my head explode.

Above is the trailer for Machinarium, by Amanita. It’s a point and click game for PC and Mac, and the world is just beautiful. I think this is where games need to go: creating not only interactive worlds, but lush, designed worlds with a unifying artistic vision, even down to a cohesive pencil-style and design. Imagine Dave McKean’s Mirrormask as a playable game. Shane Acker’s 9 might’ve been more successful as a game, although I haven’t seen it, and should just shut the hell up until I do.

These are exciting times for creators to be alive.

Boing Boing has some really nice sketchbook pages from Amanita’s Jakub Dvorský and Adolf Lachman, as well as some stunning screengrabs. Check it out, y’all.

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Giles Timms Video for Ceri Frost’s “Dead All Along”

This song almost sounds like an outtake from The Damned’s Anything album (not one of their critical faves, but I loved it). Huge reverbs, poppy and to the effin’ point, man. Nicely done.

And the video is really beautiful: organic, lush, and the amount of depth is really staggering. It’s a nice Gorey homage without seeming like a rip-off. This scene with the spirits reminds me of a children’s book on ghost stories I used to have; man, I wish I knew the title of that book.

Hats off to Mr. Timms. Hire him and pay him lots of money, Hollywood! Now!

Dammit you hacks!

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Eric Epstein is a Baddass

Don’t know Eric; for some reason, I scribbled his website on a bar napkin. Maybe I met him in LA. But his reel is here, and it’s pretty stunning. Hire him and pay him lots of money. I know I will someday soon.

Gotta project for him already. Wait ’til I get ludicrous amounts of cash, Epstein!

(Or, if you ever wanna work pro-bono on something…)

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How People Like Brian Eno Come Into Existence

Wired has a great little article from March about Brian Eno’s art school days here. A couple of things struck me about the article:

• The deliberate introduction of randomness in Brian Eno’s life, and the idea of changing artistic and social roles to facilitate new and interesting art. Eno’s art professors would have the students assume characters that were out of their comfort zone, to elicit reactions that were of them “playing a role.” Much like the old Oscar Wilde quote (“Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth”), if you give students a mask or role to play, they’ll create new, “true” art, that is, true to the role they’re playing.
  Reminds me of Prince and Tom Waits adopting characters to get themselves out of their rote songwriting modes. Also reminds me of long-form improv training, of getting yourself “out of your head” and comfort zone to spur yourself to new risk taking.

• How much this pointed Eno in the direction of Oblique Strategies, which is a great tool for breaking yourself out of artistic ruts. (Great PDF of printable cards here.)

I had a great instructor in art school (“You want fries with that?”) who used to tell us, “You’re only doing your job as a creative if you are constantly on the verge of getting fired.” Which seemed imminently true to me at the time- the profs who were safe, and needed their jobs had the worst work. The ones who were devil-make-care were actually  selling work and working at ad agencies, rather than writing bullshit artspeak proposals for federal grants.

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Damn you, Spike Jonze. Damn you.

Damn you and your cinematic wizardry, you whimsical creative vagabond.

Alright, I must concede this looks beautiful. I’m still not sure what the point is of making a 48 page piece-of-genius book into a hour and a half film (I’m assuming), but it looks just gorgeous. I was really on the Howard Berger side of “horrible idea,” but I might be coming around. Although, I’m pretty sure you could throw Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” behind some footage of a decaying roadside bullhead (that’s Minnesotan for “catfish”) and I would be moved.

If the film is 1/4 as interesting as the trailer, I’ll consider it a huge success. And I think Spike Jonze moves the bar up for fantasy films with his combination of animatronics, CGI, and handheld. There are ways to make fantasy believable, when CGI is used with restraint, as a spice. You can’t enjoy a meal that’s made of salt. Don’t believe me? Gentlemen, I give you… The Star Wars Prequels.

(I love James Gandolfini. What a complete actor. May he continue to get interesting roles offered to him. His “Inside the Actors Studio” is one of the best out there, along with Chappelle’s.)

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Dan Clowes Interview on McSweeney’s

Excerpt from Mike Sack’s interview with Eightball and Ghost World creator Dan Clowes:

Do you think that the generation who grew up with the Internet will find this connection in other, less creative methods?

You mean, to write a banjo blog instead of actually learning how to play a banjo? You would think that there would be no good artists or writers or musicians anymore, but there are plenty out there who are just as good as anyone from any other generation.

And yet there was something to be said for the learning process in the pre-Internet era. If you were really interested in an obscure movie or a little-known artist, you would go out and research on your own, and every little tidbit of information had such power and weight. Nowadays, you can just click on Wikipedia and learn everything in five minutes. The thrill of discovery is greatly lessened.

Point taken, Dano. Back to drawing and writing.

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It’s Not Texali

But this is the only time I’ve ever really wanted to buy wine just because of the label.

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