subhumanzoids

dear mr. watterson

October 15, 2013October 15, 2013by Joseph LusterLeave a Comment

I was obsessed with Calvin & Hobbes growing up. Bill Watterson’s work inspired me loads in my early days of drawing, as evidenced by a post I made here a long time ago. The shameless rip-off Zac & Mac definitely wasn’t the first comic I ever drew—it was preceded by short, generic superhero comics and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rip-offs, for sure—but circa 4th and 5th grade it was probably the one I spent the most time on.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to Dear Mr. Watterson:

Never forget how deep my well of originality runs. Some day I’ll punish you all by scanning and uploading both full volumes.

Thanks to James Harvey’s tweet for the heads up!

Comics

thrill la thrill

October 9, 2013by Joseph LusterLeave a Comment

Despite the fact that a great majority of my day-to-day work involves anime, it’s pretty rare that I find a series that sticks with me enough to make me want to write about it or engage with it in any way outside of work. I really dig the stuff that actually makes an attempt to move beyond your typical restrictions, harkening back to the classic, anything-goes animation of the past. Ren & Stimpy‘s John K. knows all about this, questioning animation that doesn’t push boundaries, and he’s not wrong. We all should. After all, what’s the point of rigidly sticking to reality when you can literally do anything you want?

That’s one of the reasons I love the work of Hiroyuki Imaishi (Dead Leaves, Gurren Lagann), and most recently his new studio, Trigger. Imaishi’s latest effort, Kill la Kill, teams him up once again with Gurren Lagann writer Kazuki Nakashima and, well, I wrote my impressions of the first episode here, so read it if you want. Or just go watch the show on Crunchyroll or Hulu.

It’s good. Good enough to get me to do some fan art this morning.

Comics

in the mouth of strider’s soundtrack

October 8, 2013October 8, 2013by Joseph Luster5 Comments

As some of you probably know, a new Strider game is on the way. While I have a handful of reservations about it—it’s coming from developer Double Helix (Silent Hill: Homecoming), which doesn’t exactly have the best track record—I think I’d be happy with a mediocre game so long as it retained the series’ insane music.

Strider (6) — Dave Coulier swings through in an attempt to distract us from the rad Mega Drive cover art

Strider (5) — Seriously, click to make this bigger and just swim in it for a while

I played Strider on Sega Genesis so much as a kid that its tunes just became another matter-of-fact aspect of life that slowly crept into the background. Is music supposed to sound like this? Well, it does now, kid.

Beyond the relatively straightforward and safe opening track were bonkers jams like this:

And who could forget this absolutely mental ditty from the Amazon stage?

The music in the NES game is definitely more in line with Capcom’s offerings of the time, but I’ll never forget the cacophony of madness blasting from that rowdy Genesis sound chip. Here’s the full arcade version for good measure. Let’s all agree that, whatever Double Helix ends up delivering, it won’t be acceptable unless the soundtrack makes us question reality itself.

For the curious, the latest trailer for the 2014 Strider:

Comics

man gataro: even more master strokes

October 7, 2013October 7, 2013by Joseph LusterLeave a Comment

If there’s one thing the past few years of modest visitor counts has proven, people are starved for Man Gataro. The relatively enigmatic Japanese comicker was first featured on this very blog back in 2009, and it looks like people still search for any kind of fleeting glimpse of his work to this day.

Thus, I bring you even more Man Gataro!

The following is a quick selection from the pages of Chinyuki, which is the author’s own twisted take on the classic Journey to the West story. As was the case with the previous scan, it doesn’t really take much knowledge of the language to appreciate this sequence at its most primal level. Sure, it helps, but I think these images mostly speak for themselves…

Note: Read from right to left

Comics

wer ist buttmuscle?

October 6, 2013October 6, 2013by Joseph LusterLeave a Comment

If you follow me on the many social media platforms I dominate on a daily basis, you’ve likely been pulling your hair out, rocking back and forth in a cold corner pleading, “WHO IS BUTTMUSCLE?” for the past week or so.

Well, clearly he’s one of the world’s newest, freshest heroes, but there’s much more to Buttmuscle than a simple one-off picture. You may not get your answer right away, but the image below should help you rest assured that one day—perhaps a day not far from this very one in which we’re all currently living and breathing—you will.

Stay tuned…