Triptych: Three Amazing Shows

"Fallin' For Gravity" by Jeffrey Cruz

"Super High 5!!!!!" by Dirk Erik Schulz

"OOOOOOH" by Cotton-Gravy

Gravity Falls is currently my favorite cartoon on TV. This is just a genuinely high-quality show. Everything from the animation to the writing to the voice work goes above and beyond typical Saturday Morning Cartoon fare. It's also extremely funny: just about everything that Mabel says and does cracks me up. The show also boasts a remarkable voice cast: Jason Ritter and Kirsten Schaal play the two main kids, Dipper and Mabel, with Linda Cardinelli, John DiMaggio and Will Forte amongst the supporting cast. Guests have included Coolio, Larry King, John Oliver, Alfred Molina, Stephen Root, Horatio Sanz and Chris Parnell.

The Amazing World of Gumball is an odd, collage-like little show that I happened to stumble across recently. Nominally written for kids, I would say the big selling point of Gumball is the art style - it's a mash-up of two dozen different types of traditional animation, stop-motion animation, CGI, real-world photography and puppetry. Literally every character on this show (the Watterson family excluded) is presented in a different artistic style. It's a very unique premise for a cartoon, and one that creator ben Bocquelet and his team pull off with aplomb.

Regular Show, which I've posted about here before, is just fine television. That is all.

Triptych: Dragon Slayer

"Dragon's Lair" by Jayson Weidel

"Dragon's Lair Poster" by Tom Whalen

"Dragon's Lair" by Saeta Hernando

Interesting fact: there is not much in the way of Dragon's Lair fanart that is a) well-done and b) not pervy. There is a LOT of Dragon's Lair fanart that is pervy and very well-done, but this is not that kind of blog. The above three pieces represent basically the only three works of fan-art I was even remotely comfortable posting.

Triptych: Amoebas Don't Make Motorcycles

"Dr. Kaneda" by Anthony Holden

"Akira" by Andrew Heath

"Neo-Tokyo Capsules" (t-shirt) by SpaceMonkeyDr.

Triptych: Truly I Am AMAZING

"Doom Be Doom Doom" by Chito Arellano

"You Wormbaby" by Samy C.

"ZAGR: Steampunked?" by Jasmine Alexandra

So maybe you already knew this, but scratching the surface of the internet reveals that it is full of FREAKS and WEIRDOS. I learned this today while I sifted through art websites looking for Invader Zim artwork to post. Not only did I learn that the majority of Zim fan-art is awful (seriously, just really, really terrible) but I also learned that there's this whole creepy subculture of people who like to draw themselves in Irken form, and then inject themselves into the Invader Zim universe and interact (sometimes in... questionable ways) with established characters from the TV show. It's like a cross between cosplay, slash fic and manic, hardcore fandom and even though it's not nearly as explicit as some other fan followings, something about its single-minded obsessive fixation really grosses me out.

I love Invader Zim as much as the next guy. I think it was a great show, and rewatching it lately, I'm reminded at how hilarious and surreal it was and how there's really nothing else like it on TV nowadays. But these Rule #34 nutjobs are just ruining it for the rest of us. I don't want to come off as mean-spirited and I can respect dedication to a cult TV show or comic or whatever that ended too soon, but no matter how fervent a fan you are of Invader Zim, for the most part you got over it as time went by. The only people left were the fringe element, who fetishized their obsession and went in a really weird direction with it. Sometimes I wonder what Jhonen Vasquez thinks of this, if he thinks about it at all.

Triptych: Batman HATES Jokes

"8-Bit Dark Knight Poster" by Eric Palmer¹

"I'm Batman" by Fabian Gonzalez²

(Click for full-size)
"Gotham High Concept Art" by Jeffrey Thomas and Celeste Green³

¹ We watched The Dark Knight on Sunday morning. It's been about two years since I last watched it and MAN, I am struck by how impressed I still am with Heath Ledger as The Joker. I know everyone was, and still is, blown away by his performance, but coming back to it and seeing it after two years really put it in perspective. Christian Bale's Batman, by contrast, has just gotten more laughable and growly.
² A Batman made up of batman insignia. That is all.
³ Gotham High was a very real proposed animated series which (perhaps thankfully) never got past the concept art stage. Nevertheless, I admire the creativity that went into this youngified approach to Batman's Rogues Gallery. From left to right: Clayface, Two-Face, The Penguin, Killer Croc, The Riddler, Batgirl, Batman, Scarecrow, Catwoman, The Joker, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Bane and Mr. Freeze. You can check out more concept art here. I think that - all things considered - given the consistently high quality of Batman cartoons, from Batman: The Animated Series to The Brave and The Bold, this might have actually been not-terrible. As it is, it's a curious and amusing artifact.

Adventure Time! The Game

I posted a work-in-progress image for this animation project by Mike Gaboury not too long ago, but now it's done! We're still a ways away from a fully-playable, 8-bit Adventure Time game, but the above video (which features the imaginary start screen animation for such a glorious happenstance) will have to suffice until then.

Triptych: Steamboat Rockman Edition

"The Year Is 193X" by Rongs1234

"American Heroes" (t-shirt) by Beware1984

"1920s Pop Culture Collaboration" (t-shirt) by the RBC and the RBA

Can you really call it a demake when the goal format predates videogames? I SAY YES.

Triptych: I Like Turtles

"TMNT" by Matt Synowicz

"The Turtle Van" by LN Design

"Raphael" by Adrien Menielle

Triptych: What The Math?!

"Tollbooth Adventures" (t-shirt) by Karen Hallion

"Adventure Time x Tintin" by Francisco Perez

"Super Adventure Brothers" by Victor Louis Maury

Boy, people sure love mashing up oul' Finn and Jake with other things that they like.

Triptych: Coast To Coast

"Space Ghost" by Jayson Weidel

"Space Ghost" by Glen Brogan

"Space Ghost" by Matt Kaufenberg

Avenger Time!

The Avengers travel through a multitude of dimensions, courtesy the fine deranged folks at Mad. Hulk dash!

Triptych: Minimalist Pixar Posters

"Wall-E" by Lópezgrafico

"Monsters Inc." by Justin Van Genderen

"The Incredibles" by Pandreaa

Disney's Wreck-It Ralph

I love Disney. And, as some of you may have figured out by now, I also love videogames, particularly of the pixelated, 1980s-era variety. So I was extremely pumped to learn about Disney's upcoming animated feature "Wreck-It Ralph", which debuted at the recent D23 Expo and is slated for release a little under a year from now, on November 2nd, 2012.

The film stars John C. Reilly as the titular character, a Donkey-Kong-like videogame villain from the game "Fix-It Felix", who tires of being forever relegated to bad-guy status and dreams of being the hero for once. Jack McBrayer (also known as hilarious NBC peon Kenneth from 30 Rock) voices Felix, while Jane Lynch, Sarah Silverman, Dave Foley and David Hyde Pierce all make vocal appearances as well. It's being directed by Rich Moore, who was a supervising director on The Simpsons and Futurama, so I can only assume he knows his way around the funny.

Sick of being a bad guy, Ralph leaves his game and sets off for one that he can be the hero of. He traipses through racing games and first-person shooters (presumably amongst others) in his search for a new home, along the way joining Bad-Anon, a support group for villains populated by the likes of Pac-Man ghosts and zombies. In the end, I'm wagering that he learns a little something about himself and the world in which he lives, and manages to pull off a coup and successfully navigate the videogame world's first bad-guy-to-good-guy role transition.

I think what interests me the most about "Wreck-It Ralph" is that it is very clearly a "Toy Story" for the videogame generation. Like those films, I'm sure "Wreck-It Ralph" will be jam-packed with pop-culture references and clever dialogue, but more importantly, it's going to explore a specific continent of nostalgia and delve into not just what we remember fondly, but why we do.

I'm also really impressed that as part of the early promotion for the movie, Disney actually put together a "Wreck-It Ralph" upright arcade cabinet, complete with fully playable game. That's some thematically-consistent marketing there, Disney. I LIKE IT.

Triptych: Heroes In A Half-Shell

"Leonardo & Michaelangelo & Donatello & Raphael" (t-shirt) by D4N13L

"The Legend of Pizza" by byway

"TMNT" by Vantage:Inhouse Productions

Triptych: Utterly Unrelated

A trio of images that are not strictly videogame-related but I felt like posting anyway. Because SHUT UP. I feel like it, that's why.

"The Marvelous Cartoon Wigs Museum" by Rodrigo Ferreira


"Used Appliances" by Dale Austin


"Island Vacation" by jublin