From Paper to Machine - the Fairy Tale ;)

I apologise for being slack today in replying - I was busy at work for alot of the day, and then got sucked into doing a drawing Miss Megan Gwynn, aka Pixie. Now, obviously I had to spend time and effort on her, what with her being my favourite Marvel character ;) Damn happy with how the wings turned out ^^
Now I just have to dread the Pixie Strikes Back #3 issue :/

The hand-drawn version:




















The digital lineart version:





















And then finally, the coloured version:

Slightly more comic related

Right, because I'm a lazy arse when it comes to my own reviews and generally just comment on others now (because we're reading mostly the same anyway ;)) - I'll perhaps get back into a routine if there's a good un. Or I'll review straight after I've read em, without looking at others posts first. Probably a good idea. What does everyone else think?

Anywho, on a fan-art related matter, I've been doing some drawing today, and found a unfinished drawing I'd forgotten about as well. I do mean to finish it at some point, but my goodness, it is a complicated one.

In the end I got to getting inspiration from X's favourite series ever, and then decided I would change the characters round a little bit. I gave up after I found Pixie not going how I wanted (quell surprise on that character choice, eh? ;)). But I did get Wolfsbane with a sword (I imagine her as the new Vaklyrie), shamelessly stealing from a classic WW pose, Husk in a mix of her normal and AoA costume, and the basis of what I might do with Pixie. When finished it'll include Psylocke, Namor, Emma Frost and the Stepford Cuckoos as well, and then some others who I haven't decided on yet... Any choices guys?
















Then I thought I'd treat you guys to the madness that is my room :P well, my desk anyway. It's a bit of a mess, and a squeeze, and is the first time in a little while since I drew at my desk. And yes, that is a RotF Ravage on top of my PS3 :D













































Finally, this is the drawing I found. It's a elegant Lolita princess, for use in an RPG game world akin to Final Fantasy or something. She'd use a bow, with her quiver being in the bottom of her umbrella




















This will be my last post of the day, even though it's 5pm I'm tired and want to go back to bed. Which means waking up for work tomorrow. So yeah, go figure...

One (yes, ONE) review

And guess what - it's not even a new comic. Well, it is. Sortof. Just not from this week. Or last week. Might not be from the week before either. I can't remember. Anyway, yes. A review! At long last. I did call this site Highly Irregular Comic Reviews for this very reason though ;) - some times I just get very busy, or get very tired, etc etc. So yeah, it's been both for a while. Job takes alot out of me, have been to the theater (seeing Jersey Boys), to music gigs (seeing Europe), the cinema (seeing Princess and the Frog), been on dodgems and went bowling with work (yeah, when we want a break, we go on dodgems. I jest. We've only been once). And that's just been in the last week and a half, so yeah...

Anyway, on to the comic review - it's Pixie Strikes Back! part 1 of 4. It's written by Kathryn Immonen (who I've never heard of before), drawn by Sara Pichelli (again, never heard of), coloured by Christina Strain (third times the charm of not having heard of her), and lettered by Dave Sharpe (who I have heard of actually). So yeah...

The story itself is quite confusing, having lept into it half way through it seems. For some reason they're in a high school populated with demons (brilliantly hid I might add ) thinking their not mutants. I think... While Anole and Rockslide continue to antagonize each other and have all the fun and comedy while exploring the inner workings of the female bathrooms. I do like whenever they appear, because they just have a great dynamic, and actually can show off other points if Marvel ever bothered to (like, you know, how the X-Men are actually soldiers and Xavier has just been training them to fight with their powers, which is one of the major reasons I don't like the X-Men). Them and Pixie should be on all X-Teams :D

The third part of the story concerns Megan's mother, who is quite the irritating bitch. She immediately is hostile, and is just, well, to put it mildly: the Damian of the Marvel universe in an adult female body. And she gets violent to, so no defence from me about how she's just a concerned mother. The main story I just don't get at the moment, it'll be explained in latter issues, but right now it's just confusing. Which is a shame, I was looking forward to this one (can anyone guess why?)...

The artwork in this issue is good (quite reminiscent of Skottie Young, who you may or may not be aware that I think is brilliant), and I feel most of the time she gets Pixie dead-on (with none of this classic all women must have a clear outline of boobs at the minimum *cough* whoever drew her a while ago when she was older and taller than she should be), and the colour is mostly good. And they're quite cool casual clothes. Just one minor niggle - what happened to her blue undertop from page 4 onwards? And why does she have some white/blonde streaks in her hair - it does look quite good, but, not her. I was never a fan of having the black in there either, but I suppose it's some form of representation of her lost. You know, subtlety ;) But these are minor niggles...

Anywho, enough rambling from me I suppose. Just one last thing - why does every X-Uniform need yellow on it? And most having those stupid big boots and glove/gauntlet/bracer things... And the current female ones just look stupid as it is...

Oh, and just for the record - well done Marvel on spoiling the fatherhood of Pixie, among other things.

SPOILER

"You can’t pick your parents. And if you could, Pixie certainly wouldn’t have picked Mastermind, the man who turned Jean Grey into the Dark Phoenix. But right now, that’s the least of her problems. A giant demon named Saturnine has been using her Pixie dust to lull her fellow X-Men into submission and it’s worked. Now he’s one step away from all the power he needs to take control of the world. Can the fast-talking Welsh girl with wings possibly stop him?"

I'm meh to Mastermind, so I'm not particularly bothered, and it makes a form of sense regarding her powers. I just don't see why they had to do that. Couldn't she just have the trauma of having her soul partially gone (which I don't really like. It somewhat does symbolise the current age of comics. Nobody is innocent, nobody can ever not have turmoil, nobody can have a happy family. ARGH. Sometimes you just need characters like that without screwing over their entire life. Grumble grumble. I do wonder whose idea this was. I'm betting it was Joe Quasemodo. I know that's not his real name, but sometimes I find high up editors just so infuriating. Grumble grumble)

END SPOILERS

And because I feel like it, I'll also just make a few comments about some of the ads in this issue:

• Super Hero Squad - please, just go away. The Hulk doesn't drive, Iron Man doesn't a fire truck, why is Spider Man driving Optimus Prime? And that's just for starters. ARGH. I hit spinoff toys like this >:(
• X-Men Second Coming - well, Scott's obviously not gonna be the leader, cause he's just an arse who I don't like. Yep, that's my reasoning on that one. Never have liked him, never will. Magneto would be the really controversial choice, and so seems most likely, while Emma is the middle ground viewpoint I suppose, but she's been in the spotlight alot recently, so it would make sense either way for her to have more spotlight or less. But regardless, please, put some clothes on. ARGH
• Fall of the X-Men & Avengers - because we haven't seen the Hulk attack his team-mates before... Repeated plot x 100 = ARGH
• The C2E2 - I hate being in Britain sometimes. I'm missing Alex Ross, Greg Land and Skottie Young, among others. ARGH
• Guardians of the Galaxy - now this looks interesting. Cool pic, and it's written by Dan Abnett. But I won't pick it up, as I don't normally buy Marvel single issues.

Oh, and if anyone could provide me with a concise timeline of the Runaways, that would really help - I've been collecting the collecting editions in various formats, and have got volumes 1-9, and I've really enjoyed em, but there's things missing, like the death of Gert etc... Grumble grumble

PotD

For me it's no longer Michael Turner week, as I started it on Facebook over a week ago :D I'll be nice and continue for the rest of the week, after a break today :D

Who I Am, What I Review, etc

Righteo, this is just (hopefully) a short post to say what kindof of thing's you'll expect to read about about on this blog. I'm much more of a DC reader than a Marvel. Most Marvel stuff I wouldn't bother even picking up, like Spider-Man, anything about Wolverine, the Fantastic Four (who I loathe)... But things I have liked about them include the crossovers Civil War and I am liking what I've read of Dark Reign. I intend to get all the Ultimate X-Men books, and want to start reading any comic with Pixie in it. You know who I mean ;)

The one with pixie wings of course! So if anyone could point me in the right direction, that would be great.

I've read almost all of Age of Apocalypse (got the four big collected editions, and Exiles: AoA), enjoyed some of it, though the artwork was a bit lacking. And the story was quite disjointed...

Otherwise, I am definitly a DC guy - I don't buy Marvel singles, only collected editions. And with DC I buy some singles, but not a huuuuge amount. Where it not for Blackest Night, my comic buying would go down quite a bit (probably). I save things like JLA and JSA for collected editions, and buy things like Batgirl, GA/BC, Detective Comics with Batwoman, limited series like Superman: Secret Origins, Cry For Justice, Great Ten and Ink (which sadly finished :( I really enjoyed that, the artwork was good, though sometimes hard to tell who was who...). I'm quite likely to give up on the actual Batman books come next issue unles they get really good, as I haven't been particularly enjoying them, and I'm just sticking with GA/BC as GA's my fave character.

Lastly, but not leastly:
Bring. Back. Aquaman. Not the silly new one, no. The original, the best. With whatever; harpoon, waterhand, sentient Black Lantern zombie. I don't care. Just bring him damn well back :D