1286 - "Doc Ock's Suicide Squad"

I started this project over a month ago, and by that time the "Suicide Squad" movie was already stale in the theatres, so sometimes JSVB just isn't as topical as I'd like.  Suicide Squad isn't a movie I've seen, nor do I particularly want to see it.  So lampooning a movie that has been out for ages and I haven't seen it?  None of this is in good form, yet I soldier on.

Click to embiggen.

 My friend Earl seems to like this show quite a lot.  I looked at the reviews and was hoping they'd just re-make "The Dirty Dozen" (1967), which is one of my favourite war films.  Superheroes versus Nazis in a suicide mission sounds like fun to me. 

So Earl has been discussing Suicide Squad in detail, and I asked how come Doctor Octopus isn't in the movie, since he's able to fire eight machine guns at once*.  Earl patiently explained, as to a child, that Doc Ock is a Marvel Comics character and the Suicide Squad belongs to rival DC Comics. 

Oh.

The people I know who enjoy superhero movies tend to be creative, generous, friendly, liberal folk.  However at the mention of merging Marvel and DC Universes, they immediately recoil at the suggestion.  Blasphemy!  Sure, the fans wonder if Spiderman could beat Wonder Woman in a fight, but a true "official" cross-over between Marvel and DC is rare as finding a black diamond.  Lawyers have to become involved.  

The issues of crossover are purely contractual.   If the studios do not protect their property, wonderful things happen as artists find freedom to explore new permutations and combinations of characters and events.  No, wait, that's the alternate universe cross-overs.  In our universe, studios jealously protect their property so that their product isn't diluted by bungling idiots.  Why else would Joe Shuster, the original illustrator of Superman, have his contract bought out so that Supes could be drawn by more competent artists?  Shuster became destitute and ended up taking a job as a panel truck driver who ended up delivering packages to DC Studios, the same company that bought his Superman design.

All of this boils down to where the money goes.  If the money has already been spent, there's not much anybody can do to prevent a cross-over.  For example, Earl tells me that the Suicide Squad is based on a comic book he owns.  I've threatened to use white-out on his book so that I can draw in Doctor Octopus, who I strongly believe should be in on the fun.  

Instead of defacing Earl's property, I've resorted to drawing a couple of panels of what Doc Ock's Suicide Squad might look like.  It's a hodge-podge to be sure.  Maybe the reason there aren't many cross-overs is that you need a lot more talent than I have to make them work: see Rickard Williams who brilliantly merges Disney, Warner Brothers, and Fleischer Studios' characters into "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" (1988)

*To my shame, Doctor Octopus cannot fire eight machine guns at once.  He can only fire six, since he's only supposed to have two human arms and four mechanical arms.  See JSVB Post #1273 by clicking here. While "Dr. Sextopus" would be far more accurate, that name likely wouldn't sell to the target demographic: Marvel Comics fans (and not DC).

 

1285 - Nativity 2 - II

I've blocked in some of the colours of the icon.  The dark parts are the sanquir, which are deep shadows.  I'll paint bright colours over top.  

Almost immediately, I botched Joseph's halo.  I used a compass to lay in the paint, but I made the radius too large.  Red paint doesn't erase, it just stains.  However, the part that got stained will be covered by dark paint, so the mistake will be covered over.  

 

1284 - Nativity 2 - I

If it's the fall season, then it's icon season for me.  I'm doing another Nativity pretty much the same as the first one I did last year.  To see the finished icon, please click here. 

So, if you're keeping score, my iterations ought to be similar to the articles I made roughly two hundred posts ago.  Naturally, this is the gilding stage which looks both sloppy and expensive at the same time, and it is. 

1283 - Two-Ply: His Trade

Today's JSVB Post concerns the male rump as a tool for smuggling.  I don't believe I'm being graphic, but if you don't want to see that kind of thing, don't scroll down.

Click to embiggen.

Cue Shirley Bassey.

The Man With The Golden Ass may turn out to be a former employee of the Canadian Mint who stands accused of stealing gold ingots from the Government of Canada by smuggling them shoved up his anus. 

His dreams of a golden retirement were stopped up when he was flushed out by an alert bank employee who noted a number of suspicious transactions involving bullion.  The cookie-sized ingots that the alleged thief was selling match those produced within the foundry of the Mint.  Costively speaking, the total value of the gold is estimated at just under two hundred thousand dollars, with each ingot priced at nearly $7,000 apiece.  

If convicted, Goldenass ought to be popular in prison considering how things are smuggled in.  I've heard how some inmates will insert rectal Rolexes, you know, just to pass the time.  

1282 - The Consequential Shreddie

Look at this Shreddie.  It's orthogonally unorthodox; it's supposed to be a square.  Instead, it's a single conjoined mega-Shreddie that somehow missed the chop to become two.  An aberration from the cereal assembly line it is, to be sure.

And that's what caused me to think.  There's no easy video or description on how Shreddies are made, so we have to use our best guess.  Somehow, the semi-liquid crushed-grain cereal lattice is laid out, chopped, and cooked into square shapes or diamonds if you prefer the cute advertisements from last decade.  Cooked, yes, but still pliable enough to be sliced into shape without shattering the square.

Seeing as there are two squares end-to-end, that would imply that the Shreddies could emerge from their processor like an infinite roll of stamps through the slot of a stamp dispenser.  A softly outflowing ribbon of Shreddies, one would think.  That enough would be a treasured sight to see, or to be able to sit at the base of the ribbon extruder and allow the warm Shreddie ribbon to stream directly into  one's mouth.  

Logically, though, a Shreddie ribbon would not be efficient, since they could only be cut one at a time.  More likely, it's a Shreddie blanket that gets cut into ribbons or squares.  

A Shreddie blanket.

How can you not want to go to sleep at night under the warmth of a fresh, gently fragrant Shreddie blanket, and then wake up in the morning and eat the bedsheets for breakfast?  Well, obviously don't count hygiene in the equation.  

 

1281 - Inbound

An acquaintance and I were discussing videogames, and I wanted to communicate how I thought that in a particular an air traffic control game the vehicles should have animated tags that follow them, like the cars in a NASCAR broadcast.  A picture is worth a thousand words, so I drew a quick sketch to explain myself. 

1280 - "Ripcord Pants"

Today on this Ungood Art Day, traditionally the thirteenth day of every month here on JSVB, I resort to fart jokes.  Scroll down to see more, if you dare. 
  

After my wife and I had a reasonably serious discussion about what would happen if you farted into the blades of a rotating fan, we both agreed that I had some material for today, the thirteenth of the month, which is traditionally Ungood Art Day here on JSVB.  There is some science afoot here.  Farting into a fan is related to how hospitals invariably put their main air intake next to where automobiles idle.  It's all about managing airflow and toxicity.  

Most farts are just atmospheric gases: nitrogen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and some methane.  These gases largely go through the digestive canal since they are swallowed with food or as a nervous response. The vile smell of farts comes from within the large intestine: sulfur compounds such as hydrogen sulfide, dimethyl sulfide, and methanethiol; organic compounds such as volatile fatty acids and amines; and skatole and indole which remain from the digestion of meats.  Consumed vegetables and tubers provide complex sugars which also contribute gases.  Finally, anaerobic bacterial emissions will round out the bouquet. 

Each of these molecules can reek, and in large enough concentration can even kill you if inhaled.  The most powerful smell, however, occurs when these molecules are mixed together and then sprayed out the anus.  So, anything that can expedite the dispersion process will also cut the odour significantly.

This is the thinking behind The Fabulous RIPCORD Pants, a personal flatus dispersal system.  It's pretty self-explanatory.  The fan works like one of those spinning plastic salad strainers, only the motor runs a propeller instead of a spinner.  Also, you wear it on your ass.  You blast away, then you pull the handy cord.  Louvered jalousies vent the airstream downward, away from human noses, but presumably closer to dog noses since they like that kind of thing.  

RIPCORD is not designed to handle any liquid or solid matter that is ejected, so always be wary of the wet ones, the dreaded "shart".  If your poots get hot and humid, best practise is to head for the nearest washroom.  Perhaps RIPCORD 2.0 will available in brown to help disguise such an extingency, but we here at Ripcord Labs will burn that bridge only once we get to it. 

1279 - Fastback Baby Crib

My Father sent me a care package: my baby crib from the 1960's.  The picture is of a toy Mustang Fastback from Ford, but it's a replica of the car my Dad was driving when I was born.  

The toy is sweet.  It's got a battery compartment and a motor that drives the rear wheels, and it has a mechanical bump-and-go arrangement in the front to allow it to steer automatically.  There's two flashing lights in the rear window so I couldn't lose the car in the dark.  It's not in bad shape being mostly made of metal, but it's obviously been loved and played with.

 It's also a replica of the Fastback my Dad drove, right down to the paint scheme and the interior colours.  It's also pretty similar to Steve McQueen's Mustang in "Bullitt" (1968).  I think when my Mom saw that film, she convinced Dad to get rid of the car.  I don't remember it well, but my parents have pictures of me learning to walk by grabbing onto the wheel well.  I wouldn't have been much taller than the tire.

Dad traded the Mustang for a Ford Cortina, which is as tame a car as the name would imply.  The tiny Cortina quickly was sold to make room for a Ford Galaxie 500, a land yacht that had enough room in the back seat for me to park the car I own now.  The gas crisis hit, and the Galaxie was traded in for a Ford Pinto.  I think you see the progression here: big engine then little engine.  The Pinto got smashed, and we bought a Fairmont, a Taurus SHO, a Tempo, a Bronco pick-up, and finally a series of Escorts and Focuses.  Dad worked for Ford all of his career so he was able to get fleet vehicles, which is why we changed cars so many times.  Or maybe he just likes "new car smell".

 

1278 - 50-50: The Alternative Factor

I have an alternate version of the Fifty-Fifty pose I presented on JSVB yesterday.  It's more "meme-like", if that's a word.  

I made the rookie mistake of composing the artwork on a white background, so the colours were all balanced for that.  When I decided I wanted a cheesy Star Trek rock face to be the background, its dark geometry threw all the colours out of whack, and in my opinion I over-rendered the image to make my corrections.  The new version of Corel Painter arrived, so I wanted to try out its new digital brushes.  Yesterday's picture took the brunt of my experimentation.  

So this version is a bit cleaner, and the tag line amuses me.  I rotoscoped an existing Star Trek model and composited my brother-in-law's head on top.  That allowed me to work pretty fast, since I'd somehow forgotten that yesterday was the big anniversary and I wanted to make the deadline.  




 

1277 - "Fifty-Fifty"

Today, as two thirds of the Internet will tell you, is the fiftieth anniversary of the first broadcast of Star Trek.  It also happens to be the fiftieth birthday of my brother-in-law.  Well, his birthday isn't today precisely, but he does turn fifty the same year as Star Trek.  To celebrate, my wife and I plan to drag him to a Trek convention we're dubbing 50+50=0,0,0, which is something of a Star Trek reference.  

Although my brother-in-law seems less than eager to dress as a tribble for the event, there's no reason for me not to illustrate him in something geeky like the iconic redshirt uniform.  

 

1276 - "The Four Horsemen"

I believe that this is a final draft of the design for "The Four Horsemen".  Left to right, Mayors Mike Clay (Port Moody), Richard Stewart (Coquitlam), John McEwen (Anmore) and Greg Moore (Port Coquitlam) are forming an athletic team to support the charities of the I AM SOMEONE Ending Bullying Society and Canadian Sport For Life.  I am giving them this logo, above.  

I've donated to I AM SOMEONE for a few years now, they are a tremendous organization in my opinion.  Canadian Sport For Life I am less familiar with, although the Mayors seem to understand their worth.  They are among many of the new young public servants that put physical fitness as a priority, something that hasn't been seen at the top levels of Canadian politics since... ever?  Nonetheless, it wasn't hard to draw good physiques for these Mayors who are in good enough shape to race running, kayaking, and cycling across the Lower Mainland for charity.  It's more than I can do, although maybe I should follow their example, hmmm? 

1275 - Running For Office

This is a sketch of our four local mayors (I live in a city surrounded by cities) all going out for a run.