forenoon filings: March 2005

katsuhiro otomo's steamboy

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Forenoon Filings is in a bit of a comic appreciation mood this week, so let us take another opportunity to broaden your appreciation of this art.

Today’s featured artist/writer is Katsuhiro Otomo. A native of Miyagi Japan – Otomo has produced some of the most ground breaking science fiction of recent years. His most well known work Akira weighed in at over 2000 pages and took over eight years to complete. With exception of Dave Sim’s Cerberus, it is difficult to think of a similar comic project of such size and scope being executed with such a high level of narrative brilliance.

But while many people take note of this and the equally amazing animated adaptation, don’t forget the smaller works of Domu – A Child’s Dream (a more psychological drama set in a Tokyo housing estate) and even the Legend of Mother Sarah. At the time of writing this is Otomo’s last published work – this time he only provided the script.

Recurrent themes in all these works are the effects of isolation and the destructive effects of technology when in the wrong hands. Even his first major work Fireball (which is increasingly difficult to find in the West) was initially recognised for these qualities.

Keeping this in mind, the newest animated feature from Otomo is Steamboy – which unlike all of these works is set in London of the past. As with all Otomo projects, this has been a long time in the making. The story and themes of this anime is very different from what we have previously come to expect – set in the U.K. in the middle of the 19th century, this revolves around an invention called the Steam Ball and the ensuing struggle over who should control it.

This has been given a theatrical release in USA, and is expected to reach the UK on [date].

sergio aragones - an appreciation

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

In a bid to widen his appeal, allow Forenoon Filings to introduce you to the work of Sergio Aragones.

A regular contributor to Mad magazine, and creator of Groo, Aragones has been drawing some of the most side-splittingly humorous comics for many years.

His most well known creation Groo, has been a firm favourite for a very long time, and although it had ceased to be a regular monthly title for quite some time now, there's a sufficient supply of mini-series that continue to pop up from time to time to keep fans happy.

One remarkable aspect of Aragones’ work (which will be appreciated by any aspiring cartoonist) is just the sheer work rate that he has managed to sustain over these years. Highly detailed pages of art teeming with people, movement and action, spout from his pen. If you are eagle eyed as you read the pages of Groo you will sometimes spot in tiny lettering at the bottom of the page, the location that the page was drawn when Aragaones is ever away from his studio – proof that his pen is ever busy!

His cartoon style is also just as strong when the words are taken away – long time fans from the Marvel/Epic days may remember issue 117 when the whole issue was speechless. In more recent years, two more collections of shorter speechless cartoons were published under the titles Actions Speak and Louder Than Words.

Aragones’ shorter strips can still be regularly found in Mad magazine, while the majority of his longer comic works are now published by Dark Horse Comics.

psx to psp video transfer

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

The path to every videogame success is often punctuated with the abandoned remains of less successful ventures. This time last year, Sony was determined to lever it's PS2 into an all-in-one lifestyle and entertainment hub (at least in Japan) by releasing the PSX. But a high price and missing software features (the initial firmware didn't support CD-R/RW, MP3) combined in its lacklustre retail performance.

New versions of the PSX have just been announced: the DESR-5700 (160GB HD) and DESR-7700 (250GB), both of which noe support DVD -/+ R/RW. But perhaps the most welcome feature is its ability to download recorded TV shows to the Memory Stick Duo port - in a PSP friendly MP4 format - good news for those PSP owners who are spending hours converting DVDs into MP4s rather tortusously for PSP playback.

Unfortunately, Sony have to release the PSX outside Japan... (yet)

google goes osx

This started off as an internal experiment, but now an OS X inspired version of the Google search page is now available for public use.

To quote the designer, Chikai Ohazama:

"Google X... came about because I wanted a quick fun way to access all of Google's services. I gave it to a few friends in the company, who gave it to their friends, some posted it on their blogs, others sent it around on mailing lists, and it eventually made its way to Marissa Mayer, who liked it enough to say, when do you want to put it up on Labs? So after some spit and polish from some enthusiastic Googlers and the keen eye of the UI team, Google X is here. I hope all of you enjoy it - especially Mac users, who I'm sure will appreciate its lineage."

While we are here, it may be worth mentioning the (currently) Google Suggest. This autocomplete as you type in queries. This is currently in beta stage testing.

UPDATE: This site has been taken down - no trace of it exists at the above URL. Rumour suggest that this is a result of pressure from Apple and Google.

gt4 photo mode

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

It is almost a week since the PAL release of GT4, and I think that is ample time to allow people to get to grips with the new Photo Mode.

The first car I got was a used Nissan Skyline GT-R V Spec R34 in black. A quick lap of the Seattle circuit produced this shot.

There are quite a lot of photo galleries that have been compiled for GT4 - a substantial gallery is hosted by GTPlanet.net.

One caveat though - due to the way the PS2 output video signals, it seems that picture output is slightly darkened when viewed on a computer screen as opposed to when previewed on the TV screen.

A suggested way around this is to up the exposure level to 0.8 in the GT Photo Edit Mode before taking the snapshot and exporting to USB Memory stick.

This tip was taken from the GTPlanet.net forum

gene kelly breakdancing

Friday, March 11, 2005

Saw the new VW Golf advert for the first time yesterday - and it certainly looks very impressive. This site isn't going to turn into a lazily compiled list of adverts and shopping links, but I'll make an exception in covering an advert here. I'll be interested to find out how this was composited. If you haven't seen it yet, I have found a link.

Some of those robot moves remind me of those David "Elsewhere" clips that were doing the rounds some time ago.

Now if I can only find a download of that Ford Puma Steve McQueen/Bullitt advert somewhere...

UPDATE: The new issue of Digit magazine has an interview with the post production studio Moving Picture who handled the compositing of this advert.

bad game translations

Thursday, March 10, 2005

As videogames started to go through their boom period in the late 1980's, so the market to the West followed. Unfortunately, not all Japanese developers either bothered or were able to research and accurately translate the finely tuned nuances of the English language.

Engrish has amassed a small collection of screen shots detailing some woefully bad translations. Thankfully things have a improved a bit since then...

limited edition handhelds

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

While Nintendo have announced their intention produce the DS in multiple colours, does anyone remember back at E3 (or was it the Tokyo Games Show) the Limited Edition White PSP? (or even this one)

Word seems to have gone quiet on this - but have Sony given up on it? They still go to the trouble of supplying white earphones as the standard PSP accessories and even their publicity pictures illustrate these mythical units as well.

If these are ever released, it could prove very popular for the iPod crowd and a useful stand in for the oft-fantisised video-iPod that will almost certainly never appear.

great shorter reads

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Often, in these busy times, it may be difficult to find time to plough through the latest 700 page magnum opus of an award-winning author. Let's not forget that succinct prose is often much more challenging to put together as well.

So as a free service, here are three shorter* works of fiction that have stood out to me; chosen mainly for their brevity - but their impact is not diminished in the slightest:

(*By shorter, lets say less than 200 pages).

1. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad (Penguin Modern Classics): Such a short book has provoked a huge storm of opinion around it - and rightly so. Through the often naive viewpoint of the narrator, Conrad seeks to pick apart the various myths that surrounded the Imperialism of his era. Some value this book for its perceptive study of human nature - observations that can be likened to Lord of the Flies.

2. The Double Tongue, William Golding (Faber & Faber): Ever since reading the Mystery of Edwin Drood, the idea of reading posthumous novels always fascinated. Although set far in Greece's past, we can observe Golding's accurate understanding of human behaviour. It could be argued that this is not really a short book, as it was never finished, but it serves its purpose for this list!

3. The Trial, Franz Kafka (Penguin Modern Classics): At first reading, this presents quite a haunting picture to the reader. We are never really sure of the time span, of how many of the events came to be set like this. This is very much a product of its time - examining how modern society was seeking to become more and more controlling. An atmosphere of intense claustrophobia hangs over this story.

analyse site statistics

To continue on a stats related theme, yesterday this site was signed up to Statscounter. As the weeks and months pass by, it will enable detailed analysis of how many visits this site receives and when.

The standard user account is free and if you have not already done so, it is recommended that you sign it up so that you can better tailor your site for visiting users.

behind the scenes at the genius bar

Monday, March 07, 2005

We all know that Apple take great care in the way they sculpt their carefully presented image. Going into the Apple Store really is a top-notch retail experience - but what really goes on behind the scenes?

This anonymous blogger who works at an un-named Genius Bar has lifted the lid. After EA Spouse landed EA in a bit of hot water, it seems to be quite the season of online whistle blowing.

Live Journal must be the radical revolutionary's bloging site of choice...

UPDATE: Looks like this Mac Genius is now in quite a bit of trouble...