So I've been really terrible about updating this blog this month, but that's sort of how it goes.
It's the holidays, and stuff is hectic as hell. Crysta and I are rushing around trying to get ready to hit the road -- and of course we had to get our hot water heater replaced today as it decided to spring a leak.
It's all a mess.
But I hope you're having a wonderful holiday yourself, whoever you happen to be and whatever you happen to celebrate.
I don't know really where I was going with this...
So yeah.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 1 ) ]
So it's December. Thanksgiving is over, no more conventions until January (when I'll be at Nezumi Con), and I'm not trying to breakneck a whole bunch of extra comics every week.
Seriously, November UnCONventional storylines are very difficult to churn out with my hectic schedule.
Tuesday starts a new chapter in UnCONventional, of course, so I find myself having to plot out a new year. And while that is work, the twice a week schedule is a lot easier to keep up with.
In real life, both Daisho Con and Thanksgiving went very well - at the former I had a lot of fun because I got to see most of my con friends, and the latter because of my Great Great Aunt Ostrid's Pumpkin Pie recipe. No one's sure where she got it from, but it's the only recipe anyone in my family is willing to use at this point.
It is just that good.
While visiting my parents in Milwaukee for Thanksgiving, I also did some of the normal stuff I do there - like help my dad hang up the Christmas lights and get dinner at least once at a George Webb's. If I miss one thing about living this far from Milwaukee, it is being able to just being five minutes away from a George Webb's no matter where I go. I mean sure, Steak N Shake is great, but it always feels like an artificial re-creation of a diner. George Webb's is the real thing.
But it's not like I have strong opinions on the matter.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 2 ) ]
So this weekend I'll be at Daisho Con in the Wisconsin Dells. I've done this convention every year since its inception, and I'm happy to be going there again.
Like the last few years, I'll be attempting to sell my wares in the artist alley, so if you want your chance to get a copy of an UnCONventional or Crosarth book straight from me, this is one of your best chances -- as this is my last con until 2015.
I'm still sorting out my schedule for 2015.
I'm still getting my stuff together for the convention - I have my actual merchandise packed, but I haven't printed signage yet nor really thought about my table layout. That's stuff I need to do before I load the car and hit the road.
Of course, I'll also be doing a live episode of Nerd & Tie with Pher and Nick, so that promises to be a good time. Other than that I've decided to not really do any other panels this year because, frankly, I didn't feel like preparing anything. Mostly I want to go to this convention, sell my stuff, hang out with friends, and have a good time.
We could all use a good time.
Yesterday was the 30th birthday of UnCONventional's Lynn Baxter -- and while you may think it's strange to mention the real world birthday of a fictional character, I... don't? Apparently? This is the person I am now.
Anyway, I posted a collection of Lynn art spanning 11 years (as she predates UnCONventional as a character), so you might find that interesting. The current storyline is a bit bleak over in the real comic, I know - but I've been really happy with the way it has been turning out (and with the response its generated).
So yeah.
That's where things are right now. To cap things off, here's one of the aforementioned pieces of Lynn art for really no good reason besides the current weather out my window:
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 0 ) ]
So November is upon us, and that means (like it has for the last three years) that UnCONventional is temporarily going five days a week for a special story event.
When I first did this, it was the serious character piece I Hate November. I like to say that these characters lead full, normal lives, and we just get to see the funny moments in the comic. Knowing it was a risk doing a storyline without jokes, I still tried it - but thankfully people stuck with it and seemed to like the story.
In the two years that followed though, while I did special November storylines ( In the Beginning, The Election), they ended up being just standard arcs that would have fit in at any other part of the comic. Originally I was planning on doing that again this year, with an extended version of the Max/Veronica story that we saw this last month...
...but a few months ago I had another idea. I decided to return to the spirit of I Hate November and do a character piece, this time focused on Megan. As we learned back in I Hate November, Megan's father wasn't the most progressive person in the world. I decided that I didn't want to write her coming out story, but if you payed close attention you might have noticed a phone conversation which implied it happened back in Chapter Four.
And based on what Lynn said to her co-worker Jeff in early Chapter 5, it didn't go that well.
So with this last Thursday's comic, we're finally going to deal with this head on. I know this may not be everyone's cup of tea, as the comic is normally about convention jokes, but I think exploring the characters like this is worth it.
And if you don't like it, the good news is the comic returns to normal come December 2nd. Until then though, please enjoy "You Can't Go Home Again."
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 3 ) ]
So for the Nerd & Tie podcast, we've started featuring photoshopped images inserting Pher, Nick and I into various media for episode title cards. I happen to find them hilarious, so I've been reposting them to my blog. Since that last post though, we've done some more... so I thought I'd share those too.
So here we go:
So yeah, I think they're amusing.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 0 ) ]
Update: People asked for T-shirts, so I opened up a Cafepress Store
So on Monday I finished detailing the fake anime import Soldiers of the Sun. I also posted two versions of the theme song ( long version, TV edit).
Well, last night... umm... my hand slipped? And suddenly I had a promotional poster for Soldiers of the Sun designed?
Yeah. That's what happened.
Anyway, I thought I'd share it. This is destined for the inside of UnCONventional's fifth book (which will come out in the spring). I will admit to recycling a ship from The Chronicles of Crosarth, but I liked it well enough.
And I swear this is my last Soldiers of the Sun post.
For now.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 0 ) ]
So last week I wrote two posts detailing three different non-existent anime series (Magic Soldier Princess Z, Lost Whispers, and Destiny Police) as referenced in the comment section of an UnCONventional from a little ways back. Today we see how in the early 80s these three shows were combined into a gestalt series, "Soldiers of the Sun."
The eighties saw several (real) "gestalt" anime series released in the United States, where multiple shows were combined and highly edited to create a new show that met the number of episodes required for US television. Harmony Gold put out Robotech and Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years. World Events Productions put out Voltron.
And SylverRhythm (as I'm now spelling it) put out Soldiers of the Sun.
Soldiers of the Sun combined Lost Whispers, Magic Soldier Princess Z, and Destiny Police into one series. Even though they were unrelated (and took place in notably different settings), connecting dialogue and "careful" re-editing of scenes combined the shows.
Each of the three series represented a "generation" in the show -- Lost Whispers being the "Ancient" generation, Magic Soldier Princess Z being the "present" generation, and Destiny Police representing the "future" generation.
Lost Whispers was minimally changed - with "Dark Mephisto" being renamed "Lord Hush" and the Seven Swords of Light were said to combine into the "Sun orb" (a wholly unique concept to Soldiers of the Sun not present in the original show). The events of Lost Whispers largely played out as normal, with the ambiguous setting of "the ancient past" (onscreen it says "hundreds of years ago" while later dialogue will refer to this timeframe as "many millennia ago"). Dark Mephisto/Lord Hush is banished to the netherworld, and our heroes remain triumphant.
Magic Soldier Princess Z followed Lost Whispers, with Yoshiko being renamed "Kelli." The flashback scenes of the Ancient Kingdom and Yoshiko's/Kelli's past life are said to be in "the final era" of the same kingdom as Lost Whispers (which is slightly incongruous as the two don't look remotely alike), and the "Z Emerald" which transforms her into Princess Z (or "The Ultimate Sun Soldier" as Soldiers of the Sun refers to her as) is now refered to as the "Sun Orb" (mentioned in the earlier generation).
The Hush (who get to keep their name) are said to be the descendents of Lord Hush, invading not from space, but instead the netherworld. Lt. Tanaka (Yoshiko's/Kelli's love interest) gets renamed "Captain Lloyd Rayburn" as well.
Finally, the Destiny Police portion of the show is said to be set forty years after the events of Magic Soldier Princess Z. General Yamazaki is turned into General Rayburn -- who is said to be the same character as Lt. Tanaka/Cpt. Rayburn. Where the robotic arm from Magic Soldier Princess Z went was never explained (episode 3 of Destiny Police shows the General without his shirt in a single shot -- where he has two intact arms).
"Kelli" is said to have passed away, and "General Rayburn's" daughter "Sally" (Kasumi in the original and part of the Destiny Police force) is stated to be Kelli and Rayburn's daughter (although no familial relationship exists in the original series between Yamazaki and Kasumi).
The "Shadow Force" from Destiny Police get combined with The Hush, and Akira Takei (Now "Jason Baxter") was now experimenting on the "Sun Orb" to split its power into the weapons used by the "Soldiers of the Sun" (nee Destiny Police). Other major changes include the General reaching out to Baxter to create the weapons (instead of vice versa), and the removal of the the General's "dark past."
On a footnote, SylverRhythm let their license lapse on MSPZ - which then got picked up by a rival company... making re-releases of Soldiers of the Sun awkward. SylverRhythm has paid to animate "bridging scenes" with original footage to connect the "Ancient" and "Future" generations (combined with narration), but it gets super awkward.
Oh, and because KorFan claimed he remembered it fondly, I present to you the Soldiers of the Sun theme song (that was the TV edit, here's the long version).
And that's the whole story.
And none of it was real.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 5 ) ]
So on Monday I detailed the fake anime series Magic Soldier Princess Z as mentioned in an UnCONventional from last week. As I said in the that previous entry, it was one of three unrelated (nonexistent) "classic" anime series that were later combined stateside in the US.
In this post, I'm going to detail the other two anime series, and then on Monday I'll talk about the gestalt series "Soldiers of the Sun," where I'll explain how they were hacked together and the legal history of the shows.
And again, none of this is real. It's all background for UnCONventional. Because I'm insane.
Anyway, here we go.
Lost Whispers was a fantasy series based off a manga published in the late 1950s. The anime came out in 1971, and adapted volumes three through five of the manga.
The Kingdom of Sankara has been conquered by the evil Baron Duran's army (assisted by the sorcerer "Dark Mephisto"). A young former Knight named Carl sets off on a quest to restore the last remaining member of the royal family, Princess Francine, to the throne. To do so he goes on a quest to find the Seven Swords of Light - a set of mythical weapons that supposedly grant their bearers "the ultimate strength." Along the way Carl is joined by an unlikely band of heroes, as they try to save their kingdom.
Now, on the other hand, Destiny Police is a very different show. Produced in 1980, Destiny Police is set in an undetermined year "Not too far into our future" (to crib from the opening narration).
A mysterious alien race known only as the "Shadow Force" is trying to invade from an alternate universe. As they aren't able to completely cross over to our world, they have developed a technology which allows them to possess humans in our world. Their plan is to build the tools they need to cross over on our side first, so they can launch a full scale invasion.
Akira Takei is a brilliant young scientist who has been working on a way to fight the Shadow Force, when he discovers a nonlethal method of expelling the invaders from the bodies of those infected. Unfortunately no one in authority is willing to listen to him.
No one except former General Roy Yamazaki. Yamazaki had resigned in disgrace after leading a mission against the Shadow Force that left ten children dead. Yamazaki and Takei pool their limited resources to build enough weapons to outfit a small team of five misfits - a team that would fight for the destiny of the Earth.
And that's it.
Next time... how these three shows became Soldiers of the Sun.
And again, none of this is real.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 3 ) ]
So last Thursday's UnCONventional mentioned the fictional anime series "Magic Soldier Princess Z." I like to use fake shows instead of real ones in the comic because, frankly, it keeps the comic from being dated. But rather than make up a "current" show in this case, I actually decided to make up an "old" one for the comic... because part of the dialogue referred to the series as out of print.
Most importantly though, when I invent a series, I don't just throw together a name. The previously referenced "Wage Project" we've seen in the comic has a character roster, story arc, and even a few character designs.
While Magic Soldier Princess Z doesn't have any artwork yet, I had a history for the series fleshed out before the comic went live. A history that involved two other anime series, and an import history loosely based on Robotech and a few other early American Anime imports. So since I had rough outlines for these three anime series and the American Gestalt it was transformed into, I thought I'd share them with you this week in a series of posts.
(Since we started discussing it in the comment section of the comic, beyond my original notes, I've decided to incorporate suggestions from readers.)
So here we go with the first one.
Magic Soldier Princess Z, produced in the late 1970s, is set in the "future" year of 1992. Earth has been under attack for three years by an alien race known as "The Hush." The United Nations has formed the "Earth Defense Task Force," but have taken heavy casualties and are barely keeping the aliens at bay.
Meanwhile in Japan, Yoshiko Yumeno, an average-but-clumsy 16 year old girl, wanders into a cave near her grandparent's house where she discovers a mysterious green orb. When she picks it up, she has a brief vision of an ancient kingdom... but at that moment The Hush attack, bombing the area just above the caves.
As the walls cave in, Yoshiko (somehow) activates the orb causing her transformation into Magic Soldier Princess Z. As Magic Soldier Princess Z she wears a "cute" mechanized armor suit, and destroys the attacking Hush ship.
Yoshiko then joins the Earth Defense Task Force's Unit 4, led by Yoshiko's love interest Tanaka. Throughout the series, Yoshiko discovers she's the reincarnation of "Princess Z," leader of an ancient race that once protected Earth. The series ran just 13 episodes.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 4 ) ]
|
|
|
![Trae Dorn [dot] Com](http://www.trhonline.com/traedornproductionslogo-2025-web.png)
