More comics!

Looks like I've been accidentally depriving you of comics! Sorry about that, folks.





If it doesn't work out, give her half of my stuff

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Videogame Classics - Entering the Meme Game

While I was recovering from an incapacitating illness this weekend, I took to cruising around the internet, particularly my favorite art and design blogs. Probably the name I've seen recurring again and again is that of designer Olly Moss. His simple schematic-like illustrations are a lot of fun to look at, and if you get the chance, look at the film posters he created using only black, white and red.
But the thing that has really been making the rounds are these:



An admirer of the abstract covers such as those on on Penguin Classics paperbacks, Moss made a series of his own retro-ized covers for half a dozen classic video games. They don't just look classic, either - they look classy.



So, with little else to do during my convalescence, and feeling up to an artistic challenge, I decided to try my hand at a few of my own videogame covers. I'm hardly the first person, of course - in the last month they've become something of a meme. Kotaku even put up a nice gallery of covers that their readers submitted - but I tried to make my covers distinctive, if not unique.
I will say this - this was considerably challenging for me, and I realized early on that I was not used to breaking down an image or a concept to something simplistic and immediately eye-catching, like Moss's pieces do so effortlessly. Anyone who likes my stuff absolutely has to trace it back to Moss.

Let's see what I came up with:



I was pretty proud with the design I came up for this one. A little simplistic, maybe, but it evokes what the game's about. You've got the boy, the girl, and the evil castle, obviously, but there's also the the recurring light and darkness motif.



I never got to play this game all the way through, but watching the levels on YouTube show that this totally deserves to be a classic one day. Originally there was just the black spiral, but I wanted to add some white, so I added the white ripple effect. I was happy with it, but couldn't shake the feeling I'd seen it somewhere before...



Oops. Well, Moss said he got inspiration for that one from Saul Bass' amazing Vertigo poster, anyway. And for good reason - orange and white spirals is always visually striking.



I think I had the most difficulty with this one, because I didn't want to have too much black. Mirror's Edge is dominated by white, with bits of red, and the color scheme is crucial to the gameplay. Thought it turned out okay in the end, though. And finally...



I wanted some cake to be there from the beginning. That's the best part of the game! Circles were also something I wanted to incorporate, to evoke both the portals and the ever-watching eyes of GLaDOS. I like how organic the finished piece looks.

Am I thinking about these too much? Probably. But it's fun to break down what makes a game unique, and to try and get that across in a very simple illustration. I actually have plans for three more. Maybe I'll get those done this week.

One degree shy of sadistic

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Happy 10th Anniversary, Powerpuff Girls!

You read that correctly - the Powerpuff Girls have been around for ten years. Longer, if you count their original shorts on What A Cartoon! back in '97.
I have never felt so old in my life.



And it's still going strong! You still see them on TV, and you can still get knockoff belts with their melon-shaped heads as the buckles. One of the little girls I teach English to has a PPG watch, and last week we momentarily bonded over one of the few things that surpasses the language gap - whether you prefer Blossom, Bubbles, or Buttercup (Though as I understand it, Italian speakers know them as Lolly, Dolly, and Molly, le Superchicche).

But what little girl doesn't recognize this?



I still remember the newspaper articles, back when the show was red-hot, about how parents were concerned with the blatant violence on the show. I remember how they talked about it representing "girl power," and the encroaching influence of anime on America's Saturday mornings. They thought PPG got its weirdness from Japanese influences.
They might have been right, but they didn't know that eventually Japan would take it to a whooooole new level.
They didn't know about Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z.



Look at what you've done, Craig McCracken. You started this. You can never escape it.

But the PPG got a special tenth anniversary DVD set, and watching some of the old episodes made me remember that the show was genuinely good. It was funny. It was sweet. It was kickass.
But ten years old. Damn. A lot of things turn ten this year: Spongebob and Futurama, amongst them, but there's something special about the show that's now older than the protagonists the show is about.

Okay, take it easy. Enjoy some Apples in Stereo.



Or will you fly away before we count to one?

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