Witchblade #127

If last month's issue ended with a great (if not completely unexpected) cliffhanger, ish 127 knocks it out of the park. Come on, guys! Read Witchblade! I want somebody to talk about this book with! Why aren't you buying it? Maybe you don't like superb writing and spectacular artwork? Sara and Dani get to talk to each other about the Witchblade, and their little chat quickly becomes something else entirely. Like a flurry of accusations and blows, of punches and kicks and bloodshed. And then we get to the end of the issue and… And you'll have to buy it to know what happens next. I, for one, can't wait to get my hands on ish 128. I need to know what happens next!

Creepy Kidman

It's taken me eight years, but at long last I got to watch The Others, writer/
director Alejandro Amenábar's moody picture starring Nicole Kidman. It is very surprising that I managed to avoid spoilers for such a long time, but I'm glad I did. Otherwise, the surprise ending wouldn't have packed the same punch.

You've all probably seen the movie, but I still won't spoil it for you. Suffice it to say Nicole Kidman lives in a house with her two kids, and ghosts seem to also be part of the package. The kids can hear them and claim to be able to see them, and mommy doesn't believe them at first. It sounds like a trite story, but it is everything but.

The pace is really, really slow, something my mom pointed out as the reason why she didn't like it, but I thought the pace fit the story, the atmosphere, and the characters. Like Stephen King once said, not every story needs to unfold at double time, and even though it is true that people (myself included) seem to be put off by slow-cooking stories and tend to prefer fast-paced tales, I thought this was one of those occasions in which a slow build-up is the way to go. The movie was never boring, and I found myself wondering along with the characters what the hell was going on, but I wasn't in a hurry to get to the end of the film. At the same time, The Others is not very long, and maybe it would have tried my patience had it been otherwise. But it wasn't.

To sum it up, I really enjoyed the movie, and I would be curious to know what you guys thought about it, since I am pretty sure you must have seen it already. Let me know!

Crouching Vampire, Hidden Bloodsucker

Vampires are all the rage now, as we all know. Thanks to the Twilight books, the movie version of the first novel in the saga, and the HBO True Blood show that's based on the Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series, vampires are cool. And now we get Blood: The Last Vampire, a movie based on a manga that looks like a cross between House of Flying Daggers and Bloodrayne. Anyway, check out the trailer, and let us know what you think!

Chicas

Un par de mis niñas de octavo me pidieron que les hiciera un dibujo, y como suele pasarme en estos casos, tuve cierta dificultad para negarme. El problema es que querían que las dibujase a ellas, y por más que les dije que no se me da bien sacar parecidos o hacer caricaturas, las chicas insistieron en que lo hiciera. Les pedí que me dieran varias fotos para poder hacer el dibujo, y me mandaron tan solo una en la que salían las dos, con lo que no es que tuviera demasiado material de referencia precisamente. Al final, el resultado del encargo lo tenéis acompañando estas líneas, y como no podéis saber si se parecen o no, tendréis que fiaros de mí cuando digo que "tienen un aire". Las niñas se rieron y, aunque les gustó, pensaron que el parecido era inexistente. De todas formas, y, como siempre que intento hacer retratos o caricaturas, fue un ejercicio interesante, así que supongo que podría haber sido peor. Enjoy!

Surrounded by Morons

I enjoyed this movie by Mike Judge so incredibly much I have to recommend it to everyone.
The basic premise of Idiocracy is that smart people are not having kids but dumb people procreate like rabbits, which is not far from the truth, if you ask me. After that has been established, we meet Joe (played by Luke Wilson), an army guy who is asked by the military to test their brand new hibernating technology. Joe is supposed to be frozen for a year, but for a variety of reasons he ends up sleeping for five hundred years. Joe is a completely average guy, but when he wakes up in the year 2505, he discovers a very unsettling truth: he is by far the smartest person on the planet. From there, hilarity ensues.

I could mention a hundred jokes that made me laugh, but instead I'll just tell you to rent this scathing satire of our idiotic society and have a blast. If you like it even just half as much as I did, you'll still have a pretty good time.

Comics, Hotties

It turns out that Megan Fox wanted to be a comic book artist, and she actually knows how to draw. Even better, she is a fan of Witchblade, Fathom, and Gen13, and her favorite artist is Jeff Scott Campbell. Doesn't she sound like the woman of my dreams? At any rate, check out this interview with her in which she reveals all this interesting information. Enjoy!

Portada abocetada

Como siempre hago las cosas al revés, supongo que a nadie sorprenderá que sea ahora cuando me estoy planteando dibujar la portada de Worlds Collide. Si alguien se percató de la ausencia de la misma cuando empecé a enseñaros el comic en abril, nadie dijo nada; pero estoy seguro que más de uno (o sea, mis dos coblogueadores) se preguntó dónde demonios estaba la portada. Bien, la otra noche me dio por ponerme manos a la obra, y éste es el boceto que me salió del lápiz. Tal vez no sea una portada magnífica que te llame la atención desde el otro lado de la tienda de comics (algo que no podría hacer aunque quisiera), pero creo que refleja, hasta cierto punto, el espíritu de la historia: la mezcla de lo cotidiano y lo inesperado, de lo familiar y la ruptura de lo convencional o las expectativas del lector. Ahora sólo me falta ponerme en serio y hacer la ilustración definitiva, pero lo más difícil, tener la idea, ya está hecho. Ya me diréis qué os parece!