NEWS!
theuc.webcomic.ws/
I'll be adding pages as soon as I translate them. So far there are about 30 pages done, and there are many more to go!
The Russian version, all 130 pages of it, is here. Enjoy!
And if you want to support me, here's a link to my Patreon.
Cheers!
!!!!
This is a toy of my character, Balor, as drawn by
. And it's freaking rad!!! Made by shelter-by-l.diary.ru/ (a private blog, not accessible to non-registered folks, but, alas, I've got no other contacts)You know, I've always had a soft spot for people drawing my characters, dressing up as them or making toys. I keep the evil rabbit toy from "Besoboi", a gift from my fans, next to my couch. He stares at me at night. Creepy!
Oh yeah!
I've been writing the "Demonslayer" ("Besoboy") comic books for almost a year now.
I've worked with some great artists, including 
Kay, who did a marvolous job with the "Metro" ark, and now is taking on the crossover!
But now Phobs is on board, which in itself is an honor! And in a couple of days our first book, "Carnivorous Dreams", is going to hit the shelves. Just wanted to share this. )
What a lovely day! ))
I wanted to see the Raccoon. I got my wish.
So, the Raccoon is awesome. But the rest….
Well, I have a couple of issues with it.
There is a condition, if you may call it that, observed sometimes in artists, animators, moviemakers, singers – they start to see the finished product not as a single object of art, but as a sum of its parts. The key frames, the montage, the color scheme, the dialogue are separated in your mind as you observe the product, a movie in this case. I won’t call myself an awesome professional or anything, but I have been working mostly with storyboards and scripts for the last decade…
And, with all the hype surrounding this feature film, I found myself, well, disappointed.
- There are a few issues with the montage, like in the temple scene with the rats – StarLord has a rat in his hand in one shot, and then he doesn’t, and then he’s got it again and singing into it, stuff like that, but I will give it a pass. Yet in the space scene when he takes off his helmet, you can see SL’s bloodshot eyes. In the next scene they are back to normal. These are small things, and I would generally ignore them, but I saw the movie on IMAX. And these little things just pop right at you.
- The other thing that bothered me is the artificialness of most scenes and actions. You can see people walking right into the camera, to a precise place, striking a pose and saying something generic or profound. It screams ”fake!”. Saldana’s wooden acting doesn’t help. Nobody’s acting helps. Except the Raccoon. He’s awesome. And by the way, the reason that he is awesome is precisely because he is not artificial. He has the most normal pieces of dialogue in the entire movie. The rest of the cast are somewhat cliché. And the extras and ancillary characters are BLAND. Rooker was ok, I guess, but del Toro was given like two minutes of screen time, and then that’s it. The characters in the Nova Corps are either forgetful or outright generic. So in any other setting the Raccoon might’ve seemed annoying, but here – he steals the show.
- There is also the common problem of implying a large world, but never actually showing the journey through it. It feels incomplete.
I am not going to go into the plot and minor details, such as the Star Lord flying in open space with his hair exposed, the sometimes way too obvious makeup, and I am pretty sure that dance-offs were not a thing back in the 80s (though I could be worng). But it was a painfully average movie. It’s not a BAD movie, mind you. It’s just that it has very little of that which you have not seen anywhere else before. Except the Raccoon. He's awesome. Then again, Raccoons usually are.
In support of ''Elementary''
I’ve gotten to the point of my life where all I feel is primarily anger. Dull anger, at just about everything. So I ramble.
I wanted to rant about Ukraine for a while, about Putin, about the jet, about Crimea, about… about…
Ah, fuck it. I’m going to rant about “Sherlock” and “Elementary” instead.
I keep hearing “Elementary is crap!”, “Give us Sherlock and take that shit away!”, and “It’s a cheap rip-off!”. And the last straw was the Blockbuster Buster’s rant on the subject. And you know what? I disagree with all of these people. Here’s why.
Before I get started, I want to clarify a few things. “Elementary” is not an exceptionally great show. It feels like it has a rather low budget, low production value, it has third-rate actors (with a few exceptions), it has CSI-style storylines. It has Lucy Liu, for crying out loud, and I absolutely hate her.
With that said… I like it.
I’m a Sherlock Holmes fan. Back in the USSR books were kind of a commodity. Especially good books and classical foreign literature. I remember the time when finding “Lord of the Rings” was all but impossible. My only copy was bought from a street-dealer. It was used, it didn’t have the paper cover, it didn’t have the Appendix booklet, and it cost like a freaking gold bar. Let that not make a false impression that we couldn’t find ANY books… I was loaded with them, I spent days reading. And my grandfather’s library was a god damn treasure trove. It had the complete works of Jack London, Jules Verne (I had that back at my home, too), and the complete collection of books by Conan Doyle. So I grew up on “Sherlock Holmes”. It had basically shaped my preferences for fictional characters. Mind over matter, brain over brawn.
But as for a good film adaptation… well, I was tougher to please. We have a Russian version, an 11-part movie series, and I am not a fan. I don’t hate it, it is quite close to the original, it’s okay, for the most part… It’s just… too Russian. It’s like Basil Rathbone’s version is too American… Jeremy Brett is excellent, though. He may be a tad over the top, but everything else – just right. Plus, it has an intelligent Watson character, who finally masters at least in some basic form the art of deduction.
Anyway. I’ve always had trouble finding good Holmes movies, but that has changed. Guy Ritchie’s “Holmes” is actually quite good. I don’t find Downey Jr. to be of any resemblance to the character, but he makes it up by just being cool.
And let me first explain what I mean by a “good Holmes story”. It has a character who behaves like Sherlock Holmes, or at least in the realm of probability. It has Watson, who is integral to the story. It has a strange and unusual crime. And, most importantly, Holmes solves the mystery USING HIS FUCKING BRAINS.
And here comes “Sherlock”.
Oh god.
Now, “Sherlock” has all the makings of a great Holmes story. It has a good cast, it has an interesting take on the matter, it is fun. Its production values are much higher than those of “Elemetary”. It is simply better by default… And yet, by comparison, it loses to “Elementary” in a fucking landslide. In my opinion. Why?
Because of two important factors.
The first is Watson. I hate Lucy Liu, did I mention that? I mean, not as a person, I’m sure she’s okay, but as an actress. She’s just not a very good actor. I guess, she has grown since the Angels, I’ll give her that, but she is still no Meryl Streep. Freeman is a better actor by far. And yet, her Watson is smart. His Watson is as dumb as a brick. Her character is a doctor, and is an apt student of Holmes. Her character is a great sidekick, a good friend. Kudos. I still dislike her, severely, but her Watson doesn’t make me cringe. And Freeman’s drooling idiot does.
And now the big problem.
In the two seasons that I have watched, “Sherlock”… well, he was not a very bright detective. Out of the first six episodes, Sherlock had managed to solve only ONE case using his intellect (the fifth episode). In the first one he had valiantly deduced that the killer had a lighter instead of a gun (wow!)… and then he got suckered into a “chicken” game worthy of Marty McFly… The second episode ended in a brawl with the bad guy (or girl) escaping, the third episode was a deus-ex-machina, a blunt one at that. The fourth episode… really? He managed to get his ass to Iran and nobody noticed that?! And here’s the most damning thing of all – Moriarty had him beat. Moriarty had caught Sherlock in the very same trap that failed to catch Guy Ritchie’s Holmes. There was no magic, no secret mcguffin, it was all a sham. Everyone was bribed, everything was staged, and Sherlock absolutely failed to see through this. And at this point my interest for the series had evaporated. When I hear “Holmes”, I don’t think of two guys being the butt of every gay joke in town. I think about a person who solves mysteries and foils the bad guy’s plans. And Sherlock has a very poor record in that regard.
So, “Elementary”. It gets flack from all over the net, and I understand why. But the moment someone says “It’s a “Sherlock” rip-off!”, I feel like comforting that person and saying “No, no! Don’t worry, it’s not. Miller’s Holmes actually SOLVES CRIMES USING HIS INTELLECT.” Jonny Miller’s Holmes is okay, I guess, and he even comes as a much human character that the “Sherlock” one, although that might be attributed to the significantly larger number of episodes to expand on the character. But one thing is certain – at the end of the day, Miller’s Holmes gets the bad guy, he solves the crime. He wins. He is not the victim in a “choose your fate” game, he arranges the game for the villain. And at least that is the Sherlock Holmes that I know and remember.
In every other aspect “Sherlock” beats “Elementary” soundly. But I don’t care anymore. Never even watched the third season. Do not intend to do so.
A friend of mine once said that he prefers “Sherlock” because he doesn’t want to see crimes being solved. Well, it’s his party. But I keep remembering what the villains in “Batman Beyond” told Terry: “You are not Batman”. Well, Cumberbatch’s character may be Sherlock, but he is not Holmes.