Heroid

((I was joking about the Girls Next Door... The whole mainstreaming of the porn industry kinda boggles my mind. I mean, yeah, it shouldn't be criminal, but I can't see how they should expect their parents to be proud of them for their "accomplishments".

But the Starter Wife was an interesting show and I can't help but like looking at Debra Messing.

Edit: On a side note, the effects in T2 stand up pretty well considering how old this movie is. ))

((Maybe it's just an aquired taste. I've watched it a couple times, and just... myeh. But it's a matter of taste. And maybe a generational thing. I much prefer Matlock, In the Heat of the Night, and Golden Girls (that Rose is a hottie!) ))

((Hey, despite my earlier comment as to Kurt Russell's sex appeal I am a heterosexual male and I just cannot bring myself to watch Sex and the City. I'll watch a chick flick now and then (Moonstruck is one of my favorite movies of all time, and Sleepless in Seattle is too) but SATC... can't. It's like Beaches. It just goes too far with the estrogen. If I watced SATC, I'd have to immediately flip the channel to WWE to get re-testosteroned, and nothing -- NOTHING -- is worth that!

But I like Kim Catrall. She's hot. ))

((Kim Catrall > SATC.))

((Yes!

Oh, and the best special effect in it -- Kim Catrall! ))

((Whoa! That is one awesome movie! I love that movie! One of the best fantasy/adventure movies ever! And the fact that it stands alone, without sequels to cheapen it makes it even better! And Kurt Russell is just plain sexy!

Er... at least that's what my wife says... ))

((Oh! I didn't even see that!

And my comment about maturity level was done purely tongue-in-cheek, but there's no emote for that, so I used which almost conveys that idea (I hope). I don't want to piss anyone off.

But I tell ya -- maturity is overrated anyway. I'd go back to 12 years old in a heart beat. Yeah. ))

((Oh, like pointing out our immaturity makes you any more mature than us?

Hell, I'm so ******* mature I qualify for AARP. Yeah. Keep getting letters and phone calls from them. They're really pissing me off.))

((Uh-buh-uh... Uhhhh...))

((But can you echo it from the other end?

And very nice art, Kam! ))

((I pretty much agree with you about Byrne. I wouldn't compare him to Jack Kirby. I wouldn't compare anyone to Jack Kirby. The work he did -- and the number of books he put out a month -- was amazing. I've seen some of his original pencils and the printing process back in his day did not do him justice. Neither did his inkers. Some people don't like his style, but you can see his influence in nearly every comic book artist that followed him.

JRJR is like... amazing. He started out good an just got... amazing. If there was one word I'd use to describe his work, I'd say... amazing.

And you should check out Byrne's blog. It's nice to read the opinions of someone who knows they're right about everything.

And Sorah, you know I cannot wait to see your first credited work! I can see you getting better with every piece you post.))

((And I was saying that Byrne isn't ugly so much as boring.

Also
1) I'm not talking about the dev's storytelling. When I play there is always a story in my head. My characters are never running around knocking off bad guys for XP. They are actually doing meaningful superhero work. Or they're thrill-seeking. Or someone is out to get them and they're hitting the streets to find out who. Or they have a secret crush on Azuria and will do anything she says no matter what.
2) My first video game was Pong. My first RPG was D&D, which I bought at the local hobby store, only to find out that NO ONE in my vicinity played it. So CoH is basically my first online RPG, though I played games like Wolfenstein and Morrowind where you have characters that you move through a storyline.
3) I'm a comic book geek from waaaaay back. Everything revolves around comic books. Unless it revolves around baseball.

Hope that doesn't piss anyone off. ))

((One more try. Forgive me, but I was watching the end of the Magnificent Seven as I was typing that first post about artistic aesthetic and storytelling/immersiveness.

What I'm saying is that I need both. There are different aesthetics to comic book art (or any art, for that matter -- remember our Jackson Pollock discussion?) and I like a variety of them, but if the storytelling is not there, I'm not going to read the comic, no matter how pretty the artist draws. And if the graphics in CoH didn't pull me into the game like they do, then it wouldn't matter how pretty a character I can design, I wouldn't play. I think CoH succeeds on both counts. CO failed at both for me.))

((Gotcha. But there is a connection between the two, even in video games. Something that looks great as a stand-alone 3-D model might not look so good when moving through a game environment, part of my beef with CO. The characters don't look like they're really interacting with the environment, even when they lift a heavy object and throw it (which all of them can do -- super-strength not required, which sucks ). In a comic book, it is the way the artist tells the story that pulls me in more than the way he draws his figures. CO could have had a cartoony look, and still had awesome, immersive graphics, but they didn't succeed (at least in my opinion).

So, though I probably failed to make my point clear earlier (it was as unclear as my CO character's face), what I said about the things I like in a comic book artist applies to my CO experience.

And all of this is my opinion. I'm no expert. If you like to play CO, then I hope it only gets better for you. But it's not for me. ))

((Dick Giordano invented polish and shine in comic books. Before him, and Tom Palmer with Marvel, almost all the inkers used a flat, heavy style (though some of them, like Joe Sinnott and Murphy Anderson still turned out some beautiful work). And Byrne... I thought he was brilliant when he followed Dave Cockrum on X-Men (a tough act to follow), but everything that came after just hasn't grabbed me as much. It's not so much his drawing style that I don't like, as much as his storytelling technique. It's a little... formulaic?))

((I like Jim Lee's art, but I wish his figures were a little bit more streamlined, less muscle-bound. But then, he'd get compared to Neal Adams, so maybe his muscley characters serve a purpose. But I like a very wide range of artists from John Cassady to Michael Avon Oeming. I like clear storytelling (something I have a problem with with artists like Chris Bachalo), clean lines (whether they are slick and shiney, or dark and heavy, I like to be able to tell a character's leg from the gloppiter gloppiter machine they're standing in front of), and dynamic figures (Gil Kane ftw! ).))

((That does sound awesome, and while the average player on Champion might not care for a feature like that, it would be awesome for us RP'ers! ))

((He better! >:l ))

((Yes, I'm married with adult children, and am almost a whole year past the half-century mark. And I wasn't hitting on you, Sorah, hon. I think of you as an unofficial daughter and while you are indeed a bright and beautiful young woman, I'd feel like a perv if I thought about hitting on you. (It's why I don't much like Hooters. Old guys hitting on high school girls is creepy to me.)

It's just that I read C.B. Ceblowsky's Wonderlost #2 last night and that, combined with your post, made me wonder if the twenty-something year-old guys out there appreciate the current dating trends. Women ask guys out now, and often make the first advances. That wasn't common back in the 70's. Boys were expected to pursue and girls were expected to flee. If a girl got caught too easily, then society had nasty things to say about her, but boys were "just being boys".

Things are more honest today (or at least have the potential to be). You don't have to posture and pretend that you're not sexually active if you're a young woman. (Guys, however, are still pressured to exagerate their own level of experience, which is wrong too -- you'd think 40 Year Old Virgin would have made male sexual inexperience more acceptable.)

But I don't think the younger guys appreciate the situation. All I hear in modern rock songs are whiny boys complaining about how mean girls are. My advice to them: Grow up. Be nice. Put on deoderant and clean clothes. If your hair is long, keep it washed. If you keep your head shaved, smile more often so you don't look like a criminal. Smile more often anyway. (Smile when you say hello. And always smile sincere. If you can't find reason to smile, go see a therapist. Girls love it when guys flash a genuine smile.) Speak clearly. Open doors for ladies, even if it is old-fashioned. Don't expect sex after a date. Keep your house/car clean and tidy. Don't whine. If you're overweight, date overweight girls. They can be beautiful too. Or go on a diet. If you're ugly, be beautiful on the inside, and let that outshine your looks. Never let your expectations of others exceed what you're willing/able to give to them.

Anyway, I ramble. But, yeah. I am very happy with my wife and family. But if I was 25 years old right now, yeah, I think I'd be a happy camper then too. ))

(( *was born 25 years too soon to reap the benefits of the new feminism* ))

((I don't think he's around anymore to answer.

At least we had a nice kegger to see him off.

Much love, Bradders, wherever you go. ))

((Will you girls stop embarrassing me? ))

((This is the main beef I have. It IS ugly. The colors are great, but the characters are ill-defined and murky looking, with or without the black lines around them. Also, the thing CoH did right was that they knew some of us would want spandex and hip-boots, while others would want tee-shirts and jeans. They made the costume designer so that you could do either, and do it well. The designers of CO seem to feel that comic book heroes should look goofy. The faces are goofy-looking. The costume pieces are goofy looking. I know they were going for a more "comic-book" look than CoH, but they missed the mark and came up with a "funny-book" look instead. That, combined with the crazy control issues and the way it all felt pointless and not superheroic, is enough to keep me from considering going back to try it again.

I did love the underwater zone though. And the volcano island. Both zones were beautiful. But my character uglied up the screen so much I just wanted him to get out of the way. ))

(( Ask and ye shall receive! ))