Welcome

A hearty 'welcome aboard' to CC, the 102nd Follower of the blog; new Followers are always appreciated, and CC is no exception.

If you get your own blog up and running CC, I will link to it so comment if you do.

On the hobby front, I am diversifying a little more as I await the new releases from Pulp City, hence the start of Anima Tactician as a blog. What I will try and do is keep Pulp City related stuff here, Anima Tactics stuff and related tangential influences on Anima Tactician, and more generalised hobby content on Eclectic Gentleman Tabletop Gamer.

My 'Ahem' New Blog

I have been captivated by the Anima Tactics range, and have started yet another blog (Anima Tactician) which can be followed by following this link here.

Fear not, this will not mean Pulp Citizen or Eclectic Gentleman Tabletop Gamer being overlooked, but my acquisition of Anima Tactics minis needed an outlet!

Avengers Fan Trailer!

Avengers/Avengers Assemble is almost upon us, and I have just seen this mash-up fan trailer; soundtrack from the actual trailers, clips from mainly 60's Marvel cartoons and some Nick Fury shots from 90's Marvel cartoons. Loved this!

The creator says this:

"I recreated the Avengers Trailer from February 2012 with animation clips from 1960's Marvel TV cartoons. The only cheat was Nick Fury, but the clips are from his first appearance in an "Iron Man" episode from 1995. I also borrowed a Paramount logo from the same era to fit with the look. Black Widow was a tough find since she was a shadow character and appeared very rarely."

Sgt. Bale Extreme

Two years and two months from my original post about my Sgt. Bale Extreme components and plans, here it is finished.

Click on the pictures to enlarginate.

I would not have finished this now if it was not for the 'miniature exchange' that Varagon arranged and orchestrated on the Pulp City Forum, so big thanks to him for creating a vehicle to get me motivated to paint it. I will definitely sign up for the next one!

I have added a comparison shot with my own Sgt. Bale as this will probably be the only time the two minis will ever be able to be seen together; Sgt. Bale Extreme will soon be winging his way across the Atlantic to its recipient.

I have really enjoyed this process and the deadline was a useful thing for me - I seem to work better with a deadline it seems.

It has been nice to see various Forum members who got involved posting their progress. If you get a chance to sign up for something similar, I heartily recommend it.

When the mini due to head my way is received, expect pictures of that too.

Two years and two months from start to finish? No time at all...

Sgt. Bale Extreme (6)

I think I have finished this. I say think, as I will need to have a second look in daylight in the morning to be sure. It is not yet varnished (which I will leave to dry for at least 24 hours once done), but the primary painting is done I feel, barring any last minute corrections.

Once I have rechecked the mini I will take some proper pictures with my lighting set-up before dispatching it to the USA to Beermonkey who it has been painted for.

This is the first time I have painted a mini for 'someone else', and the deadline for the exchange has been a good thing for me. Nice to finally have this done after sitting waiting painting for so long.

Future Contest And Update

I had mentioned a while ago about running a contest or something to celebrate 100(+) Followers, and I have not forgotten about that, and have been looking into possible prizes. However with Hendybadger (of the excellent Tales of a Tabletop Skirmisher blog) also running a contest or two right now, I may just delay it a bit longer. Fear not, it WILL happen.

Meanwhile I have today and tomorrow to finish my Mini Exchange offering (Sgt. Bale Extreme) so hopefully that will be posted in the next couple of days.

And finally, the picture above has become my current Pulp City Forum avatar, and is certainly a hint of a future concept...

Sgt. Bale Extreme (5)

The latest update.

The deadline is next Sunday, 18th March. This week I have been feeling under the weather so have not achieved as much as I would like, but I made a start on the boots and flames - both need more work to finish.

More painting later today then.

Before Watchmen - In Response To Alan Moore's Perspective

In January I linked some images and rumour regarding Watchmen, the seminal graphic novel. Of course, since then DC has announced the Before Watchmen project more fully, and the interwebz has been abuzz, perhaps even aflame, in places where the interested vocal minority hang out. And of course ye Pulp Citizen is definitely one of them!

Alan Moore has expressed his dissatisfaction, citing his moral indignation rather than any financial imperative. Quotes from a New York Times article with Moore's comments:

Mr. Moore, who has disassociated himself from DC Comics and the industry at large, called the new venture “completely shameless.”

“I tend to take this latest development as a kind of eager confirmation that they are still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago.”

“As far as I know,” he said, “there weren’t that many prequels or sequels to ‘Moby-Dick.’ ”

Okay, consider this; if it is about exploiting his work, and therefore concepts, then there are separate legal and moral arguments. Ignoring the legal argument, since I am no lawyer, the moral one is the one that interests me, especially given some of the outrage at the prospect of Before Watchmen I have seen. Now personally I am kind of indifferent to it - it has yet to capture my imagination and has not evoked feelings of revulsion, so hopefully my stance is pretty objective, or at least as objective as it can be.

So he regards it as 'completely shameless' - well the man may have a point there. More shameless would have been to have done this a couple of years ago when the film came out to maximise cross-platform interest, but that is by the by. And yes, arguably the original contract that has allowed DC to reap the rewards of the success of Watchmen for so long is 'shameless' given it was expected that the rights would revert to Moore and Gibbons within a couple of years; the freak success of Watchmen in collected editions was unprecedented so the contract was formulated against prior market conditions, not conditions created by its own success. But on the moral aspect, I will concede this to Moore.

To talk of dependency on ideas he had 25 years ago is a pretty rich claim that smacks of double standard in my opinion, since much of his work can be seen to build upon what others have done. Marvelman/Miracleman? Superman (in the "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" story)? Batman and the Joker (the Killing Joke)? the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? None of the originating characters are his creations. And it is well-known that the Watchmen cast was based to a great extent on the Charlton stable of characters.

And it has been argued that From Hell draws partly upon the theory of author Stephen Knight, which inspired the movie Murder By Decree among others.

The point is that Moore is not averse to playing with the toys of others, even if he does so through deconstruction and reinvention - take for example his use of the Superman-analogue known as Supreme from Rob Liefeld; Moore crafted a brand new era for the formerly very limited character, but drew his inspiration from the tone of Superman tales of yesteryear. How different is that to others playing with toys he created?

So to claim that DC is dependent on him and his work more specifically smacks of hypocrisy in my opinion. The entire structure of comic book publication has been founded upon the work of predecessors. If Moore believes all work should never be revisited in a creative capacity, then we would not have had much of his popularly know works. If he feels it is for the originating creator to decide - and I am not saying that is his assertion by the way, but it seems one of only a few alternative arguments - then what is the point of work for hire and contracts? And at what point does permission need not be sought? In a creator's lifetime? Where is the cut-off?

And as for his comment on sequels or prequels to Moby Dick - well Stevenson never offered a sequel to (the) Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, nor Wells with the Griffin character from The Invisible Man. So therefore is it for Moore to decide what work of the past may be plundered and what is considered sacrosanct? Priceless hypocrisy if so, and blinkered point of view if not.

If it is simply that he does not appreciate further exploitation, then why his prior endorsement of extraneous material such as the rpg adaptation from Mayfair Games in the 80's? [link]

I think that some of Moore's arguments against Before Watchmen are flawed when set against the context of his own body of work, but that may down to the individual observer's own outlook.

I don't think he can argue against DC exploiting the properties while they have a legal right to do so, and his moral indignation and pronouncements do not really stand up. As to whether the original contract that has caused this enduring dispute between Alan Moore and DC was morally sound, well that is for more informed people than me to pronounce on.

New Waves!

With a long time since being able to place a new Pulp City order, I have just ordered the new stuff which is on pre-order.

I have been waiting for these for a long time, and I am glad they are finally available.

While I don't normally post the releases, focusing instead on the minis as I (eventually) paint them, some of these are a little more personal for me me so I thought it was only fitting to mention the release here!

And for identification purposes:
Top row (l to r):
Shadow Mask: Jade Cult, L1, Villain, Mystery.
Takuni: Jade Cult, L1, Villain, Mystery.
Doom Train: Necroplane, L2, Villain, Mystery.

Middle row (l to r):
Crimson Oni: L2, Hero, Mystery.
Foxxy Blade: L1, Hero/Villain, Nature.
Night Fright & Leech: two Supremes - Necroplane, L1, Villain, Mystery.

Bottom row (l to r):
Ninja: various options for Jade Cult or Way of the Blade & Fist.
Green Serpent: Jade Cult, L2, Villain, Mystery.
Ninja: various options for Jade Cult or Way of the Blade & Fist.

The boxes are:
Doom Train with Night Fright & Leech.
Crimson Oni with Foxxy Blade.
Green Serpent and 2 Ninjas; 4 heads, 2 bodies, 4 sets of arms - lots of possible combinations (128 depending on arm pairings?); Hero and villain options, and with the right Team selection, a Jade Cult Ninja Sensei option can be unlocked!
Shadow Mask with Tanuki.

New Paint Rack!

Some things arrived in the post this morning, and among them was this paint rack (bottom picture)! Ah, the smell of burnt wood in the post - laser-cut MDF is on the way then, as any hobbyist should agree!

I don't know about other painters, but I have accumulated a sizeable selection of paints over the years. trying to keep them in a manageable order is part of the battle. A few years ago I switched from mainly using GW paints (I still rely on their washes however) to using Vallejo Model Color. A massive range of colours meant a burgeoning array of paints bought over the past few years.

That in turn led me to trying out a couple of different paint racks. I quite like the ones I had from Miniaturicum, for 30 and 80 bottles apiece (seen among my painting table debris in the topmost image), but the banked design means that the more bottle capacity that a rack gives, the greater its 'footprint' on my painting station. I also tried some CNC designs (their 'corner' efforts), but felt that the design and constriction was both flimsy and fiddly so I stopped using those.

Recently I saw that Iron Mammoth (click for blog post link) had created his own paint rack, and the two-tier design looked just the ticket for me, although without the bottle capacity I wanted. So I shot Iron Mammoth an enquiring PM via Lead Adventure Forum, and after an exchange of emails, we agreed a price on a my bespoke 104 dropper bottle rack, which has a smaller footprint on my work area, and less depth meaning that the way I work with stuff in front of the rack is better accommodated.

Very easy assembly and minimal gluing and I am very pleased with what Iron Mammoth delivered. Note that this is not yet a commercially available product, but if you are interested, it may be worth getting in touch with Iron Mammoth.