Posts

Showing posts from 2022

Marvel Team-Up: "Mischief Night" with The Phantom Rider

Image
Marvel Team-Up “MiSCHIEF NighT” SPIDER-MAN and PHANTOM RIDER Page 1 Spidey swings over Manhattan, thinking of the Midnight Western he saw before heading out. Flash! 2 Is that Jack O’Lantern? No, it’s Jack Stingy, who thinks Spider-Man is the Devil’s emissary. 3 They clash! Stingy’s a bit like Mysterio in battle. He has a special locket he was just about to use to activate a time travel spell. Their scuffle puts Spider-man close to the locket, which picks up his concept of the Wild West. Jack Stingy activates it, happy to have a target for his mischief, and takes them to an American Southwest of the 1860s by the end of page four. So, we’ll pick up page 5 with Carter Slade, in his guise as The Phantom Rider and it’s the dawn, the day of Mischief Night. He's using his spectral dust and fists, wrapping up a serious rustling plot. Show Nancy, his girlfriend, in a locket; she’s coming on the next train. As is mentioned in front of Carter, we flash to: Some Tequila is

Browser retrogames and the future

Image
So. We can take classic game play, in our browser. Thanks, Johann! So, you can modify this. If you modified the game, what themes and concepts do you think would work? For me, I see a hand full of our I.S. concepts, translating into such play. Lately, I've been pondering the place of video games in my childhood culture, personally. I didn't know about any 1983 game sales crash: my TV was suddenly avatar to an entirely new way of game play. I didn't see much about video games in comic books I saw, but in 1982, those ads arrived. Imagining the games and making up my own pretend arcade visits were great fun to me. I wonder if you might remember the first game commercials you saw? They didn't seem to pop up in my market, northwest Georgia/ Atlanta, until 1982 or so, when they began their media saturation for a couple of years, including 'Starcade,' a syndicated show taped in San Fransisco, and many Saturday morning cartoons from ABC and later, CBS. T

Recording Day- a painting by Lofty Crow Studios, featuring I.S.

Image
I asked Brian if he could listen to the songs from the new EP, a) None of the Above, and create some cover art. Did I prefer pontilism? Impressionism? (This.) What color? (Mauve) Any image? (Non, go 4 it) The entire process took around a week. The painting's waiting out the weekend in the storage space of Lofty Crow Studios in Beach Head, NC. Check out his FB Lofty Crow Studios page. The gallery this new studio's assembled in a few months' time, expanding upon works generated while admiring the outdoors (leading to the foundation of the studio, full-time). Please consider LCS, when you want to purchase an excellent painting of eastern seaboard wild life! Think he's fond of Album Covers, too. But it could be anything you can hang. 10 x 10 12x 12 24 x24. Contact him for commissions. https://www.facebook.com/LoftyCrowStudio >https://www.facebook.com/LoftyCrowStudio Check us out here: https://integr8dsoul.com/

Peaches Kane: Awakening to the most supernatural of worlds, in her first adventure

Image
Peaches Beltempo’s summer job- assisting with LARP quests for children, in the sunny outdoors- takes a lot of imagination, love of life, humor, games, and always, water. The element of surprise has led to laughter and curiosity, ideas from the young co-creators of the adventure. Bad surprises, you can watch for. The mobile dungeon master learns all the rules of safe fun, dealing with scuffle of guiding kids of various personalities, their safety versus the freedom of the outdoors. But no matter how much you believe in the pretend play...it’s never too dark, and never too real… Or...it wasn’t. Yet, here they are. The darling group of children carry illusions of dazzling credibility about their person, a malicious air and uncanny power. Their forms break into distorted smiles, like hungry things, bent on satiation. The occult force that brings these six, fragile beings closer, with energy-consuming, inhuman aspects around Beltempo, grasping for a coherent response here

Sunstrike theme is here, in time for the re-release of Infinite Pyramid- today!

Image
The theme song came to me on my birthday, January 4th. I have been busy with the five tracks of a) None of the Above, from Integr8d Soul music, so I finished my present recording efforts by crafting theme music to link inside the video game on GamesCreate.

The 1970s comic that caught pop culture lightning in a cartridge

Image
ATARI 2600 SUNSTRIKE AND THE INFINITE PYRAMID This side-scrolling game consisted of 6 playable characters- an innovation, to be sure, in 1981- crossing a dozen playable fields. A blue fireball deposits Clay Reeves from Earth into the Temple of Inguz, where Merriwyn of Kolpar must make a timely rescue. From there, the duo grows in size to a half-dozen characters, battling foes such as the Voidons and Sulinar Vix, as they search the Pyramid for Ing, the mighty living rocket ship, who can lift them safely on their way. The comics series originally had the origin story of Sunstrike and his companionship with Merriwyn and company in issue one, then did something unusual with issue two: a depiction of three variations of the plot of the previous issue, with a different destination of the dark side of the Moon for one, and the introduction of the Champion, who pointed Sunstrike towards the plane of the King of Swords. Issue three picked up the original ending of issue one, and one of t

"Live Action Park": a journey into mystery ( 3029 words)

Image
Here’s a story inspired by seeing a vintage pinball machine, during an annual camping trip with my family .- Cecil A man with a certain maniacal glee in his eyes leads another man into People’s Crossing, pictured here: The other fellow’s dressed in a Hawaiian shirt. He’s putting out a cigar as they travel over the bridge. He coughs, then says: Blamed walk to the top of this mountain best be worth it. Mr. Anthony, you are considering turning back? Not on your life, Sandu! We’ve got five grand riding on your proof that you can demonstrate what I will agree is Extra Sensory Perception. If you hadn’t walked up from nowhwere, told me my name, that I go by ‘R.A.’- that I’m a gambling addict, that I’ve seen it all but you can go one better, money guaranteed- and my blamed social security number! Why aren’t you selling lottery numbers? Sandu: Power made of belief- beyond every day levels, in this cynical world- can move that entire mountain top, RA. My sense of a tremendous

Choreographing the live action TV version of the Hulk versus Spider-Man, round one

Image
A great fight scene for Marvel’s top TV heroes of the late seventies, Spider-Man and the Hulk! OK, first twenty-five minutes of story sets up Banner being kidnapped to the Rosslyn Hotel in NYC. Peter’s looking for tips about the famous research scientist who has supposedly turned up in the Big Apple. At this point, Spider-Man’s spider-sense begins bringing him closer. He changes, climbs to the top of the hotel, and continues homing in on his signal. That danger sense grows when Dr. Banner is pushed too far and Hulks out. Now, we’re setting them up to meet in the hallway- and cut to commercial! Wow! Imagine what might happen next! Well, as I have no concern over the health of stunt men nor of a budget at risk, here’s what I picture, using their television counterpart power levels. Ok, FADE IN: Hulk roars. Spider-Man uses his ability to do the unexpected: leap onto the ceiling. This confuses and infuriates the Hulk, which provokes a kick in the face. This doesn’t do too mu

Live Action: A Classic Marvel Fan Fic summer vacation companion, featuring Sandu versus the Incredible Hulk

Image
Here’s a story inspired by seeing a vintage Hulk pinball machine during an annual camping trip with my family. I'd have run off to play alone, and make up, page-by-page, a comic book. I think the story works fine without a massive back knowledge of Marvel, and will present it to some people with no hint about the dual identity of the protagonist, who's introduced, in the fashion of the popular CBS TV show from 1977-1982, as a brilliant man, living anonymously and seeking peace, while harboring one big, green response to self-doubt. I love the plot, now that I see the poetry in the antagonist's plan. I would've loved this story as a kid, and that's the kid I'm focusing on this week. The plot? The first third is based on: Page one and two are set on a bridge, leaving a park for a hillside trail to a brilliant mountain peak, not too far above. They speak as they ascend the first of the trail up. A man with a certain maniacal glee in his eyes leads

INVINCIBLE IRON MAN: 10 Deadilest Foes from the Micheleinie/ Layton/ Romita Jr run

Image
My favorite run of the comic book, THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN, was written by David Micheleine, co-plotted with inker/finisher and sometime layout artists Bob Layton, and usually drawn or layed out by John Romita, Jr. Their run started together in summer 1978, about the time GREASE came to theaters, with #117. With a few guest artists like Carmine Infantino in #122's origin recap, Alan Weiss (#136) and Jerry Bingham (#s 131- 135), they chronicled the character long-time fans of Marvel know as ‘Shellhead,’ until summer of 1981, with issue #153. Best friend/ personal pilot James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes is introduced with #118. Bethany Cabe is the other key supporting cast member, a devastatingly lovely redheaded woman who is full of surprises, beginning with her profession, bodyguard, and continuing from criticizing Stark’s absent and seemingly-incompetent bodyguard, to revelations in her last year in the strip that eventually led to her parting ways with Tony. This is also the home of