a figthin' pothead

My friend and fellow comic geek, all around imagination lover and good dude Tim Baron called the other night and challenged me to come up with a an entry or a "fighter" to tag team with one of his for Sam Hiti's Fist-a-Cuffs blog. This is what I came up with. It's kind of last minute but I still like it. I've always had a thing for the whole Evil-Genius-Head-in-a-Mechanized-Bubble thing. The tentacles, too. They're creepy in a cool way. Probably both obsessions are fanned by Mr. Mignola.

I drew this while "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids!" played on Encore. It struck me as to what I really miss in movies coming out nowadays: texture. In "Honey" there is so much great stuff to look at, some gooey, hairy, grimy, muddy, ridged, slimy, slippery, three dumensioanl, real texture to look at I feel it sucks you in to the movie. Modern movies with all it' s CGI tricks give some pretty tasty visual treats, but there's so much less life. Life comes when you give us something to chew on, give us something visceral. Too much CGI becomes flat, and and, at worst, grainy and unfocused and just too much of nothing in which for us to become truly invested.

Now, I love me some big movie special effects and the comic geek in me loves to see Spidey all flipping and swingy and I watch the special editions of Lord of the Rings almost regularly and adoringly, but I'm c'mon, man, gimme something to chew on! A student asked me if I was psyched to see TMNT and I gotta say and said: NO. Not really. I saw the first one on the big screen and I'd rather see those little Asian dudes in rubber costumes jumping around if it means seeing actual light on actual bodies and surfaces creating all that gorgeuos textured eye candy. If it means that there are better camera compositions and better lighting that I sacrifice a few feet in how high hero jumps, so be it. I'm hoping the trend in digital goes away from all digitial and a towards a better blend of the real and digital. I just want some texture back.