An hour forward in the spring. An hour back in the fall. The clocks shift, but things stay the
same. Some things don’t. The Askani understood the influence of the sun. An extra hour of
daylight. Fewer shadows to hide in. My life is Daylight Savings. Spring forward two thousand
years here. Fall back to the twentieth century. Same war. Different sunlight.
In the past it helped to conserve energy. Where I come from, Apocalypse changed the clocks at
will. Sunless days. Never ending nights. Oppression and tyranny. What is, is. Shifting the hands
on the clock change nothing. The sand sinks to the bottom of the hourglass and my people are
no less free.
I set the time back to the past, hoping it’ll save the future.
Gaining an astonishing amount of fame in it’s short existence is Dracomb’s Orb, a fantasy webcomic dealing with a fairly generic fantasy setting while also dealing with the existential crisis of the characters inside with metaphyiscal threats, reader interaction and this palpable sense of dread the builds up in the series. The biggest problem though is that the comic relies solely on the fact that the comic may or may not update – not due to scheduling problems but with quantum mechanics. Dracomb’s Orb is first quantum literary piece – a webcomic in constant states of update and non-update that only leaves that state once the site is pulled up or is refreshed.
George Crosky, the engineer behind the comic explains, “The simple idea of Schroedinger’s Experiment is that if you limit the outcome to one event and seal it off where you can’t view the result, while the experiment is in progress it is in a quantum state of being both completed and non-completed. The cat is the most famous example where there is a radioactive material that will kill a cat in the box eventually. If you cannot sense what is going on in the box after 5 minutes the cat could be alive or dead and that is the quantum uncertainty. With Dracomb’s Orb we delved into some more advanced quantum mechanics but what we do is we have accessed random servers from other worlds every time the page loads. Until that page loads we cannot but sure if there is an update or not placing it in a quantum update state. Luckily with thousands of readers constantly refreshing, we’ve pulled in some 2000 updates in the past week.”
While there are some issues with the storyline not matching up or different art styles the popularity of a quickly and infinitely updating webcomic appeals to millions of comic fans who will do what they can to keep the comic updating.
*Due to the quantum state, we were unable to acquire any images of the comics.
One of the several birds that flew into the DC Offices.
As we continue to avoid giving press coverage to any other comic company trouble continues to stalk and beat DC into submission. Recent news of speciesist hiring policies hit DC today when a bunch of birds flew in through an open window. The news was not even covered by anyone else but at Nerdcenaries, we hold a higher standard to making up news that is so important in our 24 hour news cycle.
According to our reporter who was there during the protest, the birds were there protesting the lack of nonhuman writers and even characters that have been absent in the recent DC reboot.
A bird I saw on the ground hopped around interpretively dancing its message before I tried to grab it. “Listen, we use to have Krypto and Comet and all of the other super animals. I mean there was a goddamn monkey – and those were just related to the superfamily. What about Ace the Bathound, Crosby he Fast Cat, Stumpy the Cyborg Turtle and all of the other characters? These policies are making it even harder for the animal kingdom to even want to purchase comics, let alone actually do it!” This news does nothing to help DC who is already under fire for presumed sexist characters and hiring policies, allegations which they have formerly denied.
When asked about the birds, the workers were exasperated and confused by the fact that there were birds in New York after the snow and that they were also tropical birds native to the Caribbean.
The source of these birds is currently unknown but if you find them, please return them to the Nerdcenaries offices. They eat sesame crackers and drink Pinot Grigio and are well loved.
And people wonder why capital P pacifist Grant Morrison longs to run this man over with an automobile?
Late last night, Mark Millar answered a question via his Formspring account about the seemingly stagnant state of affairs for the follow-up to the film adaptation of his relatively well received creator owned series, KICK ASS. After months of sequel speculation and worries original director Matthew Vaughn would be too busy charting the ongoing “will they or won’t they” romantic saga of Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr, there’s finally been a breakthrough.
Orson Welles, most notable for voicing Unicron in TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE, has allegedly signed on to helm the continuing adventures of Kick Ass, Hit Girl, and Hot Topic McLovin’. Welles has been dead for a quarter of a century, having passed away roughly five years before Mark Millar’s first published work. Nonetheless, the always outspoken Millar is still excited about the potential for their collaboration.
“Tupac’s been dead for years, innit?” said Millar in a recent Newsarama interview. “He still releases music every year. Orson made Citizen Kane, for god’s sake. Yer gonna tell me he can’t do this?”
Needless to say, it’ll be interesting to see what the man who made Charlton Heston a Mexican in TOUCH OF EVIL will do with an eleven year old girl who likes to stab people.
In a shocking turn of news, Dan Didio announced that the comics media has been part of an unexpected social movement – the Slutwalk.
In response to allegations a few months ago that women who dressed “promiscuously” wanted to be raped and that it was their fault thereby excusing or partially exonerating the actions of the men. In these events where large groups of women dress promiscuously to show that it is not the clothing that is the problem but the men who would willing rape women and take advantage along with a society that praises this action in media while shunning women.
This announcement only confuses things in the DC Universe which has come under repeated controversy over the actions of several characters including Catwoman and Starfire over their somewhat ridiculous and overtly offensive sexuality. Events where Catwoman seems overly obsessed with sex with Batman in events that put her and Batman on a roof having sex raised alarms along with Starfire’s recent recharacterization which has her as an emotionless woman looking for wanton sex.
Saying that the entire incident has been part of these Slutwalks not only further confuses ideas but it shows more of a disconnect with mainstream culture.
Greg Parking, comic shop owner commented “If all of these women are dressing as sluts what does that say about all of the women who aren’t overly sexual.”
Parking went on to point out the Birds of Prey, Supergirl and almost every other female character depicted with some level of respect. Does this mean that every other woman not acting like a slut means that they don’t care about feminism or that they are so sexually repressed that they believe superhero costumes in general are slutty?
In yet another PR blunder, DC continues to dig itself deeper in a controversy that could have easily been excused by saying something like “We have messed up both in coming off as respectable people and people who respect not only female readers and readers in general.”
A cover of X-force Vol 1, once valued at several dollars, like maybe 20 tops?
In a story so bizarre that even Mojo would be plussed, an issue of “X-force” No. 1 featuring the first appearance of the X-force team recently sold for a whopping price of $.82.
The issue which originally was released in 1991 was sold Saturday by a private seller to a private buyer, according to 26 Panels chief editor Chris Mason.
It’s not the highest price ever paid for an issue of the X-force #1 but it is the highest price paid since two weeks after its release when the resale price sharply dropped for $100 to $.50.
According to Mason, the price paid is the highest paid in the past few years.
“The fact that somebody would buy an issue of this comic shocked me enough but $.82 is an exorbitant amount,” he commented. “The fact that someone looked through a collection and was like ‘Oh, I’ll take the Liefeld comic,’ positively shocks me.”
Usually it has been comics from any period but the 90’s that typically are purchased on purpose for any reason. The fact that this was created by one of the most controversial artists of his time makes the story more noteworthy.
“Last year when I hear somebody paid $20.00 for X-force #1 I was shocked. I did some research though and it turned out it was the “Uncanny X-force” series that started last year signed by Rick Remender and Jerome Opena.”
“Uncanny X-force” No. 1 has long filled dime bins at comic shops, signs of the once booming comic industry which focused around purchasing multiple issues of comics with the hope of selling them off later. When the market collapsed due to too many shitty comics being sold to investors whom would never make money, trillions of potential dollars were lost.
The issue was the first of the series created by Rob Liefeld, who illustrated and wrote the story with Fabian Nicieza. The cover depicts Cable, Boom Boom and Feral as they seem to attack the audience, possibly in an attempt to dissuade them from buying the issue.
The series helped to provide more work for Rob Liefeld who quickly expanded to over 20 monthly series with himself providing most of the art, writing and letters in the letters column.
Mr. Liefeld was not contacted to comment on the article.
NEW YORK, NY – DC shocked the comics world today when it announced its new controversial stance about portraying women: That is, that they aren’t going to bother with it anymore.
“We’ve been hearing the backlash from fans and have definitely taken note,” said premier DC artist Jim Lee, “but changing our ways so soon and so broadly is difficult. Why expect us to draw Catwoman without her zipper down to her belly? Or a girl in clothing an average person could wear comfortably? We feel we will be serving our fans better by staying away from the issue altogether.”
“Unfortunately, drawing our female characters with any sort of discretion or dignity is just far too cost-prohibitive,” Said Editor-in-chief Dan DiDio. “Plus, we just don’t want to do it.”
“Frankly, all these strong, independent women should be able to choose what they wear, so I don’t know what the big deal is,” said Red Hood writer and grown man Scott Lobdell in regards to DC’s many fictional females. “But it will be a relief to write for male characters exclusively.”
When made aware that other creators have been successfully writing and drawing non-sexualized females for years, DiDio replied, “That may work for small-market writers like Dan Clowes and Mike Mignola, but I don’t see their characters appearing in smash-hit blockbuster movies like Green Lantern.”
Key to the announcement was that none of the DC Universe’s numerous female characters will actually disappear. The company plans on retaining their copyrights in a most unusual way. “We’ll be replacing all of them with males in the same roles,” said Lee. “Of course, with this change comes fresh, brand-new costume designs; We just felt uncomfortable drawing the same costumes on men. It’s funny, I don’t know why.”
“It will definitely be a challenge writing practically new characters,” said Catwoman writer Judd Winick, “but it will be the real shot-in-the-arm that the industry has needed this past couple of months.”
In response to the many fans put off by this decision, DiDio simply responded “We’re glad our comics have people talking about these issues.”
The change is expected to take full effect in January.
X-Factor Judges Guido Carosella, Jamie Madrox, Monet St. Croix and Layla Miller. Photo by Flynn Nicholls.
After the first 5 rounds of eliminations, things are really starting to heat up on X-Factor, the new show financed by Jamie Madrox.
“Oh the show is finally picking up speed like I expected it to. People are realizing that Jamie Madrox was the key to X-terminators and without me, the show is falling apart.”
Of course ratings tell another story. CBR’s X-Factor, a spin off of the similar mutant singing competition NBS’s X-terminators, is doing weak compared to its competition. The first episode of X-Factor ended up 22nd that evening trailing behind several post-syndication series while X-terminators held it’s #4 spot in the ratings. X-terminators which ran for 8 years in Europe prior to it’s American release 8 years ago is still going strong. X-factor which originally aired in England as a clone of X-factors only surpassed X-terminators in viewers after the controversial murder of the entire team of X-terminators hosts.
When interviewed about the X-Factor, Jamie Madrox, host and creator of the series X-terminators had this to say: “Well of course X-terminators is still doing great. We have the name the Americans recognize, we are the show they grew up with! And look! Things are even the same across the pond, as they say. The truth is that Jamie Madrox is the key to locking down the X-terminators success and no clone is going to prove otherwise.”
Of course considering both shows are hosted by Jamie Madrox so the entire situation is slightly confusing. Madrox, a mutant with the power to create clones of himself, originally used a large portion of government money to found the X-terminators, a BBC2 television show in which mutants could preform on television in a musical competition to build up support for pro-mutant relations. After 8 years of ratings success and 12 other global versions, Madrox transferred the show to the United States where it took off.
After a recent car accident though, the newest Jamie Madrox decided he wanted a new start free from the over-corporatized version or in his own words:
“We sat there every night with Coca Cola glasses on the table singing pop songs that everyone has heard before. Why not break free from those overly commercial bonds. A bit more Bowie, introduce listeners to new musicians.”
Madrox had no comment in regard to the sponsorship deal made with Doctor Thunder at the beginning of the season.
Joining Madrox on X-Factor has been previous collaborators Guido Carosella, Monet St.Croix and Layla Miller.
Carosella, popularly known as Strong Guy commented “Oh man, this show has been a blast. It’s just wonderful to see all of this support flowing towards these young mutants. God bless you all.”
“Really I think with this wonderful team of judges and me’s around here, X-factor is going to start getting the appreciation it deserves,” commented Madrox. “And if not, I’ve got some new plans to turn everything around.”
