Hey Folks,

Ben here to let you all know that Mr. Wolff will be taking a rant break for the foreseeable future. I’m sure that you are all wondering why we must go rantless on Thursdays, so please allow me to fill you in on the dark events that transpired to bring us sadder hump days. You see, Mr. Wolff is well known for having a collection of the finest looking ladies at his beck and call, and there are some who take great umbrage at our blogger’s menagerie of beauty. It was for this reason that Mr. Wolff’s harem was shanghaied by a cadre of Sasquatches. Upon finding his home disheveled and covered in man-beast hair that was not his own, Mr. Wolff went into a rage, punted the nearest midget a full city block and vowed vengeance against the yeti-kin that would deprive him of nook nook. And so, Mr. Wolff has embarked upon a journey to of ho retrieval and monster whumpery.

No one is sadder about the loss of Mr. Wolff than I. Without him my week will far be less angry, and there will be way fewer pictures of scantily clad celebrities on my computer.Throughout his brief time with us here at Semantink, Wolff has taught me so much, most of which I can’t really talk about in mixed company. If you are a newcomer to the site, or have never gotten a chance to read the writings of Mr. Wolff, I encourage you to take some time and go back and read his excellent work in our blog archive. I also thought that today we could go back and remember some of Mr. Wolff’s finest rants…

Cosplay: In Mr. Wolff’s first full length rant, he touched on the potential for greatness from hot she-cosplayers. He also showed the ugly (and fat) side of cosplay, and showed us all that not everyone was meant to participate in such events. How could we forget this?

Mr. Wolff later found this man and beat him with his own wig.

My favorite line from this rant has to be:

“…my heart is racing and I feel an urgency at the tips of my fingers as if somewhere, an overweight, under-sunned,  gap-toothed, overly-hairy, cankled beast dressed as Super Girl has just killed a child by merely making itself visible.  Damn you poorly-costumed villain.  Damn you to Cosplay Hell…”

Heroes: Mr. Wolff would often focus his rants on the entertainment industry. Movies, books, TV, all were fields he felt (and rightly so) qualified to rant on. In a television-centric blog, Mr. Wolff learned us all on what shows we should be watching, and in the case of Heroes, what shows we should be skipping.

The look in her eyes says “I don’t want to be here”.

I doubt anyone could explain what’s wrong with Heroes as eloquently as this:

“Heroes is like a beautiful woman with a tight premise, supple characters and a nice, round potential — but the crazy b*tch keeps puking on herself!  All she does all day is stick her finger in her butt, smell is and wipe her face leaving a streak across her brow.  Then she throws up on her chest, rubs it all over her body and blows snot out her nose while laughing, snorting and growling uncontrollably.  The potential is there, but she keeps f*cking herself up!!  Somebody please put this b*tch out of her misery.”

Well put Mr. Wolff, well put.

World of Warcraft: In one of his most controversial blogs, Mr. Wolff took on MMORPGers everywhere by ranting against the popular World Of Warcraft. There was a great ammount of vitriol from fans about this post, but in the end, Mr. Wolff made his point. WoW is stupid. Don’t play it, and you won’t be stupid. Continue your basement dwelling ways and risk turning out like this:

Sadly, this paladin will never succeed in his quest to lose his virginity.

I think Mr. Wolff summed it up best:

“…let me just say that I do not condemn WoW, or WoW players.  I don’t think you’re all stupid, useless bags of flesh, rotting in a pile of your own feces — but most of you are.  Grow up, move out of your mother’s basement, get a real job and try finding a member of the opposite (or same if that floats your boat) sex and try, just try, to discover what people did before Warcraft.  Or just trick yourself into thinking your character has some tangible meaning in life and die — I don’t really care.”

It’s like the man drinks thrice distilled wisdom, and then is kind enough to spit it at us.

Sports Illustrated (swimsuit edition): Despite all of his macho talk, Mr Wolff showed that he had a soft side, and a deep respect for women, in this touching piece. He made sure to include the faces of every model he referenced, and even found out their names. Mr. Wolff has been called misogynistic before, but in this blog, he showed the world how much he cared about the opposite sex. Would a misogynist show this?

Thanks Mr. Wolff.

Mr. Wolff even offered us all this generous warning:

“Whatever you do, do NOT go to Sports Illustrated where you would be forced to see a lot more of these “beautiful” models in very little clothing at no cost to you.  And if for some ungodly reason you do go to the site, don’t look at the site alone, like I am or you may be tempted to think impure thoughts and take of your pants. In the dark.  Like me.  Right now…”

God Bless you, Mr. Wolff.

Thank you all for joining me on this bittersweet day of reminiscing. I’m sure that you all are wondering what will be filling in our blog on Thursday moving forward. I will be toting my Comicopea blog over to Thursdays. On Sundays, we will be featuring the works of some of our Semantink writers. I already have some work from MYTHOI writer James Ninness. And one day, if and when he is needed, Mr. Wolff could come back for a guest appearance or two, but not any time soon, Those Sasquatches are some elusive bitches.

In case you didn’t know, Halloween is around the corner.  Companies everywhere are throwing out darker marketing designs, pumpkin flavored whatevers, or spook-tastic experiences — even blogs are caught up in the costumed madness with every other one highlighting something between “The Worst Joker Costmes Ever” and “100 Best Pumpkin Carvings.”  I’ve racked my enormous and beautiful mind for days trying to figure out exactly what my 2009-Blog-Before-Halloween would be and you know what I figured out?  Nothing.  Most things have been said, done or written almost as good as I could do already.  So, in keeping with the popular-costume model, while rubbing shoulders with the comics and/or pop culture design of this site I present to you a little nugget on one of the greatest villains of all time: Catwoman.

Yes, please.

The great Bob Kane and one of his cohorts, Bill Finger, created the whip-bearing cat-burglar in Spring of 1940 as an antithesis for Batman, though at that time she was known only as The Cat.  The chemistry between the beautiful putty-tat and the campy man-bat was instant and has endured through time to represent true love on opposite sides of the law.  Catwoman was ranked #11 in IGN’s Top 100 Comic Book Villains Of All Time List as well as #51 on Wizard magazine’s “100 Greatest Villains of All Time” list.

I could go into the mysterious amnesia/flight attendant/prostitute/abused history of Catwoman, but that wouldn’t be much of a rant now, would it?  So instead, I’m going to focus on two things here: First and foremost I would like to address the unfounded and hopeful rumors that Catwoman will be a player in the next installment of Nolan’s Batman series.  Second, I hope to give some advice to the would-be pussycat theives creating a costume for a party in the upcoming weekend.

Catwoman = sexuality.  There is no way to get around that fact.  If Catwoman isn’t hot then she’s not Catwoman.  Now, in the Adam West TV series, Catwoman was played by three lovely ladies:  Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, and Eartha Kitt.  Each of them bringing a little something special to the role but all of them making pants tight for the male demographic.  I know that there is more to the woman than a pair of gigantic, enormous and well proportioned high heels; she is also very smart, physically in tip-top shape and damaged goods to the FUBAR degree.  That’s right, if you’re going to play her right you better be mentally unstable and all flavors of crazy because the Catwoman we all love is nowhere near normal.

Julie

Lee

Eartha

Let’s do a quick comparison, shall we?  Michelle Pfeiffer or Halle Berry?  If you said Halle Berry then you should go watch Monsters Ball until you masturbate to death.  For those of us with taste who said Pfeiffer, let’s find out why…  Catwoman the movie sucked, but I’m going to attempt comparing only the characters so bear with me.  Pfeiffer was absolutely bat-shit (pun intended) out of her mind.  She loved Bruce Wayne, she lusted for Batman, she wore a fantastically redesigned vinyl costume and seemed to know she was nuts.  Berry wasn’t even Selina Kyle (tsk-tsk), thought she was cool, not crazy, and had absolutely no interaction with Batman whatsoever.  Okay, so maybe I can’t do a fair character-to-character comparison without the movies getting involved, but hopefully you picked something out of that metaphorical mess.  The point is this: To be Catwoman you have to be more than sexy, you have to be nuts.  That’s it.  Don’t try to be sexy like Halle Berry is sexy (and for the record, she is sexy), but sexy like Rose Mcgowan is sexy — the kind of sexy that you would never ever hang out with, the kind of sexy that makes you nervous and the kind of sexy that would burn down and Abercrombie and Fitch store out of sheer boredom.

Who do I think should be Catwoman if Nolan uses her?  For years I’ve been in the Jolie camp, but that’s the problem: it’s been years.  Angelina is getting older and while I still wouldn’t kick her out of bed, I’m not sure she has quite the required sexiness to pull off Catwoman.  Though, I’ll be the first to admit she’s got crazy down…

I saw this in Tijuana…

I’ve been hearing rumors that Megan Fox wants a piece of this action as well.  My response?  No f*cking way.  You have to be a lot more than beautiful to play Catwoman with any sort of chutzpah — you have to be an actress.  Megan Fox is not an actress.  She’s played Shia’s girlfriend and a boy-eating demon, which is kind of the same thing anyways…  Megan would make a great piece of art because art doesn’t talk, move, make sounds or change.  From what I can tell (here, here, and here) Megan Fox is a lucky piece of gutter trash with a pretty face who happened to be in the right place at the right time.  She also has nice legs.  And boobs.  And butt.

Model? Maybe. Actress? HAHAHA…

So what we need is an actress who can act, play crazy, be hot, and show proper respect to one of the greatest female characters ever created.  How about these?

I know she’s already Black Widow, but would it suck to see here it tight black outfits twice?

Hey look! She aleaready has the outfit!

Give her a whip and leave us alone…

Or poison Ivy…

If she laid there for the whole movie dressed in black, it would be fine.

Now for the second (and more pertinent) order of business:  Dressing up like Catwoman this year.  If you’ve read anything I’ve ever written on this site then you know how I feel about cosplay, but as a refresher here is my motto:  If you can then do, if you can not then don’t try.  So here are three simple rules to keep your disguise from suck:

1.  If you don’t look like Selina Kyle you won’t look like Catwoman. I’m sorry to those of you with more body than an F-150 but you need to hear this from someone: Catwoman isn’t fat.  If you weigh anything starting with the number two or higher then you shouldn’t be doing this.  Instead, why don’t you go out dressed as the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, then we all win.

Don’t make this real…

Better for chub-chubs.

2. Be Catwoman, not a cat. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this happen.  Some slutty sorostitute throws on a kitty costume with less matrial than her lingerie and walks around with a whip calling herself “Catwoman.”  No.  Catwoman is not a slut — we wish she was, but she’s not.  Be sexy, not stupid.

Cat. Woman. Lame.

Catwoman. Awesome.

3. Play the f*cking part! You’ve got the body, you’ve got the outfit, now act like it godammit!  Be nutty, say things that make the room go quiet!  Scratch girls’ boyfriends!  Bend over for no reason at all and by the end of the night steal something!  You’re f*cking Catwoman!

Freaky = Magnificent.

That’s it kids.  Have fun this weekend.  Don’t be safe and above all get some “treats.”  And as a final guideline for you Catwomen out there, if some stupid b*tch gets up in your face ’cause your in character and she’s a hoe, SLAP HER!  Catwoman is many things but one thing she’s not is a pussy.

Mr. Wolff

Salutations Semantinkerers!  This is Ben and James once again reporting from the first annual Long Beach Comic Convention!

Well, we expected Saturday to be a busier day than Friday, and it definitely was.  More Costumes.  More attendees.  More poor planning!  Wha– Huh?  That’s right.  I’m afraid that Saturday was a great deal less impressive then Friday, though I would still put the entire convention oodles (that’s right, “oodles”) above many others.

Apparently Japan has a different version of Star Wars.

I don’t know. Mr. Wolff wins.

Looks better than Nick Cage’s version.

Bad. Ass.

Here’s the deal:

Ben and I awoke with great zeal, excited to continue what started on Friday as a wonderful time.  We went to Ghettobux, wrote our blog, plotted out the various panels we would attend, and were heading back towards the Long Beach Convention Center by 10:30am.  The first thing we did upon our arrival was find the new artist-friends we made the day before.  First was Lord L Mesa, who had a throng of peoples awaiting his attention and still found the effort to give us a smile and warm greeting.  We gave Lord a copy of Mythoi and let him go back to doing his thing after a brief conversation.  On our way to the next drop-off, Ben ran into none other than the great Mark Waid!  Ben seized opportunity and chirped a bit about the book in Mr. Waid’s ear and he asked if he could have a copy (of course, we gave it to him)!  Geeking off of that encounter, we made our way to Joel Gomez who opened Mythoi without hesitation and gave some instant (and appreciated) constructive criticism.  Finally, we dropped the last freebie issue off to the mighty Doug Mahnke, who had no time to open or look at the book but asked to get back to us soon.  It may sound small, but as an independent writer/artist who grew up reading these guys, it means the world to Ben and I to have these guys read our stuff.  It’s an honor.  Really.

Well, with our hearts all aflutter we trudged around the rest of the convention floor which was much, much fuller of freaks, geeks and other forms of fandom than the day before.  We killed some time perusing various booths (taking notes for one of our own some day…) and then followed the wall of celebrities off the floor to the panel rooms above.  This is when things when sour(ish)…

The first panel we went to was the writer’s panel, presented by Aspen.  In the program it says that Jeph Loeb, David Wohl, JT Krull, Scott Lobdell, and Jimmy Palmiotti.  Unfortunately, only the first three showed up (still an honor for fans like us).  Apparently Mr. Lobdell has Swine Flu and Mr. Palmiotti was called to another panel.  Ben and I were understanding and shrugged it off — the might that did show up was still beyond worthy of our attention.  The panel was excellent.  As a writer I took notes as these masters delivered various tips and tricks to the audience.  This was the best panel and earned an “A” for the day.

Writers = “Directors”

Ben and I grabbed lunch at Island’s across the street (try the new chicken sandwich with fried onions — awesome) before making our way to the next panel of the day: editing in comics.  Promoted to be speaking in this panel were Matt Gagnon, Rob Levin, Scott Dunbier, and Matt Hawkins.  Dunbier no showed for one reason or another, and Hawkins was replaced by another Top Cow editor whose name escapes us at the moment, but was awesome and informative.  Once again, it was disappointing to not see who you allotted time for, but the panel was almost as good as writing, and may only have been lacking in audience questions, which was partially our fault.  Overall, we give this panel a B+.

Editors = “People who do everything else”

At this point in the day, Ben and I snuck away for a quick meeting with some investors.  After an hour on the phone, we hustled back to the convention to join in on the Art Panel, which featured Joe Benitez, Dustin Nyugen, Mike Choi, Ale Garza, Philip Tan, and another gentleman whose name escapes us because we are terrible audience members (maybe Micah Gunnell).  The artist panel was interesting.  It wasn’t bad, but the information presented wasn’t incredibly helpful to Ben (an editor), or I (a writer).  We had hoped that by attending the panel we could learn more about the artistic process, but really only learned about the types of music (or lack thereof) that the artists listen to, what types of pencils and/or inks they use, and what inspires them to work.  The answers to these questions were all case specific and changed artist per artist.  The panel was unhelpful for us, but probably great for fans.  Unfortunately, it felt more like a personal panel interview then a panel about the artistic process — to be fair, I again blame poor audience questions.  B-.

With two out of three panels not delivering what was promised via program, Ben and I made our way to the final event of the day:  Thomas Jane’s premiere of “Give Em Hell Malone.”  We weren’t bitter, but I would be lying if I said we weren’t a little bummed.  We walked into a very empty room at just fifteen minutes or so before showtime to meet Thomas Jane and a couple of his buddies setting up the Playstation 3 that (we assumed) would be gracing us with his latest cinematic adventure.  Unfortunately, after waiting until ten after the scheduled showtime, Thomas Jane announced to less than 100 people that we would not be seeing “Give Em Hell Malone,” but would instead be watching the black and white version of “The Mist.”  Don’t get me wrong, “The Mist” is a great film, but this iced the let-down cake for Ben and I so we trudged off with our heads down and left the rest of the theater to enjoy their time with Mr. Jane.  To be fair, Thomas Jane seemed very bummed that he couldn’t show his film, and Ben and I are sure it wasn’t his fault.  You’re still the sh*t, Thomas — we love you!

Back at our hotel room, Ben and I got all cleaned up and decided to attempt and retake our hopes from the night by attending Mark Waid’s party at our new favorite Long Beach Bar, The Auld Dubliner.  It wasn’t very busy when we got there around 9pm, so we found a table, grabbed some beers and played a game of Scrabble.  By the time the game was over the occupancy had tripled and the band was playing loud.  At one point we were stampeded by a bachelorette party for a young lady who loved to dance.  It was a great night full of drinks, talks, laughs, and eventually, great sleep.

Day 3, here we come…

James and Ben

Greetings all!  Ben and I are writing you now from a rather ghetto Starbucks flanked by a Rite Aid and an Albertson’s in the center of Long Beach, California!

Yesterday was day one of the first ever Long Beach Comic Convention and it was great fun!  The whole thing started off with Ben and I begging our drive at 7:00am, which is the worst time to ever hit the road to go anywhere…  After making our way as far as Orange County, we stopped at Alberto’s in Garden Grove and devoured the best California Burritos either of us has ever had!  Then we meandered up the 22 towards Long Beach…

Long Beach Convention Center

One nice thing about being an “Industry Professional” is that you get to go down to the convention floor three hours before the general public.  We did.  It wasn’t worth it…  With the Convention starting at 3:00pm, there was nothing set up or ready for display at 12:30pm when we got there.  It was a bit of a disappointment, but not one we were willing to let ruin our glorious burrito-aftermath.

Our “Preview” Time…

At three there was a ribbon cutting ceremony with Jeph Loeb, Stan Lee and some politician…  Apparently the county of Los Angeles and the city of Long Beach made yesterday (Oct. 2, 2009), “Stan Lee Day!”  There was a laundry list of accomplishments listed for Stan “changing the face of comics” and his work with The Hero Initiative.  It was a nice start.  Then Stan cut the ribbon and the crowds flooded downstairs…

This guy did something awesome — but we don’t know what.

Jeph Loeb, writer of Batman’s “Long Halloween”

Stan “The Man” Lee

“Excelsior!”

Obviously people had been busy since we last journeyed to the convention floor…  Nintendo had the most impressive area with six wii stations and a very large DS area — not to mention some not-ugly girls walking around putting leis on us…  We got to check out Punch-Out, Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Wii Sports Resort — they were all impressive.

Nintendo — Left

Nintendo — Center

Nintendo — Right

Atomic Comics shared a corner spot with Golden Apple to create the next largest section.  As soon as you walked onto the floor you were greeted by their spokeswoman: Wonder Woman (who was beautiful and gave us a bunch of invites to a party that night…).

Apparently “married” means I get to hold the camera…

While walking around the LBCC one can’t help but over hear people referring to the convention as a “return to comics.”  It’s true.  Even the setup for this convention requires you to walk through the GIGANTIC artist’s alley to get back and forth between the various vendors.  There are no movie studios, toy companies, or people hawking software…  LBCC really does put comic books on a pedestal for the weekend and leaves it at that.  Personally, I can’t help but compare it to the San Diego Comic Con (I’ve been there so many years…), and here’s the best comparison I can give you:  If the San Diego Comic Con is a wild orgy of all things “entertainment” with random people and things touching, feeling and groaning, then the Long Beach Comic Con is a small, candlelight dinner for you and comics.  It’s a softer setting with more intimate opportunities and a much better way to shop, learn and talk with more industry professionals than you could ever try to get at SDCC.  I highly recommend going to both, but for the true aficionado, LBCC is the place to be.

“aficionado” — this guy was soo excited…

So, who did we get to talk to?  Doug Mahnke.  Joe Benitez.  Ruben Martinez.  Joel Gomez.  Lord L Mesa.  R.C. Young.  Brian Haberlin (or at least, the guy at his both who we think was Brian…).  And we literally “bumped” into Thomas Jane, who is much smaller than we thought he’d be, but nonetheless impressive (side note:  go see HUNG now).  I also believe that I offended an talented artist named Oliver Nome.  You see, I don’t know nearly as much about art in comics as Ben.  So, while perusing Oliver’s portfolio, I noticed that one of them had a note reading, “Inked by Rich Friend.”  I asked Oliver why he was advertising his “Wealthy Buddy.”  I think he thought I was making fun of him, when in truth, I had no idea that Richard Friend is a famous inker…  Oops.  Sorry Oliver!

And like all Comic Cons, there were costumes…  Some great.  Some not.  But here are the ones we liked the most (aside from the above featured Wonder Woman):

Shrimps! Shrimps! Shrimps!

HOT Batgirl! …and batman… (and Malcolm X?)

More hot-Batwoman! ..and batman…

SNIKT!

Unenthusiastic Green Lantern

This guy’s awesome! Saw him at SDCC!

Gotham Sirens, minus Catwoman…

After the convention we tried going to the Golden Apple/Atomic Comics party, but it was a bit too loud for us and the drinks were way to expensive ($6.50 for a Heineken), so we made our way to the Auld Dubliner.  It was a great way to end the day and I can guarantee we’ll be there again tonight.  Beer makes everything better…

That’s it from Day One!  We’re on our way now to Day Two, which should prove to be more exciting than the first as it is a Saturday and there are a ton of sessions we’ll be attending.  Until tomorrow morning,

James and Ben

Cosplay, for those of you who don’t know, is “short for “costume play”, a type of performance art whose participants outfit themselves, with often-elaborate costumes and accessories, as a specific character. Characters are usually sourced in various media, including manga, anime, tokusatsu, comic books, graphic novels, video games, and fantasy movies.”  Now when it comes to a beautiful young woman dressing up as a character I’ve grown to love, I’m all for it.  I’m even okay with a gym-mongrel who has spent the better part of his life working out in order to mask himself as his favorite character from whatever realm he chooses.  What I am not cool with, is an unattractive person dressing up in anything aside from sweatpants or a tarp, and going out in public screaming for attention, especially in an area where we, the innocent masses, can’t help but see them.  This should help clear things up:

Now, some of you may be thinking, “but Mr. Wolff, that’s not so bad!”  Okay.  Fine.  The large man in the Sailor Moon outfit, could be construed as funny and not to offensive.  I can see why you’d think that.  But have you any ideas what it leads to?  Let me show you…

Don’t worry, women are just as bad, if not worse, than men:

I hope you can understand now.  Do you see what not-so-offensive-fat-sailor-moon man can lead us to?!  Sure, we laugh and chuckle at the obvious irony, but there are those who don’t!  There are humans among us who leave their homes thinking abominable arrangements of cloth that vaguely represent their heroes in color and placement upon the body is enough!  It is not enough!  Cosplay is NOT for everyone!  It is a commitment to the character involving training and shapeliness where appropriate!  You don’t get to wake up one day and say, “Gee, I think today I’m Wonder Woman!”  NO!  She’s an AMAZONIAN GODDESS YOU FOOL!  Are YOU in shape like an AMAZOINAN GODDESS?!  I DIDN’T THINK SO!!

As I write this, my heart is racing and I feel an urgency at the tips of my fingers as if somewhere, an overweight, under-sunned,  gap-toothed, overly-hairy, cankled beast dressed as Super Girl has just killed a child by merely making itself visible.  Damn you poorly-costumed villain.  Damn you to Cosplay Hell…

I’m sorry.

Fear not my friends.  All is not lost.  There are those among us who stay true to character and refuse to compromise the improbable figures of ficticious characters.  Villainess or superhero, these players represent what is good for all of us — and now that you’ve tasted the bitter, you may sip of the sweet:

Well that’s it for today.  I know my words were few and my pics were many, but sometimes, that’s you can’t explain evil to people — you have to show them.

Mr. Wolff

Check out the rest, here.