For those of you not familiar with The Losers, it's actually a classic DC Comics World War II title reimagined by writer Andy Diggle (who's now in charge of Marvel's Daredevil) and for the most part illustrated by artist Jock.
In this current reimagination, The Losers are set today's grey political climate, including the so-called War on Terror as the background. Now, instead of World War II operatives, they are a Special Forces team seconded to the Central Intelligence Agency. In Afghanistan, the Losers were betrayed by their handler, Max, and left for dead following the conclusion of their operation. Eager for revenge and the opportunity to remove their names from a secret CIA death list, the Losers regroup and conduct covert operations against the CIA and its interests, uncovering startling operations spearheaded by the enigmatic Max, whose influence within the CIA and U.S. government is unparalleled.
The Losers ran for 32 issues from 2003-2006 and I've been on a trade-reading marathon these last few weeks and it's been awesome. If you like conspiracy-laden story with blow-things-up action that'll ashame Michael Bay but still with great characterization, smart dialogue, and unpredictable plot, this book is for you.
Unsurprisingly, this book was nominated as for the Eisner Award as "Best New Series" in 2004. For those of you not familiar, the Eisner is the comic book equivalent of the Academy Award.
Seeing from this trailer, it seems that this movie has a good cast, quite faithful to the original source, and it seems funny. It looks awesome, and i've been kind of crushing on Zoe Saldana-the new queen of geek flicks- since Pirates of the Caribbean (you know, the hot black pirate chick). The scene with her firing the bazooka sold me.
However, the comparison with the A-Team and the Expendables are going to be unavoidable. Personally, I think this is another one of these coincidences where there are movies with the same theme out around the same time.
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Marvel has released a trailer for the long-awaited (at least for me) return of Kitty Pryde. She will return after whatever it is she's doing in space after saving the Earth from a giant bullet in Joss Whedon's "season finale" of his Astonishing X-Men run (you know, the fact that I can write a sentence like this with a straight face is one of the things that make me love comicbooks...) .
Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men has garnered a lot of praise. One of the praise came from Whedon's ability to conceptualize such a strong female character in Kitty Pryde. Considering Whedon's track records of strong female characters of his own creation (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, characters from Firefly/Serenity, Dollhouse, etc), it's hardly a surprise.
For me, Whedon had me becoming one of Kitty's fans. That's the surprising part because in my opinion, Marvel is never traditionally known for their interesting female characters.
Anyway, Kitty will return in March's Uncanny X-Men #522 and I will eagerly wait in anticipation.
Oh, here's the link if you want to read the whole Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men.
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I always love the idea of a World Expo although I have never visited one. The idea of (almost) every country in the world tries to promote what's great about them and to out-awesome one another in terms of kicking-ass pavillion design fascinates me both as a culture lover (not just pop or geeky one, mind you) and as someone with architectural background. It's as if as a designer you could always go wild with this kind of project.
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Sorry for those of you who can't speak Indonesian, but I can't find the English-dubbed version of this video.
Yes, this video is a CGI presentation about the title above, the Indonesian Pavillion in Shanghai World Expo 2010.
I really dig the design, very Corbusian approach with all the pilotis columns and an interesting interpretation of strip windows. Adds up a free-flow floor plan with tidbits of Indonesian cultural heritage here and there and I think you' d have a winner. But one thing about this video presentation really bugs me off. Slide your media player to 02:26 to 02:28 and listen to the narrator talks about the design style of the pavillion being "traditional, modern, contemporary". It always irks me when government-sponsored script writers for this kind of thing take their cues from real estate brochures. If you ever have read any Indonesian publications promoted by property industry, chances are you're going to find a lot of terms like "modern tropical", "traditional contemporary", "minimalistic design", and the likes.
In my opinion, this will only lead to more misunderstanding among the "muggles" (sorry for the Harry Potter reference there. This, after all, is a geek's blog.) that design is merely about styles. Call me old-school or conservative but I'm a firm believer in William Pena's school of thoughts that design is problem solving , not merely a "style". How you approach to solve a particular problem is what design is all about. But still, beside that annoying narrator, this, I think, is an awesome design
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I decided to make a new label entitled "Video Ga-ga" in order to show you guys some funny, witty, awesome, and of course geeky videos I find on the 'Net. I decided to name it Video Ga-ga as some sort of a homage to Queen's song "Radio Ga-ga" and since the first post in this label is a cover version to one of the greatest rock song of all time, Bohemian Rhapspody. (yes, I'm a Queen fan. Sue me.)
The Muppets are still as hilarious as they were once that I remembered in my childhood. So, here they are!
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