When Raven and I started RevPub we wanted to have an outlet for all of our random thoughts, opinions, and interests. We love posting our topics every week and find lots of new topics and threads we can follow and share with our readers. Though we enjoy our weekly posts we never lose sight on our true goal, and that is to find a venue for our creative works.
Last October we introduced our first (and for me monumental) publication,Lil Horsemen #1: How Death and War Postponed the Apocalypse, a story I wrote as a teenager finally brought to full-color life as a graphic novel. This was only the beginning of things and we have more Lil Horsemen and other series to come.
This post, as it’s our one-hundredth, I thought it would be a good time to share what we have in store for this year and beyond.
In the Spring/Summer of 2013 we’ll introduce the second adventure of Grimmy and Skirmish in Lil Horsemen #2: The Soulless Shoes. This issue will introduce the other two Lil Horsemen, Smally Pox and Faminista.
(Sorry for the scan quality, I only had access to a consumer scanner this week…)
Below is the first design of Smally Pox!
And Faminista with her lil dog Fam-Fam:
By the end of this year we also hope to introduce the first installment of a continuing, more traditional, graphic novel action series, Bloody Bantam IV. Introducing the gunslinging swordsman character, Bantam IV, aka “Quad the Merciless!” I’m truly excited about this series. I have the story arch planned and this, unlike the random fun of Lil Horsemen, is more of a traditional narrative.
These major projects aren’t all; we also have planned several new post series; a few one-shot comics; at least one more BIG Lil Horsemen adventure and several mini-adventures; new t-shirts and merchandise; and eventually the series to which Revenant Publications owes its namesake…
Recently I have noticed an increase in passive voice, and many people don’t know how to correct it. Passive voice is not grammatically wrong, but you usually want to avoid using it because the quality and clarity of your writing may suffer. This is especially important in articles and other nonfiction writing when every word matters.
What the heck is passive voice? Passive voice is an indirect way of writing something. Once you learn the differences and how to spot it, you can easily edit sentences into active voice.
Common terms used in this post:
Subject = Performs the verb and usually comes at the beginning of the sentence
Verb = the action of a sentence
Object = the thing the verb was done to, often at the end of a sentence
How to spot passive sentences:
The subject of the sentence becomes the object, or it is dropped entirely.
The object becomes the subject.
There is often a ‘to-be’ verb or the prepositions ‘of’ or ‘by’.
Examples:
1. The population of the city grew by more than 20 percent this year.
2. The award was won by the school system.
3. Rodgers has been throwing the ball at his coach.
4. The store was not open.
Now, look at the above sentences and ask, “how can I rewrite that in a more straightforward way?” This rewrite may change passive to active. Many times if you switch the current subject and object in the sentence, the sentence will be active (example 2). Also, making the subject possessive may work (example 1), and if you are ambitious, try to replace two or three words with one (examples 3, 4).
Here are the rewrites:
1. The city’s population grew by more than 20 percent this year.
2. The school system won the award.
3. Rodgers threw the ball at his coach.
4. The store was closed.
If you’d like to practice editing into active voice, try these tests. They will even grade them! 🙂
We’re a little over a month away from Christmas…and it both seems like ages ago and like we all just barely made it through…
I admit I like giving personal gifts. Anyone can buy gift cards or choose something from a list, but for the people closest to me I like to give very personal gifts. In the past this usually meant drawings, but since my drawing time mostly consists of RevPub projects I decided to marry my new interest in painting Citadel miniatures with giving creative gifts.
Part of the fun was picking models that matched the individual receiving the gift, the rest of it was creating small dioramas within the display case size to make a nice scene.
This is my father’s. For him (he enjoys carpentry) I chose a Fantasy dwarf master engineer and created a workshop for him, including a furnace made of a Volvo wheel bolt (See THIS post to see how I got a pile of those…) and extra tools. I gave him a little helper on stilts.
For my Sis, who likes Egyptian history, I did High Queen Khalida from the Fantasy Tomb Kings. I added bitz from a Sphinx and gave it a teal/gold tone. This might be my favorite composition. I also added a little copper familiar.
For my mom I made a Isabelle von Carstein. I cut a halloween decoration skull in half for a hill and added some zombies to give her a horde army. The snow effect also was fun to do for the first time.
Since I’m interested in the 40k universe this gave me a chance to paint models I’d otherwise be unable to paint and I’ve always enjoyed creating little dioramas and stories this way.
Anyone else give unique/creative Christmas presents this year?
It’s time to let my secret out: I love teen movies. I know what you’re thinking. I have seen that reaction first-hand when I admit it’s my second-favorite genre. People are shocked, but many teen movies are funny, entertaining, and pretty true to the time period.
That chick from the Aerosmith videos. The girl with the awesome (or crazy) hats. And the adorably helpless girl in flannel with red hair.
If you grew up in the 90s, you know Clueless – and you know it is a great teen movie. Some of it is unrealistic unless you live in Beverly Hills, but it’s well written and a good flick.
Was I Clueless?
I was 13 when Clueless came out, and I think I saw it on the big screen. I was so jealous of Cher’s (Alicia Silverstone) wardrobe. That movie made me want to go out and buy new clothes. It still has that effect on me!
I rewatched it a few weeks ago and the 90s came flooding back. Sagging, beepers, weave, flannel, and The Cranberries. Ah… 90s music. In 7th grade, I thought Travis the skater guy was cute. I didn’t get all the jokes either, which was probably a good thing. That’s when I started dying my hair, too.
My Grown-up Perspective
If you want someone to see what the 90s were like, Clueless is a movie to show them. The 90s weren’t all about depression, grunge, and crowd surfing. We had our own mix of styles, enjoyed various kinds of music, and I doubt you’ll find a larger group of people who love cartoons and teen shows more than us. We love them so much, Nickelodeon brought them back in 2011 with the 90s Are All That.
One of my favorite scenes in the movie is Cher discussing high school boys and why we should not date them. “They roll out of bed, throw on some clothes and a backwards cap, and we’re supposed to swoon?” Amen, sister. I remember watching that in middle school and thinking, “Why do I like the boys at my school?”
Unlike a lot of teen movies, guys dig Clueless – whether they want to admit it or not. The cast is full of cute girls, the guys are genuine, and it’s funny. It is very funny.
Bigger Issues
Clueless touched on a number of subjects that affect teens even today. Worthless classes, teachers (good and bad), relationships and unrequited love, homosexuality, popularity, and cliques. The rich-kid attitude aside, this movie was a great representation of teens and how they interact with each other.
I also appreciate that the cliques in this movie mesh well. That is not something you see very often, and it’s a shame that no matter where you are, there are little groups of uninviting close-knit people. It’s a good thing to mix it up now and then.
Today, we all know the cute (Tai) late Brittany Murphy, the charming (Josh) Paul Rudd, the gorgeous (Dionne) Stacey Dash, and the cool (Travis) Breckin Meyer. These kids and several more, paired with a fun-loving group of adults, created one of the funniest and best teen movies you’ll ever see. Check out the reunion video below!
While Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat were locked in deadly battle for arcade supremacy other franchises came and went on the console market. TMNT Tournament Fighters, Clayfighter, and the dreaded Shaq-Fu all appeared to take advantage of the fighting game popularity.
One franchise stood out to me and, though it’s vanished into retro-obscurity, it is probably my favorite of the bunch.
Eternal Champions
Eternal Champions showed up as a Sega-only franchises on the Genesis and utilized the same aggressive marketing campaign that Sega used to fight Nintendo. I remember seeing the plastic clamshell box stalking around the residential hallways chasing down other fighting games throughout the house. Admittedly these kinds of ads are a turn off to me. I’d rather not compare one item to another, just let me know what’s good about the one you’re selling me. But Eternal Champions won me over. It combined the cartoon-style animations and unique character styles of Street Fighter with the brutality and violence of Mortal Kombat.
The premise was terrific. A group of warriors, all throughout time, each meets a premature demise . The Eternal Champion has offered them a chance to return to their respective time, moments before their deaths, and have the chance to prevent their deaths before they happened. I loved the premise, and when the Sega CD sequel offered more fighters and more options I jumped on that version too.
My copy of EC: Challenge from the Dark Side
At the time reviewers, who are always an annoying snarky bunch I’ve found (and I still maintain it’s easier to write a bad review than a good one…recently reviewers don’t think it’s “cool” to like things they review), called it a Mortal Kombat rip-off, based solely on its bloodiness. But the gameplay and presentation was FAR closer to Street Fighter than Mortal Kombat.
The special moves, character movement, and attacks all resembled Street Fighter. I remember playing as a caveman named “Slash” (I was then and am still a GnR fan I had to play as Slash) and how incredibly hot the portrait of Shadow Yamoto looked in the game, so much so that I hated to beat her up. My favorites on the Genesis were RAX, the futuristic kickboxer and Midknight, the vampire. In the Sega CD sequel Challenge from the Darkside I added Chin Wo and Ramses III to my favorites list. They all used specific martial arts styles as well and, since I was deep into Tae Kwon Do at the time, I loved the variety.
The kills that were the most fun came from the environments. I remember the car in Larcen’s stage riddling you with bullets and getting sucked into the big fan on Blade’s. Dinosaurs ate you, you got electrocuted, and burned. The tricky part was getting your opponent into the right position to meet their destruction.
Description of moves including some of the kills!
UN-like Mortal Kombat, it required the strategy and techniques of Street Fighter to defeat an enemy. Often killing your enemy was just an awesome bonus. The Challenge from the Darkside offered more kills, challenging, but terrific if you pulled them off, and often related to stories. Sometimes a new event happened you’d never seen before and, remember this is PRE-INTERNET, you had to figure out how that happened.
Added to this was the secret element. Eternal Champions was loaded with secret characters. From a Senator (taking potshots at political anti-game violence grandstanding) and my favorites, the animal characters, a chicken named Crispy, a monkey named Zuni , an owl (loved the owl) named Hooter, a snake named Slither, and a dog named Yappy. These were simple diversions from the regular game…but brought humor and replay value into the fighting game, which can be sorely missing in some of them.
Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Darkside, along with Sega Saturn’s X-Men: Children of the Atom, remain my favorite non-Street Fighter fighting games. It doesn’t suffer the same “Duke Nukem” effect I mentioned that impacts Mortal Kombat for me and is still loads of fun to play. I personally would like to see a return to the Eternal Champions franchise. Updated in the same way as Street Fighter IV, keeping true to 2D fighting roots but updating the graphics and gameplay. The premise, characters, and styling already exists. You’ve got a foundation, gaming industry, get to it!
So while Street Fighter reigns supreme in my fighting game memories…Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side holds a special place as the potentially the best fighting game no one remembers…and potentially a challenge to SF’s throne…
“… The more clear, tranquil, and unstimulated you are, the slower the ideas come, but the better they are.”
The human mind is a complex and beautiful thing. We process so much information so quickly, sometimes I am amazed that our heads do not literally explode. I know I have felt like mine wanted to.
In Chapter 4 Ueland discusses ideas, inspiration, and creativity in relation to the mind. She states, “Inspiration comes very slowly and quietly.” The inspiration she refers to isn’t that light bulb that goes off and then the words just pour on a page; she describes inspiration in the sense of our ideas and the quality of what we write.
You Don’t Always Have to Be Busy
Ueland explains that we do not always have to be energetic and active in order to have good ideas or write. Instead of wracking our brains and expecting the ideas to flow, we should sit and reflect for a short time. Use this quiet time to clear your mind and find your own voice.
I admit I thought this was bad advice at first. She wanted to me to sit in front of my laptop and try to get a post idea without doing anything? That seemed nuts, but she was right. I took some me time, cooked dinner, and did not think about my post, and it all came together. Maybe resting the mind is needed for good creativity.
There is a fine line between laziness and reflection though. If you lay around and watch TV or read, you are still doing something. You are being lazy. It’s not always a bad thing, but if you need and want to do something and are watching a movie instead, you should think about how that movie accomplishes your goal. That, my friend, is procrastination.
Other Tips About Creativity:
— Be your own critic. Do not worry what others will think.
— Stay away from stimulants and/or drugs that cloud your mind and judgment.
— Be happy with your work. It is more important that you love and are proud of your product. And I bet, if you truly love it, others will too.
— Don’t stress writer’s block. Instead, use that time as your quiet time and jot down ideas or notes. Even those will help you develop thoughts and processes.
We place so much pressure on ourselves, we forget that our minds work at their own pace. We can beat our head against a wall, and nothing good will come out. You can’t force a good idea. I also recommend yoga for exercise and reflection. I have had some of my best ideas come to me about work, family, and for friends in meditation. And it only takes five minutes. We can all work in five minutes and rest our brains.
I hope these tips help those who are struggling with ideas or projects. Sometimes the best thing to do is sit in front of the screen and look out the window. If you have any tips on how you relax or stop thinking, feel free to share below!
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