Todd Klein's Blog, page 334

Surviving Irene

We're still at my Mom's house in central New Jersey, where we had no problems with the storm, just lots of rain and wind. Tomorrow we'll return home to find out how things went there, we won't know until then. Reports from Atlantic City suggest only minimal damage, so we're hoping for the best. We're not in any flood danger at our house, but we live in the woods, so falling trees are always possible. I'll post more here when we're back, probably with pictures. I'm posting this from the parking lot of Dunkin Donuts near my Mom's house, as she has no internet access. Thanks, Dunkin!

Irene blogging break

We've had to evacuate to my Mom's home in central NJ, which does not have Internet, so no new posts for a while.

And Then I Read: JOHN BYRNE'S NEXT MEN 4

Images © John Byrne.

This issue Byrne kicks things into a new gear, finally bringing some great new material to the storyline and adding more levels of intrigue and mystery. Jumps in time, jumps in perspective, some cool science, and this title has just jumped up my interest. The story begins at some unspecified time that seems like the near future. Several team members, including some we've seen being tortured in the past few, are visiting a super-collider project on Long Island that is about to go online. What happens when it does is startling and horrifying, and the focus is on Bethany as she slides into disaster and unconsciousness. Long cut to a much later time when the indestructible body of Bethany is being awakened in another lab after being imprisoned and immobilized underground for several hundred years. Needless to say, this has done very bad things to her state of mind. At the end of the issue, new clues appear about the mysterious black-robot-clad figure from issue 3.

Byrne's art is terrific on this series, with solid, artful inking and great drawing. Really there's nothing now to complain about in either story or art, and I'm looking forward to more. Recommended!

More Sand Sculptures 2011

Wrapping up this year's beach sculptures, first with two done a few weeks ago when Tim was here and we spent a few hours at the beach. I carved this star in a flattened patch of sand, it's about six inches across, I think. Carving out is harder than it looks because you have to remove all the sand too.

That day Tim did this holed sphere looking somewhat like a cross between a wiffle ball and a bucky ball.

Back to recent times, we went to the beach Monday and found our big castle had survived the night pretty well, surprisingly. The beach raker had gone around it, and no one had really damaged the structure except for the lower skirt. Working nearby that day, many more people came by to admire our work, and Tim enjoyed telling them about it.

In this close view of the top area you can see that wind and some light rain have given it a weathered texture, but the details still show for the most part.

We each decided to do separate sculptures, then. Tim carved an old car from a single form of sand. Here he's looking through one of his custom tool boxes.

The car is taking shape.

And here's the final sculpture about to be hit by a wave.

Gabe worked on a small tower with two forms. Here he's filling the upper one.

Carving a descending spiral.

And here's the finished piece.

I decided to experiment with making arches using a method mentioned in the Sandcastles book: forming them over a pile of drier sand. Here I've made a pile and am cutting the sides down to form a hemisphere.

Next I formed a double arch with pancakes of wet sand over the hemisphere, and a small point at the top.

Here are the arches carved out. Next I would carefully dig out the inner hemisphere, hoping the arches would remain.

Failure! The arches collapsed before I finished removing the central dry sand. Not sure why, my guess is the arches were too thick and heavy, and/or the curve of the arch was too wide. I'll have to try again some other time.

I had to go home and work after that, but Tim and Gabe stayed for the afternoon. Tim made a lighthouse out of a two-tiered form. Here the upper tier is being shaped.

And here's the finished lighthouse looking quite good, and making a nice pair with our big castle in the background.

Finally, Gabe made this cryptic monolith from the remains of his tower after it toppled.

That's it for beach carving this year I think, we'll see what we come up with next summer!

Another Really BIG Sand Castle

This weekend my friend Tim and his son Gabe were visiting. We always go to the beach, weather permitting, and do some king of sand sculpture. Over the years Tim has continued to gather tools and knowledge about it, and we've all honed our skills, even though we don't use them often. Sunday we spent the whole day working on a very large castle. Tim brought roofing paper (which is a kind of tar paper I think) to make forms with, and we filled a large form, then a smaller one on top of that, as above, with Gabe and I shoveling sand and carrying water while Tim stomped and packed the sand, keeping it all well soaked. The technique worked surprisingly well, and it's one of the new ideas Tim found in this book:

which I recommend to anyone interested in sand sculpture. You can find a link to it below.

After the two forms were filled we built up a third layer by pancaking very wet sand in layers. The cylinder at the top here was from a bucket of wet sand, but that didn't hold up and was removed.

The build up took about three hours, at which point the sun departed and clouds and wind moved in, but we escaped any rain. We spent the next three hours carving. The taller tower is mine, the other tower is Tim's, and Gabe is working on lower shapes.

A better look at the whole structure, nearly as tall as us, and taller on the beach side. Gabe is adding sand bricks while Tim carves with one of his hand-made tools.

Later the forms were removed and carving continued down into the second level. The formed sand was very hard and great to carve, it worked quite well.

More carving down into the third level now. Tim's various carving tools were used for the columns and structural shapes on the walls.

Here's the third level mostly done, just needing finishing on the outer skirt and more details.

The completed castle as the clouds thickened around 6 PM. The round shapes were made with a large suction cup, another new technique we've just started using. Rotating the suction cup makes an easy spherical shape.

Here's the north side with Gabe and I some 10-15 feet behind, making the castle look even larger than it actually was.

And the best view from the south side, showing how the opening Gabe started was expanded into a two-level interior view with columns by Tim, with stairs leading to it. The scale is mismatched in places, much smaller at the top for instance, but we still think it looked quite good! And many passers-by agreed. As the light faded and a storm moved in, we reluctantly left our creation behind and in the hands of fate, well satisfied with our day's work, and quite tired and hungry, too!

Sand Castling 2011

Ellen's sister Ann and other family members have been here all week, going to the beach whenever the uncertain weather permitted, and one of their activities is building sand castles and other things that defy description, like the one on the left! I believe that one is by Dave, Ann's husband, while Ann and Ellen and Zach worked on the other.

Here's another from a different day that I like even better, especially when surrounded by a real moat as it is here. I think this was also a group effort.

I made it to the beach one afternoon and created this twin-towered sculpture with an impossible-looking bridge between the two. There was a trick to that…I found a sturdy stick that I embedded in the middle.

Here's a more dramatic shot. They always look bigger with the ocean in the background.

And if you should see this when you look up from your castling, you know it's time to pack up and go home!

And Then I Read: JOHN BYRNE'S NEXT MEN 3

Images © John Byrne.

I'm way behind on this title because my order for issue 3 went astray, and I just recently got this alternate cover version, so now I can read on.

This issue begins with Bethany, who, unlike Nathan, Jasmine, Danny and Tony, has not been flung into some horrific time and place in our past. Bethany is being held by a mysterious armored figure in some kind of secret headquarters, and he/she/it is revealed as the mastermind of the entire situation, showing Bethany some of what's going on with the others. None of that is good, all of them are in deep trouble. Nathan is in Nazi Germany being experimented on in a concentration camp; Jasmine is in Elizabethan England (I think), and Antonia is in the pre Civil War south where her dark skin color has her treated as a slave, and a dangerous one at that. Other incidents are equally puzzling to Bethany and us. The mysterious figure strikes me as a sort of Dr. Doom figure so far, with the big identity reveal coming next issue.

Byrne's art continues to look great on this series. The storytelling is somewhat melodramatic, but I'm getting caught up in it now. One thing I like is that these characters seem to have left behind any special powers or abilities for the moment, another mystery, making their struggles all the more human. How they will get out of the ever deepening holes they're in is what will keep me coming back.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: ROCKETEER ADVENTURES 1

Images © The Rocketeer Trust.

This new series put together by editor Scott Dunbier, a Stevens friend and fan, is a fun return to the world Dave Stevens created in all-too-few pages, and is clearly a product of the love many have for the characters and the Stevens art and stories. While some of it comes reasonably close to the original, any new Rocketeer work will always be in the shadow of Dave's unique and brilliant personal vision, and thus will never be able to escape comparison with it. There are three short stories and a few pinups here. The lead story by John Cassaday comes closest to Stevens' style:

Cassaday does a good job, but I was never able to put aside comparing it to Stevens' work and just enjoy the story and art for its own sake, and because of that it did not completely succeed for me. The other stories by Mike Allred and Kurt Busiek/Michael Kaluta were each fine in their own way. Allred has his own unique vision that doesn't really mesh well with that of Stevens. Kaluta, another close friend of Stevens, does better, but again his own style dominates, making this effort an homage rather than something fresh. Busiek's script is, for me, the freshest thing in this book, and I enjoyed it a lot. The focus is on Betty in New York, performing in a Broadway show while receiving V-Mail letters from Cliff about his wartime service in Southeast Asia. By giving us a new point of view and new roles for the main characters, Busiek succeeds in bringing something fresh to the table, but again the art always begs comparison to Stevens.

Recommended, especially for Dave Stevens fans, but try not to expect too much!

And Then I Read: GL EMERALD WARRIORS 10

Images © DC Comics, Inc.

As we close in on the end of this epic (one chapter to go),  all the main characters come together again, and there's lots of fighting. The four Earth GLs regain their freedom, thanks to the successful mission of Kyle and John in the previous part, and with another successful mission in this issue once more regain their Green Lantern rings and powers. Krona, the bad guy behind it all, is finally confronted.  The rest of the GL Corps is also back in their right minds. And as the chapter ends, everything is set for the final battle. No big surprises, as the story rolls along.

Here's a page of art by Pasarin and Smith, continuing to do a fine job. We can all guess how things will work out next issue, but it's been a good ride for me, and I'll enjoy reading it as I did this one, I think. Recommended.

And Then I Read: GREEN LANTERN CORPS 60

Images © DC Comics, Inc.

It's aways sad when a character you like meets his end, and that's the case for me in this eighth part of the "War of the Green Lanterns." It's not too surprising; a war means someone has to die, after all. Here it's what I consider the most original and thought-provoking member of the GL Corps. Of course, in comics no character stays dead if someone wants to write about him, her or it. I suspect this character will not be brought back any time soon, though. We'll see.

Kyle and John take center stage for much of this issue, using the blue and purple rings as best they can, not having been trained with them. They're trying to prevent an increase in the army of Green Lanterns under the sway of Krona, and along the way they encounter remnants of the Black Lantern force.

The art by Kirkham and Batt is fine, and as in all the Green Lantern books, the color is a great help to the story; by Rod Reis and Nei Ruffino in this case. In fact, this entire series would never work now without great color and subtle computer color effects impossible in the comics of past decades.

Recommended.