Kyoto it is

I recently got in touch with a nice gal who’s part Japanese, part American-Dutch and part Chinese. Her name is Euminl Estrella (cool name, huh) by the way, and she’s a member of the Screenplayer community and she was nice enough to share some information.

Since she used to spend a portion of her life in Japan, I gave it a shot and asked her whether Kyoto is a good place to promote my comic book ideas. I mean, I do intend to get outta this Tenth Level of Hell known with the seducing tagline of “Uniquely Singapore” and I’m thinking since those Japanese are more open to radical ideas and the premise of my comic book is close to what they usually have in their anime and manga, I figured I have a better chance at succeeding down there than here or even the US (my name just doesn’t fare well over there).

Anyway, Euminl replied that actually the best choice would be Tokyo, but that is one hell of an expensive place to live in so she said it’s not such a bad choice to try in Kyoto. She also mentioned that they’ve opened the International Manga Museum in Kyoto so I thought there’s probably a good chance that the people, even professionals from the industry flock over there and maybe and I’ll be able to meet’em. And besides, my brother told me it’s easier to find Muslim food over there and there’s even some mosques available, so that’s one less thing off my mind.

So I guess it’s gonna be Kyoto. Once I save enough money, I’ll head over there and, Insyallah, I’ll succeed in my quest to put Red Coast Comics on the map.

Oh, here’s the fourth pixel art of mine. It’s the villain called Novo.

The 11th Grade

Sulaiman Salamon to me – May 18, 2007/via Gmail

hey dude,

here are the links that i told you about:

MANGA: http://mangarun.com/

Enjoy

After 10 days…after hours

What a day!

I don’t think I can say that enough. Well, I’ve just returned from a trip to JB with Ali and boy, am I glad we planned this. Sure, it’s been a long time since I’ve been out of the country (about a year actually), but after my trip to the hospital earlier, man, it is official:

THIS IS THE DAMNDEST YEAR OF MY LIFE!

I thought I was just gonna get my half-cast removed after 10 days with it and they slap on my full-cast, but nooooo. Apparently, the Orthopaedist noticed something strange in my new X-ray slides and he casually told me that I need surgery on my hand or I will easily get arthritis, even at a young age. I mean, I’m not mad at him, but dammit…can it get any worse? I already have no job, which means no money and the surgery will cost me $1,462 and $623 is already deducted from my CPF-Medisave account which leaves my CPF with a mere $200+. That’s a retirement plan for ya’!

The surgery news hit me bad, man. This could mean I never could do push-ups or pull-ups or boxing again and I deliver a real stiff jab, lemme tell ya’. And I thought I could go thru life without being the Bionic Man one bit, but looks like they’re gonna implant a wire and screw the loose bone fragment in place. That’s gonna bite like a bitch when I’m old.

But hell, I forgot about all that later in the day when I went out with Ali and spent a nice old time with the cherry-flavored shisha at this place called Singgah Selalu (Visit Regularly). It’s a vibrant atmosphere and it’s way better than Al-Ameen. And Ali said S’poreans do frequent there on weekends, so it’s sorta a home away from home. Before the shisha, we had dinner at Kenny Rogers. It was my first time and it could’ve been better, but with my left hand being the only one able to feed me, I couldn’t get a taste of the tasty roast chicken. Instead, I ordered the bolognaise spagetti, which is still delicious for only RM14.90. It was filling.

Well, the whole night was laid back and just how the way we slackers like it. Ali and I plan to overnight at Singgah Selalu in two weeks’ time and it’ll be shisha galore on the next visit. Now, that’ll be something I haven’t done since my NS years. If only we both had tons of cash and we both could drive and had cars with high insurance (going to JB for God’s sake).

Anyway, I’m just gonna relax my mind on Thursday and come Friday, well, cut me open then. Seriously, this year has gone so bad that usually at this point, a person would think that it could either go extremely worse or something good will pop up when you least expect it and make all the bad go away.

I pray to Allah it’s the latter.

Wow! An Initiative…for meeeee?

If you’re wondering what Anant actually meant in the email mentioned in the previous post, well, back in early December last year, the government’s puppet for controlling and monitoring the media, the Media Development Authority, launched a “First-Time Writers and Illustrators Publishing Initiative”. They had only realized recently that comic books and graphic novels and print media is actually a high-selling form of media, mainly due to the rising number of comic book-based movies that are raking in millions and millions of profits every time they’re out there on the silver screen.

Well, it’s good that their primitive and low-IQ minds have finally caught up with the rest of the world, but sadly, they’re still new at this and so they kinda messed up here and there with the initiative. But, nevertheless, their intentions are good and they really seem interested in promoting this form of media so that young Singaporeans will no longer think twice about venturing into this field as now it is getting official support from the government. Here’s an excerpt of the glorious article:

[“Graphic novels have the potential to be adapted into animation, games, and movies. This will provide opportunities for homegrown creative content to reach world audiences through a range of medium such as books, comics, movies, TV shows and mobile content. It will also open new opportunities for our local players to co-produce with international partners. For example, the published works of last year’s recipients were promoted at the recent Frankfurt Book Fair which generated interest from international publishers and editors. This is a testament to the growing global interest and we hope to achieve greater success with the upcoming round of applicants,” added Mr Seto Lok Yin.]

http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.www/thenewsdesk.aspx?sid=763

Well, ain’t he a peach. Thinking about profits and exploiting the talents of Singaporeans even further. That’s just so awesome, I think I might go ahead and sleep with him. But then again, before we really get excited about this, as usual, MDA has tons of guidelines for their causes. But, hey, they’re part of the government. I’m sure they’re smart. I’m sure they know how the comic book industry works and the elements that are necessary to make it work in this day and age. So let’s take a quick look at some of it:

http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.file/mobj/mobj.961.FTWIPI%20-%20Guidelines%20and%20Form%20(ComicGraphicNovel).pdf

Okay, so maybe they’re really naive about this, but let’s hope they shake out of their stupidity and really understand what they’re talking about here.

Seriously, MDA, you wanna promote an initiative for comic books and graphic novels and you don’t allow so many things that make those things great and legendary. What, you think Sin City and the Dark Knight Returns are full of candy canes and cheery kids and guys who happily wear their colorful underwear on the outside ’cause they’re so sure people will not think they’re crazy or queer?

This ain’t the Golden Age of comic books anymore, hags! This is the Dark Age and I don’t think you geezers even know what that means. Seriously, Frank Miller would be suffering if he was born here. All the restrictions. All the regulations. There won’t be Sin City and 300! There’ll only be Singapore City and 647, which is the area (km2) of this stupid country last I checked.

Well, this thing only proves that once again, Singapore is being run by stupid, greedy, selfish and arrogant sons of bitches who think they know what they’re doing, but actually don’t and they think they’re doing and darn good job at governing this country, they have no issues in giving themselves a million-dollar raise each and yet find it troubling to support the 3000 low-income households here.

I seriously have to get outta here…

The 10th Grade

Anant Shiva to me, Man – March 20, 2007/via Gmail

yo…remember our idea about superheroes going out of jobs coz of MDA’s new “no violence, no sex, etc” thing on comic books? I was wondering..wouldn’t it be possible to do it with figurines that we buy from toys r’ us?…u know, old school animation..with simple, rudimentary sets and stuff. much like robot chicken?
I was concerned about the moving mouths..but then I thought maybe we could do that on after effects or something. imagine we have little images of different kinds of mouths. and in post, we import the images over and simply animate them over the figurines’ mouths. so then, we won’t have to worry about lip-syncing while doing the actual animating

this is how I imagined the process, tell me if I’m mistaken or missed out anything;

1) write the script
2) do the voices
3) do the animation
4) import over to after effects
5) import mouth images
5) do lip syncing according to the audio track
6) music, titles, etc

can that work? tell me what you think!

anyway, I got inspired so I made my own animation with some kinda food that I found on the dining table. it’s stupid. I wish I’d done it when I was 5 years old or something, but hey.

Meet the Seven Light of Guidance

Ever heard of the M-Theory. Apparently, some physicists believe that our existence is one of many. That’s right. There’s not just one universe, but all of existence is made up a multiverse. And the multiverse is the result of the theorized giant membranes that collided during the Big Bang, hitting at multiple points causing multiple creations of universes.

Though parallel universes are still yet to be discovered and it is still only a theory, I’m open to the possibility…or possibilities.

I’ve always been a believer of the paranormal, the supernatural…anything weird or spooky, unexplained or downright unbelievable. I truly believe we, as humans, do not hold the answer to everything and anything and our minds are designed to have limits. Limits to understand certain things, to grasp certain concepts, to fully comprehend certain ideals. And that is why some things are best left to be untouched or just believed in our hearts. If we want to, that is.

Anyway, what I’m trying to get at here is the endless possibilities of my own existence. But I’m just gonna focus on seven, well six other possibilities if you exclude this one already. Now, what if in another universe, I’m:

- a billionaire who owns and runs his own enterprise
- a high-ranking police officer
- a famous hero and agent of the government
- a psychotic vigilante seeking justice
- a hermit, who left his homeland, seeking peace far away
- a woman

Interesting possibilities there. And that’s why I think they shouldn’t just be wasted in mind. I think I’m gonna write a feature script soon based on this idea and see what kind of ending I can cook up and what exactly is the premise of the story.

It should be fun!

Powers and Rankings

I came across this website called Comic Vine and they’ve got this nifty ranking system ranging from a bunch of categories like most powerful to attractive female to even insanely rich. The interesting thing to note here though is how in the hell did my No.2 girl, Psylocke, end up outside of the Top 10 and who the hell is Ms. Victory?

Sometimes, I really don’t get their pickings. But anyhoo, the results are never final so there’s still hope for my Black Cat to climb up to the No. 1 spot. Here’s the site:

http://www.comicvine.com/powers/

And speaking of comic book superheroines, here’s the first of my pixel art. Scar’s first wife, Sense: