Hey party people,
Hope you are all enjoying the adventures if Cindy Li, GoldStar and Zia. As you can imagine, the Toonocity studio is busy with promoting Cindy. Which doesn’t leave much time for drawing- although I’m still designing my next comic book. I can’t start telling people about it, not quite ready yet. In the meantime I can post some other work.
Not sure if you’re aware, but I’m a big fan of DC comics- mostly the Justice League. Probably started as a kid watching the Superfriends (I own all the dvd releases so far). And being a fan of large groups of super heroes, I love cross-overs! Heck, that’s what the Justice League is on its base level. Anyway, it’s very interesting fact that the Justice League had an unofficial cross-over with the Avengers back in 1969! Seems that Justice League writer Denny O’Neil and Avengers writer Roy Thomas were friends, and hatched the idea of a team-up, not telling their bosses. So Roy created the Squadron Sinister to battle the Avengers . Denny created the Destructors, but pretty much wimps out, since they are evil duplicates of the League who just said and did things to resemble the Avengers.
A few years later, 1971, Mike Friedrich became the writer of the Justice League, and he and Roy Thomas tried again. This time Roy transformed, so to speak, from the Squadron Sinister to the Squadron Supreme. And Mike created the Champions of Angor (sometimes renamed the Justifiers, Assemblers or Meta Milita)- a much better take on the Avengers. Personally, I’d love to see DC use these characters more- toss in General Glory as a Captain America, and create and an Ironman mirror as well, for more fun. So, here is Wandjina, DC’s Thor. Be cool to see JMS work on him sometime!
Well hey there, did you check out the newest issue of Cindy Li? Well why the heck not! It’s free for Pete sake! This issue finally explains what the heck has been going on- enjoy 
Have you ever had the joy of launching a new web pages, telling all everyone you know about it and then discovery the front page link doesn’t work. Well you know how I feel now. Wow, that was bad! Good news is it’s fixed, so you can all read the new Cindy Li comic book. You could still find if you ‘walked around’ the site a bit, but now the main link works! Hopefully you all don’t hate me too much now because of it!
So please enjoy the new Cindy, the new GoldStar, and of course the new Zia!
Happy Holidays, party people! I hope everyone is having a good time. As for me, I’m behind schedule on everything, as I attempt to do everything! So, just my usual holiday season. I’ve got plans for a new Christmas animation, but I haven’t been able to do much with it for two years now! Been too busy finalizing Cindy Li. The second comic will be released any day now. As well as a new Gold Star.
As the New Year rolls in, I am starting production on my next project- since, as I’ve said, Cindy Li is all in the can. Too early to really talk about, but my one hope is it doesn’t take me as long to complete as Cindy Li did- life throws too many curve balls, ya know.
Now I thought I’d bore you with one of the gifts I got this season- An Atari FlashBack- the new one with original ‘shaped’ joysticks (a bit smaller than the original joysticks). Yes, as a child one of my greatest Christmas gifts was an Atari 2600- Actually it was a Sear Tele-Game, same dif. Many, many hours of my youth were spent playing that. I even enjoyed the Pac-Man for it (even though it looked like hell). I actually still have the machine in a box somewhere. But hooking it up to modern TV’s is a trick- and it’s not in the best condition. So my wife got me this baby- though she can’t understand how I can still scream as the dragons from Adventure are chasing me. Only problem with it, as any old schooler like me might know, is some of the best games weren’t owned by Atari- talking Pitfall, Demon Attack, Cosmic Ark, River Raid, and I loved Tron’s Deadly Disc, Star Wars the Empire Strikes Back, Krull and MegaForce. If only companies would just let those go for cheap (serious is there much money to get out of them!?) Or if the manufacturer allowed upgrades to it. Pay to download games and install them on the FlashBack. Life would be grand! Still, many cool games on this, and I love the ‘original’ joysticks. Playing on a computer keyboard just can’t cut it for these games- and the original FlashBack joysticks were pretty bad!
Now I suppose it’s just my age, but watching the video game evolution happen while being a kid was pretty damn magical. Enjoying Space Invades, getting Pac-Man fever (sorry), and then seeing Donkey Kong- it’s no wonder that even though the fade passed, those games have more appeal today than say the hula-hoop. I still miss those old arcades- for a few dollars you could play Joust, Mappy, Omega Race, The Red Baron, Defenders, Wizard of Wor- even ‘newer’ games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Double Dragon, Bad Dudes, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat. What a way to spend an afternoon or an evening. Arcades today, for me anyway, are just kinda sad. A dance game, a shoot ‘em up, an expensive riding one, then just the same old games that have been around since 1930! No magic, no fun. So that’s why I feel games of those days still have merit. Sure you can’t walk around a virtual world, living out a movie plot- which don’t get me wrong is frick’n awesome. But the skill games of light, and high scores are great as well- and an iPad can’t compete with a dark lit room of neon and video, drinking soda with your friends as you are ‘are your own’ with a pocket full of quarters. So long live the Atari- or Sear Tele-Game, you blew our minds and you’re still fun. Even if some of the fun is now laughing at how silly it all looks
Well the first issue of “Cindy Li: Three of a Kind” is available for your reading pleasure. I hope you’ll enjoy it. Feel free to drop me a line if you do or even if you don’t As I have mentioned, it’s a six issue mini-series, and all six issues have been produced, so no worries about me leaving you high and dry and not finishing it. This first issue really sets up all the confusion of the madcap tale. And I promise you the whole plot will be explained by issue 3- goodness knows I hate it when writers hold off on the focus of the plot until the second to the last issue. Well that’s not happing here. We have two issue of what the heck crazy fun, a reveal of what’s up, and three issues of, ok how do we get out of this mess! Hope I didn’t give too much away.
Be sure to check out GoldStar too! GoldStar is my homage to the kid superheroes of 60’s anime, like Astroboy, Prince Planet and Space Ace. The first story, if I can call it that, basically explains his world. Next month will present his first real adventure. Each story, like this month’s will be three pages long (as it was meant to be a back-up feature), so short kinetic adventures, like old Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
Lastly, there’s Zia’s weekly strip, while it’s not new material, I’m presenting it again to keep the site lively. And, as they say, if you haven’t read it, it’s new to you!
So enjoy!
Well as blogs go, it’s been a while since my last update. Why, well as usual plans get complicated! The short answer now is, Cindy Li will now be a free webcomic!
Starting in December, the first issue of Cindy Li: Three of a Kind will be released online. You can read it right here on the Toonocity.com website or download a cbr file to take with you anywhere for FREE. I’ve often thought it was pretty lame that some companies don’t allow you to download their comics. Which means if you lose internet connection, you’ve lost your comicbook collection! So read Cindy online or offline. Your choice- and if you are feeling generous, you can purchase a downloadable issue for $1.35, which will include some of my sketch book work of Cindy, and other behind the scenes work.
So please enjoy and tell your friends and neighbors! Zia’s comic strip should get back on track in December too. I’m looking forward to reading your comments- good and bad!
So remember December 1st, free Cindy Li comic!
Happy Thanksgiving,
Tom Fremgen
Well, as I was chatting last time, Leji Matsumoto’s Captain Harlock is my favorite Anime character. Just one bad@$$ honorable dude. Having a little spare time, I knocked out a picture of my man, and thought I’d share it with ya. Enjoy…
Well just the other day I pulled out my Megazone 23 sound track record album to listen to. Yes, that’s right vinyl! I’ve had this sucker for a long time, and haven’t listen to it in a long time neither! But we got a record player in the studio, so I thought I’d dust it off. Reminded me of the ‘good ole days’ of anime. Mind you, I’m sure everyone has their own, ‘good ole days’ of anime. Mine was about 1986-1991. Back when you had to know someone, who knew someone, who knew someone, who knew someone, who knew some, who lived in Japan. That final person would record tv and movies onto VHS tapes and send them back to the states, to get copied over and over again. So any tape you got your hand on was like gold (even though the quality was often crap). It was like a very exclusive club. You had to know someone to be a member. Going over to that friend’s house or apartment, who had a new tape of something. Watching it closely to try and figure out the story by the acting alone. Then talking about how amazing it was.
Like most people, Robotech had started it all. I had seen Starblazers and Speed Racer, but Robotech was the big one. Then I found Captain Harlock and the Queen of Thousand Years, next through my growing network of friends I moved on to raw anime, still in Japanese on crappy vhs tapes anime.
Back in those days we had never seen anything like that. Well animated tv shows!? That didn’t star one dimension goof characters or action heroes that could never hit anyone!? At that time even Disney wasn’t doing too well. But here, or there, there in Japan- the promised land, action, comedy, and drama (and girls, would you look at those girls!!!) like you’ve never seen before! And the artwork! Everything is so detailed and expressive! These are the greatest cartoons ever made!!!!!! Or at least it sure felt like it. Who cares if they were all in Japanese and you couldn’t speak Japanese. Sure family members wondered what the heck you were watching and why. “You can’t even understand it!” It’s doesn’t matter! It’s the greatest thing ever! SuperFriends are dead to me!
Yup, what a time. No dubs or subtitles; No dvd’s at BestBuy or Amazon; No Mangas at the comic book store or book store; no websites. Only a few small clubs that communicated with the mail (the mail!?!), photocopies of Japanese magazines, translated scripts, fan art, fan stories, and character guides and synopses of shows. A few comic book stores, usually the really crappy ones, had source. Where they got actual Japanese mooks (magazine/book) of anime shows. $20 to $50 a pop. Yes, only the rare brave few were anime fans in those days.
I eventually fell out of watching anime. All the story telling that was original and fresh, started looking repetitive. I think I could only watch some tough guy take off his sunglass and step on them so many times. I’d check back in every now and then, Dragonball Z, Cowboy Bebop, a Miyazaki movie and so forth. The art style has changed, which is a good thing, but I miss the old look sometimes. But as I said last time, being a collector means you can always go back, if you even left! Ah the good ole days! I think I need to pull out the old vcr, call up some old friends and order a few pizzas.
Now, I’m sure some of you are asking what I watched, a natural thing for nerds to ask. Well my all time favs that I still have on tape and the mangas of are Space Pirate Harlock, Saint Seiya, and Orange Road. But I also had a ton of fun with Bubble Gum Crisis, Iczer-1, Macross (Robotech), Orguss, Zillion, Area 88, Lodoss War, Lupin, Lum, the Dirty Pair, Shurato, Project Aok, City Hunter, Arion, Windaria, Leda, Rumic World, Maison Ikkoko, Nausicaa, and of course Megazine 23.
Yes, I’ve been spending some of my spare time with one. If you’re not a child of the 70’s like me, then you might not know about the awesomeness that was/is the Mego Batcave (you can check out pictures here- http://www.megomuseum.com/wgsh/playsets/batcave.html ). The toy company Mego had the rights to pretty much all things superheroes back in the 60’s and 70’s. And their 8 inch figure line was clearly the best, featuring action figures with real cloth clothing- boots, capes everything, very cool. Infact the bodies were pretty much identical, only the heads and costume changed for the different characters, from say the Human Torch to Joker. One of their first playsets for the figures was the Batcave! Foldout cardstock covered in plastic, barely two stories high, and covered in cool marker illustrations. It featured the Batsignal, which yes did shine a bat shaped light on the wall, the bat pole, and the batcomputer (which was the cheapest piece of the set).
Anyway, I was lucky enough to have one as a boy, and still have it to this day. So, I pulled it out of storage and set it up the other day, bring Batman and Robin, and the Batmobile with it. They have all gone through some mighty battles, let me tell ya! These aren’t collector’s items, these are toys that saw heavy action! Infact, Riddler and Penguin (never had Joker) haven’t survived to this day. In setting it up, I knew I was missing the Batcomputer, for so long, that I don’t even remember what it looked like! So I looked online and saw pictures of it’s design! I snagged a picture, copied it in Illustrator, and tada! I now have a Batcomputer, crazy! Then I took measurements for my missing Batpole, one trip to the hardware store and- tada! I now have a Batpole! Last thing on my list is the Batsignal, thankfully I still have it, I’m sure it would cost a ton on ebay. And it kinda works, but it needs some work. Hopefully I can find someone to tighten it up and it will be smooth sailing again.
It’s pretty cool to see it all set-up again. This was my toy of toys for many years- before the Atari showed up. Watching Adam West in reruns, or the cool Filmation cartoon reruns on the vacuum tube TV, blue bath towel around my neck and having my own adventures with the dynamic duo, thanks to Mego- and my parents! If you really loved your childhood, I don’t see why you should let go of it. Sure you might have to pay bills and work a crummy job, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go back and remember the Batmoblie ripping around the house, and still be able to hold it in your hands, proof that it all happened and it was all good. Now, if only I had the Batcopter to perch on top the Batcave….
The Offical blog of Toonocity
http://www.toonocity.com/