Toren Atkinson’s Absolute Blog

Finally!

Pencilled, inked and colored 98% by hand.

I’m getting some WWFJ pins made to take with me to Emerald City comic con this weekend. Check out these designs I whipped up after work today….

Photos Sean Corrigall

This morning we put on the Saturday Morning Cartoon Party at the Rio Theater.

It went super great!
There were a few hiccups – starting late, the theater was cold, sound levels on different commercials and cartoons varied wildly – but other than that everyone had a great time and we are going to do it again next week! JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP, WON’T YOU?

Couldn’t find good quality versions of these commercials for the Saturday Morning Cartoon Party – but they’re good enough to blog!

Below is the press release – you’ll recall I have a comic of Go-Rilla VS. Elk Diablo in this book! I’ll be getting my contributor copies around this time so reserve your copy today by emailing me!

PRESS RELEASE
FUNDAY SUNNIES
Friday May 29 | Launch Party at Lucky’s Comics | 5pm
Vancouver, Mar, 26, 2009

For immediate transmission – “Funday Sunnies”, the third publication by Cloudscape Comics. A full-colour salute to classic Newspaper comics. Featuring the talents of local artists From around the lower mainland. They will be taking the book on a tour of North America and launching in Vancouver This May!

This book will be launching at the Emerald City Comicon in Seattle this April 4 and 5. Followed by an appearance at the Stumptown Small Press Expo April 14-15 in Portland.

Expect it to be on sale at all major comic stores in Vancouver this May.
There will be a launch party in Vancouver May 29 at Lucky’s Comics. With a display of original artwork, a mini comic jam, and much much more!

Cloudscape have been producing books for the last two years, beginning with Robots Pine Trees and Broken Hearts in early 2008 and Historyonics in November. At a time when most book publishers are cutting back. This collective of artists has pooled their talents and resources to publish their own series of books. They plan even more ambitious projects in the future. Their next project will be a science fiction book expected to land in the spring of 2010.

“A small press book in full colour is virtually unheard of and we are very happy to be adding to Vancouvers rich comic book history” states group leader Jeff Ellis.

Contributors: Alex, Toren Atkinson, Phil Barrett, Ken Boesem, Jonathon Dalton, Jeff Ellis, Lou Ford, Kevin Forbes, Emmett Hall, Julian Lawrence, Steve Lecouilliard, Severine Leibundgut, Christopher Leinonen, Angela Melick, Scott Ritchie, Scott Ritchings, and Colin Upton.
Lucky’s Comics: 3972 Main Street, Vancouver, BC, V5V 3P2
Phone: 604-875-9858
email: luckys@luckys.ca
website: www.luckys.ca
Press Contact: Jeffrey Ellis, email: info@cloudscapecomics.com
For more information, and to buy a book online, visit
www.cloudscapecomics.com
-30-
Source: Jeffrey Ellis
Press Contact
Cloudscape Comics
Vancouver
www.cloudscapecomics.com
info@cloudscapecomics.com

My results from yesterday’s quiz:

Hostile Sexism Score: 0.91
Benevolent Sexism Score: 0.36

What do my scores mean?
The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory measures two separate but related tendencies:

• “Hostile sexism,” which involves negative feelings toward women
• “Benevolent sexism,” a knight-in-shining armor ideology that offers protection and affection to women who conform to traditional gender roles (e.g., cute girlfriend, obedient wife, etc.)

For what it’s worth.

I think if women were in charge of the world there’d be a lot less war. That’s how I’m sexist. How are you sexist?

Here’s a very unscientific and awkwardly worded quiz, but an interesting one:

http://www.understandingprejudice.org/asi/

A little while ago I blogged somewhat snarkily about how I sold my Dungeon Master’s Guide. I didn’t really have time to explain it at the time (and I dont’ really now but I’m going to anyway, while my art scans in).

There are a few things I should mention as a preamble:

1. I was introduced to D&D in Grade 9. Not having a job or an allowance, I didn’t buy my own copy. Rather, I made up my own roleplaying game which was called “Super-Powers” and eventually “Power Enterprise.” I subsequently made up a number of other roleplaying games including Bounty Hunter, Trapland, Godrealms, Ardomworld, and others.
2. In 2000 I co-designed the roleplaying game Spaceship Zero (the rules of which were partially based on Godrealms) which was published by Green Ronin and won a Silver ENnie Award.
3. Last year I ran a 3.5 Edition D&D campaign using Green Ronin’s Freeport series of books.
4. I moved several times last year and my new ethos is ‘less stuff.’
5. I “laid myself off” from my current gaming group until I have more free time to play and, preferably, learn the rules.

I am 95% sure I won’t DM 4th Edition D&D. I have other gaming plans should I ever have the time to enact them, but even when I ran Freeport I used the D&D 3.5 rules pretty loosely. I doled out XP without consulting any books, just made up a lump sum per session based on how fast I wanted the group to advance. Monster & antagonist weapons always did a pre-calculated average amount of damage so I didn’t have to waste time rolling and doing math. We made use of Fate Points which were a mash of Mutants & Masterminds Hero Points and Spaceship Zero’s Zero Points. We used an insanity system, critical hit system and critical miss system all from either other sources or stuff we made up. Suffice to say, I almost never used the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

So I don’t anticipate missing it.

Further, I have to say I like the idea of not having a DMG. I feel, and this is probably a personal change rather than external, that some rule books are too calculated, too structured, too restrictive.

Sure, rules are important. Structure is important. They provide a level playing field for everyone – a fairness. Well-designed, balanced game mechanics are a beautiful thing and they’re something I have very much enjoyed picking apart and analyzing in the past. But I’ve always felt that D&D was written for cheaters. Don’t take that the wrong way, because the strength of D&D has always been that it’s the most popular, most well-known RPG. As a result, it is accessible to the broadest range of age groups and indeed gamers in general. Because of the game’s very nature the authors must write the rules for people who don’t understand RPGs or who exploit open-ended concepts or who are for lack of a better word “bad gamers.” I don’t think it’s written for me and the people I game with: mature people with creative and analytical minds but with little free time; people who like to experiment and test the limits of game design and the craft of roleplaying itself. This may be hubris but I don’t think we need an entire book of rules.

For me not having a DMG is freeing. (This despite the fact that I am neither running or even playing in a D&D game at the moment.) It reminds me of my friend’s “Tron” systemless RPG campaign: no dice, no numbers, no character sheets. Fred would tell us what was happening around us and we’d tell him what our characters did. How did he decide whether or not our punches landed on the opponent? Storytelling.

Without a doubt I love Dungeons and Dragons, but it’s never been about the rules (except for the ridiculous ones that became running jokes for all geekdom). It’s always been about the roleplaying and the atmosphere and the imagination and the anticipation of what’s behind that stout reinforced bronze door.

Just don’t ask me to give up my Monster Manuals I-IV because they’re just too cool.

Here’s a tip I learned through the process of inking this half of the cover of Atomic Press’ “World Wildlife Federation of Justice” supplement for Mutants & Masterminds roleplaying game: if you’re using #1003 comic book paper and you feel like flipping the paper over so that the little blue lines won’t subconsciously affect the artwork as you draw on the page – DON’T. The back of the paper has a different ‘tooth’ than the front and if you try to use a nib to ink over the pencils that you have worked long and hard on, the ink will bleed into the fibers of the page so you don’t get clean lines. As a result I had to use a brush almost exclusively on this page which was a limitation I didn’t need.

Anyway, this is more or less the final linework. I’ll be spending some of the weekend colouring and some of the weekend trying to put together a DVD for the Saturday Morning Cartoon Party next week at the Rio Theater!!

Click on the image to make it bigger.