Sherlock Holmes... awesome. I was thinking it was going to be really good from what I had discerned from the trailers. But it was even better than I expected. The storytelling was great, it was modern yet still felt authentically period. The acting from Downey was amazing. His accent was flawless and the character was so rich. Jude Law, also tops but was kinda outshined... not by much though. Mark Strong was superbly sinister. Only main character that didn't really do it for me was Rachel McAdams. She wasn't bad, but just a little bit out of her league I felt.

One thing that seemed to me an... interesting... move by Ritchie was to make Holmes bit of brawler. I've never read any of the books, but from what I've discerned over the years, that seemed to be a little out of character to me? I can see people possibly taking objection to it, but being a bit of a fan of biffo, I welcomed it

Anyways, highly recommended. 4.5 stars from me. David?

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lazytigersystems|art|noise productions presents:


[SECURITY]: short one shot for upcoming OzTAKU anthology
ROCKSALT: graphic novel available now...ish

Rocksalt hub: [link]



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Avatar was fecking cooh!

That is all.

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Long time no d, babies. How are we all?

Super short notice, but I'm hooking up with in the city this sat to celebrate his bday. And we're thinking we'd make into a mini arting meet for anyone who was interested. It would be a totally casual affair and all are completely welcome but I'm assuming the completely ass late notice will mean no one can make it. I just thought it was worth throwing it out there just in case

Oztaku thread is here: [link]

Shout out if you're interested and can make it and we'll sort out a meeting place.

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[link]

sez:

Due to the unknown numbers (or potential numbers) of this meet I'm going to set it in Hyde Park, where we'll stay for the allotted time before doing the usual shamble to all the comic shops and what not.

The meet will kick off at 1:00pm as per usual, and I'll sort out the treasure map.... I mean location map, of where specifically we'll meet.

Hopefully we can get some new blood turning up, because otherwise I'm going to stop calling OzTAKU meets and just call "the four of us go and get drunk somewhere" meets. But seriously though, if you've never come along to a meet up before, now would be a good time to start.

ALSO:

Mark and I were talking about trying to have a bit more of a constructive meet up, in terms of idea promotion. So I'm going to try and bring along some things I have written up for a comic I'm going to start, and I'd like it if people had a look over it and gave me feedback/their thoughts. Everyone else should feel free to do this also if they want to get some outside perspective on something they're working on or even just thinking about. This is not going to be anything terribly formal, and you don't need to feel like you have to participate in it, but if you want to you're more than welcome.


Sorry for the late notice on this to any interested parties out there. I've gotten a little lax in cross promoting these shindigs. Although if you are consistently interested in these things, you should have probably joined the OzTAKU forums by now. So I don't feel too guilty

For those uninitiated but curious, this is an OzTAKU meet, but is completely open to anyone who has a penchant for all things comicky. Come along and say hey if you have the afternoon free and feel like hanging out with some cats and talking art. We're a friendly bunch, we may look a little scary at first, but we promise, we're pleasant company one and all.

Hope to catch you there.

Piece.

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SMASH rocked out, I had a really good time.

There was a limited edition run of 30 Rocksalt GNs and I think about half of them sold. I ran up a bunch of Rocksalt prints but none of them sold at all. I had a done a small A5 run of some fanart and because of the warning of the crackdown on it I was planning to offer them as a freebie with other purchases. But a walk through the artist room showed that about 90% of the stuff on sale was fanart so I decided it was okay to sell them outright. I moved about 5 or 6 Samus/Pikachu prints, 2 or 3 Shiva's and no Survival horror in short skirts. So that was all a little disappointing. As was Sunday, which was entirely dead in the Wacom room where I was with the OzTAKU crew. and I got a little stir crazy towards the end and ended up bailing an hour early. I'd kinda had enough by then anyways. I'm not sure I'm such a big fan of the two day con. If I do one again, I'll probably trade on the first day and spectate on the second.

But besides all that it was a really positive experience. It was great to get out of my little hermit world and throw myself into the Sydney anime community. It was totally awesome to finally meet all these people I've been chatting to online for years now, and a whole bunch I've never talked to before. The OzTAKU crew are a bunch of absolute champions, heaps of fun to hang out with. I was speaking on the storytelling panel which I was completely freeking out about, but everyone was super cooh and encouraging about it. Particularly Henry and Hayden. If any of you cats read this, thanks for all the emotional support

Speaking of the panel, it went pretty well in the end. It was far more casual than I thought it would be, and all the other panelists were pretty cool. Especially who had some interesting professional insight to share. I had a heads up for what questions would be asked, and there was one or two thrown out I wasn't ready for. But I managed to stumble my way through it all. I didn't manage to talk about half of the stuff in my notes, but it seemed to be enough in the end. Between four people the hour was eaten up pretty quickly. Afterwards, Henry said I was the best speaker because I actually managed to keep on topic. He may have just bee being nice, but I was happy to take the compliment at face value. Also a super cute girl came up to the table afterwards and said she enjoyed the panel and found it insightful. That made me happy

I'm not much of a camera person so there isn't much documentation of the event. Thankfully managed to take this: [link] . She has also kicked off a sketchbook at SMASH: [link]

So all in all I've come away from the weekend with with some invaluable experience, and a much greater sense of what to expect from this sort of thing in the future. Hopefully I can improve my promotion skills before the next one rolls around and I can pimp Rocksalt more efficiently But thanks to everyone who came out and said hey. Awesome to meet youse guys, here's to many future shenanigans.

PS Anyone interested in picking up a Rocksalt GN, note me and I'll see what I can work out for you. The first run is pretty much allocated I think but there may be a couple left over. Avi is working on a larger run at the moment, which may be ready for Manifest, I'm not too sure I have to clarify that. But once everything is sorted out I'll post all the details here, so watch this space.

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