Tyranny: The Series

Written/directed by and starring John Beck Hofmann (of Weatherman Films), TYRANNY THE SERIES is a web series of epic scale & sophistication, showing the magnitudes of high production quality a web series can achieve.
Release of TYRANNY THE SERIES had been halted for over a year, as the creators attempted & failed to acquire corporate support before officially presenting it; with a decision eventually being made to go independent, rather than not show it at all.

It would be more accurate to say that corporate sponsors failed to acquire-- failed to appreciate & understand-- Tyranny; a situation quite familiar to the Wingmen of the Artemis Eternal film project initiative.
But I digress...

Daniel McCarthy, an artist from San Francisco, volunteers for a brain mapping experiment at Berkeley University, in November 1999. During the experiment, he has a vision of what he believes to be the future.
Unable to clearly remember what it was he saw & what happened in the experiment, Daniel embarks on a quest to solve the mystery, discovering a secret cabal orchestrating a massive global conspiracy to control the world’s population, and encountering underground revolutionaries. Nothing is exactly as it seems.
Particularly interesting & appropriate about Tyranny is that it blurs the lines between reality & fiction (in an almost ARG-like feature); presented as documenting a true story, wherein the characters depict actual people in real life.
Main character Daniel is coincidentally a filmmaker, using his art craft to document this intriguing adventure.

http://www.myspace.com/tyrannytv

Riddle Me This! Who dresses like a fictional character, but isn't?

One of the attractions of sci-fi/ comic book conventions is the Cosplay.
I love seeing people go all-out on a costume, and are serious about the craftsmanship and authenticity.
When a costume is well designed & constructed, and suits the wearer... it is a wonderful site to behold.
Fictional characters made manifest in flesh, as a living—possibly interactive-- work of art (especially if they are in character).
A talented and aesthetically pleasing woman calling herself Riddle is such an artisan.

*image credit- Riddle/ Hime Arts*

Though I’ve never had the good fortune to see Riddle or her marvelous clothing artistry in person, her portfolio of costumes derived from comics and anime is substantial and spectacular.
And most impressively-- as a fashion designer and seamstress, Madame Riddle makes all her costumes herself!
“Aka- Riddle” clearly has both the talent and body for the types of costumes she creates.
Treat your eyes to samples of her tremendous skill as costumer, cosplayer and model on her myspace or her in-development personal site

Daleks Restored in Doctor Who Fan Film

Restoration of the Daleks , a short Doctor Who fan film created by filmmaker, animator & graphic designer Robert Ritchie, is pleasantly surprising for being not only a beguiling Doctor Who fan film, but also one of high quality production. Especially impressive, considering the minimalist simplicity of the story and set design. Robert & crew manage to do quite a lot with relatively very little.

*image credit- Robert Ritchie*

Like Star Wars, Doctor Who has many fan films, but so very few that are good. To be clear, this is one of the good ones.
The ego-maniacal monologuing of Davros and arrogant servitude of the Dalek are exact duplication of the characters as depicted in the series, visually and behaviorally. Appearance, vocal cadence and nuance of speech for both Davros and Dalek are uncannily authentic, and avoid any feeble caricature. The only real fail of this film is the poor lighting, which cloaks the first third % in darkness.

Restoration of the Daleks is conceptually in-canon, occurring soon after The Time War, initiating the, er- restoration of Daleks we see in the newer Who seasons.

Wil Wheaton Remembers The Future

Wil Wheaton (the renown geek, writer/ blogger and the guy who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek) has been encouraging people to get excited and make things. I commend, and am inspired by, his enthusiastic advocacy to be creative.
One of the most awesome creative project ideas to ever spring forth from the mind of Wil Wheaton is Memories Of The Futurecast ... a brilliant innovation of the trendy transmedia concept--- which is coincidentally all the rage these days.

*image credit- Will Hindmarch and Wil Wheaton*

Futurecast simultaneously extends and translates his Memories Of The Future book from print media into audio.
In Futurecast, Wil reads—- with small venue intimacy-- excerpts from the companion book in his uniquely geeky style of delivery: providing comedically interpretive episode recaps full of snark, behind the scenes commentary & personal insights/ experiences from being Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: TNG, and spontaneous "in the moment" asides.
But as if that wasn’t enough, that’s not all! The whole precession-- much like his entertaining live book readings-- is laced with Wheaton’s "trademark" personality, humor & silliness... marvelously augmented by his non-zero voice-acting skills.
Oh, and there’s a front desk bell (to punctuate certain moments, of course) that becomes almost a character itself in this play.
And I mean 'play' in all senses of the words, because Memories Of The Futurecast is both a fine performance and a lot of fun.

LONG STORY SHORT: variant cover

my muse suggested I create a variant cover for my new sci-fi short story book, Long Story Short. I thought it was a cool idea, so I made something.
featuring image of recurring character: Dreamwalker/ Arcanum agent Cassie O'Brien.
includes the same interior content as original first printing with green apple on cover.
view/ order Long Story Short
Truth is no stranger to fiction. Sci-fi is happening all around us everyday, IN the everyday nuance of our lives.
This is the fundamental theme of the stories in my book.

Abigail, In The Machine

Written & directed by Emily Yoshida as her UCLA film school thesis project (at the end of 2007), Abigail is conceptually a rather sophisticated & elaborate production for a student film, and Emily’s first.
*image credit- Emily Yoshida*

A social commentary extending our present into an imagined near-future, Abigail depicts a culture which has become so saturated with electronic communication & social media that people start to lose their actual physical presence.
I postponed blogging this amazing film, hoping it would be available for sale. Currently, Emily is giving Abigail for free on DVD to anyone who emails her asking for a copy. And I didn’t want people to take advantage of her generosity.
But this adorable, enigmatic short film is just way too good to not get attention & be seen, and she is apparently willing to pass it out like a promotional flier… happy & satisfied with any interest in her film.
Abigail tells a very intriguing story, and I highly recommend you get a copy and share it & awareness of it with your sci-fi loving friends.

Here’s the official synopsis:
In the urban wasteland of the not too distant future, Sam and her best friend Abigail visit a high-profile club in the virtual underworld. Abigail is thrilled when she meets her favorite celebrity and ends up going home with him, but the next day she is nowhere to be found. Sam goes looking for her, only to find her everywhere-– she has turned into an international icon and sex symbol overnight. Sam follows the trail from the streets of her city to the top of the virtual hierarchy to find out what happened to Abigail, and what she discovers is much larger than she could ever imagine. In a society where so much of a person resides in the Network, what becomes of the rest of us? Abigail may have disappeared off the grid, but Sam resolves to keep looking, no matter where it takes her.

I give A Comicbook Orange 4 out of 5 oranges

It was a while before I could really appreciate A Comicbook Orange , a quirky web series produced by and starring wonderfully geeky Casey McKinnon, who reviews comic books, interviews comic book creators, and performs amusing parody skits.
Although, from the beginning, a good—often very good—show, Comicbook Orange was an excellent concept that fell short of excellence in execution.
But eventually I realized that it was/is a work in progress... a dynamic & fluid experimentation.
With the inception of its third season, Comicbook Orange finally found itself, and became awesome, adding a fantastic new intro/theme song, improved composition, a stable structure and more refined skits.
Most of the comics she reviews and people she interviews I don’t care about, but Casey McKinnon’s personality, presentation and production values are impeccable. Both her reviews and interviews are generally informative , concise, well directed. Casey has figured out how a comic book review/interview show should be done, infusing it with a flare of authentically endearing geek charm, humor and insight.
Since episode one, her cleverly imaginative and amusing skits mimicking scenes & tropes from sci-fi/action TV, movies & comics , for me, have always been the highlight of each episode.
This recent 4th season episode, in which Casey wrote and performed a brilliantly epic Dr. Horrible musical homage (commemorating the release of a Dr. Horrible one shot comic this ep featured), revealed to me that her eccentric show had achieved greatness, deserving a place on this blog.


Through the trial and error of experience, combined with her initiative and ingenuity, host Casey has developed a truly extraordinary web series.
Watch A Comicbook Orange on youtube...

Gotham's Guardian: Forsaken?

Even without seeing the movie or knowing the exact plot, and even if this vid is never released as a movie, this trailer for short film Batman Forsaken -- by Gotham Public Works-- looks magnificent!

Casting, acting, costumes, sets, makeup, concept, directing... all exceptionally high caliber.
Several talented cos-players who are seriously invested in their craft, with clearly a deep affection for the DC comics characters they portray, formed a kind of touring theater show group... and then decided to extend their artistry by making a movie which promises to be as impressive as its very impressive trailer.
I'm very much excited to see this trailer for Batman Forsaken expanded into a movie.
Browse through and marvel at the amazing image gallery.

LONG STORY SHORT: it has arrived!

150 page Twitter-based science fiction anthology, collecting the entire @Seanachai short story series into portable book format.
Featuring an introduction from story teller Kevin Stubblefield, author's commentary, and quite possibly an original theme song by Kate Godfrey. Plus, the pretty nifty looking cover-- which you can see over on the right. (the flier above is also in the book)
The truly unique attribute of Long Story Short is an innovative design format, replicating a twitter reading experience. Book text flows from back to front/ bottom to top.

Order Long Story Short ... click through to read the first few pages-- such as Kevin's magnificent intro-- free (if you wanna read MY forward-- which I promise you totally will, you've gotta buy this book). $13.31

Alphacat: The Barack Faux-bama

Iman Crosson, aka- Alphacat not only does an outstanding Barack Obama impersonation, but also integrates that impersonation into clever political sketch comedy that is both humorously witty and intelligent.
His well written & produced parodies are as amusing as they are thoughtful. Which is to say, very.
The subtle nuances of characterization are vital for impersonations to create an illusion of believability, rather than caricature.
Alphacat imitates President Obama’s voice inflection, appearance, mannerism and speech so near perfectly, you could almost believe he is Obama.