Just had dinner at Hana Grill right outside… I’m Flashing some character designs here at WBA (well, not really while I’m distracting myself with this blog). Eddie is sketching some new designs and storyboard panels.

How time flies. Tomorrow we have a meeting with WB Consumer Products. Thurs morning is a major pitchboard meeting; Thurs afternoon is the 3rd voice recording session this season.

I am hoping Friday will be a day-off and we can take a road trip. I don’t really care where. We just want to get OUT of L.A. hit the roads and see a slice of roadside Americana. Maybe we’ll go to Disneyland & San Diego. Maybe north… Someone was telling me yesterday about the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. Sounds totally mad.

This email below was forwarded to me from my Dad a couple of days ago (from a hospital in Hong Kong):

Hundreds of staff are working with me and they are all facing the same risk of infection. It is really sad that over last 2-week fight 8% of our staff have been infected despite droplets precaution, probably due to pitfalls like air leak on N95 mask, rubbing eyes/nose after touching the mask, etc. So you can imagine how contagious this virus is! The outbreak in Hong Kong’s Amoy Garden is not surprising to me because this is exactly what has happened in ward 8A. The only difference is that the number of infectious index cases now in Amoy Garden is 60 times of PWH’s.  

We do believe this infection has a wide spectrum of clinical presentation ranging from sore throat and low grade fever to full blown ARDS/BOOP. We think the clinical presentation depends partly on the dose of inoculum. The ultimate protection against this new virus is our immunity and inevitably all of us will be infected eventually. The purpose of preventive measure is to minimise the dose of virus so as to avoid severe complication.

Could you please forward these messages to all your friends and relatives and ask them to distribute further?

• Always wear a well-fitted mask (N95 or 3 ply surgical) in escalator, bus, MTR, train, office, restaurant and shopping mall. Don’t go to cinema.
• Push the button in the lift using a key to avoid any direct contact with your bare hand. If you can tolerate a latex glove, wear it.
• Don’t touch your mask, it traps a lot of droplets.
• All the surfaces within a distance of 5 feet from a patient are highly infectious because of droplets. Wash your hands frequently.
• Don’t rub your eyes, touch your nose or mouth before washing hands.
• Clean the door handles, furnitures and floor with diluted (1 in 100) bleaching detergent. Dettol is NOT useful. Wash your clothes immediately after going home.
• Patient is highly infectious 2-3 days even before developing illness. Treat those without wearing mask potentially infectious even if they look healthy.

Take care buddy. 

 Dr Justin Wu

THE GREAT SASUKE!

Yahoo News: Masked Wrestler wins Japan Assembly Seat

Japan Times: Governor looks to unmask wrestler

“This is my face,” he declared. “I have no intention of taking the mask off.”

Masuda was elected to his third term Sunday.

“I’m sure it’s a matter of opinion, but I think he should take the mask off,” Masuda said. “Politicians make painful decisions, and also express joy, and voters look at their faces and decide (whether they accept those actions). Voters should be allowed to see a politician’s facial expressions.”

Eddie: They voted for a guy in a mask, they should get a guy in a mask!

WEEKEND MOVIES

Saturday night

After the GR2 store opening and dinner with Jorge, Sandra, Gabe and John in MicroTokyo, we went and saw Better Luck Tomorrow - touted as a very important indie film because it is the first Asian-American film to be picked up by a major distributor at Sundance(MTV)… a film which is said to challenge the usual Asian-American stereotypes …

What comes to mind when you think of Asians in cinema? Perhaps, this comes to mind: Kung-fu fighting by martial artists, exotic women, the Chinese Mafia, delivery boys, computer science nerds and broken English. Director Justin Lin’s new film shatters these misconceptions. - Anardeep Gill/New University review. (More reviews/articles here)

Apparently the director had his cast work for free and used several credit cards to get the movie made (instead of sacrificing his vision and succumbing to studio wishes for an all-white cast).

So does it succeed? I think we all had our doubts especially about the ending: Lead character ends up getting the girl (with the flashy car) after killing her boyfriend. He and his teenage buddies are nerds by day, smalltime mafia by night.. er… Does this film really break stereotypes? 

Maybe the most refreshing thing was just seeing an all Asian-American cast period. Even if they weren’t always likeable. And it was a slick film.

And guess what? Axel Rose was there across the aisle from us!  However he walked out before the movie even started. Either he was sick of waiting (the movie was delayed while they ran sound tests for half an hour) or maybe it was Gabe singing Guns n Roses songs…

I prefer to believe the latter - Eddie

Eddie: As for Better Luck Tomorrow…it was a pretty standard, middle-class, school-angsty thing that had good characters, good acting, but not a hell of a lot going on in the plot department.  I found it ironic that a film such as this – that is going all out to ‘shatter misconceptions’ about Asian-Americans – potrayed the only African-American characters in the movie as uzi-totin’, drive by hoods, looking for trouble.

Link to more BLT reviews and interviews

Sunday night

We went to the American Cinematheque’s screening of the noir classic: Nightmare Alley (with Tyrone Power). Eddie Muller who wrote Dark City was there as host; also a chanteuse on piano (doing a noir-ish number) before the movie. Followed by an interview with Colleen Gray who played the leading actress. But we had to leave because there was work to do …

There’s something about carny movies that we both love. In Nightmare Alley, Tyrone Power’s character starts off as a conman-magician-mindreader and degenerates into a GEEK (sideshow freak who bites the heads off chicken for money… in this case, booze).

Interesting how the term “geek” means something completely different today.

A novel that I highly recommend: Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. This is one of my all-time favourites. It’s disturbing, intense, tragic, and is about a family of circus freaks and their quest for power, fame and fortune. Deserves to be made into a graphic novel or animated movie…

* Edited

Revolution Pro!

Yesterday’s was arguably one of the BEST live wrestling experiences we’ve ever had. This was our first time at an indie show. And this being situated in a small and intimate arena (part of the Frank & Sons Collectibles building), meant we were a mere two rows away from the ring and could see everything!

Revolution Pro is best described as a hybrid “lucha-japanese prowrestling” event. Most masks and costumes are very Japanese-style with lots of horns, fins, intricate detail. The movements are a combination of American pro-wrestling and lucha libre. Great fun and variety: comical matches were thrown in with the hardcore stuff.

One of our fave matches was the undercard -  three masked guys (see all correct names and results here) versus a Country Boy, City Boy and a chicken-suit wrestler (Gallinero 2) who made his ring entrance flapping his arms and waddling to a squawky chickeny theme song. Hilarious stuff!

GALLINERO 2

…From the mean streets of Tokyo (yeah, sure…) – TARO!

The main event was between Super Dragon and Taro vs Scorpio Sky and Quicksilver. We had seen Super Dragon wrestle in Sydney a couple of years ago as a tecnico. Here he is a badass rudo and he sure was brutal – which is another feature of Rev Pro; the wrestlers work really stiff, and you can feel each chop to the chest and each impact whenever the wrestlers connect!

Above: Super Dragon, Scorpio Sky, Quicksilver

Super Dragon was definitely the star.  He had so much brooding, rudo presence, and had no hesitation in leg-dropping his own partner, Taro, if he got in the way!

Another highlight involved an attack on a guest announcer, who half-convincingly “fell” (ie, threw himself) off the ring with ripped jacket and shirt, and had to be rushed out of the arena on a stretcher. All part of the show, of course.

Everyone get out and support Rev Pro – you’ll see more skill and athleticism in one event than in a hundred WWE bore-fests. The fact these guys put everything on the line for just a few hundred fans, says it all.

It was great to see our Creative Director on Mucha Lucha, Ken Kessel (and his 11-year-old wrestling-fan son) also there. Too cool.

Expect to see a Mucha Lucha episode soon with demented chicken-wrestlers!  ¡Arriba Rev Pro!

Oh dammit I am hooked. Here is my latest figure from the Supermilk Chan collection - THE NAKED PRESIDENT. Yes, that’s an apple on his weenie.

Monsterism Rings and other toys

I’m not sure if these colorful rings are in fact affiliated with Monsterism but they’re so cute! The above picture was taken from www.doxob.com – a discussion forum for designers and toy geeks based in KL, Malaysia.

We were in KL last year… a fantastic place to buy cheap, good-quality bootleg urban vinyl figures and other toys. The rings above are priced at approx. AU$10 (US$6) each at doxob.com

Thank God it’s Friday. There is some work to be done but I’m not going to write about that. Some plans for the weekend:

• Revolution Pro/Swap-meet in the ‘City of Industry’ (I don’t think this resembles the glowing smokey opening scene of Blade Runner though it should)
• GR2 Grand Opening in Sawtelle. Giant Robot’s second store.
• Nightmare Alley is screening at the Egyptian Theatre as part of a Film Noir festival.
• Visit Fry’s Electronics – there’s this cool little digital camera I am dying to check out. (Joel owns one and has been flashin’ this around way too much)
• Start doing something, anything … for the Viva Lucha show!
• Read Flash MX Design for TV and Video  (borrowed from WB). There’s a BRIEF mention of ML:

Scheduled to debut in the fall of 2002, this will be the first Flash series to appear on a US Network. Unfortunately at the time of this writing, Kids WB is keeping this series under wraps and not much information is available.

What a shame! I recall emailing Janet Galore (the author) last year after hearing about this book, and giving her WBA’s contact details. But it was too late. The book had already gone to print.

Flipping through the pages quickly… There seems to be lots of stuff we already know and also tons of useful very technical information in here.There’s also an interview with Bardel - who mention they are working on a Flash series for a “major network” but can’t talk about it. There’s also an interview with Sydney studio Sixty40 who are going to be doing sound fx for our Cosmic Baby pilot.

MR. BARBERA’s BIRTHDAY

As the entire staff of WB Animation made their way downstairs to the party, The Flintstones theme song played. There were Hanna Barbera cartoons showing on a large monitor.

Well, of all times this could happen, our camera died on us. We only managed to get a few shots:

click on the images for closer view

 L to R standing: A voice director (what’s his name?), Lucille Bliss, June Foray, Alan Oppenheimer, Janet Waldo, Casey Kasem, Gary Owens, Carlton (Mr. B’s assistant and organizer of this event), Doug Young (behind him), and Sander Schwartz (WBA President)

L to R seated: Jerry Eisenberg (Hanna-Barbera layout arist/designer), Joe Barbera (THE MAN himself on his 92nd birthday), Iwao Takamoto (designer legend/creator of Scooby-Doo).

Something we learnt today: when Iwao Takamoto designed The Jetsons, he researched SILVERWARE as reference for body shapes! Wow.

Above: Sander Schwartz and the b’day present – drawings of Joe Barbera by various artists at WB Animation. That’s Jean McCurdy in the blue shirt (ex-president of WBA).

Janet Waldo (Judy Jetson) gives her speech.

The walls were decorated with old B/W photos from Mr. B’s life. There was food. There was old interview footage with Mr. B. He’s such a funny man.

Eddie:  This was definitely a very surreal experience; as a kid I used to draw Hanna Barbera characters and send them in to Cartoon Corner, (Channel 9, 4PM ever day)…now I’m attending Joe Barbera’s birthday party!

Seeing Casey Kasem was also great – apart from being Shaggy, I remember him also from American Top 40, which he used to countdown every week.  I think his greatest performance is immortalised in the Jacknife Lee song, ‘A Dog Named Snuggles’, where we hear the REAL Casey!

Meanwhile …

 Terrorism Kit So Dumb It’s A Winner (smh.com.au)

“The Australian Government’s $15 million fridge magnet campaign to educate Australians about terrorism has scooped an international award as one of the most stupid security measures introduced since September 11.”

HTML/CSS/Xanga skins… This one’s for the Xangans or any web designers. I’ve been dying to tweak this site layout for some time now, but am restricted by my very basic understanding of HTML. My knowledge of CSS is practically non-existent. (one day I will learn)

Here is what I am trying to do:

• Insert the archive calendar on one side of the page but with smaller-sized font. I have tried using <font> tags around <$Calendar$> on my xanga skin to try make the text smaller… but this isn’t working.
• Insert “>Sites I Read, Blogroll (which you can check out on the top of our personal Links page) Again, I would like to customise fonts and all but don’t know how to do this.
• Some xanga sites have different graphics for eprops and smileys. How does one do this?

Any advice appreciated! Please leave a comment or email me

Not much to blog about these past two days. We’re all brainstorming story premises for ML.

Tonight,we returned to our apartment and discovered we had no electricity. Someone hadn’t registered the place with the Water-Power board….

So rather than sitting around in semi-darkness doin’ nothin’, we came over here to WBA to use the computers. Glad we’re staying in Sherman Oaks, after all!

 This PICTURE put a smile on our faces today.

OK, here goes for the second time. This laptop crashed and  I lost everything the first time…

Weekend Pics

At Pink’s Hotdogs - an LA institution where there are queues out front 24/7. See all the famous people on the walls? We had to go and see what the fuss was all about. After wolfing down my Spicy Ozzy Osbourne Dog, I say it gets FIVE STARS! Eddie had a Bacon Chilli Cheese Dog and it also got a high rating. Mind you, we were ravenously hungry from not having eaten anything all day.

Today: Astro Boy’s Birthday Party & Postwar Anime Exhibition:

Ricky Garduno & Ellie; Gabe Swarr & (? I can’t remember her name, sorry!); Eddie and Tony Mora

The exhibition consisted of artwork and videoclips from Astro Boy, Gigantor, Kimba, Speed Racer etc. and vendors selling books, figurines, DVDs.

Fred Ladd (producer of the American-language Astro Boy series in the 60′s) gave an opening speech with stories of the collaborative process between the Japanese studio (led by Tezuka) and the American studio on the series. Then they played snippets of the Astro Boy theme song, and everyone sang Happy Birthday.

I think that’s one of the original character designers from Toei Studios on the far left; Fred Ladd is standing behind the cake; Fred Patten (Japanime scholar/writer) is partially hidden behing the man in black. I don’t know who the other people were.

Free Birthday cake, tea and coffee!

*********************

As always, we couldn’t resist spending money. We bought some ‘Spirited Away’ figurines and this Kinnikuman plastic mask below, as modelled by Eddie.

One of the vendors were exhibiting these awesome Tezuka School of Animation books…

Of course I had to buy them but was told they wouldn’t be available until June. Luckily, an hour later in our strolls through Little Tokyo, I found some copies for sale at a bookstore.

It’s always refreshing to read animation instruction books that aren’t written by Disney-style classical animators. (…as much as I still appreciate our copies of Preston Blair & Richard Williams …Well, what else is there?)

All the basic principles are there in Volume 1: walk and run cycles, effects cycles (wind, water, fire, hair, smoke… all that stuff that Japanese animators excel at) and it’s really cute the lessons are presented by Astro Boy characters.

Volume 2 is super cool and includes movement cycles for even fish, birds, insects and baboons! We’ll definitely be going back to buy extra copies for our animation friends in Sydney. The 2 volumes (I wish there were more!) are also available online at www.akadotretail.com

SUPER MILK CHAN!

 Figurines from the Giant Robot store:

Eddie and I were introduced to the whimsical & offbeat SuperMilk Chan series a couple of years ago when Rodrigo (Locomotion Channel) sent us a couple of episodes on tape

In every episode, Super Milk receives a call from the President and goes on a mission… which inevitably goes offtrack … Each episode ends with Super Milk and friends singing about wanting to go and eat sushi.

The episodes we watched were in Japanese with Spanish subtitles, but the designs by Hideyuki Tanaka are so cool, it didn’t matter that we only half-understood the dialogue.

website: www.supermilk-chan.com

update: The whole set of figurines!