Category Archives: Entertainment

July 18, 2012 · 12:56 pm

Rebel Yell

Rebel Yell

Audio:

Lyrics:

‘Bout to do something bold and aggressive
Redirect my whole perspective
Rope the ‘Precious’ on a golden necklace
My spoken message knocks the wind out your solar-plexus
Kids about to enter hell when I’m running’ through your Splinter Cell
You’se a krill I’m a killer whale
Top of the food chain until my mood change
Big up Pen spit poison and produce flame
Introduce slang parallel to Wu-Tang – Only carry loose change
Don’t walk around with big bills to break
Gotta hustle up and look into real estate
Front me an advance, I’m buying property in France
I’m known in a couple camps as the trouble man
Wanna put a couple hundred grand in the mother land
You wanna pimp me out but I got other plans
I want to see you pump your hands if you understand
And you sick of seeing truth stretched like a rubberband

–Won’t Lie to y’all, I’ll put the fear of God inside of y’all

–Inspire y’all reveal facts they’ll never tell

–Holler if you hear me it’s the Rebel Yell

–You heard, if not I’ll say it louder, you heard if not then I’ll Holla

Blast a pistol just to start the race
Shooting blanks at the stars and space
Spit a dart just to scar your face
Drop the bass to bang dents in your armor plate
Kamikaze leaving no harbor safe
But it’s not absolute, I escape in a parachute
Got ginseng and ma-ca root, aphrodisiac
Born to lead the pack in a foreign legion hat
Sitting on a camel leaning back
We come in charging all my dog’s barking
Swords sharpened, carvin’ markings in your Spartans
My peeps run the streets your troops just patrolling ’em
North Korean explosion, split the atoms of plutonium
British Knights control the flow of opium
Collaborate with the triads, and supply labs with dime bags
Flood the streets let a little time pass
This is how the pacify the population, keep a hold on global domination
Watching me, I peeped your whole operation
Identified your plans for genocide
Birds of prey gonna bang on your enterprise
Want to see the truth, just look me in the eyes (uh) just look me in the eyes

–Won’t Lie to y’all, I’ll put the fear of God inside of y’all

–Inspire y’all reveal facts they’ll never tell

–Holler if you hear me it’s the Rebel Yell

–You heard, if not I’ll say it louder, you heard if not then I’ll Holla

 In my youth I was uninhibited, high spirited
Broken down by images of lynches
Found out I was underprivileged,
Studied the builders of the pyramids
Figured I don’t gotta an invalid
Got plans to make the pilgrimage
Gotta get into it get involved get interested
In my own progression,
Learn the right way to hold a loaded weapon
Got a right to bear arms in defense of my rights
On anybody make a threat or attempts on my life
You got a badge, But I don’t bow to your flag
I’m playing by a different set of rules
Middle finger to the federals
White hoods, want us hanging by the testicles
FDA, American Medical,  allows poison in our vegetables
Put cyanide and tar in cigarettes
Sign of the Times, like the Prince cassette
Barely making it in this Strange Relationship
Face it, I ain’t really made to be a patriot
to a land that holds nothing sacred
Laid it’s foundation in hatred
Built it’s economy trading my people
my people work the fields from see to can’t see you
Blinded by the root of all evil

 –Won’t Lie to y’all, I’ll put the fear of God inside of y’all

–Inspire y’all reveal facts they’ll never tell

–Holler if you hear me it’s the Rebel Yell

–You heard, if not I’ll say it louder, you heard if not then I’ll Holla

 

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July 17, 2012 · 2:43 pm

Union Label

After doing some spoken word for a Father’s Day event, after some prodding and audience questions, I decided to record some and I’m starting with a piece I wrote in my first year of college, when I was still working with my rap group Sight Beyond Light. The audio is above via soundcloud. 

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June 6, 2012 · 12:09 pm

Project CBRunway Round 4: Breakfast Club

This is from Round 4  of Comic Book Resources Project CBRunway. The theme for the week was John Hughes’ classic teen film from the 80s,”The Breakfast Club.”

We had to make the archetypical characters, the Brain, The Princess, The Basket-case, the Jock and the Criminal, into Super Heros. After selecting a number between one and five I was assigned the Jock,  Andrew Clark, played by Emilio Estevez. The character he played was an athlete on the wrestling team in detention because he duct taped some poor saps butt cheeks together.

He looks capable of juvenile evil.

So my approach was to give him the basic super hero strongman look and add a few touches from the movie. He has typical wrestling gear, a mask and his varsity jacket from the film. Here’s the inked drawing.

And the final colored image.

As the Gym Class Hero, Andrew Clark dons his varsity jacket and wrestling uniform to take down the bullies and creeps at Shermer High School redeeming himself for having once been a locker room bully. He asked the “Brain” to soak his costume in “chemical X” to make them more durable, the treads on his wrestling boots are reenforced with a metallic rubber to help him keep his ground and his mask is worn under his headgear, because it looks a little less silly that way. His belt is a novelty belt he got on line, a replica of the championship belt from his favorite pro wrestling company and his fingerless gloves are padded to protect his knuckles, and not leave bruises on wrongdoers.

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April 27, 2012 · 9:21 am

Project CBRunway 7: Round 2 – Gender Bender

It’s been a while between posts, life crept up on me and spun me around for a loop. But I think I can manage this once a week again. Anyway here’s a treat. A two for one shot in the Comic Book Resources, Project CBRunway competition. First up, CBRunway : Round 2 – Gender Bender. In this round I had to swap power sets for two comic book characters, the challenge being the characters are of different genders. One has to be male, the other female. I went with Doctor Doom and Black Canary. It made sense in my head, but the end result wasn’t a voter favorite. Such is life.

The trick was to have the characters switch power sets and costumed identities yet retain the essence of who they are. With Black Canary, I really liked her ponytail look in Birds of Prey. For some reason it made me think of a dominatrix. So I went with that, since she’s not a doctor of any kind. I looked into fetish gear and decided a mask made of leather straps said, “ooh, kinky.” Changed the color scheme of her costume to resemble Doom’s signature look and  added some thigh high boots with leather straps and came up with this.

Dinah Lance as Dominatrix Doom

For Doom I had to think what it would mean for Him to have a sonic scream. So I modified his mask so his mouth looked like a speaker that would amplify 
the scream to Black Bolt levels. Well, close to it. Doom needs his hood, so I kept that modified the color scheme of his tunic to make him a Wiz Khalifa fan. (ie. Black and Yellow) I kept his armor because I Imagine like his mask it’s seared onto his flesh. I could be wrong, though.

Victor Von Doom as Black Canary

For those of you who hate it and say it’s not very “Doom” like, let’s just say he’s a Doombot.
 

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April 4, 2012 · 5:06 pm

Project CBRunway 7: Round 1- The Purple Haze

I may have mentioned that I am a member of the forums on Comic Book Resources. There’s an annual  Super Hero design/redesign competition on the Artist and Writer Showcase section of the forums called Project CBRunway and this is the 7th “season.”  I’ve participated in the competition a few times and it’s something I look forward to every year. This year hopeful participants had to submit basic costume designs for a hero and villain based on ourselves using a basic template model sheet. I went with the basic themes of positivity and negativity because these are drives and attitudes we all share, but when the mood shifts too far in one direction, you aren’t behaving like your normal self. First I got to work on the positive aspects using the mathematical symbol for plus(+) as an insignia and using bright colors, baby blue, white and yellow to show a positive attitude. And I used the minus(-) sign for the villain and inverted the colors on the computer to come up with that color scheme.  Anyway, here’s my submission.

Mas y Minus

Private Positive and Negatory. Great, right?

MattBib, the moderator of this section of the forums acts as Tim Gunn and gives us wild ideas for our weekly challenges. For the first challenge he came up with the name “Sounds of the Silver-Age” wherein the contestants had to pick an iconic Recording Artist from the 1960s and give that person a super hero costume from the silver-age era of comic books. Comic Book scholars and collectors understand the silver-age to be the period between the late 1950s to the early 1970s. In this period comic fans were introduced to the updated versions of the Flash and the Green Lantern over at DC Comics and Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four… well let’s say just about all the really popular characters over at Marvel Comics.

TM & (C) DC Comics

The Flash went from Jay Garrick to Barry Allen, Green Lantern from Alan Scott to Hal Jordan.

TM & (C) Marvel Comics

This Explosion of Characters came from what Stan Lee likes to call the Marvel Age of comics.

That’s what comics looked like in the Silver-Age, and as for the Music Icon from the 60s, I chose Jimi Hendrix. His look lends itself to the fantastic automatically. His dress was that of a gypsy pirate, with an attitude to match. Hopefully I don’t have to give him too much of an introduction, I’m guessing enough of you are experienced.

To distill Jimi to his most memorable visual components there were a few details I wanted to keep in mind, the Afro, The Bandana, The Goatee and the Vest. There are pictures out there where he doesn’t don the vest or bandana/headband, but in my head that’s what he always wore. A lot of fans say that he was known to keep a tab of LSD in his bandana for storage, but he would occasionally wind up tripping as his sweat dissolved the tab(s) leading the substance to seep into his system through his pores. As with many of the other contestants, I went to the his catalogue of songs for inspiration for his costumed identity. He’s got so many songs that would be great super hero names, Little Wing, Dolly Dagger, Stone Free, Night Bird Flying and Voodoo Child. For a while I was set on Voodoo Child. The lyrics to the first verse sound epic:

“…Well I’ll stand up next to a mountain, and I chop it down with the edge of my hand- Well I’ll pick up all the pieces and make an island, I might even raise a little sand- ‘Cause I’m a Voodoo Child, Lord knows I’m a Voodoo Child…”

With that bravado and cockiness as fuel I began sketching out his look. I tried bell bottom pants for him and frilly cuffs for his shirt sleeves but that was still saying Rock Star and not Super Hero. The one thing from his signature look that I could borrow from to make him a super hero was his bandana. I just rolled the headband down over his eyes and added some goggle lenses and boom, Super Hero. But nothing really came to me though that said Voodoo child and the Internet wasn’t working so well, so researching the symbolism of Voodoo wasn’t going to work out. Also I couldn’t get  the Marvel character Brother Voodoo out of my head. Below are some rough ideas/sketches.

Hmmm, none of these really say "VOODOO CHILD."

Voodoo Child wasn’t working out for me as a character and I didn’t have much time to work because the deadline for this challenge was creeping up on me. For some reason I considered Purple Haze. Time was working against me, so I threw together a quick simple cartoony sketch on some Borden and Riley vellum paper without a solid character model and design to work from. As simple as it was I really liked it. I was watching Adventure Time so that world of mirth and excitement may have slipped in and made me feel good about everything. It’s kind of like what I’d imagine an LSD trip to feel like. So from the sketch it was scanning time, soon to be followed by some coloring in PhotoShop. Here are the results.

Exhibit C. In my defense I wanted an excuse to give him red eyes.

When working on a character with a purple color scheme, avoid using red.GARISH!!!

I could have gone down the coloring road all night, but it was late and I had to  get this in on time for the voting thread to go up.  To me A was too much like the Wonder Twins. B was a step in the right direction and C was a step in the wrong direction, ugh.  D although it’s basically a simple color swap of A really made things pop for me. It’s what I went with for the challenge. Check out the Project CBRunway: Challenge 1 voting thread and check out the other entries as well. If you’re inclined to vote I won’t stop you. The voting poll allows you to vote for multiple designs so no pressure.

And just for my Ungowa Soul Power visitors here’s a slightly modified image of  Jimi Hendrix, The Purple Haze.

The Purple Haze

Acting Funny, But I Don't Know Why?!? Excuse Me As I Kiss The Sky.

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March 17, 2012 · 1:44 am

Pull Pile Podcast – Design

At my good friend Rah Unique’s (@rah_unique) recommendation I began following the Pull Pile Podcast on Twitter and Facebook. Okay for the uninitiated a pull pile (or pull list) is a list of comic books that collectors subscribe to at their Comic Book Store. Most of you may remember being able to pick up comics at your local candy shop, super market, news stand  or 7/11. That distribution model is long gone, Comics are primarily found in specialty Direct Market and Hobby stores. So the podcast is about the new releases the two hosts pick up every Wednesday, the day new releases of comic books are sold. They also discuss films and television series and other related media.

So the hosts of the Pull Pile Podcast  The Head and Winthrop Chesterton wanted to create a new identity and presence online with a new logo and some original artwork. They reached out to their fan-base and followers on various social media platforms. I answered the call and they got in touch with me and told me what they needed. Here’s what they had a friend put together to give me a rough idea for what design challenges I had to meet.

  

The great thing about this is that these guys knew what they wanted and were able to clearly demonstrate what they needed from me. So I pretty much hopped on this as soon as I could, because although I hadn’t met them personally I felt like these were kindred spirits, I saw their tweets, listened to their podcast and there was even some interaction online. They use the hashtag #letstalkcomics to ask fans questions about comics, the characters, the creators and the industry in general. So as I said there was already a bond, a sense of fellowship. So I showed them some roughs that I worked on in Adobe Illustrator.

       

I started with the familiar old DC Comics logo as inspiration. Then I modified it to a series of Ps with the number three taking up residence in the curve of the letter P. Being comic fans they went with the DC bullet, and the masthead was a simple design with layered bold letters reminiscent of the silver-age of comic books, which is around the late 50s/early 60s, where the Justice League of America formed and The X-Men, Avengers, Spider-Man and other well known characters were first introduced or revamped.

I was told to move forward with these designs and gave them a swatch of these designs with different color schemes. Here are a few that they liked.

 

I used the banner on their podcast as inspiration for a few color schemes. They really seemed to appreciate that.

With that done it was on to the illustrations and the mock comic book cover. The characters were definitely interesting and fun to draw, one has no face, like The Question and the other, an over large cranium, like Megamind. I feel a bit longwinded at this point, so I’ll just show the final product. I know bandwith is a little crazy in some places and too many images can slow ya down, so here you go.

I put the comic on a bed of classics and maybe spent too much time rendering the headphones, but I like the work and more importantly so did Winthtrop and The Head.

And that my friends is that.

Hopefully I get more (paid) work in the future to showcase, it was fun and I wish these guys all the success in the world. If you’re a fan of comics follow them on twitter, listen to the podcast and tell ’em @Countbaqula sent you.

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March 2, 2012 · 2:52 pm

Low Tech Records

Not much to say here, this was the logo I came up with for Low Tech Records,the indie record label my rap group, Sight Beyond Light. We used it to press up our first single, New Beginning b/w Illusions; that I  spoke about in the last post, and a few other projects. Sub-Conscious released his first full length album, Lyric Lovers Deluxe, on Low Tech Records. I made a little promo album for Sight Beyond Light titled Vanishing Point of View and later pressed up A.B. Conversations, my solo project as A.B. Do Well that was sold hand-to-hand for the most part. I put a few up on CD-Baby, but like only a few I also had some up at a few digital retailers, they’re now closed though. But I still have a Myspace page up as A.B. Do Well. I don’t look at that page much, but you can.

So I think I’ll tackle the A.B. Do Well logo next time around. See you then, if not sooner. I’ve been working on on pages for The Stunning Beeboy and set up a different site for a web-comic. I know you all are on pins and needles, anxiously awaiting his debut, don’t worry he’ll bee here soon.(see what I did there?)

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February 26, 2012 · 1:45 pm

Sight Beyond Light

Well a while ago my external hard drive said I over worked it and just straight up quit on me. No two weeks notice or anything, super inconsiderate. But when it left it took all the old files I had on it, including the vector file of the logo for my former rap group, Sight Beyond Light. I waited a long time to recreate the image, but I finally did. I also through in the way it was laid out for the first single on Low Tech Records, our super unofficial record label. I mean the music was official, we just never registered it as a business. But that was in 2000.

Anyway, here’s the sticker/artwork for the first single. DJ Eclipse from Fat Beats and NYU Radios Hip-Hop Show, Halftime Radio, was super impressed with the professional presentation. I can’t take all the credit though, my band mate Blu Jemz(formerly JMS Inja) offered his input about the color scheme. Man those were the good old days. The four man crew was A.B. Do Well, that’s what I used to go by , Blu Jemz, Soem(he now goes by sTERRYo), and Sub-Conscious. We would be in the lab constantly. Soem and Blu Jemz made the beats for the most part, but our boys Rio Murray, Omari Toomer and Jon Abrahams also through their sound into the mix. Omari would lend vocals from time to time as well. Enough reminiscing, here’s the logo in question.

The all seeing eye, again I can’t take full credit at all because my brother came up with the initial sketch. I just vectorized it in Adobe Illustrator. Anyway here’s a little video I made for it way after the fact.

 

Also, I always wanted to go all Dark Side of the Moon with the logo, but other members of the band thought it was corny to rip off the Pink FLoyd album cover. I thought it would be so fitting and cool and at the time I’d just seen the Wizard of Oz Set to that album. There were moments when the synch up worked to amazing effect, but those moments were few and far between. Anyways, here’s my homage.

See that, that’s effing brilliant right there.

Well that’s one design file down. I don’t even want to guess how many there are to go, but I suppose the logo for the label is a must. I loved that old Low Tech Logo. Maybe I’ll have it up soon.

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February 17, 2012 · 10:01 pm

CBR Draw Off: Avengers. W-I-N.

If you’ve been enjoying my blog you know I f*cks with the Comic Book Resources Forums hard body. One of the forums I visit a lot is their Artist and Writer Showcase. There are regular competitions there and I submitted some original pieces to the most recent CBR Draw Off, it was Avengers-centric to honor the highly anticipated movie coming out later this year from Marvel’s film studio.

I submitted two pieces, one a solo shot of Hank Pym as Antman and the other a group shot with Antman, Wasp and the Black Panther. My thought process for my entries was to try to make the uniforms/costumes look like the film studio would translate them for the film. For examples I looked to the existing films and how they approached the costumes. With  Iron Man the costume is about as direct a translation as you can get, with Captain America you could see the elements of the main Marvel Universe(616) and the Ultimate Universe as inspiration for the costume. Hawkeye’s is pretty much  a  direct adaptation from the one worn by Clint Barton in the Ultimate  Marvel Universe. For Pym I went with  the color scheme from the original costume from his Tales To Astonish and Avengers appearances and used some elements of Scott Lang, a reformed criminal that later took on the Ant Man identity. Here’s a rough sketch I have where I was working out some kinks.

In designing the costume I was thinking about what actor I would want to play Pym. I was searching online for fan casts and someone had Anthony Michael Hall as the Vision or something. I didn’t agree with that, I think he’d be a great Henry Pym, he already created an Artificial Intelligence he couldn’t control in Weird Science, was the nerd in Breakfast Club and has some genre relevance from the  SciFi channel series Dresden Files and his bit part in the hugely successful film, the Dark Knight. He’s a nerd with an edge, old enough to be an expert in an obscure field of science. He’s a great fit in  my eyes.  But with Joss Whedon at the helm, I wouldn’t be mad at Neil Patrick Harris, though I’d say he’s too much of a comic actor at this point.

With T’Challa, the Black Panther, the king of  Wakanda, a sovereign African Nation that has never been conquered or colonized, I was over thinking things. Wanting to use elements of African art, I delved into books about African Ceremonial Masks, Military Dictator’s Garments and traditional Zulu garb. I couldn’t stick to one idea until the last minute. Here are a few pages of sketches of the design progression.

These here focusing more on the mask as the central element of his design. There are so many wonderful mask styles to choose from, the Benin had some interesting things going and there were some phenomenal South African masks as well, but I didn’t think that would work on screen. So I looked closer at the Zulus.

The traditional animal skins are replaced with light weight but durable armor that he wears over a body suit. I liked the basic look more, so I went with that and this is what I came up with.

Now  ideally I’d want Djimon Honshu to play this role, but he’s getting up there in age. He might make the perfect T’Chakka, T’Challa’s father, but I think we need someone a little younger, although RDJ is killing it as Tony Stark and he now spring chicken. I’d sat Chiwetal Ejiofor would be good here, he’s got acting chops and he’s worked with Whedon before. With Whedon you could see his ability to do action sequences and in Red Belt he really made me believe he’s a genuine force to be reckoned with.

For Janet Van Dyne, I don’t know what artist to credit with the costume design she had most recently, but to change it at all would be a crime, so I left it as is. Which fits the movie universe, because Scarlet Johanson’s Black Widow is pretty much identical to the comic book interpretation. There was no need to go through a design process here, so here’s the Wasp I went with for the competition.

For the Wasp I was thinking Mila Kunis. Short, cute, and well known. And cute, did I mention cute? But then I saw another fan casting that just made sense, Morena Baccarin. She already has the short hair, or did in the remake of the V mini-series and she to my surprise I find out she went to my High School. That trumps everything to me. So these were the characters I drew. Here’s the group  shot I used in the competition.

I’m not sure which artist did the Avengers Mansion in the background, I found it with Google Image Search. I’m guessing it’s from Avengers Dissembled so that would mean Deodato. Anyway, I thought it fit. And I was right, I won the competition with one vote. Yay me, the grand prize, an assortment of Comic Books from the 90s. Some of which I’m sure I own. I worked at a comic shop in the 90s.

Anyway that’s that. Hopefully this momentum from winning with urge me forward for the rest of the year. If not, guess I’ll have to find some tiger’s blood.

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February 14, 2012 · 1:34 am

Chick Flicks From An Alternate Universe

I know some of you have to endure the biggest night for dating and romance in all of western society. Valentine’s Day. It’s crazy, this movie The Vow, starring Channing Tatum, a pretty boy with all the personality of barn wall, beat Denzel’s new flick Safe House at the box office this past weekend. If you had to see The Vow, consider yourself lucky. These are the Date Movies playing now on an alternate Earth.

bumping uglies with ugly bumps
Who Gave Me Herpes?
Some people have trouble finding the one. She’s having trouble finding the one who infected her.

Somehow she's not even a porn star in this universe
Private Dancer
Former stripper leaves the game to be all she can be, turns out all she can be is a stripper.


unCONVENTIONal LOVE
A guy on a business trip has a mix up at the convention center, he’s in love with a cosplayer, but she never gets out of her costume. He doesn’t seem to mind.”

She's so hot right now
85 and Pregnant
“Due to a mix-up at the pharmacy, this octogenarian is due to be an octo-mom.”

The sad thing is the movies men love from our universe haven’t been spared. It’s all Romance all the time on the sad Earth our scientists discovered. Batman, Gladiotor, Oldboy all RomComs. Don’e believe me, just look.

Hammer scene, what hammer scene?
Love and Dumplings
“The man is wrongly imprisoned, everything else about their love, is just wrong.”

Maximus is the villain
Commodus’ Colosseum
“He’s great at in a sword fight, mainly because he’s such a prick.”

Let me show you a magic trick.
“When he was young someone told him all women love a man with a sense of humor, he took that to heart. Now he’s stealing hearts everywhere.”

What this alternate universe got wrong though was what they consider high art. In our universe Earth Girls Are Easy was a cheesy b-movie comedy, over in the alernate universe, it swept the Oscars.

Jim Carrey was knighted by the queen in this universe.

Happy Valentine’s Day, lucky people of the slightly less absurd Earth.

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