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Tuesday, February 09, 2010
More Superheroes
I had thousands of requests (well, OK, one) from loyal readers to post more of my superhero creations. I actually created the Celtic League of Superheroes nearly two years ago using Heromachine v. 2.5. (Also available for download here). Version 3 of Heromachine is now in development, but after a weekend's worth of experimentation and fiddling, I decided I didn't like the Version 3 remakes as well as the originals. Don't get me wrong. I think HM 3 will be 31 flavors of awesome when it gets finished, but for these characters and this portrait, I thought the original versions would be better. I used Paint.NET v. 3.5.2 to create the group shot.
As for the characters themselves, they are avatars or champions of the Celtic countries, charged with defending these lands, and indeed the whole world, from the machinations of a sinister, evil wizard, druid, mage type guy and his band of assorted nasties. The concept crosses the standard superhero motifs with bits freely filched and adapted from Celtic mythology, in much the same way that Thor or Wonder Woman comics borrow from Norse or classical Greek myths. My ultimate goal is to create a series of stories about these characters which could be published alone, included as part of a novel, or converted into comic book scripts. A silly pipe dream? Perhaps, but I thought it would be fun to try. Right now, I'd settle for one complete, coherent story instead of the jumble of vague ideas in my head.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Superheroes
Just a little something to show you what I've been up to these days. Here's a quartet of patriotic superheroes, The Liberty Legion: Red Rocket, Whitewater, Blue Eagle, and Lady Liberty (Red, White, and Blue, get it?) I'm also working on writing their origin stories. At any rate, enjoy!
Click on the image to see a larger version. Images created with HeroMachine v. 3.0 and Paint.NET v. 3.5.2.
Click on the image to see a larger version. Images created with HeroMachine v. 3.0 and Paint.NET v. 3.5.2.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Whedon Wimps Out
Matthew Archbold over at the excellent Creative Minority Report blog posts this item about his dismay with famous writer and director Joss Whedon, creator of the hit TV shows "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer," "Angel," "Firefly," and "Dollhouse." Matthew really loves Whedon's work but really took exception to remarks Whedon made when he accepted an Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism from the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard. Here's a clip:
I find myself in the same boat with Matthew. I've never been a big fan of vampires, so I was never a regular Buffy watcher. When I did watch the show, I noticed the frequent snarky swipes at religion, but it was hard not to like "Buffy" because it was so well written. I loved "Firefly," in part, precisely because of the continuing dialogue between the skeptical, embittered Mal Reynolds and the minister, "Shepherd" Book. I want to like Whedon too, but in this instance, he clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. I find it ironic that he says he had to have his value as a person confirmed by a "shout out" from Obama. If Whedon would check the first few chapters of Genesis, he'd find the fundamental statement that all human beings, male and female, are created in the image and likeness of God, and therefore have inestimable value. If he were to check the New Testament, he would find the revolutionary idea that the Son of God gave his own life and rose from the dead in order to redeem human beings from the power of sin and death. This strongly suggests that the God Whedon doesn't believe in thinks that human beings must have some value.
I find it ironic that he insists that "education" is the answer to the world's ills, but he either forgets or doesn't know that the founder of all the great European universities was the Catholic Church. Harvard, the school at which he is speaking, was founded as a a religious institution. Whedon accepts his award from atheists and addresses his audience of atheists in a church on the university campus. No irony there.
Finally, his assertion that "faith in God means believing in something with absolutely no evidence," while faith in humanism means "believing in something with a huge amount of evidence to the contrary," has the argument exactly backward. G. K. Chesterton once said that original sin was the only part of Christianity that could readily be proven. Human history is replete with evil, barbarism, and cruelty, and yes, much of it has been done by those who claimed to believe in God. But where is the evidence that human beings can be truly good without God? The two most evil and barbaric regimes of the twentieth century, Nazism and Communism, were either officially or de facto atheistic, with the power of the Church legally subservient to that of the state. The central premise of Christianity, as Flannery O' Connor put it, was that God looked upon the world in all its horror and decided that it was worth dying for. In other words, God looked upon human beings in all their cruelty, ignorance, and malice but knew human beings and their world could be changed, transformed, and redeemed--but only by Christ's own sacrifice of himself on the cross.
Sorry, Joss. Even though you're at Harvard, for that weak attack on Christianity and paltry defense of humanism, I'd have to give you a failing grade.
I find myself in the same boat with Matthew. I've never been a big fan of vampires, so I was never a regular Buffy watcher. When I did watch the show, I noticed the frequent snarky swipes at religion, but it was hard not to like "Buffy" because it was so well written. I loved "Firefly," in part, precisely because of the continuing dialogue between the skeptical, embittered Mal Reynolds and the minister, "Shepherd" Book. I want to like Whedon too, but in this instance, he clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. I find it ironic that he says he had to have his value as a person confirmed by a "shout out" from Obama. If Whedon would check the first few chapters of Genesis, he'd find the fundamental statement that all human beings, male and female, are created in the image and likeness of God, and therefore have inestimable value. If he were to check the New Testament, he would find the revolutionary idea that the Son of God gave his own life and rose from the dead in order to redeem human beings from the power of sin and death. This strongly suggests that the God Whedon doesn't believe in thinks that human beings must have some value.
I find it ironic that he insists that "education" is the answer to the world's ills, but he either forgets or doesn't know that the founder of all the great European universities was the Catholic Church. Harvard, the school at which he is speaking, was founded as a a religious institution. Whedon accepts his award from atheists and addresses his audience of atheists in a church on the university campus. No irony there.
Finally, his assertion that "faith in God means believing in something with absolutely no evidence," while faith in humanism means "believing in something with a huge amount of evidence to the contrary," has the argument exactly backward. G. K. Chesterton once said that original sin was the only part of Christianity that could readily be proven. Human history is replete with evil, barbarism, and cruelty, and yes, much of it has been done by those who claimed to believe in God. But where is the evidence that human beings can be truly good without God? The two most evil and barbaric regimes of the twentieth century, Nazism and Communism, were either officially or de facto atheistic, with the power of the Church legally subservient to that of the state. The central premise of Christianity, as Flannery O' Connor put it, was that God looked upon the world in all its horror and decided that it was worth dying for. In other words, God looked upon human beings in all their cruelty, ignorance, and malice but knew human beings and their world could be changed, transformed, and redeemed--but only by Christ's own sacrifice of himself on the cross.
Sorry, Joss. Even though you're at Harvard, for that weak attack on Christianity and paltry defense of humanism, I'd have to give you a failing grade.
Friday, January 08, 2010
Friday, December 25, 2009
An Old Christmas Carol
For all my readers who may be facing tough times and may be tempted to despair this Christmas, I present the following. When you're caught up in the debate between Scrooge and Fred, choose Fred:
"What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? . . . keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.”
“Keep it!” repeated Scrooge’s nephew. “But you don’t keep it.”
“Let me leave it alone, then,” said Scrooge. “Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!”
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be
apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put
a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me
good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
—Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
A New Christmas Carol
Just when you thought all the great Christmas songs and carols had been written, along comes this new item from composer Gerald McClain:
This Christmas Joy
by Gerald McClain
In swaddling clothes to us arrive,
This Jesus Christ, our hopes revive!
In Marys arms, her little boy:
This tiny babe, death to destroy.
Was not in clouds, come down to reign
But from a girl in labor pain; (Revelation 12: 2)
Not in a throne was he to lay
But in a manger full of hay.
Welcome to Him from us today,
This Christmas joy, in us to stay.
From foreign lands their homage paid:
To Bethlehem, the star did say.
Fall prostrate where did shepherds come;
Laid out their gifts a costly sum.
Then in a dream: from Herods gaze,
Another path to home was made.
A furious king proclaimed forthright
That innocents shall loose their life.
Though in a world with evil known,
This Christmas joy, Love has outshone.
Give glory to the Fathers Son:
Begotten of the Holy One.
Though evry part is from the same,
The Word to us in flesh he came.
A preview of the coming years,
A final act to wipe all tears:
From nursling small to mature man,
Fulfillment of the Godheads plan.
All praise and laud and glorious powr,
This Christmas joy, tis Jesses flowr.
Gerald McClain
© 2005 Musique de McClain
I think this piece has a lovely "neo-medieval" or "neo-Renaissance" feel that appeals to my antiquarian sensibilities. I like older, more out of the way hymns and carols that haven't yet been turned into Muzak, and that you don't hear every time you go to that most godless of places, the mall.
Mr. McClain has also written a French language composition "Une voix dans Rama" (A Voice in Ramah) commemorating the Slaughter of the Innocents described in Matthew 2: 18 (Douay-Rheims version):
Hat tip to Patrick Archbold of Creative Minority Report for posting some Christmas clips from YouTube, which in turn prompted Mr. McClain to post links to his compositions.
This Christmas Joy
by Gerald McClain
In swaddling clothes to us arrive,
This Jesus Christ, our hopes revive!
In Marys arms, her little boy:
This tiny babe, death to destroy.
Was not in clouds, come down to reign
But from a girl in labor pain; (Revelation 12: 2)
Not in a throne was he to lay
But in a manger full of hay.
Welcome to Him from us today,
This Christmas joy, in us to stay.
From foreign lands their homage paid:
To Bethlehem, the star did say.
Fall prostrate where did shepherds come;
Laid out their gifts a costly sum.
Then in a dream: from Herods gaze,
Another path to home was made.
A furious king proclaimed forthright
That innocents shall loose their life.
Though in a world with evil known,
This Christmas joy, Love has outshone.
Give glory to the Fathers Son:
Begotten of the Holy One.
Though evry part is from the same,
The Word to us in flesh he came.
A preview of the coming years,
A final act to wipe all tears:
From nursling small to mature man,
Fulfillment of the Godheads plan.
All praise and laud and glorious powr,
This Christmas joy, tis Jesses flowr.
Gerald McClain
© 2005 Musique de McClain
I think this piece has a lovely "neo-medieval" or "neo-Renaissance" feel that appeals to my antiquarian sensibilities. I like older, more out of the way hymns and carols that haven't yet been turned into Muzak, and that you don't hear every time you go to that most godless of places, the mall.
Mr. McClain has also written a French language composition "Une voix dans Rama" (A Voice in Ramah) commemorating the Slaughter of the Innocents described in Matthew 2: 18 (Douay-Rheims version):
A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.
Hat tip to Patrick Archbold of Creative Minority Report for posting some Christmas clips from YouTube, which in turn prompted Mr. McClain to post links to his compositions.
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