Daily Archives: 20. Juli 2014

Doctor Who: 30 Days Challenge – Part 3

On my Tumblr page I participated in the Doctor Who Tumblrs 30 Days of Doctor Who Challenge and I thought I might as well give you the collected answers here as well. These are the third ten answers, you can find the first ten here and the second ten here.

The official Tumblr Gif

Day twenty-one: Name a planet that you’d like to visit in the TARDIS. Maybe you’d like to go to the planet the planet of slightly over-inflated beach balls, let us know!

Just like I said it would be the room, I spent most time in the Tardis  on Day 18, would I definitely not mind visiting The Library before the Vashta Nerada invaded it. I’m not sure if I even want to go into Earth’s future, as that would also show me what will become of my planet after I have long passed and that would be kind of creepy…
Other than that, do I not have definite plans for any planets and would be grateful for every world I’d be visiting and curious to explore them.

Day twenty-two: What songs would appear on your Doctor Who playlist? Make us a mixtape!

The songs I associate most with the series are the theme songs, the title music and „500 Miles„.
From the music I usually listen to can I only think of one song that at least has anything to do with space: Rhapsody of Fire – I belong to the Stars.
Guess the mixtape would consist of those songs.

Day twenty-three: What would your Time Lord name be? The Magician? The Carpenter?

I’m not sure if I even want to be a Time Lord as that title brings a lot of responsibilities and stuff…
But to choose a name it would probably be something like The Thinker or The Creator/Writer/Storyteller as I like to think up stories, write them down or share them verbally with those, who want to listen to them.

Day twenty-four: Take a picture with something irl that you think could be from Doctor Who?

Again the picture „with something“ that I skipped.

Day twenty-five: What’s your favorite Doctor Who art? Make sure to give the artist credit if it’s not yours!

As I have no idea which of all those many brilliant things out there I skipped this one too…

Day twenty-six: Show us your best Doctor Who cosplay but you can only use things you can find in your closet.

I don’t (have a) cosplay to show, so I had to skip again…

Day twenty-seven: Who is your favorite Doctor Who-related tumblr that isn’t us?

And another skip as I don’t know that many Tumblr who fit the bill…

Day twenty-eight: Write an episode summary for Series 8! What do you think the Twelfth Doctor and Clara will have to face?

If I knew the character of the new Doctor better this probably wouldn’t be much of a problem, but an episode like this would be interesting:
The Doctor and Clara strand in a desert and stumble upon a group of researchers. Together they find the way into a buried ancient city. Setting out to explore it they find prove that other people have discovered this before them and that none of them had made it out again.

Day twenty-nine: Who is your favorite Time Lord other than the Doctor? The Rani? The Master?

The Master is quite fun in a strange kind of way, especially John Simms version. From what I saw of the old Master – the Roger Delgado version – does he seem even stranger than Simms, as they had the hypnosis part still in his character and the shots of that looked rather silly. Other than that have I not seen that much of other Time Lords like the Rani. The most I know about her and a couple of others is from the the story „The Ten Doctors“ by Comic artist Rich Morris.

Day thirty (20 July): Make a TARDIS out of things you find in your room!

I thought about doing this, but unfortunately I don’t have fitting materials nor the patients to actually build a TARDIS I’d be satisfied enough showing…
I had fun doing this challenge and I hope you at least enjoyed it a bit as well.
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the Gif lies with BBC America and the official Doctor Who Tumblr.

Webcomics – An Introduction

The first thing people think of when they talk about Comics are thin books full of colourful pictures that tell the story of different Superheros.
 What they usually forget is that it all originated from mere monochrome, one panel Comics – alternatively called Cartoons or Comic Strips – in newspapers.

With the rise of the Internet these kinds of Comics have become a rarity in print, but more and more available online. The format changed greatly, as Comics were no longer bound to size and the two achromatic colours. They now have up to three or more colourful panels to tell the joke (though there are still newer Comics following the old pattern). Depending on the series the panels and Strips are now also used for continuing story lines instead of trying to simply reach a punch line each Strip.

I never bought a classic Comic Book (the thin ones); though I do own a few issues from Free Comic Book Day, a couple of Graphic Novels and Comic Anthologies/Trade Paperbacks, as well as quite a bunch of Manga.

Still, my interest in Cartoons and Anime – Comics’ moving cousins so to speak – are what first drew me to its immobile counterparts.

An unfunny tale

I can’t really remember how it happened, but I think that on one of my trips to the Book Store to buy a new Manga, I discovered a book-like collection of Comic Strips that I just had to look at.

But who wouldn’t do that with a bright red book that had a clown on the cover, who had just cut off his own leg with an axe, while its titled claimed the content of the “book” to be “Notfunny“?

I certainly couldn’t resist picking it up and I still do not regret that I did.

Notfunny  or Nichtlustig as it is originally called, are one panel Comics by German Cartoonist Joscha Sauer, telling the stories of his various characters. These include a Professor, his assistant and their strange experiments (check out one of my favourites: Cat & Jam); Yetis; suicidal Lemmings, a killer-robot aspiring to become a kindergarten teacher, Mr. Riebmann, who lives in the wall beside his constantly annoyed neighbour and of course Death and his Poodle, who are the not so secret stars of the Comics. Each Comic portrays a different situation and manages to tell you with just a few words and gestures what exactly is going on and this without having to give you an actual punch line most of the times. If you like strange Humour this series does not live up to its name and is on the contrary quite hilarious.

This series was my entrance into the world of Comics and I haven’t started looking for the exit yet. Quite the opposite. Since I started using the Internet more frequently, I discovered many more Comics to enjoy (Including new Notfunny-Comics posted on Sauer’s Website).

Webcomics for everyone!

(c) Bastian MelnykThe more popular the Internet became, the more common was it for artists to start their own Comic series online, thus creating Webcomics. By now the list of the ones I read on a regular basis is relatively long, though it could be longer if I continued reading some of the stories I’ve already bookmarked.

But this is the good thing about Webcomics: You can start from the get-go, see the first steps the artist took (and some of them were quite horrible to be honest), take a break from reading and continue where you left off without fear of the old Comics falling out of print and the whole series being rebooted with different content – though a few artists do re-draws after the story is finished.

One of the first Webcomics I ever came across was about a philosophical, and frankly adorable, bat, with a rather long alliteration in his name, which reads: Fledermaus Fürst Frederick Fon Flatter (Prince/Fürst of Bats Frederick of Flutter) or short: Fred  (English versions can be found on Tumblr.)

On a daily basis [Note: By now the rhythm has changed to Monday-Wednesday-Friday] German Comic artist Bastian Melnyk presents up to four panel stories starring the round bat and his friends. Each Comic is dedicated to a random every day topic and always includes a quip or pun. If you understand what is being said, the silliness of the Comic just leaves you with a smile, as the message of the Comic is always positive. Besides his “filosophizing” (philosophizing) about all kinds of things Fred loves eating cookies. On occasion he dresses up as “Batfred” to rescue his friends from different situations and even more seldom he does indeed break the Fourth Wall and talks about “The Creator”.

I guess I could keep going all day, but I stop with this minuscule look into the vast amount of Webcomics that I myself have yet to explore completely.

If you have any recommendations feel free to let me know, as I enjoy checking out new stories.

PoiSonPaiNter

© For the portrayed picture belongs to Bastian Melnyk and was simply used as example.

Originally posted on THE EXTREMIS REVIEWS: A Couple Webcomics You Should Try Out