Google versus Apple

Google admits to being influenced by Star Trek and wants to bring technology to everyone, while Apple never admits to being inspired by Star Trek and would try to sue Gene Roddenberry over his ideas, if he were alive.

Trek Tattoos

I realized I never took pictures of my tattoos after they healed.

Here's my right arm and the reason I got the tattoos in the first place. After failing to find a nice Medic-Alert bracelet to wear, I thought a tattoo would be just the thing! I decided to use the Star Trek Medical symbol used in all the movies and all the 24th century series. Emergency personnel always check for bracelets, so they should see my tattoo if I'm unconscious or out of it.

I figured I needed to balance it with a tattoo for the left forearm. This one uses the the Communicator badge from all the 24th century series. So, it could represent any of those series or crews. The delta is also a perfect replica of the Original Series insignia, so it also represents them! The only series it couldn't represent would be Enterprise, but five out of six isn't bad!

I really like them and any time a nurse or doctor sees them, they always remark about what a great idea that is!

Homage or Plagiarism?

Or... Can a writer be homaged?

Here's the origin of Deathstroke the Terminator from Tales of the Teen Titans 44, published July, 1984. Words by Marv Wolfman, art by George Perez.



Now read this page from Deathstroke 0 published September, 2012, art and words by Rob Liefeld.



Notice any similarities?

I did. Actually, it was the image of Addie Wilson firing guns in front and behind her at pop up targets from Deathstroke 0, that made me remember the same image from Tales of the Teen Titans 44. I recognized the similar character poses in that panel and thought Liefeld was paying homage to George Perez. Paying homage to an artist involves the new artist recreating a scene or panel, or in most cases, a cover that looks the same as one the artist being homaged has done.

Here, for example purposes, are a few covers that pay homage to George Perez's New Teen Titans 1. First, the original.


Here's George homaging himself.

Joe Bennett homages George Perez.

So, you can see each artist duplicated the cover of New Teen Titans 1 in his own style using the same or similar characters. That's an homage.

I'm not a Liefeld fan, his art has never appealed to me. But I'm also not one of the Liefeld haters who decries him with every chance he gets.

It wasn't until I went back and re-read Tales of the Teen Titans 44, that I realized he also used Marv Wolfman's exact phrasing in a couple of instances. He didn't vary the scene much from the original, as you can plainly see. He even uses the same pop-up target dummies for Addie to blast that Marv did. As I said, the similar character poses could be construed as an homage.

It's possible that in preparation for Deathstroke 0, Rob went back and re-read the original origin and perhaps some of that came out unconsciously when he put it on the page, but lifting dialogue word-for-word smacks of plagiarism to me. I think Marv Wolfman deserves a check for his work on the issue.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons Rob was having problems with editorial, prompting him to quit DC.

Troubling Aquaman News...

According to this article at Bleeding Cool, Aquaman is in a pretty big sea change...

...that Ivan Reis will move to draw Justice League Of America, replacing Jim Lee on the comic, and keeping the Geoff Johns Aquaman team still together, but on his one of his other comics.

But it seems that, deprived of Ivan Reis on Aquaman, Geoff Johns will also be leaving that series.

Between them they have done what many saw impossible, totally and utterly revived the reputation of Aquaman in the DC Universe, away from being a joke, to a character who is taken very seriously indeed.

Noooooooo! I knew in the bottom of my heart that Ivan was going to get Justice League. I just knew it. He's an amazing artist and deserves it. But now Geoff Johns isn't going to write Aquaman either?? Not Ivan and Geoff!! That's almost too much to bear... Ivan still gets to draw Aquaman as part of the League, but it's not the same as a whole book by Ivan featuring Aquaman. Seriously bad news.

I remember wishing when Brightest Day was going on that Geoff and Ivan would get an Aquaman regular series. I had kinda hoped for 50 issues of Geoff and Ivan's great work, but it looks like all we'll get now is 17. So sad. And what about the reintroduction of Jackson Hyde, who's better known as Aqualad?

And no word on the replacements yet.

I don't envy whoever gets the task of following Geoff and Ivan on Aquaman... It's a very hard act to follow.

Aquaman Rumors

This article was found online at Bleeding Cool today:

A couple of months ago, Bleeding Cool received the news that Jim Lee would be leaving Justice League and DC were looking for a replacement both inside and outside the company. We now understand they have settled on Ivan Reis. It makes sense, he has a great relationship with writer Geoff Johns, Reis’ work can be compared to Jim Lee, and it all keeps things happy families.

I sincerely hope this is one rumor that turns out to be false. I don't know who else can do justice to Aquaman. I mean, I understand, Ivan is my favorite artist, and I know he can't stay on Aquaman forever. It does make sense he'd get a shot at Justice League (which he would be totally awesome on!), but I don't want Aquaman to degrade in artistic quality. Every month he turns in page after page of incredible layouts, great storytelling abilities, and dynamic characters!

Please be false, please be false, please be false, please be false...

Aquaman Outsells Everything at Marvel Redux

More good news for Aquaman and DC Comics! According to this article at Bleeding Cool, Aquaman sold more copies than February's Batman and Robin! So Aquaman is now the ninth top comic book in the market! Outselling all the X-Men, Avengers and even Spider-Man! And here's the proof!

Aquaman issue 6 was a spotlight on Mera issue, indicating Mera is at least as popular as her husband! Amazing! An index of 50.00 would mean that the issue sold exactly half the numbers February's Batman sold. The actual numbers will be released soon so until then we just have the index to indicate Aquaman's status!

Aquaman Outsells Everything at Marvel!

This is about a month late, but Aquaman is officially a top ten book! According to this chart at ICv2 for January 2012, Aquaman is sitting at number 10! I'm fairly certain Aquaman has never had a top ten book before, so this is a reason to celebrate! As you can see by a sampling of the chart below, Aquaman is currently selling better than everything rival Marvel Comics puts out! As a long-time DC fan who's had to put up with all sorts of abuse from Marvel and their fans, I love it!!!

Only hundreds of copies away from Batman and Robin and within ten thousand of Superman and the Flash! I think it's one of the few titles going up as retailers underestimated what they could sell and are reordering it like crazy! Even my own Comic Shop guy says he's turned lots of people on to the book just by mentioning it to non-readers and more often than not, they're sticking with it! That's crazy good! It's certainly a great time to be an AquaFan!