Ehmm Theory

Action Lab Comic is creating a new line for their comics called “Action Lab: Danger Zone”.  The Danger Zone imprint will feature comics for Mature Readers only; so they can get more violent, gory, and strange than Action Lab’s normal line up.  The very first of those comics “Ehmm Theory” will be released in May, which means your local comic shop will still be able to preorder it for you if you’re interested.  So what is Ehmm Theory about? 

The cover gives you a pretty good idea that it’s going to be a bloody book but it doesn’t really prep you for how strange everything is going to get.  There is a lot of setup in the first issue and there are still a lot of questions that it leaves unanswered.  It’s one of those stories that as soon as you put down the first part you’re looking for the second part because you need to find out just what is going on. How strange is Ehmm Theory?  What I’m about to tell you only covers the first three pages, so while it is spoiler material I consider it pretty light.  A man with a talking kitten fights zombie circus midgets in a graveyard.  Personally that’s the kind of strange I can get into.

The story is by Brockton McKinney, Larkin Ford provides the art, and Jason Strutz is on the colors.  The art has a nice balance between realism and cartoon.  It works well; the kitten sidekick probably wouldn’t have worked as well if the artist had gone with a hyper-realistic style.  There are a couple panels where Ford and Strutz really let loose and it looks fantastic.  The pacing of the story is solid.  It’s one of those stories where learning what is really going on is part of the story; so I guess the best praise I can offer is that I can’t wait for the next issue just to see what is going to happen.

Again, Ehmm Theory will be out in May, so you still have time to tell your local shop you want a copy.  Remember pre-orders are incredibly important in the comic’s industry, especially when you’re dealing with a book outside the big two.  Action Lab Comics did provide That F’ing Monkey with a digital review copy.

The Ballad of Kid Largo: S1, E17

And now That F’ing Monkey proudly presents, The Ballad of Kid Largo.

Today’s strip introduces the Lincoln’s gang leader.  Besides being a very important person to the story, he may also look familiar.  The Lincoln’s leader is played by our very own cake fucker Brandon.  His glee over people badly painted to look like Lincoln is one of the reasons this strip has kept going.

Coronal Fire

The universe is amazing.  The things we’ve been able to see or discover are miniscule to the wonders that are still out there.  That’s why science is so fantastic, because it’s pretty much discovering or explaining all of the awesome things around us.  Having lived in Florida for most of my life, I’m pretty protective of our space program.  Watching year’s worth of shuttle and rocket launches will do that to you.

The above video is from NASA.  I am not a scientist, although I’ve played one on TV.  No, that’s a lie too.  I’m going to let NASA explain what is going on here, because they can do it better than I can. 

Eruptive events on the sun can be wildly different. Some come just with a solar flare, some with an additional ejection of solar material called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and some with complex moving structures in association with changes in magnetic field lines that loop up into the sun's atmosphere, the corona.

On July 19, 2012, an eruption occurred on the sun that produced all three. A moderately powerful solar flare exploded on the sun's lower right hand limb, sending out light and radiation. Next came a CME, which shot off to the right out into space. And then, the sun treated viewers to one of its dazzling magnetic displays -- a phenomenon known as coronal rain.

Over the course of the next day, hot plasma in the corona cooled and condensed along strong magnetic fields in the region. Magnetic fields, themselves, are invisible, but the charged plasma is forced to move along the lines, showing up brightly in the extreme ultraviolet wavelength of 304 Angstroms, which highlights material at a temperature of about 50,000 Kelvin. This plasma acts as a tracer, helping scientists watch the dance of magnetic fields on the sun, outlining the fields as it slowly falls back to the solar surface.

The footage in this video was collected by the Solar Dynamics Observatory's AIA instrument. SDO collected one frame every 12 seconds, and the movie plays at 30 frames per second, so each second in this video corresponds to 6 minutes of real time. The video covers 12:30 a.m. EDT to 10:00 p.m. EDT on July 19, 2012.  Music: "Thunderbolt" by Lars Leonhard, courtesy of artist.

Warhammer 40K Scouts

A week ago I mentioned how I had somehow gone from being a disciplined model builder to juggling multiple hobby projects at once.  I shared pictures of my two work in progress tanks but I also alluded to two other projects I had going.  Today we’re going to look at one of those projects, my Space Marine Scout Snipers.

The picture above is the stock photo for the set.  You get five scouts that can all be set up with sniper rifles or you can give one a missile launcher.  You can see they have cloaks and night vision goggles to look very sniper-y.  I wanted to use a group of scouts in my army, but I really disliked the heads.  I’m not a fan of Space Marines who don’t wear their helmets anyway, but these guys didn’t even come with helmets.  I knew if I wanted to use them I’d have to do something different.

Thankfully the Dark Angel veteran sets come with these great hooded helmets.  Now in Warhammer 40K fiction Scouts haven’t earned the right to use power armor yet.  I figure that since I haven’t changed the body of the figures that it still almost fits the established fiction.  They biggest challenge is those heads did not fit the torsos.  Each of those figures took about an hour to carve enough out of the back and shoulders for the hooded head to fit. The hoods and the cloaks end up looking like they are all one piece, which is what I was hoping for.

I’m way happy with the way they came out.  Of course I still need to paint them, but just getting them all assembled is a move in the right direction.  You’d think that would be enough hobby projects, but I have one more group of Games Workshop models I’m working on.  We’ll probably take a look at them next week.

Beasts of Burden

As a fan of comics and reading in general, I usually treat the news that Hollywood has their sights set on a property I enjoy with dread.  I mean, sure it could be the one movie that somehow gets it right.  Even the movies that generally get positive reviews don’t get everything correct.  Despite loving the Lord of the Rings films I could probably talk for an hour about the things I didn’t like in them.  Today’s news that sends me into alternating throes of excitement and anxiety is that Shane Acker is going to direct Reel FX’s Beasts of Burden.  Acker is directing and Darren Lemke is writing the adaption. 

Beasts of Burden is an amazing comic created by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson.  The stories center on the animals that live in the neighborhood of Burden Hill and how they deal with the paranormal threats that enter their neighborhood. Sometimes they are funny, sometimes scary, and sometimes they are outright heartbreaking.  Beautiful art added to incredible stories; it is something that needs to be read if you haven’t already.  Luckily there is a hard cover that collects the first 4 short stories and the four issue mini-series that followed them.

The movie has a hard road to travel.  Hollywood pretty much assumes that anything with talking animals is going to be for kids.  Add in that it is talking animals and a cartoon, it will be an uphill battle not to have this watered down to Scooby Doo levels.  Things die in the Beasts of Burden comic.  Sometimes it can be bloody.  Let’s hope the movie can live up to the source.  

Hangover Thursday: Florida Beer Battles

It’s Hangover Thursday, how’s your head?  That F’ing Monkey has been very, very careful to stay away from politics.  It’s something I’m pretty happy about.  My political views have no place in articles talking about comics and kid’s toys.  Sometimes when talking beer we have to talk about the legality of things, today we’re talking about growlers.

Growlers are very important to small breweries and brewpubs.  All they are is reusable bottles that are filled at the tap.  So imagine you’ve found this great restaurant and they make their own beer.  The food’s great, the beer is better, and you want to take some beer home with you.  It’s the only way to take home a beer that is only available in kegs.  Currently in Florida you can by a 32 ounce beer growler.  The standard size for the rest of the country is 64 ounces, that’s right Florida is the only state in the US that can’t sell the 64 ounce size.

It seems like an easy law to pass, but it has failed before.  Beer distributors have their own lobbyists and they don’t want the competition.  You won’t see it part in the attacks of course.  Those speaking against the larger growlers will hide the real reason behind safety arguments.  This is a bill that can really help those smaller craft breweries and brew pubs, it’s a good thing.  In something that’s almost unheard of these days the bill is being sponsored by both a Democrat and a Republican.  Hopefully with all that support Floridians will be enjoying 64 ounce growlers soon.

The Ballad of Kid Largo: S1, E16

And now That F’ing Monkey proudly presents, The Ballad of Kid Largo.

During the break in Kid Largo strips I had a few computer changes.  That included changing operating systems and having to move to a new version of my image software.  I need to mess with a few more strips, but I think the color is slightly different than the older strips.  Anyway, the story will start picking up again with today’s strip.  Next week will introduce a new character into the mix.

Thank You Harmonix

When the first Rock Band game came out Harmonix started something pretty amazing.  The song bases music game decided that every week they were going to release new songs as DLC.  They didn’t even wait, when the game came out they had a 3 different artist packs and a handful of other songs ready to go.  That was November 20, 2007.  That steady stream of content ends on April 2, 2013.  I won’t lie, it makes me a little sad. 

Harmonix managed to do 275 consecutive weeks of DLC releases.  There are thousands of songs to choose from.  Despite being called Rock Band the music was all over the map; classic rock, novelty songs, pop, blues, country, punk, and metal.  I have a sizable chunk of my Xbox’s hard drive filled with Rock Band songs.  So thank you Harmonix, I can’t wait to see what you’re working on next.

Tank Shock

This week I’ve been spending a bit of time at my hobby table.  Last year I showed incredible discipline with my progress.  Most times I only had one new product at a time.  I would assemble, paint, and finish that project before moving onto the next one.  Even when I had multiple boxes, I would keep that second box out of sight to not get overwhelmed by how much work was ahead of me.  I’ve lost that focus, my hobby table currently holds four different projects in various stages of completion.

The one I’m most excited about is my Predator Infernus.  The Infernus is a tank from Forgeworld a specialized company that makes rulebooks and models for Warhammer.  Because you have to order them from England you’re going to pay a little bit more, but some of the sculpting is amazing.  Their vehicle kits usually use one of the Games Workshop vehicles as a base and then come with resin pieces to change the look.  In the picture above the light grey is all resin, the dark grey is plastic.

I’ve still got quite a few pieces to clean and assemble.  The bits are all on paper towel in this picture because I had to wash them.  I know that sounds strange, but to release the resin from the molds they are hit with a substance that makes paint not stick correctly.  A quick bath in some soapy water is enough to fix the issue.  Because the tank can be built with different armaments there are actually more pieces than I’ll be using.

I’d feel pretty good with my progress if I didn’t already have a fully assembled tank that I needed to finish painting.  This is my Whirlwind.  It uses the same plastic base that the Infernus did.  The only resin on it is the dragon doors and the missile turret.  Both the doors and turret are also from Forgeworld.  Because the main body of the tank can also be used as a troop transport, the inside of this one is already painted.  Now I just have to paint the outside.  These are the two vehicle projects I’m in the middle of, next week we’ll probably take a look at the troop related projects I have going.

Hangover Thursday: Valentine’s Day

It’s Hangover Thursday, how’s your head?  I had a couple beers last night while watching TV last night, but not enough to feel it this morning.  It’s also Valentine’s Day so men everywhere are scrambling to pick up last minute flowers and dinner reservations.  Because today is all about the love I figured I’d help get everyone in that loving mood.  Who best combines the excess of Hangover Thursday and the sticky, sweaty sentiments of Valentine’s?  That answer can only be Gwar.

“The Road Behind” appeared on the classic Gwar album America Must Be Destroyed.  If you’re a fan of the Scum Dogs of the Universe they have just announced a handful of tour dates, I’m going to do my very best to be at the Orlando show.  Sad Whale baby.

The Ballad of Kid Largo: S1, E15

And now That F’ing Monkey proudly presents, The Ballad of Kid Largo.

Finally we’re back!  I was so busy at work I didn’t actually use any of the time I was running background articles to rebuild my strip buffer.  I still intend to update the Largo strips every Wednesday, but that update will probably happen later in the day than the site normally updates.   

Toy Fair Springer

Toy Fair is always an exciting time for collectors.  What new lines are coming out?  Will your favorite series get any new updates?  Can you expect anything cool besides countless repaints?  Obviously things like Star Wars, Marvel, DC, and Transformers have a huge showing each year.  This weekend pictures emerged that had me doing a happy dance in my living room. 

Back in June of 2010 I did a countdown of my top five favorite Transformers.  That list would be a little different now because Transformers introduced the amazing character Lockdown, but my favorite bot has not changed.  Since the original Transformers movies hit the movie theaters, I’ve been a Springer fan.  When it came to the cartoons and comics, Springer was the coolest.  In the toy department, Springer wasn’t all the great.

His original toy was okay, if you ignored his floppy sword and tiny arms.  Then there wasn’t anything for a good long while.  The first new Springer figure was a 2007 convention exclusive.  He was a redecoed Hot Shot figure and only was able to transform into an armored security vehicle.  A year later we got a Target exclusive that was a redeco of the helicopter Evac.  It was a pretty good figure, but I still wanted a Springer who was a triple changer.

Finally Fans Project created a third party figure called Warbot defender.  It was Springer.  He changed into a helicopter and a car.  His robot looked bad ass.  It was perfect.  It wasn’t a cheap figure but since I didn’t think I’d ever actually get what I wanted from the official Transformers line I happily bought him.  Now let’s talk about this year’s Toy Fair.  Holy crap look at the pictures in this article!  It’s perfect.  Other people are flipping out over a new Metroplex figure, but this has me over the moon.  I almost want three so I can display him in each form.

Warriors and Ramones

A friend sent me this picture a very long time ago and that still gets a smile from me every time I look at it.  The Warriors is probably my favorite movie ever made, I’ve seen it a lot.  The Ramones have been very important to my life for very long time.  I was lucky enough to see them play a handful of times, but I wish I had gotten to see them at least one more time.

 
The art work was done by Nathan Stapley; you can find more of his artwork at nathanstapley.com. 

Flash Friday: Footies

Happy Flash Friday everyone!  On Flash Friday we look at a lot of different merchandise.  Some of it I love, some of it I would never buy.  Today we’re going to look as some things that are a little different.  I found both of them over at www.superherostuff.com, That F’ing Monkey is not affiliated with Superhero Stuff.  It’s very possible that these items are on sale elsewhere too, this is just the first place I saw them.

 
First up is the X-Ray series of shirts.  While we’re only talking about the Flash one, this is a series of shirts so you can also get it with Green Lantern or other heroes.  The contrast of the black and red makes a pretty nice design, but it’s a strange one.  Why do we have superhero x-rays?  I could understand if it was Wolverine or another character whose skeleton looks different than everyone else’s.   I doubt I’ll be picking this one up.

 
Adult sized footed, hooded pajamas.  I can’t say I would have ever imagined I would see these for sale somewhere.  I’m really at a loss for words over them.  They are actually available in characters from both Marvel and DC, so I guess you can be a different hero every night.  Someone somewhere will love these and I’m very happy for whoever that person is. 

Hangover Thursday: Carton of Milk

It’s Hangover Thursday, how’s your head?  I managed to have a couple of drinks over the last few nights.  Nothing to actually leave me with a hangover, but was a nice to keep me happy.  I stumbled across a video today promoting Carton Brewing’s newest beer, Carton of Milk.

It’s pretty obvious I’m a huge stout fan so I’ll be on the lookout for this one.  Some people dismiss session beers because of their low alcohol content.  While I love the high abv of imperials, some time it’s nice to know you have kill a six pack without getting yourself trashed.  If you’ve tried Carton’s beers please let us know what you’ve thought of them.

Aw Yeah Kickstarter

We interrupt our normally Shark Cowboy news with some pretty big Kickstarter news. In January we covered how Art and Franco’s Superman Family Adventures was canceled by DC in a really cowardly way. Well that may have been a blessing in disguise; because they are now pushing forward and releasing their own all ages comics. They aren’t doing it by themselves either. The Eisner award winning duo are teaming up with other comic professionals to create the books, they are also teaming up with fans to publish them.

By teaming up with fans, I mean Kickstarter. The Kickstarter started yesterday with a goal of 15,000 dollars. The Aw Yeah team believed that would be what was needed to create and print 6 issues. Among the other rewards, 30 dollars would get you the first 6 issues. Well it only took 8 hours for them to reach their goal. 8 hours for comic fans to pledge 15,000. That’s impressive. With 29 days left and their Kickstarter already complete they did the only reasonable thing, they started adding push goals. Why stop at 6 issues if they could fund 12?

If you’re wondering why I keep coming back to talking about Art and Franco’s comics let me try and explain. I like monster comics. I like violent pulp comics. I like comics written specifically for adults. But that can’t be the only thing in the industry. If there aren’t comics for kids to read the industry is going to continue to get smaller and smaller. If you’ve read Tiny Titans, Superman Family, or Patrick the Wolf Boy you know how enjoyable these comics can be. The link to the Kickstarter is here http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1197720703/aw-yeah-comics please check it out.

Taco Bell Everything Dies

I didn’t watch much television this weekend (Sundays and Mondays are my weekend). I know big football game and all that. During the little bit of television I did watch I was repeatedly subjected to Taco Bell’s newest commercial where they try to tell us they are actually using meat in their tacos now. I think that’s what they were saying, because I wasn’t paying much attention to the people talking. No, I had heard something in the background and I was instantly hooked.

I was actually going to link to the commercial, but Taco Bell hasn't even uploaded it to their website yet. The song is from one of my favorite bands, Mariachi El Bronx and is titled “Everything Dies.” Take a listen to the link up above and the next time Taco Bell interrupts your favorite show listen to the background music. Don’t take this as an angry post either, I’m glad the guys are getting some kind of recognition and hopefully a fat check came with it. It won’t get me to actually eat at a Taco Bell though, it’s been years since I’ve set foot in one.

Why Must Life Interfere With What I Want?

Wow, 2 weeks no Cake Fucker Monday updates? What the fuck could this slacker be up to?

Well the short answer is I have been crazy busy at work. My updates will be few and far between until further notice. I know that my legions of fans will be torn up over this news. Life is full of disappointments, folks. The sooner you learn it the better off you will be.

So for now "Good night, and good luck"