Supers Prologue: 2

So hey, it’s me again. Here to continue my recount of London after the “Event”.  It took a few weeks but I was eventually able to get my power under control and Blaze (As I call it) whenever I want. At first it would only happen when I was angry or ‘heated up’ (Get it?) but eventually I got it under control.

The first few weeks were by far the weirdest in terms of getting used to everybody getting powers, it was all over the news, TV, Facebook and Twitter (#MyNewAbility) and you can bet the Government capitalised on it quickly. A new tax was declared for everybody that had powers or “Supers” as they started calling them. A flying licence was also put into implementation for all those that could fly, and only those who had permission were allowed to fly and If caught flying without a licence then you could end up paying a huge fine… “Flying in dangerous” they told us “We wouldn’t want accidents happening in the air, therefore only trained professionals will be allowed to fly” made it seem as if it was for our own good, but anyone could tell that it was the Public Transport money they were worried about.

A lot happened during the first few months after this event happened. As you can already guess, a bunch of costumed nerds joined forces and started a Superhero team called “Team Justice”. Essentially it was just a bunch of cosplayers who just wanted to walk up and down the streets dressed up as a Superhero. I thought the trend would die out soon, and it was about to when the first incident arose of a group of villains with abilities tried to rob a Post-Office (I bet you thought I was going to say bank, naah, Banks are too well protected, but a Post-Office is the next best thing) Though the villains had certain powers they were no match for the ever growing army of “Team Justice”. By now Team Justice was quite a big group and they were allowed to establish themselves as a non-profit company with all their profit either going into reinvestment or the Government. In return they were granted flying licences and leave to use their powers as they wished.

The Government also saw that Supers were too strong for the Police in general, especially those without powers; therefore they created the Supers-Police, armed with new technology to help subdue rogue Supers. Ever heard of restraint?  They haven’t, always going in guns blazing to every little problem.  The other month they had a lawsuit against them as they practically blew up a shop chasing down a robber. Nobody was hurt however… well apart from the robber who suffered several broken limbs and was in a coma for two weeks, all because he stole some Basmati Rice.

Though despite the efforts of Team Justice and the Supers-Police, Criminal groups also started popping up everywhere, one of the major ones being the Hood Ratz… a crew in the south-London area that used their abilities to mug and rob unsuspecting travellers. And they’re just one of the groups of criminals out there.

Jeez, I’ve been talking about the world so much I totally forgot the most important part… ME! Soo… what have I been doing since I got an ability… Well I started Uni, and am sharing the upstairs of my older sister’s apartment with Jerome and Jenna (one of my close cousins), Jerome goes to the same uni as me; however Jenna is still in college, we also now take combat classes once a week (Self-Defense, Kung Fu, Muai Thai have become quite popular since the Supers event). There is always work to be done as Supers so we set up a service to use our abilities to gain a bit of extra money, from cleaning cars to being bodyguards.

So guys remember if you need a Super for hire email me @ Blaze553@Hotmail.co.uk with your job and prices.

 - Blaze

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Rob Reviews: Prometheus

It’s been years since a truly great horror has been made. Paranormal Activity came close to placing itself on the canon, amongst movies such as Rosemary’s Baby, The Shining, and The Thing, but it lacked the compelling characters and exciting plots which make those three so terrifying to watch. So it’s no surprise, then, that so many fans of Alien were (as I myself was) buoyed by the prospect of the Xenomorphic mythology being revived by the man who began the Alien series. Ridley Scott, who, like the genres he made his best work in (Blade Runner and Alien) is in dire need of a great movie to remind us of the artistry and filmmaking craft he (and Sci-Fi and Horror) can bring to audiences. It’s been twelve years since Gladiator, and thirty years since Blade Runner. It’s been even longer since Alien.

So what is Prometheus? Named after the titan of Greek mythology (Prometheus is ancient Greek for ‘Forethinker’) who gave humanity its first technology (fire) Prometheus tries to ask the questions (or at least Scott and screenwriters Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof wanted it to try) about the meaning of life – where did we come from? And how did we come to be? They’ve stated this in interviews and promotional talks. Prometheus is based on the theory that humanity benefited from a ‘Prometheus’ race in its evolution through Earth’s exposure to Alien DNA.  The principal character of Prometheus, Dr Elizabeth Shaw (played by Noomi Rapace), along with her doctor boyfriend Dr Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), discovers cave paintings around the world which suggest the Prometheus theory.  Funding from the ever-present Weyland corporation (Yes, them. Bells should ring for the Alien fans out there) enables Shaw and Holloway to explore their theory to LV 223, a planet with similar conditions to Earth’s, to find out where mankind came from. Meanwhile, an android named David (Michael Fassbender) and the Weyland representative Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) oversee the expedition. What happens in a horror movie? Things go awry, horrifically so. Prometheus is no exception.

The questions are never asked troubling enough to disturb. I went through the movie without feeling that something profound was being addressed. A movie, interesting it may be on its own has to have a bearing to the current reality of the audience to thoroughly touch them. I didn’t feel that in Prometheus. I did in Alien; it didn’t try to ask those vague questions, ones a toddler can ask, the type of questions so many artists fall for (Terence Malick’s worst movie? The Tree of life. What was its premise? The Origins of Man). Is there any other question so solipsistic, so open to interpretation and superstition? The aim of a movie, essentially, is to convince the audience of something. Why then would a director take on something that cannot be argued importantly?

Alien

Dan O’Bannon’s screenplay for Alien was based on the artwork of the Dutch Surrealist H.R. Giger, master of the grotesque. He found the artwork sexually horrific, and wanted to create a monster which would conjure up the disgusting nature of rape, of sexuality gone wrong. The history of the first Alien film is like the history of a soft-core Porn film; the eggs of the iconic facehuggers originally opened into two flaps, instead of the flower like four. Twentieth Century Fox ordered Scott’s team to change the bi-segmented, obviously vaginal egg opening to the quadruple-segmented organism. At the British censoring committee the reason given for the 18+ rating of the movie was not the violence or the horror of the movie. It was due to the movie being seen as too sexual for younger people. The connotations of rape are evident in the design of the alien and the script. The facehugger literally ‘rapes’ the face, forcibly impregnating the Alien’s future host, and the victim dies horrifically in the trauma of the ‘childbirth’ of a phallic-shaped Alien which bursts through the chest. Android Ash speaks with near sexual love of the murderous adult alien. If questions about sex aren’t raised in Alien, it certainly gives people the shits about unprotected intercourse, 

Alien: Facehugger

But the visceral is dumped in Prometheus. Instead, we get a comparatively dry movie without the disgust of the original Ridley movie. Dan O’Bannon is dead, and the writers of such illustrious creations as Lost (Lindelof), flagship for all things ridiculous, and The Darkest Hour (Spaihts), a movie lucky enough to get 11% at rotten tomatoes, are at the wheel. Ridley could have got vastly superior screenwriters for such an ambitious project. What about Alex Garland, writer of Danny Boyle’s Sunshine? Hell, Duncan Jones and Nathan Parker from Moon? A Ridley Sci-Fi movie should have received more respect than it did, and Scott should have had more self-respect. Or was it studio pressure? Either way, the screenplay doesn’t add up. The more I think about this movie I find more flaws, plot holes and character inconsistencies. The continuity errors alone are stupefying (I’ve also set a mini-gauntlet for you readers. I’m not going to reveal them for the sake of spoiler-prevention, so you’ll you’ll have to find them for yourself). After the movie finished I left the cinema disappointed. Now I think it’s a miracle Prometheus in its current form got made. I bet its screenplay looks like a badly sewn patchwork of first drafts, written by more than the two writers of Spaihts and Lindelof. Were it not for the excellent cast and the special effects, we’d have a movie on our hands that’d rival the calamity of Godzilla (1998).

Ridley’s direction in Prometheus has nothing of the claustrophobic intensity of Alien; it’s pretty standard horror-fare here. Michael Fassbender is the best actor by far. As David, he has the chilly exterior of a machine, but there is a childlike yearning for something more substantial in his dealings with the other human characters and his involvement in the Prometheus project. One of the opening scenes in the movie -very well done (one of the few) - gives so much potential for the character, and gives so much for Fassbender. He doesn’t waste, but he, like everyone else in Prometheus gets dogged down by the shoddy craftsmanship of Lindelof and Spaihts. Elizabeth Shaw is a nonentity. However much the writers and Scott insist audiences will conclude Ripley’s inevitable tepid reincarnation arrives in Noomi Rapace’s character. She’s a bit weak here though. But again this is down to the writing. Too many times we are reminded of the main flaw in so many modern horror movies. We even have stupid-character syndrome as a common affliction. It’s the kind where horror-fodder for teenagers walks into a clearly dangerous situation with the reckless oblivion suggestive of Harry and Lloyd in Dumb and Dumber.

Does Ridley get his great movie? Do the genres of Sci-Fi and Horror get their much needed revitalisation? No. A little more effort and the thing could have taken off. Just fire those damn screenwriters. 

By Rob Horsfield


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Supers Prologue: Part 1

So… Where do I begin? 

      My name is Luke… Though a lot of people call me Blaze, a shortened version of my online ID Blaze553, I’m 18, currently at university… I’m single… What more is there to say? Oh yeah! I can set my body on fire!

      Haven’t always been able to do the last one, happened roughly a year ago, was having an argument with my sister, got angry and Boom! I was on fire. It felt… normal. Didn’t even know I was on fire until my sister screamed ‘YOU’RE ON FIRE’ and I looked down at my hands to discover that she was right. 

      I did what any normal person would do in that situation… Ran around screaming ‘I’M ON FIRE…” Almost set the whole house on fire but my sister was able to get the hose in time and soaked the whole house before it got too bad. 

      Seems I wasn’t the only one, the talk of the town was ‘look what I can do!’ and the things I saw that morning made me question my sanity. One man grabbed his wife and floated a few feet into the air, another was casually teleporting as opposed to walking, seems he couldn’t teleport very far however, but it was still weird. And things didn’t get any better once I reached College.

I met up with Jerome as soon as I got into college, or as I like to call him ‘The Brute’. Jerome is a current roommate of mine and one of my closest friends; he was also the biggest guy in our class, and loves to train every muscle in his body except the one in his head, seriously… If he isn’t in the Gym he’s either eating or sleeping. 

      He had nothing new to say… Squat this, squat that, bench press 700kg bla bla bla…. ‘I’ve heard it all before’ I told him, but that day he gave me a serious look as if I was missing something. He repeated 700kg and I asked him how much that weighed when he replied that it was MUCH more than he or any human should be able to lift. I trusted him on that. Though he might not know much about world affairs or history but when it came to the physics of the human body he was Einstein.

So he recounted to me the experience of this morning and how he noticed that he could run faster and jump a hell of a lot higher than humans were supposed to.  He also had the same experience as me that morning, watching people as they did things that defied logic. 

      So the conclusion was that everybody was getting strange powers. But the question was...

What caused all of this?

To be continued...

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Supers the Prologue series...

     Though I may be getting ahead of myself here and we haven't even started on the comic yet, I feel that we need to get the Supers ball rolling. So I have created a prologue from Blaze's point of veiw which takes place before the Supers series begins. The first part of the prologue should be out around this weekend (Probably friday or saturday) and should give you some insight into the Supers world before the actual series begins. I hope you enjoy.

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Ajiey Blogs 2 + Dango Soup 4: MMOChoice

This is a 2-in-1 Post today as I have left it too long without doing a blog on the MCM Expo which happened a Week ago. Also have page 4 of Dango Soup as well for those of you who enjoy Dango Soup. So firstly there are a couple of things I want to address in this Blog. 

1. MCM Expo

So the MCM Expo/ London Comic-Con was last weekend, ranging from Friday, Saturday and Sunday and I couldn't have asked for a better 20th Birthday (Saturday 26th of may). It was one of the most craziest-fun day's I've had in a long time!
   It was my first event in general that I was promoting my work and have never done it before. Despite how prepared I thought I was on Friday, it turned out nothing could have prepared me for my first expo. I showed up with a few flyers and few copies of Fantasy World while others near me had full-fledged stalls and was also next to the Adsf/ Eddsworld stalls. So yeah I felt like a sheep surrounded by lions. 

   After my first day with only 1 Sale overall, I was doubting the rest of the weekend, despite my new friends around me telling me that Friday doesn't really get you any Sales. After Fridays fail I decided to come back on Saturday with the same copies I had on Friday and was totally taken by surprise at what Saturday would bring.

   By about 1:00 on Saturday we were nearly sold out of Fantasy World copies and had to get my mum to restock me. Along with a whole batch of flyer's and by the end of the day we had only 10 copies left. 

   From what people told me about Sunday, I was doubting that I would make that many sales on that day too but I brought the rest of my Fantasy World stock from home just in case (As I learnt from Saturday, always better to have too much than too little). And to our surprise... By the end of the day we had sold out.

   Overall I'm really happy about this as my first expo and I didn't think people would be that responsive to Fantasy World... But It seems I gathered quite a few FW fans :). And would like to say THANK YOU to all the wonderful people I met at the Expo... You know who you are, you helped make my first Expo and my Birthday AWESOME and one of the best birthdays I've had in a long time... A Special thanks to Ajiey Media's Sarkazz (John King) and Mo (Mohammed Hussain) who helped me throughout the weekend... Couldn't have done nearly as well without you.

2. Fantasy World

After the positive response and demand for it at the MCM Expo I have been inspired to get on with developing the continuation of the story (Chapters 2,3,4 etc). However as you know, I don't do the art for Fantasy World and instead employ an artist to do the work, Which can be 1... Expensive and 2...Quite hard. The initial stages of finding an artist and then being abe to convince them into agreeing with your budget can be quite hard. Setting up a Business with a Student Loan budget is very taxing. Whereas some students are broke because they spend too much on Drinking, Clothes and partying... I'm broke because I'm spending too much on developing comics, Ajiey Media promotion, OH... and Food... I love Food :). Shows as much, it's Saturday night and I'm at home writing this blog instead of out with my friends partying at Flagz! But then again I've been to two parties this week, three would've been overdoing it... How did I get sidetracked... Anyway as I was saying, I am hoping to get the next chapter (at least) out by the next expo. But it's up to if I find an artist within my budget to work with in time.

3. Dystopia: The Telepath

Even if it's bad news and Fantasy World isn't out by the next expo... Don't worry as Dystopia: The Telepath chapter 1 will be out by then. Dystopia: The Telepath is another comic series primarily written by Darasimi Makinde. If you wish to learn more about it, read some of the background HERE on the Wikia. It takes a more serious tone than the comedy-based Fantasy World but it is sure to make you want to read more!

4. MORE Content?!?

Here at Ajiey Media we always strive to get new and interesting content and now that University isn't holding me back I will be able to max out Ajiey Media this summer. Which means... Yes... MORE CONTENT! From Dango Soup, to Comedy skit videos, Short stories... Longer stories and the works :). So stay on the site to keep updated. We also hope to be moving to a better site soon. This site has served its purpose well and good but it seems that we need more.

5. Dango Soup: MMOChoice

Now what you've all been waiting for... This weeks Dango Soup (Though this ain't a weekly thing!). So it's a dilemma I've had since the beginning of the holiday. Though I probably won't have time to play them properly, it's something nice to spend an hour on now and again.