Broken Saints Blog-a-Plenty

Meow.

Posted By Brooke Burgess

Wanted to throw this up quickly before the Friday Fan Fun posts or any personal response to the thousands of disappointed gamers out there (including myself) go live. Turns out that our sooper dooper mega rez trailer will be playing in Future Shops across Canada once an hour, every hour…for a MONTH! Pretty sweet news for any curious Canucks who wanna scope the saints in glorious HD – so get out there and loiter in front of those giant screens. It may not be as good as a vaporware virtual headset :(, but at least you know we threw our love into it!

Posted By Brooke Burgess

I’m not one for doing – or even having – a ‘regular’. But I’m kinda digging the whole ritual vibe of the blog. Mondays we catch you up from the weekend, usually with some hot BS press goodness. Tuesday is Haiku day. Thursday’s been a linkish and political sorta day so far, hasn’t it? Friday’s for fans. And the weekend leaves room for ranting and slacking of the highest magnitude 🙂

But we’ve been so slammed lately with summer jobs and store launches and E3 buzzy buzz and groundwork on the next project (heheheheh) that WEDNESDAY somehow slipped through the mid-week crack. Yet it was today – when spies confirmed that BS DVDs had been spotted in comic book shops across the US – that the Thunder Gods struck. Every Day of Odin (that’s a double smooch to you Norse-lovers out there) in North America greets geeks like us with freshly folded fingerables at the local reading nook, so I’m going to do my best to either review a book a week, or sling some comic or even fantasy news your way. Sound kosher?

Posted By Brooke Burgess

I’ve been ragged by more than a few of you for not posting more Rev news the past week, and I completely understand your fanboy positions. That said, when I got a burble out of NOA HQ before the weekend that they would announce its modest power in USA Today (2-3 times more powerful than Gamecube???), did you really want me to tell you? When I got wind that they would NOT announce a price point or specific release window, did you really want to know? And when I got an adamant whisper that they would NOT showcase the controllers or special tech, did you really want to be disappointed with the news BEFORE their press conference this morning? As I’ve said before…Nintendo will wait until NEXT year to make its last big splash in the console market. Until then? Play Zelda. If it comes out on time. Or buy a 360. If you can afford it. In the end, does it really matter in the scope of all things great and small?

A few years ago, I might’ve felt incredibly disappointed – disillusioned – maybe even ‘shaken’ by the lack of news, and the prospects of having Sony or Microsoft shepherd the future of gaming, and watching Nintendo limp slowly into that good console night – Yamauchi pulling Scrooge McDuck dives in his big vault in Kyoto. But in the end? Nintendo will keep making games, folks. Whether the discussions go back on the table between N and M regarding co-development – or whether they pull a Sega and go 3rd party by 2010 – the nature of gaming will remain what it is at its core. Simulation. Exploration. Goal-setting. Distraction. Entertainment. Tribe-building. Virtual destruction.

Try to keep it in perspective, ok?

Posted By Brooke Burgess

Do you really care?

Do you?

REALLY???

I just can’t seem to get motivated.

Must be that whole ‘know the ending’ thing.

Having someone link THIS didn’t hurt either.

Don’t get me wrong.

I’ll probably go.

I’ll just justify it by spouting ‘digital effects research’!

Yeah…that’s the ticket.

And then I’ll look forward to playing it on THIS.

The Big N’s press conference is tomorrow morning.

Prepare to be underwhelmed.

Surprises are always better that way 😉

Posted By Brooke Burgess

Definitive proof

Sassy juxtaposition

Andrew digs ‘kitty’ 😉

Posted By Brooke Burgess

Late night post. A little giddy. Forgive any incoherence. I think it’s a combination of two wicked cool things:

1) An incredible early bday present from forum pal Gypsy – 17th row center at the Ravi Shankar concert (Slash? Eddie V? Satriani? Vai? KISS THIS MAN’S FEET!!!)

2) On the way to said concert, I was stopped by the manager of Golden Age Collectibles in downtown Van. They had a signed copy of the DVD set on display (comic shops across the US will have it in stock this week – go harass your friendly neighbourhood virgin geek today!). They HAD a copy. Past tense. Seems that it was snapped up this weekend by – no joking, kidlets – the one and only ROBIN WILLIAMS!

Two hours of smokin’ sitar bliss from an 85yr-old legend. And Mork’s in town scoping our shit. What a weird and wonderful world…

Posted By Brooke Burgess

Drew-nizzle is back in the hizzle, and everything’s swizzle. Last night, a group of us dropped by Capilano College (where he’s been boning up on his painting technique – just scope the shot to the right and you’ll smell what he’s been cookin’!) , and there was a series of student performances happening. Mainly just a friendly local showcase, and a chance to scout some wee up-and-comers from our parts.

But just before the intermission, A-dawg himself hit the stage with some musician pals, threw on some shades, cranked his amp, and TORE into a smokin’ rendition of THIS – Slash style! Shit, we are SO covering that for the summer show if Chrystal agrees to guest on vocals. Hope you can swing on up the coast for some BS Fan Fun – only three months away!!!

Posted By Brooke Burgess

Was doing the usual weekend news perusal on some of my favourite sites, and found this tidbit over here. Fascination with ‘Foreign Object X-Rays’ (I’ve dubbed them FOXies, just ’cause) ain’t exactly a new phenomenon, but it flashed me back harshly to childhood lectures around the table of all the horrible things that could happen to me if I kept putting the wrong things in my mouth. I was 5 or 6 at the time, so the hypersexualization of my bad little self hadn’t kicked in yet – no dirty, innuendo-laden retorts for Momsie. Still it would seem that not enough of today’s tykes heed such a warning. Man…I don’t even wanna THINK of what this stuff is like coming ‘out’. 😛

Posted By Brooke Burgess

(Thought it might be nice to end the week with a sweet review from our backyard. Scribe ‘Baird Naked’ from the Pacific Northwest’s indy music and film bible The Nerve finally posted this DVD interview to coincide with a contest to win one of 4 SIGNED COPIES! Just one more reason to roll yourself a fatty and move up to Potsville 😉 Oh, and the shot to the right was masterfully cobbled by hardcore fanboy JoshSpazJosh – bow to his talents.)

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to not only educate but to also entertain the masses, people come together and create things. Occasionally, they get it right. A thing that kicks you in the gut while all you can really say is “Wow “and “Whoa.” Those were my feelings after viewing one episode of the Broken Saints online graphic novel.

By Baird Naked

Redefining modern art is difficult, describing the Broken Saints experience even more so. It has a thought provoking and prophetic story. It has anime inspired graphics. It has a unique presentation with its computer interface. It has a hypnotic sound track. Elements, such as word balloons and static images make it feel like a comic book but its pacing, music and cinematic effects make it feel like a movie. It’s the best of both worlds. The dope shit, yes, even crantastic.

Written by Brooke Burgess, the story revolves around four very diverse characters; a young Fijian woman of unknown parentage, a software engineer from the Pacific Northwest, an old Shinto priest, and an Iraqi mercenary. (Yes, over a year before 9/11… Kreskin, anyone?). They are brought together through dreams, visions and events both fair and foul, to combat a threat involving biotech, telecommunications, a military instillation and a man tainted by hate and bent on revenge. Think Donald Trump after Ivanna got everything. The graphics are sublime. Andrew West fleshes out the written words with kinetic character design and “not your usual” colouring techniques, using a Wacom Tablet and Corel’s Painter 6 and Adobe systems Photoshop and Illustrator. Ian Kirby integrates Burgess’s words and West’s illustrations. He layers them using Macromedia’s Flash Authoring tools. He makes the story move. Characters change, dialogue and written narration appear and disappear, subtle movie effects occur. It flows with perfection like a Paris Hilton orgasm. Then Tobias Tinker adds the music. Electronica, thrash guitars, cultural and more pulse and throb from your speakers matching the moods and settings of the story. It enhances rather than diminishes the graphic novel feeling. It just works.

How did this come about? Well, back in June of 2000, Burgess, tired of being a cubicle cowboy, went traveling. While in a plane over the South Pacific, he had an epiphany. Why not create a graphic novel with still pictures and text, add music and put it online? He met up with West, who agreed to illustrate the endeavour. Kirby came next. He knew the advantages of Flash’s layering and cinematic effects. This would take the production to a new level. For the music, Burgess’s cousin Tinker was perfect. He had 20 years experience, had many usable tracks already recorded and was able to collaborate from another continent. With this team, Broken Saints became a reality and what a reality it is.

I sat down with the Team at their Power Source Media Production Office with their Webmaster helping to keep us from being disturbed, or at least, any more disturbed than we already are. They are a polite attentive and an eclectic group. My first thought is to throw them off guard.

Nerve: Does anyone here have a criminal record?

Burgess: Uh, Andrew has experienced police brutality.

Webmaster: Are you actually required to ask that question?

Nerve: No. (Hah! The report’s in the mail CSIS). Do you have any favourite chapter?

Burgess: Chapter #7 is the mushroom trip, Chapter #20 is the series of mushroom trips. #7 is… how would you describe it – the brain in Quantum State.

West: For me, it’s #16. It has such a different art style… oh, and #20 because it has such a mixture of art styles. Everything is kind of melded differently in that chapter.

Nerve: I was reading in some of your media on your website that Adbusters did some of your background posters. How did your connection with them come about?

Burgess: Well, they didn’t actually do the posters for us. We actually just used them for a chapter online. Like we used a lot of things that just felt right because we were doing it for free and we didn’t ask for any money and there was no advertising on the site so we figured it wouldn’t really end up in litigation. Now, with that said, making a real product that you can hang onto and buy and be promoted by a distributor, we had to ask everybody for license material and went to Adbusters and said, “See this scene here with some of your posters in the back. They get ripped down. We like them and we’re anti-capitalist, and we really dig your vibe and what do you want for them?” They just asked for a two-year subscription.

Nerve: What age group were you looking for when you made this?

Burgess: 15 to 55. Really we were blessed with creating something that had a 50 / 50 split demographic between male and female and that had no single blip on the demographic radar. It’s not locked in to say only 13 to 18-year-olds because they like anime. It’s not only college kids that like it because it’s trippy or only progressive adults that like it or liberals that like it or old people that like it. No, it’s a wide mix. Everyone who had access to broadband who wanted to see a good story told, who enjoyed articles that were mentioned on National Public Radio or the CBC. People seemed to just sink their teeth in. It was a really nice split.

Nerve: If you could pick anyone to win the upcoming election in the States, who would it be?

Burgess: Anyone to figurehead the puppet regime?

Nerve: Sure. Anyone.

Kirby: No comment.

Tinker: The Dalai Lama.

West: MC Hammer.

Everyone: Good one.

Burgess: Will Shatner, ’cause he’s really Canadian.