Hello….

Here is an interesting fictional story I saw over at Io9 about Zeppelin travel.

In a few weeks is a small gaming convention called Strategicon in Los Angeles. I’m thinking of taking my board game there to test, if I can get it ready in time!

UPDATE: Fixed the link, sorry about that!

Hello!
First of all, these two pages took me way too long. I almost hate looking at them. Almost.

Got a new watch this week. The Tauchmeister T0196 XXL Military Worldtimer Watch.  I ordered it from Long Island Watch, they have a lot of other cool vintage style watches.  I wish I could have bought more!

I also got a scale replica of the USS Macon Airship, but I have to glue all the engines back on since they came off in shipping.  Bummer.

Meanwhile I have been very busy this last week.  I posted what I’ve been up to over at my business blog www.kopetkai.com/blog.  I haven’t been updating it much since I moved but I will from now on. . .

Found this picture on flickr via Gizmodo.  An awesome picture of a New York police officer in New York-1931 testing bulletproof glass.  I’m assuming the test went well.

Thanks to the editor over at the http://belfrycomics.net/ last week for the really nice review of my comic.  I hope All the new visitor’s stick around!

I was asked this week about who my characters are based on.  Good question! The physical look of each character is based on someone, but those people are still alive, so I don’t know if I will be saying who they are just yet! Each character is also based on someone from the period.  Part of what got me to do this comic was how amazing individual people were in the 1930’s.  One such person was Ahmed Hassanein from Egypt. He was the real deal! All the things that my character Ahmed Hassan is supposed to be.  I just changed the last name to Hassan because I have a friend who’s middle name is Hassan, and I changed his country of origin to Algeria because I liked their uniforms.  I also liked the stories I read about Algerian sharpshooters during World War One.

Last week I got to go to a car show here in Ventura.  I took a couple pictures with my phone of some interesting cars. On the way back home we stopped at a small gallery that used to be a bank in the early nineteen hundreds.  So I took some pictures from inside the vault.  Here is a closeup of the time lock system and the emergency ventilator in case you got trapped inside.

This week after that crazy volcano blew up, of course everyone knows the planes in Europe  were grounded.  But some planes got through!  They had to bring out the old guns, here’s a picture of some old biplanes flying over modern grounded jets.

I also tested my board game this last week.  It’s still in a very rough early stage, but the testing definitely went well!  Maybe I will post some pictures of the next play through.

In a couple weeks is the Turner Classic Movie film festival in Los Angeles.  They have a very exciting lineup including some very big guests.  I will probably be going to at least one of the film showings.   The last day they are showing Metropolis,  I will definitely try to get into see that.  Here’s and article all about this latest version including a piece of film they found in South America that had be missing since the 1920’s.

This week I watched the film The Magician (1926)  It centers around a magician who needs the blood of a virgin to create life.  It was a pretty dark movie for the time.  One of my favorite parts was the giant demon statue one of the characters was carving during the film.  The book came out years before the movie, and the character of the magician was based on Aleister Crowley.  I thought that was interesting since my Aleister Gurdeff character is based on him and another esoteric man from the period.  When the book came out Aleister wrote a letter that was published in Vanity Fair Magazine.  He accused the author of plagiarism, but also succeeded in enhancing his own mysterious reputation. Here’s a quote from his letter, “I found phrase after phrase, paragraph after paragraph, page after page, bewilderingly familiar…”

“Bewildering,” I love that, what a ham.

Hello, a lot of onomatopoeia this week, I guess it just seemed to fit.  If anyone has any questions or suggestions drop me a line!  I usually disable comments after a few days because of spammers, but I read all of them, and thanks for those of you who have commented so far, either here or on my facebook page.

This week’s movie from 1930’s Hollywoodland is Heat Lighting.  It’s a short movie, only about an hour.  But it provides a nice snapshot of 1930’s cross country travelers.  The whole movie takes place at a gas station in the middle of the desert where some criminals and rich divorcees cross paths.  A lot of pre code Hollywood moments that only a few years later they wouldn’t be able to get away with.  According to TCM this  movie made the Legion of Decency’s list of movies that Catholics shouldn’t watch. Also watch for an appearance by Jane Darewell who played Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath.

I give it two stars out of 4, with an extra star for the very realistic garage scenes, desert setting, and the Mexican family that stops at the gas station and serenades the campers there at night. So that brings us to a grand total of 3 stars!

Some news going around this week was the recent availability of the entire Popular Science library on google.  I found this cover and thought it particularly interesting.  Also this week I downloaded Toy Soldiers on Xbox Live.  It’s a fun little tactical war game that takes place using WWI based toy soldiers.  Very fun game, It definitely took up way too much of my time last weekend.

This week’s 30’s movie of the week was 1935’s The Whole Town’s Talking, starring Edward G. Robinson.  It’s a great little comedy gangster  film, especially for the interesting acting job Robinson does in playing his own double.  I especially appreciated all the 1930’s slang and great outdoor city traffic scenes filled with cars from the period.

Oh, and I also happened to be flipping through channels this week and caught and episode of Lock N’ Load with R. Lee Ermey.  And to my surprise he was testing both machine guns in this weeks episode, the Thompson gun and the MG 08.  He can definitely handle a machine gun well for a 64 year old. (As in better than I could handle one.)

Hello again,
So I’m pretty much settled into my new home, getting ready to bug Daniel about playing some games. I’m sure he’s itching to play. Saw a post about this camera via Gizmodo today. Click on it to read more about it. It’s just cool that on a modern gadget site they still take time to acknowledge the old school art deco gadgets.

And I also just got in the mail this week the latest issue of Zelda, the self  described  ”magazine of the vintage nouveau”.  It was a great little magazine and I fully intend to drop an email to the authors and tell them so.  I highly recommend it to those who are as confused about what the current year is as I am.

The team is splitting up for now. The first page of the second chapter finds some members at the Carbon and Carbide building in Chicago, an art deco landmark. And some members on the Zephyr, a historic piece of art deco machinery.
In 1934 the Pioneer Zephyr set a speed record between Chicago and Denver in a famous run called the “Dawn-to-Dusk” dash.

Oh and by the way, I just picked up Bioshock 2 special edition today, very nice packaging, nice art deco style posters, hope it’s as good as the first one!