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Thanks! It is real. I've written lots in the past, but get pretty bad writer's block, so I decided to start a comic diary. No idea how long I can keep it up, but it's good practice. I feel the art has improved already from when I started two months back.

Because Disney and Lego have a bad professional relationship? Really, Kree-O is sold by Hasbro, not made by them. A bigger worry would be them just making their own series. But realistically, Lego is not simply a series of molds, but an evolved brain-trust that has value beyond the plastic they press. Making pieces does not equal making Lego sets.

Fall is fully here

It's a lovely build. Detailed, but not overly busy. I like it!

For some reason, this took little thought. It helps that I spent a lot of my youth doodling out super hero ideas. Anyway, this is The Scoundrel, who fights under the shadow of night. Powers? What powers? He relies on his wits and agility to get by, as well as the ability to take a right hook without complaining. Classy and debonaire, and not at all short on charm, he's unfortunately marred with a hideous complexion. "Fear not the night! The Scoundrel walks among you!"

It's nowhere near true, merely plausible at this point. Whedon most likely won't be directing since he'll be directing another movie for release in 2015. It's called Avengers II, maybe you've heard of it?

Well, I linked to the article. If you read it, you'll see why his name came up. I think he'd be a fabulous choice though. I pretty much agree with all your sentiments.

Those are really nice! They look very much of a style that appears in illustrated books.

That was a genuinely touching vid! Probably more so now that I'm a parent, and it means so much to make your kids happy, especially the way they can get fixated on things. My daughter has been obsessed with the movie Cars for almost a year now, and I've gotten her four or five sets. But she really wanted Luigi and Guidi. For weeks, she was showing me pics of them and telling me who they were, so I cracked, and picked up the set with them. And the smile on her face, the excitement as we put them together just killed me. So, seeing that kind of vid tugs at this old bear's heart strings. Anyway, in the sake of equality, I think it should be pointed out that LEGO is not the only company that does this sort of thing:

AICN has a really curious piece theorizing that Brad Bird and Damon Lindelof are working on the current sequels. http://www.aintitcool.com/node/59411 There's nothing to it, but it does raise a lot of interesting questions about how deep into development it would have to be in order to hit a 2015 release date. At the very least, the general story would have to be there, and the creative teams getting ready. Whatever you think of the prequels, they required a lot of design work to be completed before any shooting could begin, which requires a mostly completed script.

Sorry, I misread that. I was thinking "Star Wars in the future" and you wrote "future Star Wars."

Fox will continue to distribute the films for the time being. <edit> From Aintitcoolnews http://www.aintitcool.com/node/59381

I have a big disagreement here. I don't think Mark Hamill was a good actor at all, and one of the weaker points of the OT, but Hayden Christianson was much worse, and one-note in my opinion. I blame Lucas' direction for that over Christianson though. Poor guy had his career as destroyed by it as Hamill did in the 80's He kills his dancer early on, and has no fear from bounty hunters or Jedi. It was quite powerful to me. At the time of watching, I was thinking Jedi were near-invincible, and Jabba was above them. The plan of going in one at a time is a little nonsensical, but was intended to infiltrate rather than storm the palace. But, yeah, it's a plot hole. But, Jabba does try to execute Luke, first with the Rancor, then with the Sarlaac. It was a major plot point! A chase to what? Catch Count Dooku? Who the Hell is Count Dooku? I had no clue, since all he did was fight Yoda and run away. No development with the main villains of this movie. And that whole arena scene is just as ridiculous as the stuff with Jabba. We have a super-powerful Jedi. Let's put him in an arena rather than slit his throat. But I can overlook that as movie tradition. Now, I love Star Wars, and have watched the prequels more than once, because of the love for the OT. The frustration with them isn't the stuff that is aimed at kids, it's the stuff it fails to do for me. The humour falls flat, the drama isn't earned, and the moods don't sell me. But it's all relative. If you like thinking about the films, and how they're viewed, I recommend the column Film Nerd 2.0 on Hitfix. The writer shares his beloved geek cinema with his young sons, and talks about how they process it. He's shown them both trilogies, in the order, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6. It's pretty fascinating, and puts adult readings of the movies in perspective (ie. his kids totally believe in Anakin). Here is the first one on Star Wars http://www.hitfix.co...ng-of-star-wars

Sorry What? The effects were ahead of everything else (did people go to Jurassic Park for dialog?). The charisma, no. The acting is far worse in the PT. Good actors can rescue a lot, and little was rescued in the PT. Okay. Honestly, I find the trash compactor scene funnier today than I did as a kid. I didn't find it funny at all when I was a kid. And Jabba, for a massive puppet, carries a lot of dramatic heft. The New Edition CGI version has no heft at all. But, the original ROTJ works pretty well in that respect. Really, that AOTC scene just plain sucks. There is zero drama, nothing at stake, and it isn't even funny. Do you find it funny in any way when the head is stuck to a droid body afterward? The ESB scene with Chewie has some comic touches, but it's essentially a dramatic scene. The intention is important. Meaningful if you were a kid a the time. For adults, he just seems like a petulant kid. All his behaviour is stupid and short-sided. Luke's ascension, as it were, is not so clear, I can agree, but it wasn't a main focus. I think the turning of Vader in ROTJ was more important than Luke's resistence of his father. We may have had different concepts of the film though. For me, Luke's temptation wasn't as heavy as Vader's redemption. I'll blatantly go against that and say that the Phantom Menace is the least stupid of the trilogy. It has less cool stuff, but it has less utter stupidity. I like more than 2/3 of it. Attack of the Clones is the worst. It makes no sense at all. None at all. ("Someone built a clone army for us. Let's use it.") The opening sequence is cool, Kamino looks cool, and Yoda fights cool, but it's a shitty film. A really shitty film. Samuel L. Jackson says, "Let's get this party started." Then little Boba Fett cries. In the last 20 years, I can't think of a movie that pissed me off more than Attack of the Clones. There have been many worse films, but this film was Transformers 2 level bad.

AICN reported that Indiana Jones is included, and I don't know how Clone Wars is divided from Star Wars. Fox will distribute SW for the time being, as Paramount continues to distribute the Marvel films.

Or a James Bond or Batman movie... Sounds fine to me. Reboot the focus and creative team as needed

Honestly, anyone who thinks the prequel trilogy is great probably about 20 years old right now, or younger. There are flaws in the original trilogy, but all the same, they were years ahead of everything else at the time. The next time a movie was so shockingly new in imagery was Jurassic Park. Plus, the movie had people acting. Whatever story problems were there, the charisma and newness covered it right up. Unfortunately, the PT had cgi, which was not shocking at all, and was being done equally well or better by WETA at that point. All the acting was done against green screens, which sucked a lot of the charisma out of the actors, and the story was often nonsensical or dull. So, there was a very cool Darth Maul, who died too soon. A very cool Yoda fight. A cool Grievous, who gets shot with a blaster too soon. And some cool ship designs. But that doesn't carry the films. I wanted to like it, I really did. As a 26 year old, I took my girlfriend to see Attack of the Clones, and it was 50% sucking (Dexter's Diner or whatever, younglings, etc). Then, Anakin's mom died in his arms the moment he rescued her. I turned to my girlfriend and whispered, "I'm sorry I made you watch this." That was before the 'comedy' of a cgi C-3PO on an assembly line. It was embarrassingly bad. I didn't see Sith in the theatre. And though there are some great moments, they are the minority of the film. So, I don't want to take your memories away from you. You'll always have your time on Naboo But liking something doesn't make it great, it just means you liked it, and kids have lots of bad taste all the time. There's a lot of stuff people love, but for personal reasons, not because they're great. My main theory on why they were so poor is that Lucas was surrounded by yes-men who were afraid to tell him when he had a bad idea. And the bad ideas flourished. ("There'll be a trade blockade!" "Brilliant, George! The kids will eat it up!") If you have an argument for why they are great, I'm willing to listen.

As compared to the maturity of the rest of the Star Wars films... Which Lucas has repeatedly said are meant for kids...

But recently, Pixar took over much of Disney's creative department.

Lucas wanted Tom Selleck for Indiana Jones.

Stuff to remember about Disney: -They didn't make the Marvel movies. They allowed them to proceed as planned, and are now supporting phase two. -The studio head who supported Prince of Persia, POTC4 and Jon Carter was fired. Plus, he was one of the people responsible for titling the movie Jon Carter instead of Princess of Mars (because boys hate princesses) and the horrible ad campaign. -The company handed over its animation to Pixar head John Lasseter, who used to be part of Lucasfilm... Stuff to consider about George Lucas: -He's crazy. -He hasn't had a good idea in over 25 years. -Even then, so much of what we loved in the original movies were products of the cast, Ralph McQuarrie, and the director of Empire, Irvin Kirshner. -Every bad idea he had for the prequels was agreed to by his sycophantic staff of yes-men. At the very least, the brand is in abler hands. Or maybe you forget the Ewoks cartoon show Lucas approved? He was not a bearer of quality.

Disney can't do a worse job than Lucasfilm did on the prequels. Dare I say it, it should be refreshing to see Star Wars out of the tyrannical grasp of a guy who lost all touch with reality over the 20 years that passed between his early triumph and crying pod racer Anakin. And don't forget, Lucas also tried to destroy Indiana Jones too with the Crystal Skull. Meanwhile, Disney is shepherding Marvel's blockbusters, and handed over it's animation studio to John Lasseter of Pixar. They've been more savvy than they used to in recent years (excluding some of their own blockbusters). And there's a certain beautiful full circle feeling to see Pixar and Lucasfilm united again. Crazy stuff!

More fun with markers

This rule is the biggest thing that players need to learn here, both in mafia school and in the big boy games. Being vanilla doesn't mean you simply jump on bandwagons. Lots can done simply by interacting. The two biggest things that can be done are: 1) Snooping out suspicious behavior to catch scum, and 2) Being so clearly town that the town doesn't waste night actions on you. I've found your lessons very clear and helpful. Hopefully the players take note. There is no second in mafia. Just winners and losers. Now, I didn't follow the game day by day, so this is no comment on your playing, but the townies mafia let live till the end are generally the ones who pose zero threat to them, be it through lack of game experience, apathy to the game, or simply bad scum-sniffing skills which ends up helping the scum. So, generally, you never want to be 'second' like that in mafia

Thank you kindly good sir!