Screenshots released today of Harley Quinn from Lego Batman: The Videogame, which means this is probably what the actual minifig will look like in a kit released later on this year. I like the head, but I still think my torso design is better.

More screenshots at Shacknews.

On a related note, I love Paul Dini’s current writing on Detective Comics. More Harley and Zatanna (in April)!

You did know I was a comic book/Lego geek, yes? ‘Cuz I would hate to have misrepresented myself.

Custom Justice League & Harley Quinn Lego minifigs — click to enlarge

So I may have mentioned a silly Lego minifig customization project a few posts ago. It started out with deciding that the current line of official Batman minifigs sorely needed a Harley Quinn (given that Joker, Poison Ivy and Catwoman were represented) — so I built one. Then in typical fashion it quickly spiralled out of control after surveying the rest of the DC comic book universe. So it’s been a hobby of sorts lately, getting me through the otherwise grim November doldrums. Picture of some of that work above. Batman’s the only stock character; all others designed by yours truly (well, original characters designed by DC, of course).

Construction notes in brief: those are all water-slide decals, drawn in Illustrator, printed on an Epson color inkjet. Other than Harley, I used Lazertran paper — the stuff is expensive, but great to work with, for one simple reason: on the same decal, you can choose areas to have either transparent or white backgrounds simply by choice of painting with water or oil varnish. (Why care? Inkjets generally can’t print white, relying on the color of the paper instead, and if you’re trying to keep most of the decal transparent, not being able to print white is a huge issue. Plus areas with white background also end up more opaque, so they keep the color truer if you’re sticking on a colored torso. Case in point: Superman’s chest shield would be green — yellow on top of blue — if I hadn’t painted that area with water varnish.) I was still figuring out techniques on Harley, so she ended up with Krylon Fusion paint under decals printed on cheaper (and much inferior) paper, and tiny amounts of Sculpey on parts of the hat. The bow and hammer came from BrickForge. I’ll be happy to answer any questions in comments.

Update: I’ve finished a few more characters, and started a photoset for them on Flickr.

With Josie and the Pussycats now in theatres, I was thinking again about live action movie adaptations of comic strips and with the help of IMDB, came up with a list of ones that I’ve either seen, or have read the original comic. Forthwith:

• Batman: the first two were good, the rest were just evil.
• Blade: never saw the comic book, but I liked the movie. Then again, I just like vampires.
• Captain America: I liked Cap as a kid. I don’t know why though, because I now realize any dude who dresses in a flag must have serious, serious issues. Apparently the movie is abysmal.
• Dick Tracy: I think I liked the movie. I can’t remember much about it.
• Flash Gordon: I saw this when I was 7 or so, during summer school. I’m pretty sure I liked it then. Nowadays the entire cultural significance of Flash, including nerdacious references to the Planet Mongo, is completely lost on me.
• Judge Dredd: I utterly loathe Sylvester. ‘Nuff said.
• Punisher: I liked the comic book. And Dolph just RULES. (Yes, I did see Masters of the Universe. What’s your point?) I still want to see this one no matter how much it might suck.
• Spawn: Okay, I did like this movie. Your derision, and that of my fellow coworkers who sneer at bad CGI effects, is duly noted.
• Superman: I only remember details of the first (I’m sure I’ve seen 2 and 3) and I guess I’m rather ambivalent. Supes was never a favorite character - the strip always reeked of jingoism, and I never did understand why the country (Americans! C’mon!) was so complacent with the entire alien-among-us thing. Despite this I guess some parts of the movie were tolerable (those without Margot Kidder).
• Supergirl: I sat through half of this and gave up. Despite Helen Slater’s legs.
• Steel: Ok, the fact that I used to have a comic book with this guy in it (for the curious: he came along after Superman “died” [yes, I bought into that hype, if only to see whether Superman would stay buried]) brands me a total geek. I won’t watch the movie though.
• Swamp Thing: See previous sentiment. I had 8 pages of one comic book - “Marvel Comics Presents #1″ - devoted to Swamp Thing. I still have no idea who or what he was, except that he was one ugly fella.
• Tank Girl: After six years I still haven’t forgiven Manh Ha for this. Ice-T in a kangaroo suit? OMIGOD.
• X-Men: I liked this one, although I think their staffing of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants was kinda weak. And where the hell was Beast?

I don’t have any intention of seeing Josie (nope, I won’t ever admit to opening an Archie Comic). However, tantalizing bits of the upcoming Spiderman movie did cross my desk a few months ago. Given the mixed track record above, I can only hope this movie turns out well. Marvel, before X-Men, has fared far worse than DC with movie adaptations, and I find this unfortunate. As a kid, Marvel was always my preferred choice. DC was too refined for my tastes, plus the aforementioned disliking of Superman factored heavily.

Next Month - Stay Tuned As We Breathlessly Examine Movies Based On Video Games: Can Tomb Raider Make The Cut?! Until Then - Make Mine Marvel!

God, did I really just type that?

Stan “The Man” Lee, God of Marvel Comics, came to Pixar and held a QA session for an hour - just amazingly fucking hellacool!, as Amy might put it - highly entertaining, and also just awe inspiring just to be in the audience. Someone had the nerve to ask: “In a fight, who would win - Thor or the Hulk?” and the answer started out as the typical copout answer: “Well it would depend - what do you feel in your heart? It depends on the artist.” But then: “However, since you asked. The Hulk is the strongest mortal alive..” (scattered cheers from Hulk fans) “.. BUT Thor is after all the immortal son of Odin. So… Thor would win. I have spoken.” (more cheers)

I have decided that Marie Callendar’s frozen dinners are the equivalent of culinary toxic waste. Never will I buy anything besides Stouffers.

Metallica tickets arrived today.

I couldn’t access my home machine during the afternoon, which brought on paranoid images of someone breaking into my place and hauling everything away. Of course when I got home this wasn’t the case, but my DSL connection was indeed dead. Various attempts on the software side of things were not helpful so I called up the Inreach helpdesk - after some random useless tips (”Have you tried rebooting?”) the guy suggested I powering down and powering up the DSL modem. And what do you know, it actually worked.