Trucks & Skulls For Your iPad!

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Video Games,

Do you like Monster Trucks and Laughing Skulls? And stuff that blows up real good?

Then you’ll want to play iPad’s Game of the Week: Trucks & Skulls!

It was created by the gang at Appy Entertainment, which is run by a couple of friends of mine (Chris Ulm and Paul O’Connor) who are both comic book industry veterans. Ulm is the guy who came up with the idea for the Ultraverse, and O’Connor wrote several dozen comics back in the go-go 1980s.

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Appy Entertainment: Zombies In A Box

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Reviews,

Do you still love the Zombies? I do.

I get a kick out of them when they’re done well, like when my pal Max Brooks writes about them (World War Z totally scared me) or when I’m reading The Walking Dead, while waiting for the new TV show.

Now it’s October, the month of Halloween, and a great time for Zombies. Especially when their blood, guts and goopy brains are on sale.

My buds at Appy Entertainment, Paul O’Connor and Chris Ulm, are putting Zombies on sale this month. It’s an iPhone app of theirs called “All-In-1 ZombieBox,” a 10-zombie-app for less than one sweet dollar.

Appy’s ZombieBox has 10 apps from 10 different indie developers: Zombie Invasion (Conniption Entertainment); Defcon Z (Monkey Armada); Draw Slasher - Dark Ninja vs. Pirate Monkey Zombies (Mass Creation); Zombie Saw (L*U*K*E); Zombie Pizza (Appy Entertainment); Zombie Nombie (Smudgy Games) Apocalypse Zombie Fish (The Binary Mill); Zombie Karts (Cascadia Games); Zombie Apocalypse Manual (PALIANTech); and my favorite name of all time: Zombie Whale Hole (Cervo e.U.)

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When Speaks The Blowhards

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials,

One of the reasons I like the San Diego Comic Con/Comic Con International so much is that I get to see old friends and co-workers. That happened yet again (what a shock!) at this year’s convention.

Chris Ulm (one of the cofounders of the app company Appy Entertainment) and Dave Olbrich, now at Space Goat Productions, and little old me started talking about comics in the digital age along with the quality of nachos in restaurants surrounding the convention area.

That conversation ended when the sports bar closed, but Chris and I picked it up again on Facebook. Dave had dropped out, but Paul O’Connor, another pal who also co-founded Appy Entertainment and runs their company blog, joined in.

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CHRIS ULM: The Ultraverse and Appy Entertainment

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Video Games,

Chris Ulm was the guy who came up with the idea of the Ultraverse. I should know - I watched him do it. When Bob Jacob merged his Acme Interactive with Malibu Comics and became co-president with Scott Rosenberg, he wanted some ideas about what Malibu could do in its post-Image Comics years. “And bring me steak, not sizzle!” he demanded like a little kid who wanted the biggest piece of birthday cake.

Ulm pitched a couple of ideas. One was “Hire Jim Shooter” (which the company almost did, 2 1/2 times over the years). The second was the idea that became the Ultraverse (though its working title was the Megaverse, until we discovered that it was already a trademarked universe). Ulm served as Editor-In-Chief of the Ultraverse and co-created Rune with Barry Windsor-Smith.

After Marvel bought Malibu Comics, Ulm and took a look at his employment agreement and realized he could do something else. He went north and jumped into video games at Oddworld Inhabitants (check out Abe’s Exoddus and Munch’s Oddysee!). After Oddworld, he went to work farther south and joined the game company Sammy which later spun off into his own High Moon Studios (where he worked on the Bourne franchise and created the Darkwatch vampire western video game). Last year, he stepped away from Sammy and with some of his Sammy pals, including one-time comic book writer Paul O’Connor, launched Appy Entertainment – a game company that makes applications, apps, for the iPhone.

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WATCHMEN WEEK: Watchmen Links Galore! Hurm.

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

Yes, it’s time to go all out and turn today into a linkfest in honor of Watchmen, both the graphic novel and the upcoming movie. Some of this stuff has been linked to from elsewhere and some of you may have already seen it and read it. But there’s good stuff here and it’s worth seeing again and again.

WATCHMEN TICKET SALES: Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily has the latest stats for the upcoming Watchmen movie, including this gem: “purchases for 124 IMAX screens now account for 1/3 of all Watchmen online ticket sales.” When you click over there, be sure to read the comments for the obvious geek haters and their funny prejudices.

BLOTCHMEN: Kevin Cannon created this as his 24-hour comic in 2008. Blortshack wakes up…hungry for plums. Not an actual Watchmen parody…that’s what makes it fun.

WATCHMEN = POPEYE + RORSHACH: Oh Scott Kurtz, you are The Genius Who Makes Me Laugh.

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WATCHMEN WEEK: Where Were You in 1986? Part 1

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Interviews,

Alan Moore’s and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen #1 went on sale in June 1986, nearly 23 years ago. It’s forgotten by a lot of recent converts, but back then there were no internets to get the word out or issue spoilers or post and host endless debates. Solicitation copy wasn’t quite the artform it is today, and the Watchmen issues came out every month (more or less) – you couldn’t just order the whole thing off Amazon like you can today. There was also no “wait-for-the-trade” guarantee back then. You had to wait for each new issue to tease its way into the marketplace. If you missed an issue, you had to scramble. Moore and Gibbons had to create a compelling-enough story to hold the audience every 30 days over a 1-year period. Over at Mike’s Amazing World of DC Comics, you can see what other comics DC released around the same time. Many of them proved to be not quite as compelling.

We all have memories of where we were when great events took place. You might remember your first computer, your first iPod, your first car, the first time you spoke to a woman dressed as Silk Spectre or a man dressed as Nite Owl. Comic book industry types of the Watchmen/Dark Knight era certainly remember where they were when Watchmen #1 debuted. I asked them to share…

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