TRAILER: Pacific Rim Uprising first trailer is here!

• Official site 
• IMDB listing

THE APOCALYPSE COMES MARCH 2018!

GIANT ROBOTS FIGHTING GIANT MONSTERS!

 TAKE MY MONEY!!!

Fleischer Superman toons now online!

They've been in the public domain for years (and consequently in dozens of DVD compliations) but Warner Bros. has uploaded the classic Superman cartoons from Fleischer Studios.

In my totally unprofessional opinion, these are among the very best early animations of ol' Supes, bringing together the best of the early rotoscope animation style with the classic wonder of the Golden Age. There's no time-defying Kryptonian to wind back the clock by circling the Earth here--just a guy leaping tall buildings in a single bound (okay, he does fly a bit). Oh, and tearing the shiznit out of some robots!

I've stuck with a properly themed sci-fi episode, Mechanical Monsters, which later went on to inspire some even BIGGER automatons in movies like the Iron Giant and Sky Captain: World of Tomorrow.

Check out the full list of the Fleischer toons at Cartoon Brew.

Incidently, Hydra Miniatures has some excellent "warbots" that look like good stand-ins for Iron-Sky-Fleisher-bots!

COMING SOON: Insect brains in robots!

Holy F#$%! This is insane and yet REALLY happening: researchers are working on putting honey bee brains into robotic insect bodies! How long before some madman puts his own brain into a giant robotic exoskeleton? Does nobody think these things through?

Apparently they did, in fact, as the purpose is a bit more altruistic. From io9:

The researchers hope a robotic insect could supplement or replace the shrinking population of honey bees that pollinate essential plant life.

Now, while this might sound like some kind of outlandish futurist joke, there are some serious players — and money — involved. Called the "Green Brain Project," it was recently given £1 million (USD $1,614,700) by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), as well as hardware donations from the NVIDIA corporation.

and...

The Green Brain Project could further our understanding of both artificial intelligence and the neuroscientific underpinnings of animal cognition. But also, along with the National Science Foundation-funded Robobees project (led by Harvard University), the advent of an artificial pollinator could provide a solution (either temporarily or permanently) to the problem of dwindling honey bee populations — an organism that's currently dealing with the devastating effects of colony collapse disorder. In fact, the artificial honey bee may be the first of many robots we introduce into the environment to make up for the current era of widespread extinctions.

BUT STILL. How long until we're fighting off GIANT SPACE HORNETS?

OUR LASERS ARE VASTLY UNDERPOWERED FOR THIS KIND OF THREAT!

Full article.

Webcomic: KILL ALL MONSTERS!

What if Godzilla's family came over for dinner and never left? What would happen to humanity if they'd won the planet and we took runner-up in the food chain? Why we'd build giant robots to take the planet back! This is the premise of KILL ALL MONSTERS! a recently launched web comic set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, after the kaiju have divided and conquered us puny humans.

The creative team is made up of Twin Cities comic writer Michael May (who I've had the pleasure of meeting several times) and Jason Copland (art) and Ed Brisson (lettering).

From May's blog:

In Kill All Monsters! the giants have already won. It's a post-apocalyptic setting in which the world has been completely overrun by giant monsters. Pockets of humanity are hiding and surviving as best they can, but no one's found an effective way to defeat the beasts...until now. Operating out of a hidden temple deep in the jungle, the African Defense Force has created a small until of giant mechs, operated by an international team of the best pilots humanity has to offer. The story begins with the unit's first trip out of their home continent as they try to assess some of the damage done to Europe. What they learn there is even more terrifying than they imagined.

In keeping with the post-apoc genre, KAM is more than just big baddies trading punches. May also promises "...mutant animal-people, barbarians, and secret societies of mad scientists...". As a lover of massive collateral carnage and content in the gamma strain, this is right up my alley--especially since I've been on a Gamma World tear for a while now. It's exactly the kind of stuff that gets my Megathrusters going!

While it's got plenty of panel-breaking action, the base storyline about the human characters is solid and well plotted. It's great to see a really fun idea well executed. The online version publishes a page-at-a-time format employed by many web series, but printed copies aren't far behind. This is pure inspiration for a game, but I can't help but think it'd make for an even more spectacular MOVIE! I particularly love the way the landscape is used as more than just a backdrop...

I can dream can't I?

Linkage

• KILL ALL MONSTERS! web comic
• KAM blog 

Intersteller Inspiration: Ginormous Foes!

Click on images to enlarge