There’s a relatively new webcomic on the scene about a trio of “superheroes” who don’t seem to have any real “super” powers–well, one of them just seems to be a dude with an IOU hanging over his back that he’s trying to remedy. The strip is still young and is stretching out its legs for the long marathon run (hopefully).

The creator, Charlie Gavin, needed help filling some launch days with guest strips and I caught his note on Twitter–so, of course, I jumped at the opportunity! It wasn’t to promote Republic Domain; I don’t do RD strips as a potential professional income stream… I have too many things happening right now and it wouldn’t be fair to the strip, or its readers, to presume otherwise. I did it because I wanted the opportunity to push some of that RD style “re-appropriation” philosophy on someone else’s work. Hey, I was a big fan of Duchamp and Warhol in art school , OK!

Yesterday, my re-writting of the second Silver Age strip was launched on the Silver Age Comic webiste. I’d be lying if I said the contents of my guest strip weren’t based on a true story. Charlie PGed it for his audience which is totally understandable. You can read the XEI Silver Age guest strip by clicking this link.

I was given permission by Charlie to re-post my original version here. You’ll notice (hint hint) that the title of my guest strip is “Re-Appropriated”… notice the clever play on double entendre wordsmithing that is prevalent in Republic Domain strips… huh? huuuuh? <pat on back>

It must be noted that the contents of this strip do not reflect on the views and opinions of Charlie Gavin or Silver Age; his strip is “all ages” friendly… I’m the dirty minded bastard him …

[Click on image to see a large copy!]

Consider the following statistics from Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB), a branded, re-usable bag program:

• North American consumers go through over 110 billion plastic bags a year—equivalent to greater than 12 million barrels of oil.
• For the most part, these bags are not biodegradable and therefore break down into smaller toxic bits that contaminate our soil, rivers, lakes and oceans.
• Hundreds of thousands of hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.

As BYOB and many other environmentally conscious organizations assert, reducing plastic bag use can make a big impact on our landfills and in turn, our environment.

Accordingly, the Loblaw-owned grocery chain Zehrs celebrated Earth Day today with a bang by implementing a new policy to charge customers 5 cents for every plastic bag requested. The new policy is part of an environmental campaign started January 12, 2009 in the Toronto Loblaws stores. The objective is to reduce plastic consumption by nudging shoppers into reuseable bags.  In addition, cash from the fees will go towards WWF Canada for the next three years for a grand total of $3 million. According to the company, the remainder will be invested back into the business to help keep prices low and used to cover the costs associated with the new program.

As I grocery shopped today and complimented the new policy to the cashier, I was disappointed with her response. She commented that I was one of a few customers that had positive feedback for the new policy.  While I maintain that every day should be treated like Earth Day, for the average consumer this is not always the case. Apparently the new policy left many customers with a negative word or two to share.  The cost of the program for a consumer who purchases ten bags of groceries per week would be $26 per year.

Beyond my experience, however, The Record and The Niagara Falls Review have found that many customers are indeed willing to accept the new policy, even if somewhat begrudgingly.  According to an article published by Centre for Civic Governance on a bag ban, polls have shown that 75 to 80 per cent of Canadians are willing to make environmentally friendly changes, including reducing plastic bag use—let’s see if Zehrs customers can put their money where their mouth is!

Comparatively, Zehrs’ competitor Sobeys does not plan to charge for plastic bags, noting that it would rather offer customers a choice. The company maintains its participation in a provincial campaign to reduce plastic bag use, selling reuseable bags, and accepting used plastic bags for recycling ensures that it does its part.

So far the Loblaws campaign has seen success—according to the Zehrs website, after 6 weeks, all participating stores showed an average 75% decrease in plastic bag usage compared to the same time period in 2008!

Complimenting Loblaws’ new policy is a new Toronto bylaw that will force all retail stores to charge a nickel for every plastic bag requested as of June 1^st. According to The Record, it is uncertain whether councils in Waterloo Region (TheGreenRocket’s home base!) are able to regulate plastic bags, noting that Toronto council has special powers for such bylaws. Something worth writing to your MP about to find out? I think so.  In the meantime, bringing your own bag to the grocery store is certainly worth thinking about.

Keep checking in for our upcoming article on the details of plastic bag consumption, including its impact, detailed information and case studies about how the fee works, and alternative strategies.

Creative Commons Attribution: “stop using plastic bags“, Flickr, inga_beretta

Meet Green Thing from Green Thing on Vimeo.

I was surfing around for some “green” video podcasters out there and came across “Do The Green Thing“. I’m a huge fan of animation when used to teach ideas, and this guy makes it interesting and fun to want to watch his videos. The site is a green community that provides inspirational video resources as a way to encourage people to live greener lives.

That and I love funky monster designs… and love meat… and have a veggie girlfriend whom I cut down on meat for… I guess this video had me a “Meet”.

[The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo]

I came across this video, called “The Crisis of Credit Visualized” by Jonathan Jarvis, a few weeks ago and they really REALLY helped me understand the whole “economic crisis” situation: How is begins, how it’s sustained, how it starts breaking down, and how it crashes. Here is the description from Jonathan’s actual site:

The Crisis of Credit Visualized distills the economic crisis into a short and simple story by giving it form. It is also argues that designers have the ability to see a complex situation, then turn around and communicate it to others. By giving graphic form to the credit crisis, it becomes comprehensible. Not only do economic activities take shape, but new relationships can emerge between these shapes.

Head on over to Jonathan’s site for more background information about how he came onto the idea of creating this video. I’m a visual learner without a doubt and I’m sure this video can help way more than an artist thinker like me actually grasp the dangerous concepts behind the economic crisis we live in today.

Turns out that in 2006, comic book publisher IDW planned on releasing a Transformers: Evolution miniseries titled “Hearts of Steel”. This series was set to be a sort-of “Elseworlds” or “What If” tale of the Transformers re-awakening at the turn of the century during the Industrial Revolution. Megatron undoubtedly concocts some engenius world domination plan and the Autobots take on the forms of the technology of the time to take him out.

It completely amazes me how DIFFICULT it was to even find out that this comic–at one point–existed! Why would IDW make it so dreadfully difficult to find out about this miniseries? Why is it that I had to dig around Google Image search like a desperate miner looking for a vein of gold?!

Thankfully, my Google-fu WILL eventually prove fruitful and I was able to dig up some decent resolution concept art that was the back bone of this project. Artist Guido Guidi (can be found on DeviantArt.com) was behind the concept art that was displayed on the IDW site–but has now been buried completely. Thankfully you all have me . Without further ado…

Optimus Prime

Megatron

Bumblebee

Starscream

Soundwave

Insecticons – Combined Mode

If I find more, I’ll be sure to add them here! As some final notes about IDW though–they’re a comic publisher known for getting the publishing rights for releasing comics based on the good ol’ 80s nostalgia that fanboy fanmen remember with giddy fondness. This eager excitement can be shared with their children (if they have any of course… but just speaking from a marketing perspective here); hopefully that excitement in turn will bring a younger audience to comics in the process.

Properties like The Thundercats and G.I.Joe resurfaced–for good or for bad–because of this company. Having a story that re-envisions a property like the Transformers to really take advantage of the potential variations and possibilities seems under-explored in my eyes. Sure toys see this kinda stuff done all the time, Hasbro is a TOY market, so it makes sense… I don’t know, I just feel like there’s an angle to all this that still hasn’t been properly executed.

On topic, but kindof a sidetrack thought, to end off this geeky rant: Check out these custom toys made by “griffith_76″ which gives us Optimus Prime as a locomotive! He offers the whole kit for sale with detailed instructions on his blog. A little pricey, but if there’s a hard core fan out there who’s into modeling and the TFs AND steampunk, then hey, you never know!

[View the Flickr Slideshow]

[View the Flickr Slideshow]

[Watch Video on YouTube]

DAMNIT! Why does Europe always come up with the craziest commercials? Hell, if this was the trailer for a movie: I’d be there! Think about it folks! Dinobots? Beast Machines? Come on, right? Right?!

This commercial was created by Scholz&Friends from Berlin, Germany for SATURN. It gives us a glimpse of the ages of time, but with technology instead of creatures. Friggin golden piece of work right here!

[View Video of YouTube]

Wow, could a more depressing video be made to get this point across? I’m all for pushing the message, but this just put a HUGE downer on my day… perhaps that’s the point…

[View Video on YouTube]

This animation is based on a webcomic strip, by Adam York Gregory, who creates The Flowfield Unity. I came a cross this video while doing one of my random web surfing, hyper-textuality episodes, where I start at Point A, readstuff that interests me then click on the next link that grabs my attention and repeat. I have now added The Flowfield Unity to my subscribed strips because Adam seems to enjoy the fine craft of “word-smithing” which is evident in his writing.

[View Video on YouTube]

Matt Ficner Productions from Ottawa, Canada, has been making me giggle in absurd glee every time a new zombie puppet show hits YouTube. If you haven’t run into his stuff yet and you have a fond memory of puppet shows as a child… but an even greater fondness for that seemingly never dying (no pun intended) impulse to be attracted to all things zombie… you MUST check these productions out! The Creepy Puppet Projects are to die for (no pun intended again). Seriously, they’re a rot–er, I mean riot.