Married Geek Couple

Atelier Marie and Elie -Zarlburg Alchemist- Volume 1

This new manga that's out now was the first adapted by Barb for Tokyopop... You know, someone does a literal translation of the Japanese-to-English, and then someone comes and rewrites it so you don't end up with 'All your base are belong to us.' Well, with Atelier Marie, that second someone was Barb, so please pick it up and enjoy it.

"Welcome to the Zarlburg Royal Magic Academy-- producers of the best alchemists in the world! When Marie, Zalburg's prodigal daughter and premier alchemist, returns to her alma mater after thrilling journeys in many foreign lands, she suddenly realizes things are not too exciting at home. But all that changes after running into fellow alchemist Elie, who has plans to open an alchemy workshop and become famous."

Barb enjoyed it, I enjoyed it, there's adventure, comedy, fantasy, all that stuff you like.

So please go to your local store or however you purchase things and get it. Enjoy!

Other than that... What's to do? It's hard to write a column sometimes… you don't want to just talk about stuff you like, but you don't want to be typecast as a jerk for raggin' on stuff you hate. Interviews can be okay, but not ALL the time, and while chat interviews are keen, most people don't like to do them these days. But our lives are filled with pop culture commentary… it goes on all the time! Let me show you what I mean…

--We got a complete set of the old Ellery Queen TV show…

The Adventures of Ellery Queen

Barb likes Ellery Queen, and sometimes it's an entertaining show. It's nice to try to guess the murder whodunits in that DC Challenge way…

DC Challenge

But we usually don't. We usually solve only 60% of the murder, like, say, the motive, yet the motive doesn't tell us who did it, though it always does for Ellery Queen.

But a more interesting revelation was when I realized… oh… Ellery Queen… ELLERY… OLLIE… OLLIE QUEEN.

Yeah, someone was thinking of this non-powered crime-fighter when they thought up a name for ol' Green Arrow. Deny it at your peril because you'll be wrong.

Barb has had me read a couple of Ellery Queen books, too. One, AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY, involves (I think I can say this without spoiling it) Ellery getting lost in the desert (like somewhere in Nevada) and he meets a tribe of Essenes, who think he's kind of the messiah. Well not the messiah, but kind of the herald of the messiah. There's a murder, and he solves it, and that's the end of it, but now when I watch the TV show I picture them still following him around, watching his every movement with quiet awe and fanatic fervor. "Mr. Queen, this kind of evidence is quite unorthodox—you aren't the defendant's legal counsel!" "That's it! No one talks to the Prophesied One in that tone! Holy war!" –and then Ellery has to talk the Essenes in the crowd down out of stoning the judge…

Okay, no, Essenes are not normally that violent, but there isn't supposed to be a lost splinter cell of them in Nevada, either, and one of them did murder someone in the book...

--Barb and I constantly entertain one another in this way… There was the time we realized that you could do Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in whatever sort of genre film you wanted as long as you made them muppets, and what fine muppets Peter and Dudley would make See? It happened to this guy...

--There was the time that we decided that the only way that someone could have come up with those annoying Geico cavemen (we hate those guys) was because Samantha Stevens' senile aunt conjured up a caveman and the only way to explain his presence to Larry Tate was by saying he was part of an ad campaign (and they'd believe it, because last time they had to explain a talking gecko whipped up by Tabitha who overheard them talking about Geico)…

McMann and Tate should have made that guy partner

--We marveled recently at the movie ONCE UPON A TIME which features a boy with a box, and in the box is a caterpillar (named Curly), and it dances around when you play "Yes Sir, That's My Baby." Cary Grant has a hard time keeping himself from smacking the kid around and selling the caterpillar for a million bucks. I bet you thought that Warner Brother's dancing frog was some sort of original idea. It wasn't.

Seriously.

--One day I started talking to Barb about how some female names are more likely to turn up in horror movies than others. We decided the top three female names of horror are:

Charlotte (Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte)
Alice (Alice Sweet Alice)
Lucy (Dracula)

Barb keeps overruling me on BARBARA (the start of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD-- "THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU, BARBARA...")

So... don't name your daughters those. Or they will be eaten by monsters. Or something.

Or Emily. And kind of Anne... the Bronte trifecta. They named the Bronte children Bramwell, Charlotte, Anne, and Emily.

AND MONSTERS ATE ALL OF THEM

Monsters: "Who are you, little girl?"

"I’m Jane Austen, I write mannered, light romantic comedies such as Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park"

>monsters go screaming into the hills<

>until they meet another couple of little girls<

"Who are you, little girls… and do you write anything?"

"I'm Charlotte Bronte and I wrote Jane Eyre, about a haunted mansion and a brooding dark master on the moors"

"This is my sister Emily who also writes about ghostly haunted moors--"

CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP crunch crunch crunch

Educational!

--Let’s see, we thought of the delightful animated movie My Neigbor Turturro… In which a Japanese family moves into a new home in the country only to find that their neighbor is actor John Turturro…

Okay, now I'm just silly.

I think it's time to wrap this up for now:

--I’m restarting the Webcomic Profiles. Here’s one now.

Webcomic Profile:

Name of your comic: The Paranormals

Author name: The Paranormals Team, consisting of the writer M. Raven Brown, artist Ronnie Werner and co-creator/producer/editor Ellie Deyneka.

Where are you located: Most of us in the Silicon Valley, though Ronnie is currently in Oregon.

What your comic is about: The Paranormals is about a group of teenagers thrown together in the rather odd town of Cayce, California. Each one has a special ability, though for the most part their powers are more liabilities than assets. The team consists of an awkward werewolf named Rose who's desperate to find a cure for her curse; a young shaman in training named Daniel who seems to have an easier time understanding his animal friends than his human ones; a snarky, pampered technomage named Preston with the brains of a computer genius and the social skills to match; a former school snob and Miss Popularity, Persephone, who's sharing her body with the spirit of a blood-thirsty Egyptian princess; and finally Thanh, half vampire, he's got all the benefits of both the world of the living and undead but an attitude that could probably benefit from being staked through the heart. Together this group of friends deals with everything from internet stalkers, to school bullies, to the living dead. It's definitely a comic aimed at younger audiences, but without the usual preachy nonsense.

How the idea for the comic came about: Ellie quite literally dreamed it up one night and pitched it to her boss the next day. Once we had the go ahead she rounded up a long time friend and writing buddy, M. Raven Brown, to write up the first scripts for a thirteen issue series. Then she stumbled upon Ron Werner's website and the rest is history.

Influences: Everything from the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoons to Harry Potter and of course Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
What are your current favorite websites? Well we're pretty fond of our own, beta.bonus.com, but most of us also spend a lot of time on Live Journal and we've even got a community for the Paranormals up there.

Favorite print comics: Ah a subject for major debate as Brown and Deyneka are more Marvel fans while Werner loves D.C. equally. I think if we all had to agree on just one we'd probably go with the XMen.

Favorite books: Another tough one, let's just say it's safe to go with any fantasy/sci-fi titles as we're likely to have read them. But the one series we get into hour long debates over is definitely Harry Potter.

Favorite music: We trade quite a few mixes with one another and have even made a Paranormals based one for the team. But we're all children of the 80's and will listen to anything made during that decade pretty much. Depeche Mode's a big favorite in this group, no question.

Favorite movies: Just about anything comic based (though we all hated X3 with a passion), scifi, fantasy and horror of course. Ellie's also a big Hong Kong movie fan with a somewhat daunting collection. But I don't think any of us could turn the channel if Star Wars was on (episodes 4-6, of course).

Favorite webcomics: Too many to name, though Alpha Shade is a big favorite right now.

Why you work on the web: Well mainly because this project was always conceived within the context of a website, but honestly it really does seem to be the direction that comics will be moving in. Not that print comics are dead, exactly, but the web does seem to be an incredible venue for this art form and we hope to see it expand even further in the future.

Hobbies: Writing, art, watching and quoting the Venture Brother incessantly...

Day Job: Brown is an administrative assistant by day, Deyneka the manager of Creative Services for Bonus.com and Werner is our full time artist.

URL of comic: http://www.theparanormals.com

Contact me, folks, and maybe I’ll let you do a Webcomic profile, too…

http://www.panel2panel.com/gsg-archives.html
http://www.wickermanstudios.com
http://www.halfdeadcomic.com
http://www.comicspace.com/wickermanstudios

http://www.amazon.com/Atelier-Marie-Elie-Zarlburg-Alchemist/dp/1598165259