March 10th, 2010 | Categories: Sketches

My newest sketchbook is well underway but I still have some pages left from last year’s and this is the final batch of those.

last-of-09_20

As always, you can find the rest of these in my Sketchbook 2009 page or you can click below for the newest (and final) additions to 2009.

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March 9th, 2010 | Categories: Comics, Reviews

I can’t talk about The Flash: Rebirth without first talking about my tremendous expectations for the title.

Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver turned me into a huge Hal Jordan fan (a character I previously had zero interest in) with Green Lantern: Rebirth and that book and its pure comic booky-ness stands as one of my favorites of the last ten years or so. Johns’ own run on The Flash taught me how rich the Flash and his world is and now he’s my favorite superhero bar none. It’s been almost ten years after that run ended and Johns is taking another stab at an ongoing with the Scarlet Speedster starting with The Flash: Rebirth mini series. With partner in crime Ethan Van Sciver on art, the “Rebirth” pedigree on full display AND my favorite superhero, I absolutely expected this to be my favorite book of the next ten years. After many, many delays, the last issue was finally released recently and I was, sadly, left a little cold.

Spoilers ahead.

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March 8th, 2010 | Categories: Podcast

It hasn’t been that long since our last show but here we are with Bit For Byte – Episode 2.

In what perhaps should’ve been our first episode, Mark and I sit to discuss our 5 comfort food games, those games we always end up coming back to. It’s more of a personal episode to get people to know us but we’re also introducing our news segment where we’ll touch on a number of gaming news that get us excited or that we feel are worth discussing. This week it’s Super Street Fighter IV, Portal 2 and Metroid: Other M.

You can listen to the podcast at the Bit For Byte website or you can subscribe to our feeds below.

Bit For Byte - Bit For Byte - Bit For Byte

March 7th, 2010 | Categories: Animation, Comics, Reviews

DC’s line of direct-to-DVD animated features have been of varying quality so far. I think the biggest issue these movies have is the 70 minute time limit which leaves little room for character exploration and makes a lot of these seem like quick “get in, get out” ordeals. I think Wonder Woman succeeded because it was tightly focused whereas Justice League: The New Frontier suffered because of having to adapt too much material in too small a time frame.

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, the newest in this series of almost bi-annual films, shares some of the same strengths and, unfortunately, some of the same weaknesses of its predecessors.

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March 6th, 2010 | Categories: Video Games

After Portal 2 was made official, I went back and completed the original game in one sitting so to say that I’m excited about this game is a massive understatement. We all knew it was coming eventually but Valve’s marketing prior to the announcement made the reveal that much sweeter.

Now that I have an awesome PC rig, the question is: 360 or PC?

(The real question is, of course, where in the hell is Episode 3?)

March 4th, 2010 | Categories: Podcast

Bit For Byte is my foray into this podcasting business.

My friend Mark and I have been working on this for a while now, figuring out a bunch of stuff on the fly and generally having a good time with it. Bit For Byte is primarily a video game podcast where we’ll be reviewing contemporary games, delving into current news, going back in time to revisit old classics and touching on any other discussion topics we can think of. We’re expecting to put new episodes out in a bi-weekly basis if scheduling allows and our very first episode, where we discuss Bayonetta at length, is up for grabs in the iTunes Store right now.

You can listen to it on the Bit For Byte website here or you can subscribe to our feed with the links below:

<a href=”http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bit-for-byte/id359269689?uo=6″ target=”itunes_store”><img height=”15″ width=”61″ alt=”Bit For Byte – Bit For Byte – Bit For Byte” src=”http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/images/badgeitunes61×15dark.gif” /></a> <a href=”http://mrmarkrobson.com/bitforbyte/?feed=podcast”><img src=”http://www.sebastianvonbuchwald.com/wp-content/themes/elegant-box/images/rss-feed.png”></a>

Bit For Byte - Bit For Byte - Bit For Byte

March 2nd, 2010 | Categories: Miscellaneous

I actually have no idea what version this site would be. I’ve completely lost track of all the changes I’ve made to this place but here’s some of the new stuff.

I finally got around to upgrading to PHP 5-point-something (which was about as hard as selecting “PHP5″ from a dropdown menu apparently) and now, replacing the Archives sidebar widget, I have a nice new Archives page up on the header. I threw Animation (which needs some serious updating) under my Artwork page and I created a Sequential Art gallery where I’ll be throwing all my comic related stuff in. I made a bunch of small CSS changes too which I won’t be getting into. Also, the header image now randomizes between my old one, my current and, eventually, any other banners I make.

In short, WordPress is the tits.

March 1st, 2010 | Categories: Color, Comics

Took longer that I thought it would but it’s finally finished:

Lantern Draft

We have, from left to right, Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, Darth Vader from Star Wars, Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Link from The Legend of Zelda, Guts from Berserk, Kenshin from Rurouni Kenshin and Superman. I explain my reasoning behind these choices in this post so let’s talk specifically about this piece.

After the break of course.

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February 27th, 2010 | Categories: Animation, Comics

As I prepare to write my “Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths” review, I thought it’d be fitting to go back and look at one of the earlier works in DC’s direct-to-DVD line of movies. This isn’t an actual review of Justice League: The New Frontier as it’s a little difficult to dissociate myself from the comic book it’s based it on and look at this movie objectively. There are, however, a number of things that sprung to mind as I watched the movie that I feel are worth discussing.

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February 25th, 2010 | Categories: Reviews, Video Games

Tower defense games are perhaps the most thriving and successful video game genre on the iPhone right now. The more passive nature and the “tap to select, tap to place, tap to upgrade” nature of these games lend themselves very well to a device that, I think, has yet to prove itself as a true gaming platform.

Plants vs. Zombies came out on the PC some months ago and I was intrigued by it after trying the demo but I decided to hold off on it until the eventual iPhone release. I just couldn’t wrap my head around playing a tower defense game on my PC when I could be playing Team Fortress 2 instead so I waited. The iPhone version came out at the unbelievably cheap price of three bucks compared the the $20 it cost when it was released on the PC so I purchased it without a thought.

Here are my thoughts in Plants vs. Zombies for the iPhone.

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