Friday, March 27, 2009

Viktor Reis Is At It Again

There were two thoughts that went through Viktor Reis' head as his midsection exploded for the second time in his life: the first was Okay, I'm really dead this time, and the second was No, wait, wait...nope, not dead. Now what?

The truth was that Viktor was, in fact, dead. He'd been dead for quite some time before the explosion occurred, but he'd yet to realize it. In fact, if he didn't realize it quite soon, he'd be dead dead, cosmic powers or no. But that, immediately, wasn't a concern to Viktor: in fact, it was very fucking far from his mind.

Exploded again, he thought, but was unaware of the fact that a rail gun slug, propelled through his midsection at just beyond the speed of sound. He froze in mid separation, and as he did so he at last heard the sonic boom that accompanied the slug's launch. He felt air molecules buffet his body from all sides from the slug's passage; at this speed, it took a moment for it to catch up to the projectile.

Once the cosmic awareness kicked in, Viktor realized that there was a man with a rather large rifle, or rather railgun, kneeling on top of a parking structure, his infrared sights aimed right at Viktor's stomach, or what current was the large hole where Viktor's stomach used to be. Within a moment, Viktor thought FALL DOWN and the parking structure collapsed, taking the shooter with it. Viktor zoomed his hearing in as far as he could to hear the sound of the shooter's bones crunching and his brain smooshing into an exquisite paste that would be enjoyed by the cockroaches. Viktor smiled to himself, and was about to think COME TOGETHER but stopped; there was a presence nearby that he couldn't remove from his system, and at that point he realized that perhaps, maybe, he really was dead.

It took him a moment to really scan the lifewaves around, then the timeflow, and finally the cascading superstructure of the universe; that took him a moment to really grasp. Within seconds he'd located it: a multiparticle parasite that was situated between his torso and his lower half, waiting for him to zzzzip himself back together and lodge itself between his third and fourth vertebrae. Viktor was a very, very lucky man: the parasite had been absorbing his energy by riding piggy back on his epidermis. It had been waiting a long, long time, waiting since he'd first garnered these wonderful cosmic powers, hoping he'd explode again and never gain the understanding to locate it.

Viktor smiled. He thought, DISINTEGRATE, and the parasite vaporized. With it, the energies of a thousand absorbed cosmic energies were instantaneously reabsorbed by Viktor's body, and in that moment as he also thought COME TOGETHER, he felt a big bang of nova particles within his midsection and he smiled.

Ohhhhhhhh man, was he going to have some fun with this.

copyright Christopher K. Burch, 2007

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Viktor Reis and the Crucifixion

"My name is Viktor," he said, "and I'm addicted to time travel."

For a moment, the crowd before him seemed slightly confused; Viktor himself had an inkling that there was a theme going on that he'd missed in the brochure. Many of the group were wearing old, sackclothian robes and red sashes, were bearded and had mock thorns adorning their brows. Jesuses? Jesusi? Jesi? He shook his head to clear his thoughts, and popped the last bit of hot dog into his mouth before continuing.

"The last time I travelled through time was about twenty minutes ago. I was running late for the group session, so I jumped back half an hour so I could walk in right on time. I got such a rush from it; my heart is still beating a little. I have to say, jumping back to the fall of the Roman Empire or to Washington crossing the Delaware River is something to get excited about, not a thirty-minute swim in the timeflow. It's gotten to the point where it's like an orgasm now; I have cravings for hot dogs whenever I jump. But isn't that sad? I mean, we're all in this together and we're all addicted to it in some way or another, but arousal? Am I truly losing it? Or....or..." Viktor bit his lip and closed his eyes. He thought GO BACK. When he opened his eyes, he was staring at the group again.

"The last time I travelled through time was about five seconds ago. I was trying to speak about my addiction, but it wasn't coming out right." He paused to gather his thoughts, but a hand went up in the back. Viktor pointed and the man stood.

"I'm sorry," the man said. He was curiously yoked to a rather large plank of wood behind his head; it looked like his wrists were actually nailed to the plank, but Viktor had a large imagination. "You're in the wrong room, Viktor. This isn't TTA, this is CCA, Christ's Crucifixionoholics Anonymous. We're all addicted to the death of Christ."

Viktor raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that just Christianity in general?"

When he got no response, Viktor decided that he'd had enough. Might as well quit while he was ahead---he'd given it a fair go, anyway. He closed his eyes and thought GO BACK. When he opened them, there was a shout of "Sic semper tyrannis!" and a gunshot and a woman screaming. He snapped his fingers; just missed it. He thought GO BACK one more time and appeared in one of the lower seats of Ford's Theatre. John Wilkes Booth walked up behind President Lincoln, shouted "Sic semper tyrannis!" and the back of Lincoln's head was erased.

Viktor thought HOT DOG and a ballpark frank appeared in his hands. That was a good show, he thought, and decided to rewind a bit and watch it again.

copyright Christopher K. Burch, 2007

Wes J. Clothing and Me

Wesley Jagod, owner/designer of Wes J Clothing, is going to go over my portfolio/sketchbook for feedback and possible ideas for designs to be incoporated into his next clothing line.

As an artist, I'm stoked. As a businessman, I'm fucking ecstatic to get my name out.

More on this as developments surface.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Marvel MMO

It seems that Newsarama reports Marvel Comics new deal with Gazillion Entertainment to produce a new Massively Multiplayer Online game based on the Marvel cartoon/action figure line Super Hero Squad. This, in turn, led them to report that Marvel's on a quest to have Marvel Universe, the game, to be released before DC's entry into the field, DC Universe Online.

Marvel previously had a deal with Cryptic Studios.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Viktor Reis.

The faster-than-light sequencer began to shake, rattle, and slide across the floor as the doctor looked on impassively. Perhaps a little less than impassively; Viktor was bored, let's be honest. All sequencing, no fun. Where's the fun in just combining, deconstructing, and then recombining cosmically enhanced DNA recently discovered on the moon's surface? Now, if he were doing all of the above on the secret government-staffed Moon Base over on the Dark Side, then maybe this would be cool. It would have a better view at least; being 200 yards below the Earth's surface in a titanium-enhanced bunker makes Vic a dull boy.

The sequencer gave a final yelp of impertinence and was silent. Vic walked over, opened the top hatch and suddenly he exploded.

What he didn't realize at first was, yes, he had in fact exploded physically, but his consciousness had just reached the fourth plane of cosmic awareness. It had been the exposure to the DNA in a close-quarters environment for the past year-and-a-half; if anyone had known it would have produced these results, maybe he would have taken that trip to the moon. Rather now he was suspended in a state of bloody separation, the lower half of his body still planted on both feet, his upper half a good three feet above and cocked at a ninety degree angle, his intestines doing a crazy loop-de-loop in the middle of the air and a thousand and one particles of plasma dancing in the air, literally dancing, like some crazy cha-cha from that horrible Robin Williams movie, Flubber. That's exactly what Vic thought: My blood has turned to Flubber. Then, within seconds, his torso hit the floor and the lower half of his body fell over as well. What was kind of strange was that his intestines still hung in the air, dangled by some cosmic invisible wire, as did his blood.

Vic looked up at his entrails. "Get back here," he said, rather absent-mindedly. Part of him thought of this as a dream. Yeah, it would have been nice.

But the amazing thing was that his blood and other things responded to what he said: like a crazy flesh-measuring tape, his lower intestine zzzzzipped back into his torso, pulling taut and slamming the two pieces of his body back together into a whole. There wasn't even a scarring line to show where he'd separated before: he was absolutely whole again. The floating plasma disintegrated into a million microparticles and entered his bloodstream through his pores. Viktor got up without a scratch nor a clue and looked at the sequencer. The top hatch was still open, and inside a multi-colored sine wave was shining not quite unlike an aurora borealis.
"Cool beans," Vic said. He reached inside, not thinking at all yet (he'd only just been exploded, you see; it affects the mind a bit), and was sucked through the sequencer into an alternate reality deep inside the alien DNA.

He surfaced just before lunch. He did not file the incident in his report. In fact, he never filed another report again; somehow he mysteriously vanished from the bunker. Security tapes still show no exit. Except that if you turn around sometimes, like right now, you'll see Viktor eating a hot dog. He really likes hot dogs, which makes being cosmically-enhanced really cool: you think HOT DOG and there you go. A hot dog.

Right now he's thinking STOP READING.



copyright Christopher K. Burch, 2007

Watchmen makes $25 Million opening day.

Opening day ticket sales hit around $25 million for Watchmen, which isn't bad, isn't fantastic, but at least the film isn't flopping like a dead fish.

Currently, Watchmen's rating on Rotten Tomatoes is at 65%.

I'm seeing it tomorrow night.

Distractions.

Yes, I know I promised the new installment of Digital Media Superheroes yesterday, but I've been distracted by women.

In the meantime, here's some links for you to go check out:

Uncle Warren's webblogthing. This will lead you unto all sorts of new links and clickies and interwub fun.

Constant Siege. Clayton Cubitt's tumblr site, a blogthing as well. Cubitt is a photographer who blurs the line between pornography and art until the line doesn't exist anymore, and this site will lead you unto all sorts of more clickies and wonderful sites as well. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Quite possibly the best Wolverine fanfilm I've seen yet. Really well made.

More oncoming.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Character of the Day.



Nightcrawler.

Coming tomorrow: Part II of Digital Media Superheroes.