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Gargoyles

The Phoenix Gate

Comment Room Archive

Comments for the week ending February 12, 2007

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CIEM: Can I interest you in some vodka and half a Tylonol PM?
Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75 at gmail dot com]
Why is it so bloody cold out? I thought the active word in "global warming" was warm. F**king scientists...

Don't blame Youtube. Blame Disney and other production companies who don't see that fan videos are NO DIFFERENT then fan fiction and art, and you don't see devianart taking off Gargoyles artwork by fans.

I noticed the tv station CBS took a whole different route with vidders. They actually post fan videos of CBS shows ON THEIR WEBSITE, linking them from YouTube. Rather then force YouTube to take them down, the totally recognize that the videos won't hurt them financially. Quite the opposite.

Siren - [Click my name for Gargoyles' Femme Fatales Music Video!]

Being that it is already Monday in Australia...

Happy Birthday, Chameleongirl! <3

Kythera of Anevern - [kythera (at) gmail dot com]
I do not suffer fools, gladly or otherwise.

RE: Coldsteel's Ishimuran Exiled Mate> That's gotta be one of the most thought-proking screenname's this Room has ever seen.

I don't know, Matt, mine is pretty thought provoking. *cough* At all.

A belated congrats to Blaise.

So, I went off to college, and I found me a friend who likes Gargoyles. I'm gonna try to get her to be a rabid fiend who loves it, so I'm not the only one on campus. :)

Samuel - [AnglOfHellO at AOL dot com]
"What sorcery is this?!"

Coldsteel's Ishimuran Exiled Mate> That's gotta be one of the most thought-proking screenname's this Room has ever seen.
Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

Ya know, YouTube, or as the people who were removed for being fans of a particular anime run by Satan himself(guilty) GooTube, hosts many Gargoyles Animated Music Videos that are quite well made. Perhaps someday this very site could have an AMV section, just a suggestion....

BECAUSE I WANNA MAKE AN AMV AND I CAN'T BECAUSE GOOTUBE IS EVIL AND DELETED MY ACCOUNT!!! :'(

ColdSteel's Ishmuran Exiled Mate
'Viacom is Satan, Animes are Drugs, And the Goliath Chronicles are Cheap. God hath Mercy Upon me....'

****A gust of wind blows a small envelope into the Room. When the envelope is opened, Blaise's voice issues forth.**** Me again! Just a couple quick things.

PURPLEGOLDFISH, MATT, DPH, KING COBRA, BATTLE BEAST, WARCRAFTER, AND SIREN> Thanks for the congratulations--it's a big step for me. I'm not on IMDB yet (I'm still just mostly wandering around in the background), so it'll be a while before there's any danger of me forgetting the "little people" (I still AM one!).

MATT> Hey...you're right! Brooklyn and Broadway's loincloths have changed color in the comic!
Broadway's looks okay, but I think Brooklyn looked better in blue, personally.

And that's it! Maybe I'll have more to say next time I'm here. Until then, farewell. ****As soon as Blaise's voice finishes speaking, the envelope bursts into flames and burns away.****

Blaise
"Well, it's nothing very special. Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations."--Monty Python's Meaning of Life

dph_of_rules> Good one!
Battle Beast - [Canada]
That is all I will say.

Blaise, congrats and don't forget the little people! ;)
Siren - [Click my name for Gargoyles' Femme Fatales Music Video!]

Christine - <And I've pretty well decided to heck with this 'retiring' thing> A good writer can no more retire than a gargoyle can stop breathing the air.
dph_of_rules
Whatever happenned to simplicity?

Just popping in to announce that:

1. My latest fanfic, "Only the Good, Part Three" is now posted. http://www.eskimo.com/~vecna/only_good_03.html

2. I redid my list so now they're all on the same page. http://www.eskimo.com/~vecna/gargoyles_fanfic_master_list.html

3. And I've pretty well decided to heck with this 'retiring' thing ... I'm no good at it.

Christine - [<----- click! OTG3]

Blaise> *finally comes in after an extended amount of time not posting a real post* Wow, congrats Blaise, I hope to be in SAG real soon too. Haven't gotten any responses in months. Maybe, I need an agent :)
Warcrafter - [grafixfangamer1 at sbcglobal dot net]
Humans are such easy prey for a gargoyle!........and I need more friends on XBOX Live for 360. Anyone?

Blaise> Congrats. Are you on the IMDB yet??? have you been in any films we'd know of?
Battle Beast - [Canada]
That is all I will say.

Merlin's mother would have *really* had to deal with a lot of awkward questions over her pregnancy; at the time that Oberon got at her (according to Geoffrey of Monmouth), she was a nun! Just imagine the scandal there!
Todd Jensen
Gargoyles - did for monstrous-looking statues what "Watership Down" did for rabbits!

Hudson's Plans> It could be something more significant, but given Hudson's past behavior, I'd guess his "plans" may be no more exciting than watching "Extreme Celeberity Mud Wrestling 3".

Oberon Owing Merlin> The idea that Merlin helped out in the overthrow of Mab is a good one. On the other hand though....

"Hey, Dad? You know how you kind of took off immediately after getting Mom pregnant? Meaning Mom had to field a lot of really awkward questions and I got called "Merling the Bastard" pretty much every day for my entire chuldhood? Well, I'm calling in a favor. See, I've got this friend, and I'm gonna need you to let him crash at your place for, say, a couple hundred years, maybe more? Oh don't worry, he won't be any trouble. He sleeps all the time, literally. You'll hardly even know he's there."

Demonskrye

Matt: Now there's a possibility. "Sure, she doesn't talk much, but she's easy to store. Just have to watch her around pins, is all."

*sigh* Somebody should shoot me. ( ;

Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75 at gmail dot com]
"Everything sticks until it goes away, and the truth is we don't know anything." -They Might Be Giants

Maybe Hudson has a girlfriend...

Joke.

Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

Matt: Didn't even pick up on that.

I'm also wondering just what Hudson's plans might be. I would say that maybe he's going to see Robbins, but on the other hand, I don't know if he could carry Bronx all the way to Long Island Sound. And he did tell Goliath not too long ago that the city was a tinderbox.

I probably shouldn't speculate so much on just two pages, but I too have the feeling that his plans might be beyond the television.

Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75 at gmail dot com]
"Everything sticks until it goes away, and the truth is we don't know anything." -They Might Be Giants

Angela isn't the only one with a costume change. Notice that Broadway and Brooklyn used to have blue loincloths and now they are brown. Lex kept his blue on though.
Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

Blaise> Congrats. :) And I am not AT ALL jealous. :P

Shara> You're welcome.

TSC> Well, that was... interesting.

*suddenly starts thinking about the Buffy/Faith body switch in season 4.*

Heh.

KingCobra_582@hotmail.com - [KingCobra_582 at hotmail dot com]
'Ignore Me!' - Venture Bros.

Maybe it's just a look favored by Scottish gargoyles in general. And besides, people raised conservatively have a habit of rebelling when they leave the nest. Wouldn't surprise me if gargoyles shared that habit.
Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75 at gmail dot com]
"The fate of all mankind I see is in the hands of fools." -King Crimson ("Epitaph")

I never would have guessed that a preference for midriff-baring halter tops could be genetic. I think I'm going to chalk this one up to men drawing scantily-clad females in comics syndrome. :P

132 days left until The Gathering 2007 in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee!

Patrick - [<-- The Gathering 2007]
"I just hope you understand, sometimes the clothes do not make the man." - George Michael

Shara - Or maybe I used my Superhuman Cow Capabilities and transported my mind into your body, condemning you for a brief moment to helplessness, forcing you to post with my settings and thus confusing the comment room, causing all to descend into CHAOS! O.O

*coughs*

The Sadistic Cow
I believe the children are our future... unless we stop them NOW!

Kythera>it looks like he's getting a bit better.

Haha I did'nt post the links sadistic cow did.

Shara

King cobra haha Kewl Ill use Maria Chavez. I like law and order tv show and she reminds me of that show.
Shara

Shara, thanks for the links. Guess I missed it. Thought I looked down, guess not low enough.
I like the coloring. Its more the traditional cartoon colored look. The art looks just a tad better. Maybe David is slowly getting the hang of the "gargoyle look". Remember we're getting a whole slew of guest artists for the next couple of issues. I believe David won't be back til issue #6 or #7, according to that comics update Greg W gave awhile back on his "Ask Greg" spot.

DK2

Shara-- Since they're previews for Issue 3 of the official Gargs comic, my guess would be that they're by David Hedgecock.
Kythera of Anevern - [kythera (at) gmail dot com]
I do not suffer fools, gladly or otherwise.

OOO neato what artist did thoughs
Shara

DK2 and Demon@ - If you would look further down the page, you'd see Gorebash's post. ;) To save time, however:

------
SLG has posted pages 8 and 9 as a preview of issue #3. There's been a delay in Disney approving the comic so they expect a release in March.

Images can be found at:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=383927996&size=o
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=383927997&size=o
-----

:)

The Sadistic Cow
I believe the children are our future... unless we stop them NOW!

Umm.... where can we get the preview of Gargoyles #3? Everyones all blabbing about it but doesn't point us to a link or where to? Someone else has already asked this and got no reponse a few postings below.
DK2

Blaise - congrats on making SAG.

Ok, I have a question about strategy for buying the gargoyles comics. According the slg website, the estimated shipping cost for me is $4.50 and will stay that until I order more than 6 comics. At 7 comics, my shipping costs grow to $6.50. Any ideas for my best strategy for ordering comics might be?

dph_of_rules
Whatever happenned to simplicity?

Incisivis: I kind of like Angela's new outfit. I mean, there were moments in the cartoon where we saw hints of Demona in her. Perhaps she takes after her mother more than she wants to admit.
Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75 at gmail dot com]
"Do not fear death. Death is always at our side. When we show fear, it jumps at us faster than light, but if we do not show fear, it casts its eye upon us gently, and guides us into infinity." -Laughing Bull

MATT - Atkinson is briefly mentioned when one of the doctors is shouting to him to get the paddles at (I think) the beginning of Act III. It's enough of a "blink-and-you-missed-it" moment that you might not have remembered the name.

As for the Dave's Ball and Stick case, I honestly don't know anything about that.

Todd Jensen
Gargoyles - did for monstrous-looking statues what "Watership Down" did for rabbits!

<gargolye comic #3 preview>from the pages it seems that the coloring is a little on the bright side, but it seems like as far as the artwork is concerned it's a "work in progress". It seems like the artwork is going to be a blend of tradational comic book style artwork, and the penciling in issue 2. I'll wait a few more issues before I give a grade on the artwork, so that the staff can get used to drawing the gargs. With all the delays and everything I figured that everyone was a little bit rushed in making the comic, so it'll take awhile for the art to blossom
kjay - [tigonesskay at yahoo dot com]
....

Garg Wiki questions for anyone, but for Todd in particular:

The guy listed under "Atkinson" has an entry and is Elisa's nurse in Deadly Force, but his name wasn't mentioned in the episode I don't think, so where did his name come from?

Dave (of Dave's Ball and Stick) is said to have joined the Quarrymen in Issue 1, but that was not mentioned in the comic itself, and I can't really find him in the crowd, and Greg W never mentioned this information anywhere, so who came up with this and how/why?

Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

BISHANSKY - Yes. I've got to admit, I keep on forgetting that. Sorry.
Todd Jensen
Gargoyles - did for monstrous-looking statues what "Watership Down" did for rabbits!

The art does look much better without all the sketchiness, but proportions and faces are still somewhat off -- Goliath's face on p8, Lexington's feet and Angela's face on p9. Elisa and Broadway's faces look a bit odd, too, but that could just be a matter of style.
Vaevictis Asmadi

All right, got it. Now for my real post:

I completely didn't expect to start a discussion on avatar choice. Go me.

Anyway, for the preview pages, one of the problems I had with Hedgecock's art was the sketchy, unformed look of it. Better inking helps, but it also brings out his problems with symmetry and proportion. Still, for more Gargoyles, and a Halloween story, I'm willing to overlook that.

It made me snicker how angry Brooklyn looks in every frame he's in. We all know the reason. Don't worry, Brook, you'll get your chance.

I don't find it completely unbelievable that Elisa would "break" Goliath's heart so soon. Even for someone as strong as her, the ambivalence over this can't go away just with accepting her feelings, and could make her do something she'll regret. I'm interested to know how this turns out.

I'm still "meh" on Angela's outfit. I don't think it makes her look mature anymore than I think it makes her look trashy, just that cleavage and bare midriffs on female costumes are kind of tiresome already. (Though Gargoyles is usually very good with female costuming).

Incisivis - [incisivis at hotmail dot com]

Hi, it's the newbie again. I keep trying to put a message in, and I get the message that "UBB style tags are not allowed on this system", though mine is plain text, typed right into the box. Not even any emoticons.

...help?

Incisivis

HoE: :)
WHERE DO WE GET THE PREVIEW??

Demon@ - ["The access code is Jalapeña"]

Vaevictis: I personally loved Cloud Fathers. Not in the same ranks as any of the Mulyi-Parters or "The Mirror," but I loved the fact that they hit my home state in the World Tour. I don't think many fans can say that (unless of course you've visited or currently live in NYC, London, France, Giza, Prague, Tibet, Guatemala, Norway, Japan, Canada, etc).

I also loved the pool bit. To me, that's a sign of determination of Avalon to send the Traveler's where they need to be. Almost like, "Hey, We'll (Royal "We") have land in a bucket of water if We have to! Your presense (sp?) is NEEDED.

I was also shocked by Grandpa Maza being dead. This episode really did end on a sadder note than usual. If I remember correctly, the Gargoyles were stone next to the Gravestone, right?

As for the Comic #3 preview: LOVE IT!!!!

I love the Eye of Odin reference, and I totally forgot that "Eye of the Beholder" was only a year ago in Garg Time. The World Tour seriously got me thinking it was at least two.

Brooklyn is once again sporting the "wings below the Shoulder," ala "Temptation." I actually like this look on Brooklyn.

And I'm used to Bronx's tongue being red. Maybe last issue he just ate an Otter Pop??

Phoenician - [theoneandonlyphoenician at yahoo dot com]
The Suspense is Terrible . . . I Hope it Lasts -- Willy Wonka

Blaise> Many congrats! Glad to hear you made it.

Comic> More thoughts on the comic preview:
-When Lex says, "Hey, It's Halloween." I get the feeling that he is responding to something someone said on page 7 because I don't get the "Hey" part if you know what I'm trying to say, and yet the whole scene plays out like they all just woke up. Goliath up high and Elisa approaching him, everyone else down below.
-I also noticed that Broadway and Angela are holding hands. Angela is so nice too, with her other hand she is giving Bronx a scratch. Little touches like that are wonderful.
-Greg B and I were discussing this whole Brooklyn-Broadway-Angela thing and yeah, I think Brook's silence has a LOT to do with his... jealousy(?).
-I'm also eager to see what plans Hudson and Bronx have for the evening, I hope it is more than a night watching celebrity hockey.
-I can see the double date story coming in Issue 4 maybe... they'll discuss they can't work in this one perhaps and in the next one they'll try to make that work. I guess Halloween night might just strecth over 2 or 3 Issues, which is fine.
-So far Fox's best line in Season 3 "... No enchanted jewelry. You're safe." Even though there is a typo there that'll hopefully be fixed before publishing. What an apt line, it's so like Greg W to write something like that. Many audience members and probably a lot of the cast would just see that as a simple line, a joke to Lex, but clearly it means a lot more to Fox. That line says, "I havn't forgotten what happened to me last Halloween." Awesome.
-I'll have to see how Angela's confusion about Halloween plays out before I can say much about it. Right now, I think we are missing some context there.

Can't wait... I love how when pressed, we rabid fans can squeeze so much out of two pages, lol. There is a lot there.

Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

Matt: hehe, well I'm glad I stand out from the crowd ;)
I basically chose this avatar cause no one else was using it. But Delilah's a cool character, and I look forward to seeing what Greg does with her.


Comic: (Spoilers)

"We need to talk" is never a good sign heh, poor Goliath. Though we know they'll live happily ever after ;)
Yeah, I'm also surprised at Elisa's bluntness. I guess she just figured they need to stop beating around the bush. This is most likely the start of the Halloween double date story, and I hope it is - cause if not, G and E would be seperated for a whole year...that would suck, epsecially considering the rate these comics are going. Plus we'll finally get to see who Elisa's date is lol.
I really like the conversation between Fox and Lex. He obviously doesn't trus her yet, but the tone is jovial. Fox is being very nice to the gargoyles. I wonder if she really wants to make amends with them.

As for the art, I think it's getting a lot better. The only thing I didn't like among the two pages was Goilath's face on the first page - he looks kind of like a bulldog...
I also think it would be a good idea for the artist to study the gargoyles' wing structures more, particularly how they attach to the back. He seems to have trouble with that.

Blaise: Congrats on getting into SAG :)

Purplegoldfish - [skydragonn at aol dot com]
"Whoa, Tiny, you mean there's more than one of you?" "My name is not Tiny! I am Goliath!" - Elisa and Tiny

****Blaise climbs out of one of the hair-thin cracks in the Room's floor.**** Well, it's official: I am now a member of the Screen Actor's Guild. This means that I will no longer make only minimum wage as an actor! It also means it's going to be that much harder for me to find work.
I'd better start looking...but first, on with the comments!

AVATARS> Well, when I started back in March of 1997 I posted using "The Hunter"--the Renaissance variation to be precise (I liked his faceless, red-cloaked quality). After the Room revamp (a year or two after I started posting) that pic was no longer available, so I had to find myself a new one. I knew I wanted it to be one of the wizards from the series. Originally, I was going to go with the "Enhanced Archmage" or the young "Magus" but people were already using them at the time, so I went with "Old Magus" and stuck with it ever since.
Sorry, Phoenician--I've just been using the old boy for so long now I can't see myself being anything else. But hey, at least we don't use the exact same font color! ;-)

COMIC PREVIEW> Our first glimpse of the first NEW, CANON "GARGOYLES" story in TEN YEARS!
Yeah, I looked, even though it's basically increasing the torture of waiting. Truth be told, I'm also a little anxious. Greg has always been the first to give credit where credit is due when it comes to the series, both to the other writers (the great lines that Michael Reaves came up with, for instance, or his making Matt interested in the Illuminati) and the actors (the Archmage WOULD have died in his first appearance if not for David Warner's great acting). Now, instead of overseeing a writing staff, Greg IS the writing staff and comic books don't need actors. It will be a change, I have no doubt, and I'm sure Greg is up to the task. He's done well with the first two chapters (that he already wrote for television), but I am very interested to see what he does with the rest of the comic.
Other thoughts:
--I know Greg said there would be the first big upset in the Goliath-Elisa relationship in this issue, but the way Elisa seems to be leading into it was very unexpected--simply for how blunt it is. I'm still not entirely sold on the idea that the much anticipated "Double Date" will be happening just yet, but obviously SOMETHING is going on.
--The Xanatos family seems to have done a good deed and made Halloween costumes for the clan. For some reason, this little bit reminds me of many fan-fic stories taking place in the aftermath of "Hunter's Moon." Xanatos giving gifts to the clan, and all that. It was a bit surprising. I LOVED the "Eye of Odin" reference, though! And that Lex is so instantly suspicious of these "Greeks bearing gifts" (well, Xanatos is of Greek descent, at least).
--Xanatos's visitor. I can't remember--did Greg say that Xanatos would start feeling pressure from the Illuminati starting in THIS issue, or the next? Either way I'm very interested in who this visitor is.
--BTW, Matt, I too noticed Brooklyn's eyes in that frame where Owen tells Xanatos about the visitor. I'm wondering if maybe Brooklyn's looking at Owen and Xanatos in that scene, having overheard the "visitor" bit. So far Brooklyn strikes me as the most distrusting of the clan towards their new landlord.
--Speaking of Brooklyn, he's pretty darn quiet in these two pages (and doesn't look particularly happy). More fallout from Angela's choosing Broadway, perhaps? I'm very eager to see more of this--but I wish Brook would stop folding his wings UNDER his arms to cape them.
--Now we can fully see Angela's new costume. Other than the missing center section, it looks just like her old one (no cool collar, yet). I wonder what prompted her to alter it. I do love Angela's confusion regarding Halloween and allowing herself to be seen by other humans.
--Oh, and did any one else notice that Broadway and Angela are holding hands in the first frame? :-)
Man, I wish I could read the whole thing RIGHT NOW (I mean, what the heck has already happened in the first 7 pages?!). Oh, well...I've got enough RL drama to keep me busy until it comes out.

That's it from me for now. Until next time, farewell. ****Blaise very calmly walks out the door to the Room. As soon as he's out of sight there is a loud "WHOOP" of joy followed by the sound of someone bouncing of the walls, singing "I'm in SAG!"****

Blaise
"Well, it's nothing very special. Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations."--Monty Python's Meaning of Life

TODD> You've obviously never been to New York. New Yorkers are tough, we'd just go out and have Halloween anyway.

Besides, everyone being too terrified to do anything would be a way too monolithic reaction, which is, well, something Greg wouldn't write. Not everyone is going to join the Quarrymen.

That being said, it wouldn't surprise me is Sarah Browne wouldn't let Billy and Susan go out Trick or Treating this year, because of her own fear and paranoia... she did join the Quarrymen after all.

September 11th happened, and we just kept going.

Greg Bishansky - [<---- The 11th Annual Gathering of the Gargoyles]
"February is Black History Month. Now, I don't see color. People tell me I'm white and I believe them, because police officers call me 'sir'." - Stephen Colbert

Shara> I'll help you find an avatar, if you want. :)

Princess Katherine or Maria Chavez sound good?

KingCobra_582@hotmail.com - [KingCobra_582 at hotmail dot com]
'Ignore Me!' - Venture Bros.

BISHANSKY - I'd suspected the same thing myself ever since that particular revelation at "Ask Greg".

Re the pages from #3: I still wonder whether most of New York would even feel like a big Halloween celebration so soon after discovering that the "creatures of the night" are real, but that's just me.

Todd Jensen
Gargoyles - did for monstrous-looking statues what "Watership Down" did for rabbits!

Avatars> I think I might have had a different pic a long time back. I know I had the idea at one time of switching avatars with every post to something that fit in with what I was talking about, but that never quite panned out. I picked Coldstone and Desdemona because no one else was using it and I like it quite a bit. It's a nice image and the drawings are quite on model.

Comic Preview> It's nice to see some of the finished product; it gives a much needed boost to my hopes that issue #3 will actually come out. I'm sorry to say I'm still not feeling the art at this point. There's still just too much stuff that feels "off" to met, and not in a "this is being drawn in a different style from the cartoon" way. The standouts in these two pages are Goliath's face on the next to last panel of 8 and Fox's rather enormous head and torso in the first panel of 9. It could certainly be worse and it's not unreadable, but I'm still not really satisfied with it. And yeah, Brook seems a little bright in color on both pages to me, especially on 8 where he's outside at night and presumably not too well lit. But that would just be how it looks on the screen versus paper.

I'm also still a bit weirded out by how early Elisa is throwing in the towel on her relationship with Goliath. I'm hoping that I'll understand a little more when I hear what she has to tell him. With almost anyone else, I'd say she was kind of shaken by the attack by the Quarrymen on their first date, but Elisa's probably pretty used to that level of chaos in her life.

Greg B.> Thanks for pointing out where you heard the March date. I greatly appreciate it. It is too bad that it takes two weeks for Disney to approve the final product, but for all we know, they could havve one guy whose job it is to approve all the English languague Disney comics, which is a pretty decent amount of titles per month.

Greg W.> If you happen to see this, I think you may have misinterpretted an "Ask Greg" question you responded to recently. You had previously mentioned that Disney was really not likely to sell "Gargoyles", noting "They won't even let go of Clarabelle Cow." I think what the person who responded to that was trying to say is that Clarabelle is not the best example because she actually still gets used from time to time in licensed Disney comics (and "House of Mouse" when it was on). So a better example would be "They won't even let go of Pluto's girlfriend Dinah", a character who no one is using, so far as I know. I guess that's one of the downsides of "Ask Greg": you don't get much opportunity for back and forth and explaining yourself in a post that won't be seen for several months seems a little silly.

Demonskrye

Yeah, and speaking of that frame with Xanatos, Owen and Brooklyn, what is with Brook's eyes? Are they glowing or is something wrong? Maybe like Fox's "enchanged" typo, it'll be fixed before it is published.

On the other hand, maybe Brook's eyes were glowing after seeing Broadway and Angela go off together...

Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

Demon@: Trust me, I don't think you're a troll. It's just when I posted this morning, I couldn't name any other regulars who use the Demona avatar. As far as trolls are concerned, I only had one person in mind, specifically, one who shall remain nameless, but whose initials are DL.

Me, I have a bunch of reasons for using the avatar. She's sadistic, antisocial, and complex. Kind of like me (or people have told me I'm complex, anyway). Plus, while my persectives on humanity are not nearly as radical as her's, they're hardly what I'd call Romantic.

Matt: I'm also intrigued by who that visitor might be. Hopefully, the execs can pull themselves away from their cocaine long enough to read this thing.

Vaevictus: Oberon is still capable of things like humility and gratitude. He definitely showed it at the end.

I often wonder how the Third Race managed in the mortal world. They must have lived far from churches.

At any rate, you're in for a massive treat with the next episode. It is so deliciously f**ked-up.

Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75 at gmail dot com]
"Do not fear death. Death is always at our side. When we show fear, it jumps at us faster than light, but if we do not show fear, it casts its eye upon us gently, and guides us into infinity." -Laughing Bull

vash I have a friend who was highly interested in helping with the atlantis project who's been trying to email you ill give her your email agian. She attended last years gathering just to see the project.

Haha I have no avatar someone help me choose one.

Shara

Must've been some favor... not only did Oberon allow Arthur to sleep on the island, but for two iron enchanted knights to guard Arthur! Those nights would later be converted into chains to hold the Sisters and eventually into the Bell itself. It is pretty fascinating that Oberon would allow iron to be brought to the island, seeing as how much trouble it causes there.
Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

TODD> The favor Oberon owed Merlin... well, we know Merlin was conceived while Mab was still in power. What if Merlin assisted Oberon in the overthrow of Mab?

That would definitely constitute Oberon owing Merling a huge debt.

Greg Bishansky - [<---- The 11th Annual Gathering of the Gargoyles]
"February is Black History Month. Now, I don't see color. People tell me I'm white and I believe them, because police officers call me 'sir'." - Stephen Colbert

On "Cloud Fathers": this is the last time that we see Goliath and Xanatos face off (unless you count "Future Tense", which I don't). Xanatos was his usual fun self (especially his "cliched villainy" line) in it.

One thing that I wondered about "Ill Met By Moonlight": if Oberon takes such a dislike towards mortals on Avalon, why did he let King Arthur sleep there? Of course, it was probably because Arthur was going to be in an out-of-the-way part of it (though there's also Greg's mention about Oberon owing Merlin a favor).

Todd Jensen
Gargoyles - did for monstrous-looking statues what "Watership Down" did for rabbits!

Greg B> I dunno, seems weird to me.
Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

I really like that the Fae (the subset of the Third Race, not the whole species) in Gargoyles aren't the cute, tiny sugary winged fairies of some modernized fairy tales, nor the Tolkien-copy elves of most fantasy, but the scary, inscrutible, inhuman creatures of myth and older fairy tales. They have a sense of honor, which leads them to repay acts of kindness. But they don't really seem to have what we think of as compassion or empathy, and they can be very cruel on a whim.

All the same, Tom and Gabriel weren't entirely polite themselves. Oberon seemed to become more hostile after they yelled at him. Of course, they had no clue who he was or why he had any right to treat them like that.
In this episode, Goliath really shows up as more level-headed and experienced than Gabriel.
And I am glad that Tom decided to spare Oberon. Even if he was being nasty, cruel, and violent, killing him wouldn't have been right.



Only 160 questions left!

And Todd or one of the other helpers, could you please answer this one?

"Jennifer writes...

When is volume two comming out?"

Vaevictis Asmadi

MATT> I don't think Xanatos knew Coyote was vulnerable to iron in general. He melted the Cauldron because he thought the magic inherent in it would help him capture Coyote. That's not being wasteful, that's being practical considering the information he had at the time.
Greg Bishansky - [<---- The 11th Annual Gathering of the Gargoyles]
"February is Black History Month. Now, I don't see color. People tell me I'm white and I believe them, because police officers call me 'sir'." - Stephen Colbert

Cauldron of Life> Honestly, I never understood why Xanatos melted it down, I mean, ordinary iron will hold the Children, he didn't need to melt somthing like the Cauldron to hold Coyote. I know the Cauldron was dissapointing to him, but melting it down to build a robot when ordinary iron would've worked fine seems awfully wasteful, especially for Xanatos of all people.
Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

Comic #3 - is it my imagination or is Brooklyn's coloring on page 9 a little too bright red?

I like that slg, on the blog, took time to acknowledge that gargoyles was behind schedule and address the issue. Upfront honesty drives away paranoia and the rumor mill.

dph_of_rules
Whatever happenned to simplicity?

Oops, I watched Ill Met by Moonlight and Cloud Fathers out of order. Oops.


Cloud Fathers

This was kind of interesting. Coyote really does act like a trickster, messing with people's heads and tricking people into helping him. I liked the copywrite infringement line, too.

*The whole "Indian running away from his heritage" is pretty clicheic, and it's been done before in Heritage. It would have been helpful if he had a reason to go to NY, like a job offer or something.
*Using the Cauldron to make his robot strong against the Fae was pretty clever. I still want to know how he got that Cauldron in the first place, though.
*Xanatos takes a shot at "cliched villainy" Heh. It's an actual acid-filled cartoon death-trap. I never expected to see that in Gargoyles. But it's a sort of internal self-joke.
*Avalon drops them in a swimming pool. Hey, it's Arizona, how much open water is there?
*I really didn't expect the grandfather to be dead.
*Coyote's reverse psychology IS pretty blatant, and creepy too. Peter has got to be in some sort of denial not to notice the guy looks just like him. But knowing the Third Race, maybe coyote looks like some other guy to him.
*That giant staple gun is scary! Much scarier than a laser, actually.
*Coyote leaves and suddenly the three human dancers are confused. "Dude, what are we doing? Last thing I remember was ordering a pizza." X)
*Coyote can't escape the iron robot, but he does shapeshift inside it. He comes out with different clothes than he went in.
*Goliath takes out Coyote with a steel beam, but he only manages to damage the hollow compartment in it.
*Xanatos' armor lets him even lash its tail. I wonder why he bothered with a little feature like that? And how does he control it anyway, is it wired directly to electrodes in his brain or something?

Poor Elisa's family, having her go missing and then have to deal with finding out about the gargoyles, right after what happened to Derek. It must be very confusing. And we get another semi-romantic line from Elisa.


Ill Met by Moonlight

I didn't expect Oberon and Titania to attack before the Gathering itself.

*As they come ashore on the Isle of Avalon, Angela comments that Manhattan seems to be a totally mythical place. I love the irony of it. Avalon is real to her, but New York is like some far-away make-believe.
*Elisa seems surprised to end up in Avalon, even though they use an incantation to get to it each time.
*It was funny the way Gabriel said "It's not my fault. He started it!"
*If Oberon of all people was annoyed by Titania's disdain for mortals, she must have been really nasty!
*It's interesting that they used a bell. In the old stories, fairies are harmed by the sound of churchbells. I think the idea is that fairies are unholy, pagan, and of the Devil, and churchbells are holy. But maybe the truth behind the tales (in the garg-verse), is that churchbells were often made of iron.
*Ophelia has a very good point -- the place does, or did, belong to Oberon. But his cruelty makes it pretty hard to respond kindly, I guess. Not when he's planning to kill them all -- they seem to have no choice.
*Ophelia's voice sounds just like Maggie. I also like her design.
*Oberon and Titania have fangs! I like the little touches like that.
*The gargoyles seem to have difficulty gaining altitude over the lava, they flew so low that the splashes could hit them. I'd think that's a perfect place to catch thermals.

Oberon is certainly quite the unpleasant fellow. With immense godly power, and almost total immunity from any form of suffering, I guess everything is just a petty little game to him, and nothing is serious. He either has no comprehension of what suffering means for mortal creatures, or is seriously lacking in empathy for other species. I get the impression he doesn't really think about them at all. Why bother to even tell them who he is or why he wants them gone, when their understanding of the situation doesn't matter? He can just kill them all with a gesture anyway.
I'm not confident Titania is necessarily much better, though. I get the impression that she helped them sort of on a whim, for the sake of this mysterious favor (I can guess that was the episode Walkabout) and that she could just as soon hurt them on a whim, too. Maybe she doesn't view their lives quite so much as a game, though. I think it's difficult to tell with such inhuman creatures, what their motives are.


And I forgot to mention that in Bushido, it was neat how Kai referred to the Ishimuran humans as "our human protectors." It seems ironic, but it is true that the humans protect them.

Vaevictis Asmadi

Warcraft_ i learnt the meaning of "troll" around chat and comment rooms right here. Usually is someone who came in insult everyone create hacov and then leaves.
Thks Harvester of Eyes. I know i dont came around that much...but been calla tro...ahhh shame on ya.
I choose Demona because...i choose to do it so what...

Demon@ - ["The access code is Jalapeña"]

I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to look at those pages or not, I wasn't sure I wanted any spoilers. Turns out, I don't think it ruined anything much for me.

I'm getting used to the art, and yes, I'm one of the people who actually like it. One inconsistency though: Angela's lips are still purple, which is fine, but Bronx's tongue has turned back to red. *shrugs*

Elisa saying, "Goliath, we need to talk... about us." May be one of the most bizarre things to happen in the series given how long they've avoided the topic!

Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

What exactly do you guys mean by "troll" in this room?
Warcrafter - [grafixfangamer1 at sbcglobal dot net]
Humans are such easy prey for a gargoyle!........and I need more friends on XBOX Live for 360. Anyone?

SLG has posted pages 8 and 9 as a preview of issue #3. There's been a delay in Disney approving the comic so they expect a release in March.

Images can be found at:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=383927996&size=o
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=383927997&size=o

Gorebash

Gargoyles issue 3...I'll tend to take the "wait and see" appoach.
for some strang reason it's always an epic journey to find anything gargoyles when it comes out and I live in nyc (brooklyn actually). Both gargoyles DVD's I just happen to find by chance. I looked for both comics at well known comic book shops in the city before I ordered. no wonder Gargoyles sold so low because disney didn't adverise.
I picked Matt as my avatar 'cause he's my favorite character. I'm glad he wasn't made into a "5th wheel" character, and I liked how he discovered the existance of the Gargoyles. Also Matt reminds me of one of the characters in this sci-fi book called the illuminatus trilogy and I wonder if Matt was partly based on this book.

kjay - [tigonesskay at yahoo dot com]
....

Hmmm. I left "Heavy Metal" out of my comics list. If we're extending this to manga, "Nana" is the only one I'm actively reading right now.

I picked Bronx for my avatar, because sometimes, I bite. ;)

Kythera of Anevern
I do not suffer fools, gladly or otherwise.

Welcome Incisivis!

I picked this avatar because I love the physical appearance of gargoyles in general, I wanted a female on because I'm female, and lavender is my favorite color and also my preferred font color. So my avatar even matches my font, go yay.

I don't buy comics, I don't have any income you see. If I did have enough disposable income that I considered spending it on comics, I suppose Sandman is the one I would try.
Anyway, I read webcomics instead. My favorite are Two Moons, which is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi story about oppressed scientific creations, and 8-Bit Theatre which is a hilarious final fantasy take-off with lots of inside-jokes about various table-top RPGs. I also read Earthbound, which is a comedy mostly concerning demons living in Hell, but most of them are of the humanly-flawed variety rather than totally evil. I also read WAVAM which shows up on the same deviantart account as Earthbound, mostly it seems to be about vampires but I just read it incidentally. I used to read Dinosaur Comics, which is hilarious and very creative, but I've lately stopped reading it. I need to start again.

Vaevictis Asmadi

Hollywood-Vashkoda is still around. I am still trying to get GNC back up, though it relies on some 3rd party help with some high energy of activation, thus significantly limiting my reaction. Or whatever. Suffice to say, I am working on it. More pressingly, I'm trying to get back in touch with anyone working on the Team Atlantis project. I think I've uncovered them all, but if you were working on it or interested in it and haven't gotten an email from me this week, try sending me something to my new gmail account. The address is my name (I refuse to actually spell out the address, lest those spam bots get track me down and force me to change accounts again). So yeah, anyone sending me stuff to my old account, please resend to my new one. Unless you're a spam bot.
Vashkoda

It's true that most of the trolls use Demona. Funny that.

And yeah, there are a lot of people here who are just so connected with their avatars in my mind, namely Xanatos-Greg B, Arthur-Todd, Una-Siren, and many others, some who don't post here anymore, or rarely at best. I also am beginning to recognize a lot of the newer people, esspecially those with the more unique avatars like Delilah-PurpleGoldFish.

What ever happened to Hollywood-Vaskoda, Travis Marshall-Whitbourne, Guardian-Jim R., and ESSPECIALLY Cagney-Lord Sloth? ...man, I miss Slothy, he cracked me up.

Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

Actually, I find that aside from myself and Taina (and some others), a lot of the people I've seen who use the avatar of Demona in gargoyle form are usually trolls. I know I'm probably leaving a few other people out, and for that I apologize. I just can't name any other specific people at the moment.
Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75 at gmail dot com]
"There's nothing wrong with feeling lost, so long as this feeling precedes some plan on your part to do something about it." -Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

I chose Lex cause Brooklyn was already taken.

Incisivis> Welcome. :)

KingCobra_582@hotmail.com - [KingCobra_582 at hotmail dot com]
'Ignore Me!' - Venture Bros.

I choose Brooklyn mnay moons ago and no one else was using it, surprisingly... I think one person was, but they kinda fell into lurking obscurity...

and recently, Brooklyn X tried to use it... the same color scheme and 'tar.

It make us who we are... I see Xanatos "Oh, Greg B." and I see Arthur it's todd. No one'd EVER challange him for the use of that one.

Fav comics> I've been reading the chronological X-Men (the 60's stuff) from issue #1 to 50 I think so far.

PEACH FUZZ> It's a sorta Manga about a girl who has a pet Ferret (Of which I have two, Baby and Kenya). I love my Ferrets to death and when I heard about the book, I had to get it!

I also read and collect the 80's Transformers comics, as well as the Dream Wave ones. There got to be too many incarnations to collect them all...

Battle Beast - [Canada]
That is all I will say.

I chose the old Magus because when I first posted I looked through and saw no one had used it. I thought the pick worked well with my "Phoenician" name, if that made sense.

Little did I know that Blaise was already a fan of it. :P

One day I'll find another Avatar to use, I just haven't found another one to my extreme liking. Sigh :)

Phoenician - [theoneandonlyphoenician at yahoo dot com]
The Suspense is Terrible . . . I Hope it Lasts -- Willy Wonka

Yeah, I like using Una because A.) She's sorta a unicorn. B.) People rarely use her
Siren - [Click my name for Gargoyles' Femme Fatales Music Video!]

"...but there's already a lot of Demona avatars around here."

Amen, I understand that people love Demona, but geez, there are a lot of unused avatars. People should take a more obscure one and make it their own, IMHO.

Personally, I wish there was an avatar of Zafiro, Jade or the Mayan Sun Amulet. I'd love to have those, but at this point I'm so used to and attached to Cuchullin, that it would be hard to switch.

Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

Demonskrye> All right, someone else who's heard of Concrete. :D I don't really mind the socially conscious aspects of the series all that much, because they're presented in a very intelligent, organic way. Though "Fragile Creature" is my favourite long storyline so far.

I wish we didn't have to wait for the comic, but after what it took to reach volume 2, I'm not going to complain too much.

I'm also a woman, who just picked a Malibu avatar because I like his colour scheme, and the Brooklyn design (I have a thing for pterosaurs, and he sort of reminds me of one), though I don't like or dislike Brooklyn himself...just like the aquamarine. In fact it's hard for me to think of major characters I really disliked in this series. Always a good sign. Demona's actually my favourite, but there's already a lot of Demona avatars around here.

Incisivis - [incisivis at hotmail dot com]
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream" -- Shirley Jackson

DEMONSKRYE> Right here:

http://slg-news.livejournal.com/165473.html

Greg Bishansky - [<---- The 11th Annual Gathering of the Gargoyles]
"February is Black History Month. Now, I don't see color. People tell me I'm white and I believe them, because police officers call me 'sir'." - Stephen Colbert

Greg B> Not that I'm doubting you, but I'm just wondering where you heard/read that issue #3 is just awaiting Disney approval? It doesn't surprise me that someone over there has to check and approve the final product, but until now, I hadn't though about that as another possible factor in slowing down the comic (not that I have any way of knowing whether Disney approval comes slowly or speedily).

Incisivis> Welcome to the room. I can definitely appreciate the desire to have a unique screenname, as you can likely tell. I also enjoy "Concrete"; it's one of a couple of books I forgot to mention, probably in part because it doesn't come out regularly. I think Chadwick's art tend to sell his message pretty well, even if the dialogue sometimes get a smidge heavy in making its point. I have a Concrete drawing in my tiny convention sketchbook, first page in fact.

Demonskrye

Yes, hello, thanks for the welcome, everybody. Don't worry about the name -- I'm used to people not being able to spell it. :P But it cuts down on the need for finding a unique handle every time, you have to admit. I hope to have fun here.
Incisivis - [incisivis at hotmail dot com]
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream" -- Shirley Jackson

Welcome, Incisivis!

PURPLEGOLDFISH> I believe Greg, as I mentioned, from what I hear, the issue is done now, we're just waiting on Disney.

Greg Bishansky - [<---- The 11th Annual Gathering of the Gargoyles]
"February is Black History Month. Now, I don't see color. People tell me I'm white and I believe them, because police officers call me 'sir'." - Stephen Colbert

Hi Inc! heh, yeah I'm too lazy to spell your whole name ;)

"Issue #3 is coming out next month. We should be consistently bi-monthly after that." *Grumble* isn't that what he said after issue 2? I'll believe it when I see it.

Purplegoldfish - [skydragonn at aol dot com]
"Whoa, Tiny, you mean there's more than one of you?" "My name is not Tiny! I am Goliath!" - Elisa and Tiny

Geeez, I finally can get Vaevictis's name spelling down and then I-n-c-i-s-i-v-i-s comes in!

Just playing Incisivis, welcome to our humble Comment Room. Always great to have new people come by. Hope you stay a while, have a cookie.

Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

Well, it's not exactly the best thing to introduce myself to Station Eight with, but here are some of my favourite comics (I'm including manga because comics is a general term, not a cultural term). These are not recommendations, just five of my favourites that I wouldn't be embarrassed to admit that I read and think are pretty good.

1. Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. I know it has a lot of flaws, but I love the series to pieces, mostly because it is, at least to me, a story about some of the most beautiful things in the world: creativity, mythology, storytelling, and dreaming. Which is why I love the main character, too, even though he is often an incredibly dense jackass--hey, sometimes I enjoy screwed-up leads, and he embodies those same things that I love about the series as a whole.

2. I Feel Sick by Jhonen Vasquez. I love every Vasquez book I've ever read (being introduced to him via Invader Zim), but this two-issue story is a favourite of mine also because, like the Sandman, it's a story about creativity. A little heavy-handed and thick-skulled in its messages, but I appreciate the ideal behind them, i.e. never selling out.

3. Hellsing by Kouta Hirano. The weird and wonderful and gory world of vampires and creatures. I'm not normally a vampire fan, but this series has a lot of characters I love (including Sir Integral Hellsing, my most favourite heroine ever), and a twisted sense of humour and appealing (yet equally twisted) art style make it great.

4. Concrete by Paul Chadwick. Yeah, it does have its moments of preaching and tree-hugger junkstuff, but at its best it's a comic with a tone unlike any other: a gentle, calm and thoughtful story, primarily about a guy who was socially awkward even before he was put into a giant body of stone.

5. Pet Shop of Horrors by Matsuri Akino. Entertaining mostly for the cool creatures and dark storylines the author comes up with, though it can get excessively comic or devolve into environmentalist preaching at times.

Incisivis - [incisivis at hotmail dot com]
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream" -- Shirley Jackson

Check out today's revelation at Ask Greg: Issue #3 is coming out next month. We should be consistently bi-monthly after that.

That answers that question about when the next issue is coming out.

dph_of_rules
Whatever happenned to simplicity?

I actually read a fair amount of comcis, but the two I'd most reccomend to "Gargoyles" fans are:

HELLBOY - Probably not an unfamiliar name, what with the movie and the recent animated TV movie (which just came out on DVD). But the original comics are still my favorite version of the demonic paranormal investigator. Mignola's storytelling and artwork are both top notch. Though Hellboy seems to suffer none of the prejudice that the gargoyles recieve from humans, his frequent encounters and battles with figure on world myth and folklore will undoubtably appeal to fans of "Gargoyles" "all things are true" approach. "Hellboy" does not come out on a regular schedule, but there's currently a comic based on the animated movies out and there are plenty of trades to get newcomers caught up by the time the next storyline of the main series starts.

CASTLE WAITING - This is a more small press book than "Hellboy", but definitely worth tracking down. Set in a world a little harsher than the traditional children's fairy tale, yet a little more magical than the actual Middle Ages, "Castle Waiting" follows the lives of a group of characters living together in a seculded castle. From the description alone, it can sound pretty horrible: "The Real World: Fairy Tale Kingdom". But the book is written with warmth, subtlety, and humor, and creator Linda Medley's draftsmanship is impeccable. "Gargoyles" fans who also count themselves as fairy tale nerds will no doubt appreciate the well researched stories and the "hidden" references to slightly more obscure bits of fairy tales and folklore.

Aside from that, I regulrly read "Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane", "The Spirit", "TransFormers" (which is actually pretty good under the new publisher), Disney duck comics (mainly Barks and Rosa) and of course "Gargoyles" (when it comes out). There are other books that I occasionally read. This week I'm looking forward to the new "Shazam" by Jeff Smith (creator of "Bone"). Some of my favorite comics no longer in publication are the Waid/Weiringo "Fantastic Four" run, "DC: The New Frontier", and the entire America's Best Comics line, especially "Promethea".

Demonskrye

I'm like Phil, besides Gargoyles, I'm only a big fan of the Uncle Scrooge/Donald Duck comics.

HofEyes> Greg W has said that Jade and Turquesa will have a couple stops on their way back to Guatemala from Avalon, possibly one stop in Manhattan to pick up the Mayan Sun Amulet.

Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

Comics: Besides Gargoyles, the only other comics I buy on a regular basis are Uncle Scrooge and Walt Disney's Comics and Stories.
Phil - [p1anderson at go dot com]

Sorry for the double post, but I realized that I needed to correct my description of Reynardine's condition: his being trapped inside Annie's toy wolf "gives *her* control over him" (because the toy belongs to her). The most that Reynardine can do at present is to make snide remarks (the biggest one was when Annie's closest friend at school, a girl her age named Kat who often assists her on her weird adventures, was expressing her loyal support towards Annie in a tough moment, which Annie thanks her for. Reynardine cuts in with "Say, you two aren't going to kiss, are you? Because if you are, I'd like to watch!" Annie turns around at once and tells Reynardine that he will be silent until she gives him permission to speak; Reynardine has a big grin on his face as if to say "It was worth it." Though he probably winds up thinking differently because shortly afterwards Annie gets caught up in such a big adventure that she forgets about what she said and it's not until a week later that she finally remembers and gives him permission to speak again - immediately followed by Reynardine letting out a very indignant torrent of words at her!)
Todd Jensen
Gargoyles - did for monstrous-looking statues what "Watership Down" did for rabbits!

If webcomics are allowed (I never got an answer on whether they were or not), I'm a big fan of Tom Siddell's "Gunnerkrigg Court" that I mentioned last week-end during my post on "The New Olympians". It's a webcomic about the adventures of a young girl named Antimony Carver at Gunnerkrigg Court, a very bizarre British boarding school that looks more like an industrial complex than an actual school. In the course of her explorations, Annie (as she's known for short) has come across such unusual inhabitants as a living shadow, Basil the Minotaur, a demon named Reynardine who is currently trapped inside Annie's favorite toy (a stuffed wolf doll) and in a very bad mood about it (since he's trapped inside Annie's toy, it gives him control over him so that he can't carry out his usual mayhem), a shy little ghost named Mort who needs Annie's help in teaching him how to do a good job of haunting the school, a very irritable eyeless girl named Zimmy who suffers from hallucinations that, if they become strong enough, start altering the nature of reality about her, Annie's phys-ed teacher Mr. Eglamore who leads a secret double life as a warrior with a magic sword, a couple of fairies who want Annie to squash them flat with a big rock so that they can be reincarnated as human children and go to school at Gunnerkrigg (Annie sharply refuses), and a set of robot birds that make ticking noises.

Not only is it very atmospheric, but Annie is a very effective protagonist. She's brave, resourceful, and amazingly very calm and well-mannered towards all the unusual creatures that she meets. But she's also grieving for the recent death of her mother (who is herself linked to many of the mysteries at Gunnerkrigg, and in particular, has an as-yet-unknown connection to Reynardine), which becomes an important element from time to time. I highly recommend it.

Todd Jensen
Gargoyles - did for monstrous-looking statues what "Watership Down" did for rabbits!

I glance at newspaper comics in passing, but sadly, I don't think there's really been anything good since Bill Watterson retired. And this is only one man's opinion, but Garfield hasn't been funny in a very long time. ( ;
Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75 at gmail dot com]
"There's nothing wrong with feeling lost, so long as this feeling precedes some plan on your part to do something about it." -Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

Just thought I'd mention, some back issues I''m looking for:
Green Lantern Volume 3- Issues that were written by Gerard Jones. About the last Hal Jordan stories (At least before the recent years), before the character became Parallax.

Booster Gold- Haven't found all of the issues yet. I've gotten interested in the character since his appearance in the Justice League Unlimited episode "The Greatest Story Never Told".

Captain Atom- The Post-Crisis revamp of the character to be precise. Like with Booster Gold, I'm collecting because of his appearances in JLU. Doesn't hurt that the series was done by Weisman and Bates.

I'm still looking to also get The Marvel Comics "Gargoyles" series.

Antiyonder - [antiyonder at yahoo dot com]

I'm sure it comes as a huge shock, but other than Gargs, "Conan" and "Red Sonja" (the main series and all miniseries) are the two major titles on my pull list. I also keep up with "Hack/Slash" (a series of one-shots and miniseries about a killer of serial killers... very B-movie campy schlock), and "Ezra" and "Kade" from Arcana Studios. I recently discovered the angsty glory that is "X-23", and I've been following the last couple of "X-Men" story arcs because Rogue currently a major player. In the greater scheme of things, I try to pick up anything and everything that Sam Kieth and Dan Schaffer touch; they're probably my two favorite comic artists/writers, with Cary Nord (main penciller for Conan) coming in as a close third.
Kythera of Anevern - [kythera (at) gmail dot com]
I do not suffer fools, gladly or otherwise.

GXB - Besides the Gargoyles Comic, the only other comic I currently read is the 24: Nightfall miniseries, but that's only because I'm a HUGE fan of 24 as my second favorite show of all time (with Gargoyles still at #1 -- hey, it has tenure!).

Mind you, even though I am definitely biased for 24, I do think the comic is well written, if only for the fact that it adds to the 24-Universe.

And on a semi-related note, I'm a big fan of the daily comic strips: Luann, Pearls Before Swine, Drabble, Zits, Foxtrot, Garfield, and Baby Blues. I read those daily. :)

Phoenician - [theoneandonlyphoenician at yahoo dot com]
The Suspense is Terrible . . . I Hope it Lasts -- Willy Wonka

Ugh... sorry, for some reason, I can't access the CR through Firefox, I'm using IE, and it doesn't have my info saved.
Greg Bishansky

That last post was me.
Anonymous

Antiyonder> I can tell our tastes in comics run the opposite of the spectrum.

HoE> I think Civil War is coming out in TPB format some time in the next couple months. The TPB "Road to Civil War" comes out tomorrow though.

But, if I could only recommend one come from the list I posted, it would have to be LUCIFER. Epic fantasy in a modern setting, and a great protagonist. I have nothing but positive things to say about it. It's a Vertigo comic, so it definitely aims for a more mature audience, which is good.

But, I think it's something "Gargoyles" fans would enjoy. It falls into a similar genre And for more religious readers, trust me, it does not glorify Lucifer.

Anonymous

I too can't say much about comics, as I haven't picked one up in a long time before "Gargoyles." To give one an idea of how long, the last comic I picked up (aside from a few things by Jhonen Vazquez and Steve Purcell) was the issue of Spider-Man where he fought Sergei Kravenoff's son, Vladimir. However, I do like the sound of Civil War.

Greg B: Any idea on when Civil War is going to be collected in graphic novel?

Todd: Of course, another big contrast between Yama and Demona is that Yama acknowledges his own hand in things, and confronts it.


Much as I dislike the episode, there is something I do wonder about "The Green": Do the Mayan gargoyles that leave at the end make it back to Guatemala without incident, or does Avalon give them an amusing side-trip?

Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75 at gmail dot com]
"There's nothing wrong with feeling lost, so long as this feeling precedes some plan on your part to do something about it." -Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

As far as comics go, I generally collect the lighter tone (Not that I don't like the serious stories mind you. I find Gargoyles does the dark serious stories just right, without being say depressing). I'm not always good with detailed descriptions mind you (Except for the first comic I'm listing here).

Spider-Girl: I like this and the rest of the MC2 lines for the old school Marvel tones. Reasons I enjoy it:
1. Again it's old school story feel. It's serious at times without the whole Grim and Gritty angle. Meaning that the series can alternate between lighted-hearted innocent (The Mystery of The Spider Shoppe) and dark serious stories (Such as the whole relationship abuse).

2. Great characters. Spider-Girl resists the temptation of the heroine being the sex object. Each of the supporting cast gets a share of spotlight, which the mainstream Spider-Titles could be doing. Moose for instances like Flash Thompson goes from the typical jock to a likable pleasant character.

Mayday herself actually fits in with both the jocks and science student (Thanks to the Peter and MJ genes in her). Only thing that doesn't help is the whole crimefighting angle.

3. To further enforce it's old school goodness, Spider-Girl and the MC2 verse actually reads like a superhero comic. Secret Identity, colorful costumes and a good blend of realisim/fiction).

4. Tom's able to use elements of the Clone Saga and other elements of continuity without it being a burden. Heck to some the MC2 feels more like a logical progression of the mainstream Marvel Universe. Some examples:

A. Kaine still being alive. He started out opposing Spider-Girl, but is now part of a government team for reformed crooks.

B. Johnny Storm and Lyja/Ms Fantastic are still married. With a son Torus Storm who can use his flame and shapeshifting ability to become an adult hero Super Storm. Kristoff, Dooms heir is a current member of the Fantastic Five as Doctor Doom.

C. And as indicated already Peter and Mary Jane were of course reunited with their daughter, but that's of course obivous. See, Spider-Girl #48-49 explore and expand upon the whole Alison Mongrain/Kaine/Scrier subplot that occured during Defalco's last run on Amazing Spider-Man (#434-435 to be exact). Of course it would end with the return of Aunt May before the relaunch.

D. Cassie Lang and Kevin Masterson continue the family career as superheroes.

E. The Original Hobgoblin returns to his former glory as the big bad guy as he was in the early 80s.

5. Of course, with Spider-Girl being in a possible future, a lot of the more controversal Spider-Man storys can be ignored or changed:

A. The Gathering Of Five still occured, but ends with Norman Osborn being blown to bits in the last fight with Spider-Man. This time he stays dead. Though the Parker/Osborn War end (With Normie as a friend of May's), there are still many Goblins (Such as The Hobgoblin, as well as The Order Of The Goblin introduced by Roger Stern in Spider-Man Revenge Of The Green Goblin).

B. Remember how it was revealed to be a genetic actress who died in The Amazing Spider-Man #400? Well, in MC2 it was really Aunt May, though she does live on spiritually through younger May. Her only appearance in the flesh of MC2 was in Spider-Girl #10-11, which has Mayday sent back in time to The Amazing Spider-Man #25 (Captured By J Jonah Jameson).

C. None of that Norman/Gwen relationship garbage here.


She-Hulk- Written by another favorite writer Dan Slott. Again, I enjoy humor and of course the fact She-Hulk's aware that she's a comic book character.

Fantastic Four- I'm collecting this title during Dwayne McDuffie's (Writer of Static Shock as well as some episodes of Justice League Unlimited) run.

Marvel Adventures The Avengers- Good old fashion one issue stories and pretty good line up (For those who don't know it's: Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Storm, Hulk and newcomer Giant-Girl).

Justice League Unlimited- Fan of the cartoon, and seeing different characters each issue.

Detective Comics- Collecting the title during Paul Dini's run. Like his stories and his choice to do single issue stories.

Teen Titans Go- I will have to admit, that it's my favorite of the animated DC based comics. Mostly due to J Torres keeping it in continuity with the show and expanding upon it. Even brought Wonder Girl in the animated continuity (She was off-limits to the cartoon).

Antiyonder - [antiyonder at yahoo dot com]

Vaevictis: Well, when they go to other places it's because Avalon brings them there to fix a problem. I guess it's in avalon's best interest to allow the travellers to speak the native language so they're able to do what they have to do more easily. I'm not exactly sure how the translation spell works in conjunction with Avalon though.
And I'm pretty sure Avalon is on Earth, just on a different plane of existance...though I'm not entirely sure about that either. Can anyone here confirm that?

Purplegoldfish - [skydragonn at aol dot com]
"Whoa, Tiny, you mean there's more than one of you?" "My name is not Tiny! I am Goliath!" - Elisa and Tiny

I watched The Batman this weekend. "Artifacts" was an interesting episode.

**The Batman Spoilers**
A couple of questions I do have, though. Since Batman keeps calling Nightwing Robin, that, at least that point in the future, there is no 2nd Robin. 1)Is there going to be a 2nd Robin in this Batman universe?
It was mentioned that the data on the Batman's computer wouldn't last 1000 years.
2)Is that actual science or plot device?
3)Was Freeze in police custody when he escaped or did somebody find him and unthaw him?
**END The Batman Spoilers**

Vaevictis Asmadi - <Disney: I know there's supposedly no logical reason for Disney to sabotage Gargoyles and Greg keeps assuring us they aren't. But then why are they dragging their heels and delaying the comic again?> 1st, we don't know when Disney got the final version. 2nd, according to the slg blog, Disney takes 2 to 4 weeks *after* getting the final version to get approval.

On 2007-01-25, this is exactly what was said: <I've been rallying the troops, and if not by the end of February, I hope to get it out by early March. Getting final approval on the finished book without delays is going to be a problem, though. It's so frustrating to have a finished book just sitting.>
The way I read it, according to the next to last sentence, the final version of issue #2 had *not* been sent to Disney by that date because of the usage "is going to be a problem" as opposed to "is a problem". Right now, I'm not blaming Disney for the delay until I know when/if the comic was sent to Disney. Show me evidence that Disney has had the final version of comic #3 in its hands for more than 2 weeks without giving its approval, and I'll consider blaming Disney.

In case you're wondering, I'm quoting from this page: http://slg-news.livejournal.com/165473.html

dph_of_rules
Whatever happenned to simplicity?

BISHANSKY - Do webcomics count?

About "Bushido". Taro strikes me as almost a poor man's Xanatos. Like Xanatos, he attempts to exploit gargoyles for his personal gain, but his goals are a lot less ambitions (a gargoyle theme park), and unlike Xanatos, he winds up undergoing a comical public humiliation (dangling from a giant animatronic gargoyle in front of a crowd of reporters). Not to mention that I wonder why he'd want them to show up at dawn rather than dusk. I think that seeing the gargoyles bursting from their stone shells would be a far more impressive way of introducing them to the world than seeing them turn to stone.

To me, the funniest part of the episode is the metareference when Elisa tells Goliath about the crowd of reporters who want to make the gargoyles television stars, to which Goliath replies in horror "Noooo!" - the scene being made all the funnier by the way that Keith David delivered that line.

Yama makes a good contrast to Taro in being more misguided than genuinely villainous. In one sense, while he's got a similar function to Demona, he's her opposite in another way: he believes that peace between humans and gargoyles is possible, wants to work for it, but goes about it the wrong way. I especially liked his disgust at learning that the first guests to the theme park would be, not schoolchildren come to learn about bushido, but reporters.

Todd Jensen
Gargoyles - did for monstrous-looking statues what "Watership Down" did for rabbits!

Christine: Thanks for the info. I was wondering when the anthology story would be due, and getting antsy about planning a topic and actually writing it in and around my current projects.

While I'm sorry there won't be a book this year, I'm hoping there will be one next year. I've always looked forward to writing for it, and that hasnt' changed.

Stormy

Mayan Clan> I have often thought that a clan with pendants that keep an individual from turning to stone would make it a major priority to guard their home, their clan-mates and their rookery during the day. The fact that Zafiro, Obsidiana, Jade and Turquesa were away on that fateful say in 1993 seems incredible. What were they thinking?! My only explanation is that it is more than a coincidence that they four pendant wearers were away when the people looted the Pyramid and destroyed the clan. I think either something major was happening in The Green that drove the four out into the forest and ended up causing the massacre, or that those responsible for the massacre somehow tricked or lured the four away.
The people who destroyed the clan HAD to be aware of what the gargoyles are, why else would they bother to destroy all the "statues"?

Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

But that spell brings people *to* Avalon. Leaving Avalon, they go to Earth. Would the spell affect a person who has visited Avalon for the rest of their lives? That seems rather silly. But otherwise how will Angela continue to speak English, if she has only been exposed to it "translated" magically into ancient Gaelic?
Vaevictis Asmadi

Vaevictis: I remember Greg saying that a language translation spell goes along with the Avalon spell, so the travellers can unerstand all the native languages and vice versa.
Purplegoldfish - [skydragonn at aol dot com]
"Whoa, Tiny, you mean there's more than one of you?" "My name is not Tiny! I am Goliath!" - Elisa and Tiny

I listened to Lex's line in The Gathering a few times. He speaks really fast so it's kind of hard to make out - it does sound more like "our" than "her" though. Maybe they see the avalon clan as distant clan relatives? Anyway, it's still confusing.

GregB: can't add to this conversation - "Gargoyles" is pretty much the only comic I've ever read, aside from those corny disney adventures comics I read when I was a kid.

In his last response, Greg says that #7 will blow our minds. I really want to know what it's about. Any speculations? "The Rock" hmmmm...
Geeze, we still have to wait a whole month for #3!! GAH!!

Purplegoldfish - [skydragonn at aol dot com]
"Whoa, Tiny, you mean there's more than one of you?" "My name is not Tiny! I am Goliath!" - Elisa and Tiny

It's wonderful to hear that you guys are interested in my mini-reviews of the episodes. :) Thank you for your compliments.

Speaking of The Green: I imagine the four Maya gargoyles must feel a lot of guilt over the massacre -- not just survivor's guilt but also the terrible feelings of "I should've been there..." It was an understandable mistake to leave the pyramid, after all their clan had operated this way for centuries. But I think they must think about it every day when they go out into the forest or wait in the pyramid.


RE: Disney: I know there's supposedly no logical reason for Disney to sabotage Gargoyles and Greg keeps assuring us they aren't. But then why are they dragging their heels and delaying the comic again? Those issues are, what, 24 pages? It might take, at most, an hour to read through #3 and assure oneself that it doesn't promote drugs, promiscuity, terrorism, devil worship, suicide, or anything else Disney wouldn't want. So why is it taking more than a month? I get the feeling that none of the Disney execs have so much as glanced at the comic, much less opened it and looked inside.


Bushido
This was a nice episode. I knew the basic story beforehand from reading spoilers, but this was fun to watch. For the first time, an entire clan of foreign gargoyles, and they got much more screentime than the Avalon clan. I had fun looking at all the gargoyles and observing their characteristics, and how they are similar and different from each other, and from the Scottish gargoyles. They aren't as blatantly exotic as Zaphiro or the London clan, but with twelve individuals a more subtle pattern shows. They seem especially to have a lot of spikes on them, and almost all of them have some kind of tail ornament. Also, not one of them is hairless, and all but one have black hair. Yama seems to have feathers on the upper parts of his wings.
The Japanese clothes also look pretty good on them, except Sora whose outfit is UGLY.
Elisa looks very nice in a kinomo, althoug it is a little odd that she's the only one dressed like that, when the Ishimurans themselves are all wearing more Western clothing.

Yama makes some foolish decisions, and it was certainly wrong to move everyone without their permission. I think that his intentions were good, though, and his concern about secrecy is a sensible one. He wanted the clan to reveal itself to humans on its own terms, instead of waiting for the humans to discover them as a surprise. And I get the impression he has discussed this with Kai before.
Of course, the choices he made were wrong, even not counting that he trusted the wrong person. Moving into an enclosure like that would certainly not be a good way to introduce themselves.

I think the episode was at first trying to make Yama out to be more of a villain, to confuse/trick the audience. When he attacks Goliath, it makes him look very bad. But later he shows that he has a better side to him.

Taro's humiliation at the end was very amusing. But the language in that scene situation confuses me. During most of the episode, I imagine that the Ishimurans speak Japanese to each other and English to Elisa, Goliath, and Angela, even though it is all voiced in English. And I'd assume that Taro would address the reporters in Japanese as well. But then Elisa understands what he is saying, and speaks to the reporters. Does she know Japanese?

Elisa says to herself "This is my kind of town." I can imagine her wishing to herself that she could live in a place where she could interact with her gargoyle friends in public, and not have to hide them all the time. A place where they could be safe and accepted. Is she wondering if even her relationship with Goliath would be accepted in a society like Ishimura?

Other things:
*Even with the crappy Toon Disney rip, I could tell the animation was very good this time. The Ishimuran gargs looked great and moved gracefully.
*Taro's theme park includes not only a replica of the Ishimuran temple, but a medieval European castle and a Gothic cathedral.
*Nobody destroyed an irreplaceable artifact or archaeological site this time!
*Taro uses the word "gargoyle" in front of the press. Is there a Japanese word for those little statues and would he really have used that word? Or something more applicable like "tengu?"

Vaevictis Asmadi

So, here's a thought. With the "Gargoyles" comic coming out, what other comics out there do you read? What would you recommend?

I'll go first.

1. LUCIFER which is published under DC's Vertigo line.
Technically a spin-off of SANDMAN. Huge, epic, and with a great cast of characters. Writer, Mike Carey, combines the works of John Milton and Neil Gaiman to create one of the medium's greatest anti-heroes. More powerful than Superman, more cunning than Batman, and without a need to really prove anything to anyone, save Yahweh. Yes, it's a comic book about the Devil, but it's really well done. Basically, Lucifer gave up ruling Hell, and has moved on to larger ventures. The supporting cast is great also, Lucifer's servant/girlfriend Mazikeen is one of my favorite characters in comics, and Elaine Belloc... not spoiling in case anyone is interested. The series is complete and available in graphic novel format.

2. CIVIL WAR
A huge company-run crossover done right. I know there are people out there who have issues with the series, but I think it's very well done, and raises a lot of ethical questions. Basically, the superhero community suffers a 9/11 type event. Hundreds of civilians are killed, and the govenment drafts legislation forcing superheroes to register, become employees of S.H.I.E.L.D. and be held accountable. Iron Man leads the pro-registration heroes, and Captain America rebels and leads the anti-registration heroes. Both sides cross lines, making deals with various devils. Captain America makes deals with the Kingpin, Iron Man now has mass-murdering supervillains in his payroll. Some critics see the whole series as a great big indictment of the Bush Administration, what with civil liberties being violated, unregistered heroes being thrown into a Guantanomo Bay like prison without being charged or tried. But, as I mentioned, it does raise ethical questions on both sides. Freedomor security... which one matters to you more?

3. THE BOOKS OF DOOM
This is a six-issue mini series, and can be found in graphic novel format. Basically, it tells the story of Dr. Doom. From his childhood as a peasant gypsy in Latveria, to his tragic rise as absolute monarch and Earth's most feared supervillain. I love stories where we learn what makes a villain what they are, what drives them to do the things they do. This is Victor Von Doom's "City of Stone", and it's really well done.

4. Y: THE LAST MAN
Like Lucifer, published under DC's Verigo line. What would happen if every single male (from any species) on the planet died, except for two? A guy named Yorik and hispet monkey, may be the last chance humanity has for survival, if it can be discovered how they survived, and if the human race could some how be repopulated. I know the very premise sounds like it would turn into one big sexfest, but trust me, it doesn't. Yorik's sister, goes crazy and joins a cult called "Daughters of the Amazon", who are trying to kill him... and yes, they all cut off a breast... they are that fanatical.

5. ALIAS
This was published under Marvel's MAX line a few years ago. It stars Jessica Jones, who used to be a superhero... but, not a very good one. After a very traumatic incident (and trust me, it was), she hung up the costume and became a bitter, chain smoking private detective. One of the things I enjoy about this series is that it's really about the civilians of the Marvel Universe. The regular people who live in this world full of heroes and villains. It had a sequel series called THE PULSE, which finished Jessica's story, was still good, but not as good. Still, this is Brian Michael Bendis at his best (this and his DAREDEVIL run, which I also recommend).

Greg Bishansky - [<---- The 11th Annual Gathering of the Gargoyles]
"Brave words for a man who hides his face behind a hood." - Goliath, "The Journey"

No, Lex defintely said "...our clan on Avalon>"

As for Goliath's jurisdiction, I think the fact that no one balks when he gives Gabriel orders makes it clear that though Gabe is the Clan Leader, when Goliath is around he is in charge.

Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

Matt: The whole "Gargoyle race as a clan" is an interesting concept. I never thought of that before. I wonder when the Gargoyle Nation is formed there will be meetings of clan leaders to discuss the future of their kind. I guess "clan" can mean different things from clan to clan, and to individuals in those clans.

It never appeared obvious to me that Goliath considers the Avalon gargs to be his clan. I think he feels a kinship with them as their rookery father, but he's not their leader, he has no jurisdiction over them. It looks to me that he has a more traditional and simpler view of the concept - a group of gargoyles, and in this case, non-gargoyles as well, living together and protecting their home and each other. And I'm pretty sure Lex's quote was "Angela was telling us about gabriel and her clan on avalon" I'll go double check that later, but that's what I remember him saying.
As for Oberon, he considers goliath's clan to be both the manhattan and avalon clans, but that doesn't mean he's clear on the concept or understands gargoyle clans as the gargoyles do.

The word for today is - "clan" ;)

Purplegoldfish - [skydragonn at aol dot com]
"Whoa, Tiny, you mean there's more than one of you?" "My name is not Tiny! I am Goliath!" - Elisa and Tiny

Reviews from Vaevictus > I may not respond too often either, but I really enjoy your remarks. Several times you've pointed out some things I've missed (perhaps due to over-familiarity with my favorite episodes).

Nokkar > As others have said, waiting until Elisa's confirming memories come back would be the best way to go. Too bad he wasn't more curious about the gargoyles; studying them scientifically could have bought a little time until her memories returned. At least Nokkar was willing to make new friends again (the two scientists) at the end of the episode.

"Possession" > I'm looking forward to your observations on this one, Vaevictus. It was one of the earliest episodes I saw, and is one of my favorites. It's quite complicated (especially when I was just learning who the characters were!). Its similiarity to a "Star Trek" episode helped me understand a little more of what was going on, however.

Great job on the GargWiki, everyone!

Abby
"Boy, the city sure is different when it snows." "Yeah. It's colder." - "The Price"

I agree with Harvester, Vaevictus. I may not always have something to say either, but I do like to hear how a "veteren-first-time-viewer of Gargoyles" thinks of the series.
Phoenician - [theoneandonlyphoenician at yahoo dot com]
The Suspense is Terrible . . . I Hope it Lasts -- Willy Wonka

Matt - <"The Green" freakin' rules.> It was a hard episode summary to write, but not nearly as hard as writing the one for The New Olympians. Truthfully, I almost will fill sorry for whoever ends doing the summary of "Possession" because it's that complicated.

I like to think that when Nokkar mentioned that he couldn't keep prisoners, that helped Elisa's thinking that she needed to protect the gargoyles.

GXB - <It would have been much more understandable if he agreed to only hold them for a few days so that Elisa's memory could come back, and he would know for sure before executing them. No one would have questioned that.> That type of response would have been appropriate. Unless keeping Goliath, Angela, and Bronx is that forcefield was extremely power-draining on his sytem, I don't see why he couldn't have waited. Of course, I think Nokkar should have been getting a more thorough documentation of life on our planet. Imagine Nokkar encountered the NOs.

dph_of_rules
Whatever happenned to simplicity?

"The Green" freakin' rules.
Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

Patrick: <How many unique visitors does Station 8 actually receive?> But my mom says I'm cool! ( ;

Matt: <I think now that clans are beginning to be revealed to each other, they are beginning to see themselves all as one gargoyle family.> Funny, that was the sense I got from the dialogue between Goliath and Hudson in "The Gathering." I'm wondering if that was intentional.

Kythera: <Social deprivation can do all kinds of things to a person's head, after all.> Yeah, I've seen that theme explored before. Isolation can cause the darker half of the mind to fester, and blow certain fears or prejudices out of perspective. Cool, there's a parallel between an episode of "Gargoyles" and something that Pink Floyd did. Just wish it was a different album.

Vaevictus: <We don't have a large sample of what the Wyvern gargoyles called each other, so maybe most were referred to with words emphasizing personal traits instead of relationships.> One of the reasons I'm hoping that if we see any spinoffs in the comics, "Dark Ages" will be one of them. Be interesting to see, among other things, how that gets handled.

By the way, you had said last week that you were getting tired of doing these reviews. I can't speak for anyone else, but I enjoy reading them, even if I don't always have something to say (though I'm tempted to argue "The Green" with certain people some more).

Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75 at gmail dot com]
"Truly, can you imagine anything more boring than fashion? Professional sports, perhaps. Grown men swatting little balls while the rest of the world pays money to applaud. But on the whole, I find fashion even more tedious than sports." -Dr. Ian Malcolm ("Jurassic Park")

Greg W. Apology Accepted. I personally wasn't all that upset about anything-not at you anyway. I do feel Disney as a company does owe itself to do more to sell it's products. I think, if anything we did as a fandom, we showed Disney that there is a market for their TV series, since Gargoyles was their first animated series released on DVD. Now we have Ducktales, Tale Spin, Gummi Bears, Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck - and I can only hope there will be more to follow(So far I've only managed to get Gummi Bears & Tale Spin-but that's a wallet issue. Darkwing is next on my list). I'm really loving the chance to re live these shows. I really feel Disney is missing the boat(or plane) by not giving this a bigger push. The fans of these shows are out there, they just need to know that these things are available, not to mention a new generation of fans are waiting to see them.

As for the the last episodes of Gargoyles, I think it might only be a matter of time before Disney releases them, but truthfully, if they are dead set against it, then license the property to a company that will complete the series. It might not sound realistic - but that sort of thing happens in the music industry all the time. It's not likely with a company like Disney but one way or another I can't foresee them holding something like this back. We're too persuasive of a fan base. We've gone this far, we ain't about to stop now. One way or another - we're gonna get our Gargs! ^_^

Wingless

Well, we should notice too that humans do that also in very close relations. Some persons thare are a couple call each other with nicknames such as "my love" "honey" "pupush" (yeah i know people who say that) or close friends call each other dude, or here at agrentina, we call each other "boludo" as a general name for all the members of a close group of friends. Rarely the name of the person is say.
Of course you can call someone "pupush" and another person can call her/him (insert bad word). Nick names such as "Angel of the Night" "old soldier" "mentor" as you have mentioned are adjetives that diferent gargoyles use to define their feelings towards one another, just as we do in close relationships.
They all have many names, whats the problem with that?

Demon@ - ["The access code is Jalapeña"]

Of course it is still a label, even a name of sorts, but it is a matter of what characteristics the language draws attention to. Such tendencies can reveal a lot about a culture, through its use of language.

Anyway, it was only an impression I had. We don't have a large sample of what the Wyvern gargoyles called each other, so maybe most were referred to with words emphasizing personal traits instead of relationships.

Vaevictis Asmadi

Whether a gargoyle is calling another gargoyle "my leader" or calling him "Dave", a label is still being applied in one form or another. Language can't exist without nouns. To a gargoyle who lives his whole life isolated in one place, perhaps terms like "the river" and "the forest" are more than sufficient. To a human aware of a much bigger world, more precise language is needed for clear communication. If I say "the river," you have no way of knowing know which one unless I also say Mississippi, Amazon, Nile, or Hudson. If you don't believe me, try ordering pizza sometime and tell them to deliver to "the house with the tree on the street." :P
Patrick - [<-- The Gathering 2007]

"I don't think Nokkar is a bad person, he's a soldier. But, he could have handled the situation a lot better than he did."

Which is a very natural, "human" kind of error, given how long Nokkar spent in isolation. Social deprivation can do all kinds of things to a person's head, after all.

Kythera of Anevern
I do not suffer fools, gladly or otherwise.

The feeling I got from Nokkar was that he wanted the gargoyles to be Space Spawn minions. He wanted them to be, because he was bored, because he wanted to feel his job was worth it. For many reasons. I wouldn't call it racism, but it was definitely over zealousness. It would have been much more understandable if he agreed to only hold them for a few days so that Elisa's memory could come back, and he would know for sure before executing them. No one would have questioned that.

I don't think Nokkar is a bad person, he's a soldier. But, he could have handled the situation a lot better than he did.

Greg Bishansky - [<---- The 11th Annual Gathering of the Gargoyles]
"Brave words for a man who hides his face behind a hood." - Goliath, "The Journey"

I think the lack of names has an effect of drawing fewer distinctions between people. In addition to thinking of each clan-mate in terms of individuality and personality, I think they think of their clan-mates in terms of their relationships to each other: "my Angel," "our leader," "my old mentor," "Goliath's angel," etc. At least that is my impression.

I don't know if I'm being too hard on Nokkar. It is clear that he came to Earth for a good and noble reason, and he left behind his world and people, and maybe a family. He committed himself to a rather lonely existence for a good cause.
But feelings of uselessness or not, he became much less than what he started out as. Violent self-righteousness really rubs me the wrong way. Anyway Nokkar imposed his uselessness on himself to some extent. He may have disliked Europeans for invading Easter Island or feared they wouldn't accept him or decided to withdraw for some other reason, but I think he'd feel a lot more useful if he'd spent the last 100 years teaching humans about the Space-Spawn and preparing them for the invasion -- even just a select group of scientists that he gathered very carefully. It would certainly have been more helpful to humans than leaving them totally unaware of any threat until the invasion started.

Vaevictis Asmadi

If 400-500 fans is a realistic upper end figure for the Gathering, and every fan who attends a Gathering supposedly represents 10 fans who don't (which I seem to recall was a factor of Disney's logic mentioned circa 2000), that's getting on for 5000 people. It doesn't seem all that unbelievable. Posters, past posters, lurkers, people who get info through other sites (satellite Gargoyles sites, comics sites, cartoon sites), those who get their info straight from the comic etc....
Ed

Hey Gang,

I'm stopping by to offer an apology. I posted something similar to this on ASK GREG, but just in case it's missed... I did not mean to BLAME the fandom -- and certainly not the hardcore fandom represented by this room, who have truly done so much to keep the series alive -- for the lack of success of the DVDs. I'm not sure that's what I wrote, either. But if I gave that impression even momentarily, I apologize. Truly.

The point I was trying to make -- clumsily it seems -- is that simply sitting back and complaining about Disney, expecting them to do something that they clearly are not going to do is counterproductive. I have said more than once that Disney's handling of the property from Day One (1993) has been ... disappointing at times. I'm not defending them. But I try to live in the real world, not one of my own wish fulfillment. As Ed mentioned further down it is OUR (mine and your) responsibility, not because it should be, but because... well... what choice do we have? If we depended on Disney we wouldn't have the DVDs we have, we wouldn't have the comics or this website or anything. Again, not trying to defend that. Just acknowledging the fact.

But none of that is to suggest that the fans haven't been amazing. If being amazing has become too frustrating, I understand. Everyone has to do what they have to do.

One bit I would like to say in my own defense... I am quite positive I've NEVER asked each fan to get 1000 people to BUY the DVD. I've asked each fan to TELL 1000 people about the DVDs, comics, Gatherings, etc. And most of the time -- though I admit not all -- I've prefaced that request by saying something like "I'm only half-kidding here..." Which means, I guess, if you want percentages that I was probably only kidding 25%. I should try to get that up to only kidding 75%.

And once again, I apologize if what I wrote even vaguely implied that I'm not wildy grateful for all the fans have done. (Yeah, yeah, I'm eating some crow here -- rightfully -- but that doesn't mean that I don't mean what I'm saying.)

Greg

Greg Weisman
"How could I not believe in animism? Every time I get on my bathroom scale, proof is there before my eyes of the sentience (and perversity) of all things."

Ed > Where do you come up with having the 5000 fans to begin with who hear Greg's message to go out and preach the gospel of Gargoyles? The largest attendance seen at The Gathering has yet to top 400. How many unique visitors does Station 8 actually receive?

137 days left until The Gathering 2007 in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee!

Patrick - [<-- The Gathering 2007]

PGFish> Yeah, I added that to the Manhattan Clan page on GargWiki. I quickly decided that Elisa should be added at least as a footnote and I thought long and hard whether to include Angela's feelings towards Demona. Note that I was careful to make sure it was clear that only Angela felt this way.

As for the concept of Clans, I think it is very obvious that Goliath considers The Avalon Clan part of his clan more than say the Ishimura Clan. There are a lot of lines of dialogue from the series that point both ways. Gabriel says to Goliath "...your clan could join us." Lexington says to Goliath "...telling us about Gabriel and our clan on Avalon." Oberon made Goliath's clan immune to his arts, and it seems that applies to both the Manhattan and Avalon clans.
I think it comes down to two things. First, I think generally that the Avalon Clan and Manhattan Clan are really the same clan in the family sense. But geographically, they are distinct clans and I think they recognize this also. So, I guess the answer is that they view each other as the same clan family but the different clan location/protectorate.
Second thing to think about links to what I said earlier about Goliath introducing himself to Zafiro. I think gargoyles, partially because of the way they raise their children and partially because of their general ability to look past appearences, view each other as one big family. Goliath might have just met Griff or Zafiro or Kai, and he clearly knows they are not close relatives or clan-mates, but I do think they see themselves as brothers of a sort, comrade-in-arms. I think ultimately this will be formalized when the Gargoyle Nation is founded and in particular the Liberty Clan is founded with a blending of all the clans in the world to show the unity of the diverse gargoyle clans. I think now that clans are beginning to be revealed to each other, they are beginning to see themselves all as one gargoyle family. It is really very similiar to how a gargoyle views all a rookery's hatchlings as their children. It goes along with the fact that gargoyles don't like to name things, define them, dictate them. Their family is so much more than just genetics. And I think the Gargoyle Way is about accepting all gargoyles as family, no matter what clan they came from or who's egg they hatched out of.

At least, thats how I see it.

Another thought on Sentinel> If Elisa still had no memory when leaving Rapa Nui and the gargs were sleeping, who said the spell to get back to Avalon?

Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

Purplegoldfish I tend to think that Angela thinks of Clan the same way humans think of Family.
As for Goliath´s feelings of Elisa trying to shoot at him, i dont thing it was the same for him. Elisa didnt knew what she was doing and it was clear that she didnt remembered him.
Demona didnt tried to kill a monster, she tried to kill her mate. It was clear that she knew what she was doing and the implications. For both herself and Goliath.

Demon@ - ["The access code is Jalapeña"]

For a lot of people - letting 1000 people know about the dvds is not that easy. I'm sure all the major forum sites pertaining to the show have been hit the first week we found out the bad news about volume 2. None of my friends or family are at all interested in the show. Who's left to tell? All I've basically been doing is responding to people on Deviantart when they show interest in gargoyle art (and most of these people are surprised to learn there's dvds and a comic out).

moving on-
I went through the recent changes on the Manhattan clan in the Gargwiki. I like that it mentions that Elisa is regarded as a member of the clan. Though when it's mentioned that Angela sees Demona as a member of the clan, that got me thinking. Surely Demona isn't a member of the Manhattan clan, the other gargoyles certainly don't regard her as such. So I'm wondering if Angela's definition of "clan" is different than the standard meaning (as in a group of gargoyles living together in a community-which is how I came to understand it).
In "The Reckoning" Angela tells Demona that she considers demona, as well as katharine and tom to be part of her clan. Is Angela thinking of "clan" in more human terms - adding all members of her extended family and including Demona because she's her biological mother? Or does she really consider Demona to be a member of the manhattan clan because she was once a member of the Wyvern clan? I don't know if this has been discussed before, but I'm curious to hear people's thoughts.

On the same tangent, Bronx and Boudicca are mates that live in two different worlds - so does the Manhattan clan consider Boudicca part of their clan? Does the Manhattan clan consider the Avalon gargoyles to be part of their clan since they're all from the original wyvern clan? It looks as though Angela does.

Vaevictis Re Sentinel: This is actually one of my favorite world tour episodes, mainly for the dialogue. I just LOVE the whole "Tiny" exchange, one of the funniest moments in the series, I think. I feel so bad for Goliath in this ep -Elisa fires her gun at him! I wonder if he thinks back to when Demona fired at him in Awakening pt. 5. BTW, if you're watching the crummy Toon Disney versions of this episode, there's a line cut were Elisa points the gun at him and says "or I'll shoot you where you stand."
As for Nokkar, yeah he's a real jerk. I just chalk it up to the fact that he's been living alone on that island for centuries, and he's gone a little crazy. We've all seen what being alone with a hatred for a particular race can do to someone. And I do kind of wonder why Elisa was left to get back to Avalon herself with stone statues and no memories. Maybe they didn't trust Nokkar enough not to destroy them in stone sleep?

Purplegoldfish - [skydragonn at aol dot com]
"We're sitting dorks here!" - Broadway

Vaevistis> Love your thoughts on "The Green". One of my favorites, mostly because I LOVE the Mayan Clan. I think when Goliath pulled the net off Zafiro and Obsidiana and said "We are gargoyles", it wasn't like he was talking about him and Angela identifying themselves as a species, I think he was saying that Angela and Zafiro and Obsidiana and himself were ALL gargoyles and therefore comrades and not enemies.

As for your thoughts on Nokkar, that's a perspective I had never considered before, though it really works. I think maybe he had been alone so long, and had begun to feel useless, so killing the gargoyles gave him an excuse to feel like he is contributing to the safety of Earth. He probably knew deep down that he wasn't being fair or reasonable, but he made himself belive that he was doing the right thing. All in all, I'd say that he is VERY much like a religious fundamentalist in that respect.

Samuel> Good question about Bronx and Boudicca, one I've often wondered myself. We'll have to see how it plays out, but sometimes I wonder why Boudicca didn't just get left behind In New York when Oberon brought her there. I mean, Oberon could've sensed that she'd be happier there with Bronx. *shrugs* we'll see what Greg does with it, but he has said they have mated before and they will again.

Matt - [St Louis, Missouri, USA]
"You mean the police. Your clan." "Right, my clan... who'll disown me if I don't get to work." -Goliath & Elisa "Reawakening"

A couple of things about "The Green" and "Sentinel".

One of the things that I most like about "The Green" is that it shows the difference between Jackal and Hyena. Hyena's just bloodthirsty; Jackal's bloodthirsty and cunning. Instead of just charging in with weapons blazing, he comes up with a plan to neutralize the gargoyles. (What I also liked was how the script got him to wind up fighting the gargs rather than just sitting around and waiting for dawn; Vogel points out to him that any damage that the gargoyles do to the logging operation will be coming out of Jackal's paycheck. Now he can't afford to just sit by and wait! A much better means of getting him into the fight, I thought, than the standard "villain's hatred for the protagonists gets the better over his judgment".)

The thing that I most remember about "Sentinel" from when I first watched it was disappointment over it being about Easter Island and ancient astronauts; when I saw the archaeologists from "A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time" show up in the "Previously On" section, I thought that the episode would be about King Arthur and Griff searching for Merlin. At least they got in the line about "King Arthur and the Holy Grail".

Todd Jensen
Gargoyles - did for monstrous-looking statues what "Watership Down" did for rabbits!

Vaevictis: Well, I haven't heard Greg telling us to talk 1000 people into buying it, just to SPREAD THE WORD to 1000 people. Using the magnificent Ask Greg search feature:

"Disney refuses to give me hard numbers. But if every fan TOLD 1000 people about the series (the DVDs, the comics, the Gatherings), I think we'd be in good shape.
Response recorded on October 11, 2006

If 5000 fans tell 1000 people, you've reached 5 million people -- and, hopefully, in target fandoms. I don't think you need to spam to achieve this. Bring it up in conversations, put it into sigs in other boards, talk about the show in General Chat boards.

Newsarama, incidentally, is a major comics news site.

Ed

Urgh!

*double posts to turn the Avatar back on.*

Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75 at gmail dot com]
"Free will... it's like butterfly wings. Once touched, they never get off the ground. No, I merely set the stage. You pull your own strings." -Al Pacino ("The Devil's Advocate")

*draws a sword and raises it*

THIRTEENTH!

Umm, sorry. New season of "Rome," and all that.

Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75 at gmail dot com]
"Free will... it's like butterfly wings. Once touched, they never get off the ground. No, I merely set the stage. You pull your own strings." -Al Pacino ("The Devil's Advocate")

12th in the name of dodecahedrons.
JJ Gregarius

Sorry to pop in with nothing but bad news ... but I'm popping in with some bad news.

I regret to inform you that, due to a variety of reasons but mostly because I dropped the ball bigtime, there will NOT be an anthology contest for Gathering 2007.

Time got away from me. To try and do one now would be to put an unfair, if not impossible, rush on everyone in order to have the book done by the con. Right now, I think everyone's stress-cake is tall enough without trying to add another layer.

Deeply sorry 'bout this, folks. I promise that if whoever ends up with the 2008 bid still wants me for the gig, I will be on track next time.

Christine - [christine at sabledrake dot com]

10th in the name of . . regular polygons
dph_of_rules
Whatever happenned to simplicity?

**Bounces in after Chameleongirl**

Ninth!

Kythera of Anevern - [kythera (at) gmail dot com]
I do not suffer fools, gladly or otherwise.

8 8 8 8 8 8!!!

:D

Chameleongirl
Chameleon may changer her spots, but she refuses to do plaid.

7TH
Justin - [justin dot lindley at gmail dot com]
Justin M. Lindley

sixth is good enough
Warcrafter - [grafixfangamer1 at sbcglobal dot net]
Humans are such easy prey for a gargoyle!........and I need more friends on XBOX Live for 360. Anyone?

Someday I'll find the time to make a serious post! In the meantime...

Fifth!

Makhasu - [aknellthatsummonsthee at yahoo dot com]

Fourth!!
Phoenician - [theoneandonlyphoenician at yahoo dot com]
The Suspense is Terrible . . . I Hope it Lasts -- Willy Wonka

Sorry for posting again so shortly. Yey, I love being third. Anyway, Thank you VA. And... Something else I wanted to say... Gosh I can't remember.

But, yes. If they revisit Avalon, would Bronx stay so they age at the same rate? Or would she join them in Manhattan to lay the egg? Otherwise only one egg would be concieved, n'est-ce pas? Avalon is so confusing.

Samuel - [AnglOfHellO at AOL dot com]
"What sorcery is this?!" -- Almost every gargoyle, ever.

THIRD, YAY!!!!!
Samuel - [AnglOfHellO at AOL dot com]
"What sorcery is this?!" -- Almost every gargoyle, ever.

2nd!
Siren - [Click my name for Gargoyles' Femme Fatales Music Video!]

Yay, first
Purplegoldfish - [skydragonn at aol dot com]
"We're sitting dorks here!" - Broadway