13.07 Endstone “The Great Amplifier” Fantasy Comic Webcomic
Apr17
Howdy Endstoners! I hope you don’t mind an early post. Have a great Sunday. 🙂
Endstone
A Fantasy Webcomic, Sci-Fi, Post-Apocalyptic, Comic, Graphic Novel
Buy Endstone
Howdy Endstoners! I hope you don’t mind an early post. Have a great Sunday. 🙂
Is that Simon again ? Oh well… I guess, since he’s in final battle mode so quickly this time, it means he’s here just as a cameo villain, while another will be the main villain of the story arc. :p
We shall see… ‘)
Love the warning under Mickey Mouse(tm)! Gotta make sure the lawyers don’t get ya!
Thanks. 🙂 It would be an honor to be sent a cease and desist order from Disney. But Endstone is very small potatoes. I wish I were big enough to be on their radar.
And that’s Minzki, the Lord of the Underworld, btw. 😉
Minzki….riiiiight!!! 😉
You did say long ago you intended to introduce a new US region with the undead as its main theme (hence my more recent suggestion as the Necrostone). Intresting that you’d choose Mickey as the modern world symbole to recycle into the Underworld god. Sure mentionning Mickey/Minzki being friendly to children is a strategy to scare them in the Stoner world, isn’t it ? 😀
Good memory, DK. Actually, the concept of an undead land has evolved quite a bit from it’s original idea as you will see in this story.
As for Minzki, I chose to parody Disney because lately I really hate Disney. I think they are turning into a monopoly, buying out Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars for example, and that can never be good. And most evil of all, they keep changing copyright law so they can maintain the character of Mickey Mouse, which for all intents should be in the public domain. And most hypocritically of all, Disney made their fortune telling tales of characters in the public domain such as Cinderella, Snow White, Pinocchio, Aladin, and so on and on.
Watch as they lock up our favorite characters and we and our descendants have to pay and pay a souless corporation for what is culturally ours. It’s evil and that’s why I chose to parody Disney as the underworld in Endstone.
Elvis Presley as Alvik, Mickey Mouse as Minzki representing Disney, i’m starting to see a pattern in deities whorshipped by humans of the endstone world here. 😉
Wᴇ Aʀᴇ Dɪsɴᴇʏ. Bᴏᴡ Tᴏ Oᴜʀ Lᴀʏᴡᴇʀs Aɴᴅ Sᴜʀʀᴇɴᴅᴇʀ Yᴏᴜʀ Sᴛᴏʀɪᴇs. Yᴏᴜʀ Cʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀs Aɴᴅ Iɴᴛᴇʟʟᴇᴄᴛᴜᴀʟ Pʀᴏᴘᴇʀᴛʏ Wɪʟʟ Bᴇ Aᴅᴅᴇᴅ Tᴏ Oᴜʀ Oᴡɴ. Rᴇsɪsᴛᴀɴᴄᴇ Is Fᴜᴛɪʟᴇ.
End of Line
I love Disney movies, but I agree their business model is far from ideal.
Although I think Mickey Mouse being under copyright is because he belongs to Disney (TM), not Walt Disney, who, ironically, had experienced how horrible copyright laws can get. (Basically, the company he worked for before creating Disney had “stolen” one of his characters, Oswald the Rabbit, thanks to fine print, and discovering that is what made him leave.)
Come on, Disney is not that bad. Some were scared of Marvel getting disneyfied, well I have yet to see any Donald Duck mask in the Marvel Universe, if you know what I mean. So far the movies have been great on average (there are always ups and downs). Same can be said about the Star Wars franchise. What about Miyazaki Corp ? Has the impact of them being bought by Disney changed anything in their movies ? Not a single thing.
And getting away from their classic story archetypes is nothing new to them. Guess who made the pirates of the carabeans ? Or who made the rather dark for its time Mary Popins ? (Yes, i saw that as a kid)
So yeah, even though Disney gets bigger, they don’t seem to be limiting their artists in any way, they know creativity from said artists is what gives the corp its strength. And if it does get too close to the monopoly status for comfort regarding US laws, we might see Disney financially support its competitors to keep them alive. We’ve seen this years ago with Microsoft supporting Apple (until Apple eventually rose up again)
But i don’t think we’re event close to ever reaching that point in Disney’s field. 😉
No Donald Duck in Marvel and Star wars? Maybe not. But the basics are there, for Star Wars at least:
http://imgur.com/IihIQMI
So he can be there in the blink of a slight recolor 🙂
I mostly see it as them trying to diversify themself a bit.
While Disney Monopoly is not an issue yet, it is something that bears watching.
Some of the messages in the old disney films are very questionable by todays standarts. And Putins neo-USSR only works because he owns all the media companies in the country.
Disney does not go for mass media (yet). And they did got a lot more progressive in thier stories with stuff like Frozen.
Still, worth watching.
@Cristopher: The Donald-Trooper! O.o
Disney old movies being questionable today is mostly a result of society advancing and changing, though. Some stuff that was acceptable back then isn’t today, that’s all.
@Christopher : lol at the Donald Trooper. I was mostly refering to that kind of mockery appearing all over the internet when the news of Disney purchasing the franchise came out. Mickey Mouse as Darth Vader, etc…
And yes, completly agree, the monopoly is not really the issue here. Also, like you say it’s something that bears watching, but to this i’d add they know they are being watched, don’t they ? Pretty sure they are smarter than to shoot themselves in their own feet by trying to unify all of their stuff into one single thing, aren’t they ? 😉
Like Silly Name said, you have to put a movie in its era and context to get the full extent of its message. Otherwise, will you sue Disney for having made Hitler Donal Duck in the 30s and 40s ? Because yes, it happenned. It’s rather a good thing that they keep evolving and learning while soscieties do the same thing, and that they do it at the same pace. Both for them and their audience. While sure nazis were a bad thing, they were not seen as such back then were they ? But now they are and that’s why (in part) you won’t ever see Hitler Donal be made once more (and that’s a good thing too).
Disney not going for mass media ? Are you kidding ? That’s always been their primary target ! Kids and family. While the most iconic movies are usually the kids oriented animated ones like mickey and goofy, but even then these characters have their share of family topics, or even adult oriented topic (not talking about p0rn, but rather seriousness of life). Goofy for instance have an entire short where you see him transform, Jeckyl-style, as soon as he enters his car to drive it. It’s a satire at the violent behaviour we witness from many car drivers on a daily basis, specially in big cities. Even the visual effects support that, giving Goofy angry eyes with satanic circles instead of the white area. All while yelling at other, just as angry, Goofy-looking car drivers (and a cab driver) whatever the reason.
Another (from Goofy again) is about sports supporters, and how an entire stadium of them supporting their american football teams end up physically fighting in the stadium, not realizing the players have stopped playing and instead have started wathing from the spectators’ seats.
In another, he’s a dad (he’s son is NOT Max in this one), and he has a nightmare of a day doing the tasks his wife usually does because she had to leave for a job appointment. Right at the start, when leaving, she destroys the garden and the tree, and Goofy is happy commenting “Hohoo ! She made it !”. Sexism too ?
But here’s the thing : these example are satyre jokes, that’s why they work even to this day, despite the real deal described by the joke being so horrendous (even back then, in some cases).
And that’s just for the animated movies with the classic characters. What about the more unique ones ? Or the live action ones ? Tim Crocket, for instance, is actually a Disney movie (along with its sequel), and even though the character it’s based on really existed the fictionnal story is not that far fetched, resulting in something that, while obviously not historically accurate, is still well appreciate as a family movie
And if you can’t attract masses by combining kids movies, family movies, abstract at movies (the Miyazaki movies), and now comic book based movies and big name franchises, i don’t know how you can… :p
@Darth Killer: The Nazi Donald Duck cartoon was actually satire, making fun of how horrible life was in Nazi Germany, and ended with Donald waking up from the nightmare in a bedroom filled with US flags and photos of Lady Liberty.
@Silly Name : that’s true, but even so would it be percieved as tolerable nowadays ? 😉
@Silly Name (P.S.) : also i think you missed the satire point of this particular cartoon (that or you got it but your message made it sound like you missed it. Either way, some readers may benefit from that :p ). Why would Donald (waking up) have a photo of Lady Liberty in his bedroom ? That’s miroring the photo of Hitler he had in his nightmare earlier. And precisely, the whole satire is showing the similarity between the 2 systems when the citizen living in them are fanatically defending them, no matter what. The Donal depicted here is a brainwashed fanatic that just does not think by himself and let whatever system he lives in think for him, that system may by the nazi system (in his nightmare), the capitalist system (once he wakes up) or the communists system (probably in an undepicted dream).
And when you think about it, that’s both deep and risky given when the short came out. Now i’m not saying there are always 2nd readings to Disney’s work out there (i mean “Cars” and “Cars 2” ? Really ?) But it’s worth looking for them because when you do find them, it’s often something worth thinking about, no matter your age. 🙂
@Darth Killer: I don’t think that’s the intended message of the cartoon, though. It’s a piece of propaganda from WW2, so I think it’s pretty safe to guess they wanted to say “Nazi Germany sucks. Aren’t you happy to be a red-blooded American? Also, punch Hitler.”
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that Donald’s extreme patriotism for the USA is fanatical, but I don’t think that’s what Disney wanted to say.
@Silly Name : if that were the case, i think they would have made Donald look at his windows and see Lady Liberty from afar in the landscape (suggesting he lives in N.Y. City), rather than have a photo of it in his bedroom. That’s too similar to the nazi Donal depicted earlier in the same cartoon not to be an invitation to compare similarities in how Donald see them. My guess is that they did intend to spread the message about fanatic behaviour, but by disguising it into a seemingly pro-USA propaganda cartoon they could get away with it back then, as most people of the time were focused on bashing the ennemies of the war and could not grasp such a message. Viewers more distant from the original era and context, like us, have a better chance at spotting that message, i and believe that was the intent. 🙂
All hail Minzki, the Dark Lord of the Underworld! The Rat of Famine and Death, the Man-Mouse, the Shadow Which Talks With A Squeaky Voice!
I love it. 🙂
Don’t forget “Unleasher of the Von-Neumann Broomstick”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ait_Fs6UQhQ
OOOOOOOooooo:oh
And the sign under Minzki didn’t come out very clear. Here’s what it says:
“For Safety, you
should be in good health
and free from conditions
that could be aggravated
by this adventure.”
I took that from an actual sign. 🙂
It took a bit to make it out, but thanks for the clear text. A great warning. Was there a, “You have to be this talk to fight this fight!” Sing at the entrance?
Gotcha. How the heck did “you” become “Toyota”? Damn computers. 😉
I assume I made a weird typo, probably a couple of keys at once and, presto, it became a car.