Spotlight On Psuedofolio

[espanolbot]

Bits and bobs from one of my favourite artists...

A Cass and Steph fancomic,



Gunnerkrigg Court crossover comic,



Various things for the new Tomb Raider game,





Predator runs acropper,



And a crossover between Up! and Sword in the Stone via a humanised character from the movie 4chan seems to like...



Their tumblr, visit!
http://psuedofolio.tumblr.com/

Comments

[q99]

Reaper vs Jones. Poor Reaper :)

[lieut_kettch]

Harbinger doesn't stand a chance.

[zechs80]

The other Predator vs. Cass mini comic that artist was awesome. I wish DC would just take my money and do a new Batman vs. Predator with a Predator targeting Cass, Tim, Jason, and.. *sniff* Damian.

[majingojira]

I love how his Cass for the comedic strips has messy hair that forms batman ear-spikes.

[terrykun]

...okay, so humanised art of the Redheaded Squirrel is a thing now?

That... okay, any appreciation for Disney's Sword in the Stone is just /awesome/. :D

[mrstatham]

I have to be honest, the new Tomb Raider game - despite the controversy around it - is more interesting to me than the other games ever were.

Of course, that I'm more invested in the new Lara might just be down to a particular argument that I read on Deviantart that stated that Lara was all about being 'busty and rich and tough and hot', which just led me to think that the person writing said argument was just interested in something to fap over.

The new version is just leagues more interesting to me, and not even because of the half-baked 'need to protect her' that the developers misguidedly trotted out. The writing's better, the character's better, and though I was a little bit squicked out by the sheer amount of punishment Lara gets put through in the early portion of the game, I couldn't really see that much that was based around her gender and more that just said the bad guys were assholes and nutjobs. I think a character of any gender in the kind of situation the game presents would be the same.

[espanolbot]

Yeah, I've been pleasantly surprised by the amount of good will that the game, and it's new characterisation of Lara, has gotten after all the questionable press that the game got prior to the fact that they decided to say that Rhianna Pratchett (daughter of Terry and heir to the Discworld once her father passes away) was the one writing it. The fact that she's a fan of the series who in interviews talked about how the franchise became increasingly fetishy in its depiction of Lara did kind of ring true, and it's nice that she as able to bring the character back to a more even footing after so long.

Like Lara is a character that was seen as feminist, due to being a Strong Independant Woman (and not in the negative way) but became increasinly sexualised in terms of how she was marketed. But not she's a character that's a strong, determined person who happens to be a woman. And that's awesome.

[mrstatham]

Yeah. I do remember thinking that originally, as slightly ridiculous as I think the initial visual for Lara was, they struck the balance between having her look good and treating her correctly at least fairly well. But then they figured out she was 'hot', and I remember being weirdly grossed out by some of the pin-up-style images they were producing as the series progressed. Like you say, the series kind-of became increasingly fetishy as it progressed.

Randomly, I did take odd amusement in locking her Butler in the fridge in one of the earlier games.

But.. Yeah. I've been really impressed with the new game. There *is* one or two scenes where they obviously go with the fact that she's a woman and that affects how one of the villains deals with her, but by and large, I could see a male character thrust into the situation the game presents largely being affected the same way, particularly when it comes to stuff like Lara's first kill, which is surprisingly traumatic.

[cainofdreaming]

I just liked the whole climbing and exploring and figuring things out angle the original game, and some follow ups, had. Instead of the more shoot'em up oriented ones, which I hear the new one is too.

I guess it's just a genre preference. The new game is probably nice enough in its own, but lately I've been up to my neck in shooters and it gets kinda weary after a while. That market is over-saturated.

[mrstatham]

I'd actually argue against the new game being a shooter. There *are* sequences where you do need to shoot, but by and large they're pretty well done action sequences that don't make up the bulk of the game. I've played a good chunk of it at the minute, and there is a lot of emphasis on exploring and climbing and puzzles. Some of the optional tombs are, in a way, very much like the block-pushing escapades of the first game.

So I'd definitely say it's not a shooter. Not in the sense that the Resident Evil series has become, for instances. And to me, it's probably the best Lara's character has been in years.

[shadur]

All of the optional tombs are that way, although by and large it's generally one real puzzle per tomb.

Which is actually an okay size for it; the places are still being used for worship, so ridiculously convoluted death traps aren't really appropriate.

As a longterm fan of the series, I really like the new Lara, and hope the sequels keep up the character growth.

[mrstatham]

Yeah. I basically had my parents buying a Playstation back in the day on the back of the first game and how good it was, and I don't think many of the subsequent games were as good. I enjoyed Legend and Underworld, but I can understand the concerns about them being more 'shootery', so to speak. With the reboot, I think they've actually approached the character in, as cliched as it is, a pseudo-realistic Nolan-style fashion, like the Batman reboot's effort to keep things relatively grounded. And it works. Lara feels more like an authentic archaeologist flung into an absolutely shitty situation, and based on what I've been reading, the game seems to be pretty much a success, so here's hoping that Eidos and CD make more of this stuff.

As a side-note, I'm still laughing every time I see some idiot who thinks that Square-Enix now effectively owning the franchise has had some kind of effect on it, rather than SE knowing that the games sell and want a piece of that pie.