#that dollhouse has been rebuilt so many times

[dandylion240]

Roberta's sad over the demise of her dollhouse. Someone smashed it.

A few minutes later Sullivan came outside to mourn over the dollhouse.

Hopefully someone rebuilds it soon before another kid sobs over it.

[gokinjeespot]

off the rack #1296

Monday, January 13, 2020

 I knew my dad had an older brother living in Edmonton but I've never met him. I was introduced to him recently when my cousin sent me a picture of Uncle #2 taken while he visited with him and his other cousins there. I showed my dad the picture of his brother and his face lit up in a big smile. He hasn't seen him in decades. Uncle #2 is 91-years-old now and he and dad are the only surviving children from grandpa's first wife. I was glad that I gave my father that moment of happiness.

 Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy #5 - Jody Houser (writer) Adriana Melo (pencils) Mark Morales (inks) Hi-Fi (colours) Gabriela Downie (letters). The trail to the Floronic Man leads the ladies to Manhattan's Central Park where they are met with a surprise. No, it's not Batwoman who guest stars this issue. It's a great cliffhanger to next issue's finale.

 The Immortal Hulk #29 - Al Ewing (writer) Joe Bennett (pencils) Ruy Jose, Belardino Brabo & Cam Smith (inks) Paul Mounts (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). Roxxon sets a trap for the Hulk and it works. This is where monsters dwell. The scene with Betty and Bruce in the cafeteria was great.

 The Dollhouse Family #3 - M. R. Carey (writer) Peter Gross (layouts) Vince Locke (finishes) Cris Peter (colours) Todd Klein (letters). We catch up with Alice as an adult while the flashbacks to the past shows us some weird creatures in a cave. The dollhouse makes a couple of appearances in each point in history but we don't learn much more about it. It's still really creepy though. The last page came as a total shock. I like this DC Black Label book.

 Excalibur #5 - Tini Howard (writer) Marcus To (art) Erick Arciniega (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). This is the payoff issue for the first story arc and I'm out of here now. My biggest complaint about this book is that I find myself wondering what the heck is going on as I'm reading. I feel disconnected with the action because of the different locations and all the mutants involved. There's a major change to a major hero so you may want to stick around to see where that goes.

 Young Justice #12 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) John Timms (art) Gabe Eltaeb (colours) Wes Abbott (letters). It was nice to see Warlord even though he was only in 4 pages of this massively dialogued issue. This book had just as many heroes running around and different locations for action as Excalibur #5 and yet not once did I feel confused or disoriented. I loved how all the Wonder Comics heroes were brought together. Especially that Miguel, the Dial H for Hero kid changed into a Miles Morales-like super hero at the end. This 12-issue run was Fun with a capital F.

 X-Force #5 - Benjamin Percy (writer) Joshua Cassara (art) Dean White & Rachelle Rosenberg (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). There's plenty of force this issue as Domino and Forge go to rescue Wolverine and Kid Omega. This new thing where every mutant can be resurrected if they die has me wondering when I'm going to get tired of writers killing characters just for shock value. Plus, the mutants can't lose now. So what if you die on a mission? I'm afraid I'm going to get bored with these characters again until the next big change.

 Catwoman #19 - Joelle Jones (writer) Geraldo Borges, Aneke  & Inaki Miranda (art) FCO Plascencia, John Kalisz & Laura Allred (colours) Saida Temofonte (letters). Selina comes to the rescue of family and friends and is partially successful. I like the new costume.

 Black Cat #8 - Jed MacKay (writer) Dike Ruan & Annie Wu (art) Brian Reber (colours) Ferran Delgado (letters). What a great issue. The Cat and the Beetle go on a heist and we get some background on Felicia's life. It was fun until the last page when things get serious.

 Conan Serpent War #3 - Jim Zub (writer) Luca Pizzari (art) Frank D'Armata (colours) Vanesa R. Del Rey (art James Allison sequence) Jean-Francois Beaulieu (colours James Allison sequence) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). There's a mysterious force manipulating everybody in this story and I'm staying with it until I find out what it is.

 Star #1 - Kelly Thompson (writer) Javier Pina with Filipe Andrade (art) Jesus Aburtov (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). Kelly's name in the credits made me give this a try. I'm not a fan of super villains being the star (har) of their own books but there are two women also in this comic book that I really like. If they're not enough to keep me reading then the God of Mischief certainly is.

 Daphne Byrne #1 - Laura Marks (writer) Kelley Jones (art) Michelle Madsen (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). This is another creepy comic from the same imprint that puts out Basketful of Heads. It's 1886 in New York and Daphne is a very intelligent young lady who doesn't fit in with the others at Miss Farrow's School for Girls. Her mother is a patron of a psychic who claims to have communicated with Daphne's dead father. That may be a hoax but her dreams seem to be all too real. I miss seeing Kelley Jones's art on the racks so I hope to keep reading this book as it comes out.

 Ruins of Ravencroft: Carnage #1 - Frank Tieri (writer) Angel Unzueta (modern day art) Guiu Vilanova (flashback art) Rachelle Rosenberg (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). I saw the ads for this and didn't think I would be interested but I liked the art when I flipped through it so took it to read. Other than being connected to Carnage from the title I didn't know anything about this comic book, but seeing Misty Knight on the second page meant that I had something familiar to anchor myself. And then Mayor Wilson Fisk shows up. Ravencroft is New York's version of Arkham Asylum and it was a major location during the Absolute Carnage story. It's being torn down to be rebuilt and this issue gives us the history of the evil ground that it's built on. This establishes that the Venom and Carnage symbiotes have been around since forever because the history starts in the early 1400s. I don't know where this series is going but I liked it enough to want to check out the next instalment hitting the racks January 15, Ruins of Ravencroft: Sabretooth.

 The Clock #1 - Matt Hawkins (writer) Colleen Doran (art) Bryan Valenza (colours) Troy Peteri (letters). Again, it was the art that prompted me to pick this off the rack. I first appreciated Colleen's art in 1983 when she put out "A Distant Soil". I loved her detailed pen and ink work in black and white. Here she is in colour and it still moves me. Her expressions really convey what the characters are feeling. The story is about a cancer epidemic and the threat to the world's population seems credible. I'm going to follow young scientist Jack to see how he saves the world.

 Marvels X #1 - Alex Ross & Jim Krueger (writers) Well-Bee (art) VC's Cory Petit (letters). I really liked the first Marvels series by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross showing the Marvel U through the eyes of regular people. This latest story features a young super hero fan named David trapped in his house after what seems to be the worldwide Terrigen Mist event when Marvel tried to make the Inhumans a big deal. David's entire family is lost and now he's off to New York City to find his heroes. I liked the kid so I'm going to follow his adventures.

 Miles Morales: The End #1 - Saladin Ahmed (writer) Damion Scott (art) Dono Sanchez-Almara (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). This $4.99 US one-shot really is the end for Miles. He lives to be a ripe old age and goes down fighting. I would only recommend this for collectors of all things Miles.

 Deadpool #2 - Kelly Thompson (writer) Chris Bachalo (pencils) Wayne Faucher, Livesay, Al Vey, Jaime Mendoza, Victor Olazaba & Tim Townsend (inks) David Curiel (colours) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). I don't find Wade's new role as King of Staten Island, where monsters dwell, to be very interesting so I'm not going to read anymore of this. Much as I like Chris Bachalo's art, it's not enough to keep me coming back every month.

 20XX #2 - Jonathan Luna & Lauren Keely (writers) Jonathan Luna (art & letters). We find out what newly minted Sym Meria's power is and how she's going to cope with it. The developments with the East Side and West Side gangs and Meria's new friend are interesting enough to make me want to read the next issue of this black and white book.

 Fallen Angels #5 - Bryan Hill (writer) Szymon Kudranski (art) Frank D'Armata (colours) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). The team is set. Psylocke leads X-23, young Cable, Husk and Bling to Dubai to fight the super villain Apoth. The foreshadowing on the last page ratchets up the anticipation for the next issue.

 The Amazing Spider-Man #37 - Nick Spencer (writer) Ryan Ottley (pencils) Cliff Rathburn (inks) Nathan Fairbairn (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). Now that Absolute Carnage is done, it's time for Peter Parker to get back into the swing of things. He's testing a new device called the Clairvoyant that can predict what might happen in the future. I predict it's going to screw up his life big time down the road. The one thing I'm excited about is that a plotline that was put on the back burner is now cooking with gas. Kindred is back and he's hinting at how he's going to confront Spider-Man. As big a Spider-Man fan that I am, I still have no clue who this new super villain is.

 Batman #86 - James Tynion IV (writer) Tony S. Daniel (pencils) Danny Miki (inks) Tomeu Morey (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). Let's welcome the new writer. He's got a tough act to follow but he starts his first story off very well. Batman gets wind of something big going down in Gotham City and has to deal with paid assassins gathering for nefarious purposes. There are major changes to get used to, the least of which is that Alfred is gone. Same with James Gordon, and the new Police Commissioner was a surprise. I probably would have continued to read this book because the art is so nice. Selina in the LBD at the fund raiser, MeeOwww.

 Savage Avengers #9 - Gerry Duggan (writer) Patch Zircher (art) Java Tartaglia (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). Conan holds his own as Doctors Doom and Strange battle Kulan Gath. When Stephen is felled by sorcerous venom Doctor Doom comes to the rescue. The amalgamation of the two Doctors was a fun surprise. If would be cool if the Iron Mage stuck around after this story.

 Joker: Killer Smile #2 - Jeff Lemire (writer) Andrea Sorrentino (art) Jordie Bellaire (colours) Steve Wands (letters). The doctor is out, of his mind that is. The Joker has gotten into Dr. Arnell's head in this psychological thriller. I don't imagine that things are going to end well for the good doctor in next issue's finale. Thanks to Doug for lending me his copy to read after we sold out on the racks.

[jurassicparkpodcast]

Jurassic June Highlight: Functional LEGO Jurassic World Gyrosphere Track from the Great Northern LEGO Railway

It’s Jurassic June – and that means it’s a chance for all of us Jurassic Park and Jurassic World fans to really come together and highlight some of the coolest things which our community have accomplished over the past year.

Now, any of you who know me well enough will know that I am a massive fan of LEGO – with some truly great LEGO Jurassic builds out there on the internet. I’ve seen people do it all – from intricately detailed Velociraptor Paddocks to full-scale recreations of the Visitors Centre. There really is a ton of creativity in this community.

The other day, however, I stumbled upon something which goes above and beyond – over on the Beyond The Brick YouTube channel. I have been subscribed to these guys for long-time thanks in part to my love for LEGO – so imagine my delight when a fantastic LEGO Jurassic Roller-coaster popped up! Capturing the essence of Jurassic World perfectly, I got in touch with the creators of the channel to get hold of details for James – the gentleman behind this project. Here’s what he had to say about this fantastic project:

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Hey James, thanks for sitting down with me. I’ll kick it off light – how did you get into Jurassic Park?

Hey, you’re welcome – thanks for getting in touch with us. First and foremost, we are a group of friends and LEGO nerds from Portland, OR. We belong to a few recognized LEGO clubs in the area, specifically Great Northern LEGO Railway. We put on displays at community events a few times a year, like comic cons model railroading shows, or community/fundraiser events at museums.

One of our club members has been obsessively collecting LEGO dinosaurs for the past few years. On a whim about two years ago, we started putting a bunch of his dinosaurs out on our town display for a model railroad show. The kids absolutely loved it. Even though we had put all this effort, blood and sweat into creating LEGO renditions of real-life trains, the kids paid most attention to bunch of dinosaurs we just kind of placed around randomly on our layout. The idea grew from there, and ignited the idea of building a whole proper LEGO Jurassic Park.

I notice the great uniforms – do you guys cosplay in your spare time as well? Any involvement with other fan groups, such as the JP Motorpool?

A few of us cosplay as a hobby, but the uniforms idea came about to get attention at public events, and like most of our ideas, just snowballed.  For the recent event in Vancouver, BC, we all picked roles we wanted to play – Park Ranger, Security Officers, Emergency Techs – and put together the uniforms accordingly.  One of our club members, Davey Olson, came up with the standards for shirt, patch placement, etc. 

We found that cosplay is a match made in heaven with LEGO.  Not only do kids get to come see cool LEGO displays, but they also get to talk to a real-life Park Ranger.  We really wanted to make people to get an immersive experience.

Now we are talking Jurassic LEGO – have you got all the LEGO sets?

I don’t personally, but Bob Day is the club member I’d mentioned before, who obsessively collects the dinosaurs.  He has at least one copy of every Jurassic Park / Jurassic World set released, and in some cases, dozens of copies.  He’s even gone back and collected at least one of every dinosaur LEGO has ever released, dating back to the early 2000s.  I have most of them, but not nearly as many as Bob does.

Which one is your favourite?

I really like the set # 75932, Jurassic Park Velociraptor Chase.  It was launched as part of the 25th anniversary of the original films, and you get minifigures of Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, Lex Murphy, and Tim Murphy.

The build itself is amazing – do you have an estimate on how many bricks are in it?

Thank you!  It’s a collaborative build, so quite a few of us had a hand in it.  We estimate there’s probably about 150,000 LEGO pieces in.

The build includes many dinosaurs not in the ‘Jurassic’ line – can you explain to Jurassic fans where those come from?

LEGO first began releasing specialty-molded dinosaurs in the early 2000s.  This would be excluding brick-built dinosaurs – so we’re talking specialty pieces like heads, torsos, arms, etc.  One of the first was an “Adventurers” sub-theme called Dino Island.  Most of those dinosaurs were pretty primitive-looking, without a lot of details such as printing or articulation.  Later, there was an educational series that contained mix-and-match elements where you could make your own dinosaurs, such as a Brachiosaurus, from a few specialized parts.  LEGO made two licensed sets in 2001 as a tie-in to Jurassic Park III, but those were primarily brick-built dinosaurs and honestly, pretty heinous.

There was a short-lived theme in 2005, called “Dino 2010,” and then another theme in 2012 that was simply called “Dino.”  The 2012 Dino theme was the predecessor to the modern, “Jurassic” lines you see today.  The molds were much more detailed, they had better printing and articulation, and overall, just looked a lot cooler.

Jurassic World sets first appeared in 2015, and then again in 2018, as tie-ins to Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, respectively.

What was the most time-consuming part of the build?

The landscaping!  Landscaping with LEGO takes a tremendous amount of parts.  LEGO is squared off edges and very “blocky,” so to make convincing landscaping is very time-consuming.  You’ve got to put a lot of work into making it look random.

How did you go about recreating the Visitor’s Centre? Did you use lots of reference material?

That was one of my builds I contributed.  I pulled a lot of reference materials from image searches online, and collect them all into shared photo albums.  There are some visitors centers that people have already built and posted online on Flickr and Instagram, but I didn’t see a whole of actual physical builds – most were just built digitally and rendered.  I really wanted to try to get as accurate a representation of the Visitors Center as possible, because it’s such an iconic structure.

After getting my reference materials in order –honestly, I just began free-building.  I’d grab bricks I had on-hand, even if they weren’t the right color, and just start framing out how I wanted the center to eventually look.  Free-building can be rewarding, but also really frustrating.  I probably built and rebuilt the whole thing about 4 times.

I’m pretty satisfied with how it turned out.  I really like the open back so you can peer in through the actual center itself.  I’d like to do a version 2.0 and put in proper basement, and finish up the rear of the building. Then maybe have it open up in the back, dollhouse-style.

You have a great ACU Building – was this inspired by Jurassic World Evolution at all?

You caught me.  Yes – 100% inspired by Jurassic World Evolution.  The game has some great reference material for LEGO builds.  I actually put that ACU building together in one evening. 

Another great source of ideas and inspiration for structures is Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis from the early 2000s.  The graphics are already a little blocky, so they translate well to LEGO. 

If you could add one more thing to this build, what would you choose to add?

If I had unlimited resources and money – I would love to build an entire surround mountain range, like the mountains of Kualoa Ranch in Hawaii, where parts of the movies were filmed.  It would take so many LEGO pieces to make, but it would look amazing.

If you could get one new dinosaur in LEGO format, what would it be and why?

Sauropods!  Particularly a Brachiosaurus.  LEGO has only released one, in the early 2000s, and it’s got a face only a mother could love.  I would like to see an updated, modern Brachiosaurus to complement the other current dinosaur designs.

Where should LEGO Jurassic fans watch for your next build?

We will take LEGO Jurassic Park up to Seattle, WA, for BrickCon October 5-6.  BrickCon is a LEGO fan expo / event that’s held every year.  We already have quite a few new surprises in the works.  You’ll be in for a treat.

James – thank you so much for sitting down to talk to us, and for taking us through just a taste of this fantastic build! There is so much to it – from the automated Gyrosphere track, to the fantastic tour train which echoes both the Ford Explorer and the Jeep Wrangler from the original film here. The team here really have packed this build full of incredibly intricate details – so I really do recommend checking it out. We will link the Beyond the Brick video at the end of this article.

For now, thanks for reading guys – we hope you enjoyed this spotlight.  If you want to share your own builds with us, please do – either in the comments below, in our Facebook group or by Tweeting at us.

Take care – and enjoy this Jurassic June!

Written by: Tom Fishenden