The Big Head Scientist strikes again! This is the first in a series of HTML T-Shirt designs I’ll be smashin kids in the head with goin into the holiday season. Yea it’s Hunnit Thousand now cop suttin and stop browsin!

All technology will become outmoded at some point. When The Matrix came out at the turn of the century it was the height of digital rendering. The Bullet Time effect was ubiquitous and John Gaeta and his team were the darlings of the industry and tech media. However, he was hard pressed to repeat his earlier success in the sequels to The Matrix for a variety of reasons.

Chief among these was the very real possibility that the original concept for that movie was juxed (jacked) wholesale from Sophia Stewart, whose lawsuit against the Wachowski Bros was either stuck in litigation limbo, settled out of court on the DL, or simply dismissed outright last time I checked. Regardless what you believe, It’s hard to repeat creative success when the original idea is yours, but when you swagger jack someone else, the odds of replicating that spark decrease exponentially with each subsequent viewing of your work as the fans forget about you, and move on to the next ‘expeditiously’ as Joe Clark might say.

The following most obvious case for dwindling interest in a given property or product is overexposure. The movie Blade Runner gives a great example. When Rutger Hauer’s demented Roy Batty character demanded more “life” from Tyrell he was ethered with the simple yet poignant response that The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

Who can forget the stranglehold that Master P and No Limit records had on the rap game in the late 90’s? Tupac had just died and Percy Miller and his brothers provided the requisite thuggin for the starving masses to the tune of platinum record sales. Nevertheless they were quickly upstaged by Cash Money records and Lil Weezy, who took their formula and essentially dumbed it down (That is-if you can fathom the intellectual distance between grunting UUUNGH and made up words like WOBBITY WOBBITY WOBBY) for a new audience. The point is that artists like DMX who used to put out two or three commercial albums a year and flooded the short run/ straight to video blockbuster category had a relatively short shelf life compared to “artists” like Diddy who seem to show up every three to four years with something new, and manage to stay ubiquitous by diversifying and never getting stuck on one specific style or promotion for any length of time. The need for this re-invention is only magnified in the social media age where sharing everything is the norm, and online inactivity is equated with death.

What have we learned so far? Number one, we need to stay abreast of the latest trends in technology and possibly innovate when faced with the opportunity. Two, we need to be original, but when ‘borrowing’ or ‘biting’ someone else we should try to improve on their blueprint by providing a fresh angle via the current zeitgeist or public sentiment in order to stay relevant in a rapidly changing digital marketplace. Finally, we need to understand that as technology improves, the masses get dumber. This is a natural outgrowth of the information age. Ergo- most overworked and underpaid consumers; when faced with a choice between just add water entertainment and something more substantive will more often than not choose the former. That is-unless the so called ‘deeper’ content is fleshed out thoroughly, fully realized, and vetted for cliches (ugh).

The latest Chris Nolan film Inception seems to reflect this idea perfectly as it is creator owned content possibly cribbed from other sources that successfully presents a fairly common subject matter like dream imagery (remember The Matrix?) in a visually compelling format utilizing the latest digital bells and whistles to maximum effect. Not quite re-inventing the wheel but possibly ‘throwin some D’s on that bitch’. Nolan himself is an interesting case as his two earlier films Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are based on a wholly ubiquitous property that has been done a million times over by an equal number of creators. What makes Batman so untouchable but the Matrix sequels so disposable? Why should audiences care what happens to an ageless (possibly immortal) character like Bruce Wayne over six decades but give Neo the gasface after only two?

The answer to that would probably fill up a War and Peace sized novel, but the basic rule holds true; work from a simple blue print (crime and punishment, sadomasochism, vengeance) and frame it in whatever contemporary jive the public is fixated on and BAMN, instant hit. This is why Hollywood is so obsessed with remakes and why every so called new artist is basically a rehash of a more talented older one.

The science behind it may not be exact, but it amounts to touching a nerve with a potential viewer on a visceral level while delivering the raw functionality and technological marvel that jaded consumers demand. Nolan understands this- which is why his version of Batman worked over Joel Schumacher’s if only for the fact that contemporary audiences value grit over glamor- psychological menace over campiness, and slicker- authentic looking technology over the clumsier, more stylized versions favored by earlier creators. In other words, improving on a previous meme and wrapping it in a different color iPhone case. The resulting product is still little more than a glorified PDA but your customer base will devour it because it feels new.

Staying relevant then becomes less about creating new concepts and more about executing proven ones in a fresher, more emotionally satisfying context. The idea being there’s nothing new under the sun, but if you light it from a different angle the audience will come. As usual, all comments and feedback are welcome, and be sure to stay posted for the web-comic series How To Make Loot. ONE HUNNIT.

The How To Make Loot Seminar promotes the FBI or Four Basic Ideals. Today we’ll go over some bullet points relating to the second basic Ideal which is ‘Hard Work’.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it takes hard work to achieve certain goals. Successful business owners know this. That’s why they typically require their employees to work a full eight hours every day. Workers that cannot follow this simple rule are quickly demoted or laid off.

If you are thinking about starting your own business and being your own boss, you should demand no less from yourself than a regular day job would demand of you. What is the alternative? Sure, you could possibly win the Lotto, or get discovered (saved) by some rich bankers that sign you to a multi-millon dollar record deal or movie contract overnight but what are the odds?

Hard work is the best way to reach your goals despite what lazy people and non-believers might tell you. A motivated person with average intelligence and a steady work ethic will almost always be in better shape financially than a unmotivated genius.

Ah yes, motivation…

What an elusive concept! Successful business owners all have this intangible in common. They share a desire to win that drives them to work harder than everyone else. Their motivation might be helping others, or seeing their creative vision come to fruition. Whatever it is, they use this inner drive to go hard, and they do it EVERY DAY. Of course they end up making a lot of money along the way, but money is simply a byproduct of superior effort towards a goal and not the goal itself.

Being the best at what you do should be the goal. And you are the only one who can make that happen for yourself. Which leads us to Part 3 of the Seminar on how to take responsibility for your own actions by “Not Making Excuses.’

Professional Cosplayer Linda Le aka ‘Vampy’ does Morrigan from Darkstalkers justice. She’s naturally talented, a Sagittarius, and totally unawares that I will pound that ass into oblivion (with love of course). Check out the full gallery here or just click after the break and nice it up star, seen?.

Not bad for a 300 year old succubus.

Must…. right…. click….

DC has announced that it’s a wrap for Zuda Comics. Apparently they are making the move to the iPad and Sony PSP, but won’t be accepting any more submissions for their web comics competition. The few times I did manage to peep their site they had some decent looking visuals across the board, but seemed a bit light on the storytelling skills which is to be expected when dealing with (mostly) novices. Hopefully this isn’t the last time a big publisher gives the little guy a break. Oh well, on to the next one..

From the Zuda blog The Collective:

Jacked from Pink Tentacle:

Sooo, a brand that gets bootlegged on the reg is complaining about somebody creating art with their previously bootlegged material? There is some irony buried in this somewhere, but I’m either too obtuse or too lazy to dig it up. Work with me here.

Rhymefest and Konee Rok collabo for this moody clip off the El Che album. I dig the animated direction Fest is taking this year. Plus he is still one of the more underrated spitters out the Chi. Keep the hits coming!

More Vol. 3 madness. This is directly after the Russian went on the rampage with the Ukraine Rain. Luckily for True Epic and the rest of the club goers, the FBI agent Marks can teleport. Rampart wins again, @Large Vol. 3 in stores now!

This is a re-worked color panel from @Large Vol.3 (available in stores now). I wanted to see how these looked in color and so far so good. More to come soon. Also, I got a new website and urban themed animation I’m workin on so I got that goin for me, which is nice. (Spackler)