Sampler by Jimmy J. Aquino, take 4

Star Trek: Three out of five ain't bad

Throughout this year, I'm posting older material--like non-Blogspot posts from a few years ago, unpublished writing I've kept buried in my computer and transcripts of interviews from A Fistful of Soundtracks' terrestrial radio years.

In the summer of 2007, Cinematical was looking for some new bloggers. One of the posts I submitted to them was a list of things I hoped to see in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek film. Cinematical didn't hire me, and I never posted that Trek wish list--until now.

From 2007, here are "Five things that ought to be in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek flick." It's amusing to see which wishes came true (#4, #5 and #1--I was surprised by how well the movie pulled off #1) and which ones didn't (#2 and #3). I'm posting this never-before-published article word-for-word and without any revisions or changes.

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Batman Begins brought new life to a moribund movie series, as did Casino Royale. Will J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot do the same for a franchise that's been marred by illogical big-screen installments (any Next Generation flick except First Contact) and bland spinoffs (Enterprise)? As we await the Christmas 2008 release date, here's a wish list of things I'd like to see in Abrams' Trek.

1. Uniforms that actually look like uniforms. The Starfleet shirts that William Ware Theiss designed for the male officers on the original series always bugged me because they don't look like uniforms made for a futuristic space Navy. They look more like softball ringer tees. I keep expecting to see Spock run out a bunt.

The advance one-sheet hints that Abrams is retaining the gold/blue/red color scheme of the old uniforms. The Dick Tracy-colored shirts would look better if they were worn under a badass single-breasted jacket, like costumer Robert Fletcher's more cinematic-looking (and fat-friendly) Wrath of Khan uniforms.

As for the sexy miniskirts Theiss created for the female officers, I've always been a leg man, so those can stay.

2. No time travel. Trek's most overused plot gimmick doesn't need another rehashing.

3. Exploration of strange new worlds. When was the last time anybody did some exploring in these movies? Well, First Contact showed the Vulcans discovering Earth, and...that's about it.

4. Genuine chemistry between the new Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Who cares how the Enterprise's nacelles will look, fanboys? I'm more concerned about whether or not Zachary "Sylar" Quinto--the new Spock--and his two not-yet-cast co-stars will be able to sell the friendship between these characters like William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley did.

5. A great balance of action, science and character development. If the film is all action, you wind up with something like Nemesis, which tried to recapture the excitement of the starship battles in Nicholas Meyer's Trek installments but had none of the tension and wit Meyer brought to those sequences. Too much science and Treknobabble and the film turns into the tedious Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Sampler by Jimmy J. Aquino, take 3

Transformers: Revenge of The Onion

Here's the best one-paragraph summary of Michael Bay's Transformers I've ever come across (while reading the A.V. Club):

Everyone complaining that Michael Bay's 2007 blockbuster Transformers had inappropriate sexual contact with their childhoods is forgetting one thing: The original '80s cartoon had an awful lot of problems too, starting with wildly inconsistent animation and some pretty basic '80s cartoon plots, in which the bad guys engaged in generally harebrained schemes unworthy of titanic alien-robot forces of destruction. That said, Bay's movie should have been a slam-dunk in the "scary robots" department, simply by virtue of introducing giant, homicidal, heavily armed metal men to Earth. Instead, much like Lucas in Phantom Menace, Bay went for goofy designs and goofier behavior. His Autobots and Decepticons look like unassembled, building-sized Erector sets, and their use of already-dated human slang and contemporary references, plus the generally insipid, adolescent tone of the movie, robbed them of all majesty and menace. And hey, more of them are on the way this summer.

It's as if the A.V. Club read my mind. The '80s Transformers cartoon's animation was choppier than whatever the ShamWow guy does to his nuts.

Sampler by Jimmy J. Aquino, take 2

June Park of "Sampler" delivers a birthday greeting to my older brother

In a foul-mouthed birthday card I made for my older brother last month, June Park, the heroine of my Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology story "Sampler," gets to spout dialogue she wasn't allowed to say in the all-ages graphic novel.

Here are four things to be aware of as you're reading "Gi Power" because you may not know the subject of "Gi Power" all that well: 1) he's a Star Wars fan (his love for the SW flicks, which actually has never veered into cosplay, was slightly exaggerated for the purposes of this mini-comic), 2) he took a judo class when he was younger, 3) he likes to play volleyball, and 4) he puts more gel in his hair than Brian Grazer and the fauxhawked contestants on Top Chef combined.

Secret Identities "Sampler" gallery

Here are four different interpretations of June Park, the dry cleaning store worker heroine I created for my Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology short story "Sampler." The "I suck at math" T-shirt-wearing June works at a store where many of the customers are superheroes.

June, as drawn by Erwin Haya in the story itself.


June, by Secret Identities: TAASA co-artist A.L. Baroza. It's a spectacular pinup by A.L., and it's nice to see June in color for a change.


June, by Secret Identities: TAASA art director Jerry Ma (the full version of his portrait of all the Secret Identities characters can be viewed here).

June, specially drawn for this blog by her creator, writer and occasional, not-exactly-seasoned-and-professional cartoonist Jimmy J. Aquino, a.k.a. me.

I came up with several different captions to accompany my illustration of June. Yesterday, I had a hard time deciding which caption to post under it (I asked a friend to pick which one, and she said, "Any of them!"), so throughout this week, I'll be posting each of the other captions under the same illustration.