Splish-Splash

A statue of an old troublemaker that has been explored in previous drawings. A young woman on a quest with a new companion. Where does this nasal doorway lead?

Here is a drawing from Scott Rideout. He says that it is for a joint project between him and Millie Cindzer, but it seemed good enough to post up here on its own, mainly because our standards are pretty low here at FORCES, Unltd. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to shrink your psyche down until it can fit through a pinhole and then bounce on your own pupil like its a giant trampoline? Well, thanks to a new method of meditation and some old technology this is maybe a possibility! All you need is a flashlight and a bowl and to follow these basic steps: 1. Pick a fixed point on a blank wall (preferably white or black) and shine your flashlight at it. 2. Place your bowl on your lap. 3. Lower your bottom lip so that a slow, but steady stream of saliva is flowing from your mouth. 4. Stare at the fixed point for seventeen hours.

Hang In There

Feeling So Good (Don't Touch Me, Brah)

This is a prototype for a real-life arcade-game marquee, by Scott Rideout. Imagine a world where people's most basic desires are met by staring at a DataScreen. Alls ya hafta do is place your right hand on the liminal orb and calibrate your retinal subfield and WHOOSH! you are off on a not quite whelming trip of emotional placidity. No need to pack your bags, just lean forward and relax!

Relaxing in the Dark

Millie Cindzer is a real hoot and she is always busting out of the gates like a springy-snake out of a fake beer-nuts can. Today she brings us a futuristic image that is from the past. H. G. Wells once asked her for the time, and she sure showed him. Outlived him by 76 years! And counting! But herein lies the problem with time travel, what actually happened? Nobody knows! Whatever you do, don't think "rave beats," unless you are currently on ecstasy.

A Lesson in Dramatic Theory: The Fourth Act

Here is another cyber-collage from famed and tamed FORCES artist, Alana Ponui. She has unveiled to us a story in four parts. What we are dying to know is this: who out there knew how the story was going to end? Who among you, sallow-skinned and myopic, with squishy and gushy body, dared to guess that such a predictable conclusion would be drawn? Well, we give you kudos, a token of our very mild astonishment. We are giving out kudos either way, actually. You receive kudos just for participating. Those of you who didn't think one way or the other about it also receive kudos, but not the kudos that carry honor and praise, No! You, who wander through life without the ability to see what might come next, for you we are giving the type of kudos that are made of granola and chocolate, the type of kudos that come in the form of a bar that you get at the end of soccer practice. To receive these kudos please send FORCES Unltd. $3.46 via paypal along with your address and flavor preference.

A Blasta from Mt. Pasta

Here is something that we ab-lo to do here at FORCES U. This is a drawing from an ooooooooooold sketchbook of Scott Rideout's. In the email this drawing was attached to Scott wrote a note: "Remember this one? Wanna grab a bite l8r, after I get done soaking my abscess?" Our response: "no. sure."

Riverside, CA

LIVE from the RNC!!!

Like a whirlwind of monstrous proportions we are coming to you live from the deepest folds of Tampa, FL. That's right folks, FORCES, Unltd. is at the Republican National Convention and we have absolutely nothing good to say about it. In other news here is yet another cyber-collage from Alana Ponui. Say what you will about her, one thing is certain, she loves the psychedelic properties of water.

ALERT! Brad Banner, we repeat, BRAD BANNER!!! You have won the FORCES, Unltd. Caption Contest! You are saluted by many. Get in touch with us about your free dinner, which will be fed to you bite by bite at the FORCES, Unltd. Headquarters Break-Room. Are you hungry?

A Battle of Twits

Another cyber-collage by Alana Ponui, using sources cited in last post. Now is a perfect time for a caption contest. Write a witty caption in the comments section and whoever comes up with the best caption will receive a delicious meal in the FORCES, Unltd. headquarters break-room! Now don't just write the first thing that comes to mind, really think on it. Let it marinate. When its nice and sodden, go ahead and click on that comment button. What are you waiting for? The results will be posted soon. Well, soonish.

Did I Never Tell You That I Have A Food Blog?

Just kidding. We here at FORCES Unltd. would never even touch a food blog! In fact most of these artists don't even eat food! All loud proclamations aside, here is some food for thought: how clear are copyright laws concerning music videos on youtube? And here is some dessert for thought: who cares? This appears to be another stunning cyber-collage from Alana Ponui, Master of Appropriation. She has drawn from sources as varied as the Dire Straights video, "Romeo & Juliet," to a Georgian water conservation file share. Her classic disregard for water damage clearly highlights her Aquario-Shivic agenda. Feelings broadcast: more of these should be posted.

The Males of Yesterday Catalog

Ghosts from Millie Cindzer's mind. Chilling, eh? But seriously, folks, Millie drew these Looney Toons characters from memory. If you were to click-to-enlarge any of the picture files from this blog this should be the one that you click-to-enlarge. (Something to think about while you are clicking-to-enlarge: Do these characters ooze naivete? Do these portraits scream, 'sophistication?' Do these psychic widgets enact violent fantasy after violent fantasy upon one another? Do these people make you laugh? Write to FORCES, Unlimited and answer these questions and you may win a new parakeet!)

From the Steamboat to the Psychotherapist

The story of one man just like all the rest of the men out there.  He wanders the streets and wonders and wonders  and wonders about how his neighbors became so strange seeming to him, and whose eyes are those that are staring back at him from behind that reflective glass?  But no matter how much he wanders, or how much he wonders, he is still just a burnt out police officer who also plays a police officer on TV.  The cheap veneer of social routine  that makes up his life outside of work is wearing away. He feels sick and battered, and yet he has never felt more alive!

GET OFF MY CONSARN'D LAWN!

He mows it.  He waters it. He needs it. He doesn't ask much of you.  Why do you keep treading on his freshly seeded?  In a world where nobody can be counted on, in a time when water isn't so cheap: just step off his lawn and let the blades breathe, people!  

Happy 75th Birthday, Golden Gate Bridge!

GGB, we honor you with this portrait of another type of bridge: an aqueduct that has undergone inexplicable, severe truncation.  This old flume is up so high and is so lonely (remind you of any of your friends?) that nobody will ever figure out where its liquid charge is slipping off to.  A functional piece of the world's past, relegated to the job of a common natural point of interest.  Let us not forget that we have set a precedent of only being interested in falling water when it stands out as a pre-civilized naturally occurring form. So wave goodbye and forget, yes! forget what you have seen here today and move on to the next web agenda.   

I Saw The Ligghtz

This comic, by Richard Tuggz, was drawn about a year after the Connecticut Warbler's warehouse fire that destroyed the majority of his work. It was rejected by The Master Magazine, Athiest's Forum Magazine, Jugs Broadsheet, Playboy, and Highlights Magazine.

A Weekend With Joss "The Boss" Whedon: Alana Ponui reviews "The Avengers" and "The Cabin in the Woods"

There are a couple modes of being that this web log likes to hang on to, each post is written by the moderator, by no means in the first person, and each post in some way or another hones in on one of the FORCES, Ultd. artist's work. Well, I don't care about that. In fact, this post is all about coming out into the open, coming clean. This post will be my cyber-ablution. My name is Alana Ponui, and I have signed in--against the moderator's will--to write a godammed blog post.

Usually when I have to do some traveling in order to get to a conference I like to hop in and then get out of Dodge s quick as possible. I had to be in Boulder, CO for a Final Cut Pro X conference. This time I decided it might be nice to get there a bit early and absorb some heady popular culture. After landing in Denver, some half-hearted haggling over a rental car, and eating a terrible/awful/delicious/unremarkable footlong subway sandwich, I skipped the "dropping my bags off at 'The Hotel'" step and found myself at the Century Theater, right there in the middle of it all. Let me tell you true, the place looks like a state prison that you would find in the middle of a desert, but there is a PEET's coffee, Whole Foods, Office Max, etc. within arms reach. I found it to be chilling, yet comforting, like drinking a mixed drink that your own son or daughter has prepared. So I walked from the real world through the threshold to the land of make-believe. The satellite of Tinsel Town! The movie I chose to see? You guessed it from reading the title of this post, I'm sure: The Avengers, written and directed by Joss Whedon. Full disclosure: I am a fan of Joss Whedon's previous work, not all of it, but most of it.

For those of you getting tired of this prattle, lets see if I can succinctly sum up how I felt about this movie. If it was a cow that I had to buy I would eat all of the good meat on it, sell the rest of it on ebay, and remember the guy who sold it to me, but not the cow itself, or the town I bought it in. This movie showcased Whedon's (IMHO classic) writing talent. He is funny, and he knows when to draw your emotions toward a character. Really, what more could you want?

Well, I left the theater wanting a few things, yes I did. Most of this had to do with the direct interaction between actor and camera. Accents: 1.Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (played by Tom Hiddleston) are Norse gods. Why are they speaking in vaguely British accents? Are they actually British in real life? I don't know, but it's no excuse. B. The Black Widow (played by ScarJo) actually says that she is Russian, yet sounds like she is having an acid flashback to her days on the set of Ghost World. And another thing! I know this isn't Joss's fault, (mainly because I refuse to blame him for anything except the casting of Eliza Dushku) but Samuel L. Jackson is not Nick Fury! Don't get me wrong I am a lady who has enjoyed him in some roles, (Snakes on a Plain, and that other movie) I have nothing against him personally, but Jackson just does not have what it takes to walk in Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD's shoes. Let me take part of that back and say that sometimes he has too much of what it takes, he goes a little too wild demonstrating emotion at times. Nick Fury is a relentless badass. He cares about his team, he cares about his country, and he cares about getting the job done. Not pouting about his higher-ups! Maybe Denzel or Clooney could have pulled it off. Hell, I think Jimmy Stuart could have done a better job.

But enough griping, I was actually quite charmed by the movie. Whedon knows enough about what he is doing to not send me completely over the edge of the rage cliff. Because I am so familiar with his work I tend to hear his voice permeating the well established characters of the movie, like God's voice speaking through the monks of some ascetic temple. And it works. Somehow it works. There is a smooth transition between say, The Hulk (played by Mark Ruffalo) jumping around smashing an entire city, and the fast-paced comic book action. Put Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 4 in a mating cell with The West Wing, The Avengers mythology, the previous movies leading up to The Avengers, and piles of money: The Avengers would be its baby.

Lets move on. After the movie I went to my room at the Briar Rose Bed & Breakfast (don't ask) and spent the evening doing nothing. BUUUUUUUUT the next day I went back to the Century Theater to see The Cabin in the Woods, written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard(who previously worked on Buffy and Angel) and directed by Goddard. This movie was a valentine to the horror genre. These guys wear this genre like a glove and dance around on the table performing tricks of darkest magiks and knocking our beer steins over. All we can do is look at their glove and how well they wear it. Then they turn their glove inside out and we start flipping our collective wig double-time.

This movie is about five college students that take a weekend vacation to a cabin...in the woods and find that they are beset by undead puritans with a dismemberment fixation. But there is another storyline going on that turns the movie on its head, whilst balancing it quite nicely. There is a constant three-way tension between 1. post-post-modern nod to genre 2. cerebral genre busting 3. classic horror thrills and chills. The basic equation is this: (JW+DG)*((Thrills+Chills)/Bills)='Me Getting My Fills.'

I would like to give my shout out to the whole cast as well. HOLLER to Connolly, Hemsworth, Kranz, Hutchison, and Williams. The characters undergo a not so subtle metamorphosis during the movie that took a subtle finesse to pull off. Each roll was filled out very nicely and I was totally satiated by each performance. Cabin even shared a cast member with Avengers, Chris Hemsworth. As you may recall I had issues with his performance as the character Thor. In Cabin, he plays "the Jock" quite nicely, leaving nothing to be desired.

Around each corner lies a new pleasure. Near the end--don't worry, no spoilers--at a particularly climactic moment, I thought for a brief moment that I was going to find a hefty lump of disappointment staring me down around that next corner. I was wrong! Dead Wrong! It was a hefty lump of pleasure batting its eyelashes at me. You will be pleased by this movie, or you will never be pleased at all in this life.

Allow me to tell you the four things that these two movies have in common. They both employ Chris Hemsworth. They both have cameos by two of my favorite actors that previously starred in Alien, (loved it.) They both left me feeling wary of authority. The kind of feeling where you might wander around staring at security cameras and being bummed out by the FBI. And lastly, they are both about friendship. Each grouping of heroes could not have gotten as far as they did without their buddies to fall back on. This is a common Joss theme. Hey, if you don't have friends, what the hell do you have?

And here I sit, without a friend, at the Denver airport, flying back home from one of the most boring conferences I have ever attended. When I get home I am going to a birthday party, where I will appreciate my friends through the blue lens of The Avengers and the red lens of The Cabin in the Woods. 3D glasses to don that I might find a new dimension in my social life. Or not. On a laptop, using wireless internet, I'm Alana Ponui, and you are hearing my real voice.

A New Day

More from "A Trap You Can Love," an investigation of the spiritual pyramid scheme.

A New Way

Here's a brief peek at what Scott Rideout is up to. These two drawings are part of a series of drawings that will be in book format entitled "A Trap You Can Love," a look into the spiritual pyramid scheme.

Home on the High Plain

A home movie from Millie Cindzer, back from her traveling days. What do you think about THAT contradiction?

Victory: A Steaming Odoriferous Ghost

An excerpt from the script:

...He quickly regains his footing after stumbling into the rift.
HERO:I know you're there.
Silence
HERO:(Quickly turning around) I can hear your breathing, you stark-brained phantom! The portal has been opened, do not feign ignorance of what is to come next. Give yourself up to me lest we both pay the price of your greed!
PHANTOM:(Seeming to come from every direction)You will pay the price...(Chuckles) O! believe me! And the time for recompense is nigh, old friend.
A vast sucking sound reverberates throughout the earthen channel. It's source unclear at first, then gradually centers itself right behind HERO.
HERO: (Swinging his sword) Be done with you, foul shade!
But HERO hacks away at someone other than PHANTOM. Without realizing it he has...

Just a teaser for you and you and you from the brain and foot of Alana Ponui and the hand of Richard Tuggz.

Waltzing Back In

We know. It will never happen again, and that is a hard, reliable and 100% guaranteed PROMISE. It has been over a month since our last post and that is a source of regret, shame and pain. Moving forward, you will see below this a glimpse into the world of a professional narcissist. No, we are not talking about Scott! This man has let his obsessive love for himself spiral out of control. The admiration he so craved has mutated into a hideous serpentine monster which has sallied forth into the third dimension leaving a void in his psyche that needs an occupant. Would you like to move in? The rent is cheap, and there is a backyard. You pay for garbage pick-up and cable/DSL/food/mistakes. It should be mentioned that this a project Alana Ponui has been working on, using the draftsman skills of Richard Tuggz. She made the story clear, but the format remains in the shadows. ("Leave it to Alana," is what her friends all say about her.) It could be a still from a short animation, an illustration for a video game cartridge, a wall projection, a letter to the pope...anything, knowing her. What a card, eh?