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January 25, 2017
Happy Birthday, Scary-Crayon!

Quick blog entry, since today is Scary-Crayon’s 13th birthday!! I’m about halfway through a new article, so there will definitely be content in the next few days. No promises on whether there will be regular updates — I hope there will be, but I always hope there will be — but we’ll see. I do have several articles in varying states of completion, though, so they’ll undoubtedly end up on the site at some point.

Anyway, since I imagine only longtime readers will stumble across this, thanks for stopping by and sticking around! I don’t post nearly as much as I’d like to these days, but I remain incredibly proud of this eldritch corner of the web. 🙂

-posted by Wes | 9:05 pm | Comments (2)
July 10, 2016
Nitty gritty

The occasional article post notwithstanding, it’s been a really long time since I’ve delved into the inner workings of the site and/or viewed articles when not logged into the control panel… and apparently a whole lot of stuff broke around here behind the scenes. I don’t know that I have it in me to fully update the site for 2016+ now — I’m presently not all that concerned with tailoring the site for mobile browsers, for instance — but I’d like to keep the site functional and at least somewhat aesthetically pleasing! So please drop me a line if you see anything that looks super broken or just weird around here.

Also, although I have no plans to ditch Scary-Crayon as is (I’m rather fond of the look of it) and perpetually hope to get back into posting articles at least semi-regularly, I now totally understand why so many other webmasters have just started up new sites and relegated their existing sites to archives. Converting an entire site to the new order seems like a nightmare. x_x

So, um, if anyone’s still out there… what’s up? 😛 Among the things that broke was some stuff involving the comments, so feel free to respond and help me confirm that at least that’s working. (Also it’d be cool to hear from any remaining readers. ‘Cause… yeah.)

-posted by Wes | 5:12 am | Comments (3)
April 13, 2016
Recent stuff and a quick film review

Hey — so Scary-Crayon isn’t dead! The blog’s probably a bad place to be focused if you’re keeping tabs on the site (I *really* haven’t used it much since I’ve been posting articles such that folks can comment directly on them; Facebook or Tumblr are probably better for updates), but I’ll still post here from time to time. Like now! If you missed the most recent article, here’s a link to my impassioned defense of Batman v Superman.

In other news, since I just watched Unfriended, here’s a super-quick film review! The movie was… actually pretty decent. The gimmick — the entire movie unfolds on the computer screen of one of the characters: all character interactions take place on Skype and Facebook/Gmail messages, all flashbacks are done via YouTube and Facebook memories, etc. — was surprisingly effective, all things considered. There’s not a lot of depth here in terms of story or characterization, but somehow that just makes the result that much more impressive. There’s even a fairly pronounced anti-bullying message!

I can’t imagine having watched this in a theater, though; I’d wager that the film plays much better — or at least seems more convincing — on a computer (and perhaps even better on a laptop).

All for now, kiddies. I say this every time, but seriously — there’s more content on the way. One word: Booyakasha.

-posted by Wes | 1:12 am | Comments (1)
August 3, 2012
Thrift Store Thursday #1 (Part 2)

I was pretty exhausted last night, so I didn’t get around to posting the second part of Thrift Store Thursday #1 — but here we are now! And remember what I wrote yesterday? This feature can go up whenever! Even though it’s Friday now, it’s still Thrift Store Thursday. ANY DAY CAN BE THRIFT STORE THURSDAY.

So let’s recap.

Last time, we glimpsed three bags of thrift store toys and took a look inside one in particular — which we bought not because of the ginormous Rodney Copperbottom or the two G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra Snake Eyes figures within, but because of Lieutenant “Gears” Mecaniks of the Major Powers & the Star Squad line. And since we bought her precisely because she looks like somebody (we used to know?), we took a closer look at Lieutenant Gears and invited readers to speculate as to her resemblance.

Seriously, that looks really familiar...!

Feel free to keep speculating — we’ll reveal our thoughts on the matter at the end of this post. 😉 (more…)

-posted by Wes | 12:29 pm | Comments (0)
August 2, 2012
Thrift Store Thursday #1 (Part 1)

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned that I’ve been buying a lot of junk from thrift stores this year. It’s a really cheap way to acquire fodder for customs (even though I haven’t found uses for the bulk of it yet), and in any case I come across a lot of wild stuff I’ve never seen before. For instance, who knew that — way back in 1997, no less — Disney released a Hercules figure with a highly detailed sculpt and respectable articulation even by today’s standards?

Hero Hercules (from 1997!) and Hasbro's 6-inch movie Thor

I’m sure somebody knew about it, mind you, but I certainly wouldn’t have had I not stumbled across the figure in a plastic bag with a colored tag stapled to the top of it. 😛 (more…)

-posted by Wes | 7:59 am | Comments (9)
July 29, 2012
Dear Thieving Toy Collectors,

Please stop buying action figures; removing/replacing the BAF parts, accessories, bases, and sometimes even the figures themselves; and then returning the taped up packages to the store. THAT IS STEALING.

Look, I know it sucks that companies expect you to buy an entire figure just to get a small item you want or to rebuy a figure you already paid for because it has minor changes/improvements. But stealing what you want out of the package doesn’t stick it to the man: it just makes you a bum and a scoundrel and a thief who steals toys of all goddamned things. It might also bring unhappiness to the retail workers who lose their jobs when the chain’s profits go down due to losses from vandalized merchandise; to the children who tear open their toys on Christmas morning only to find that Batman’s batarangs have all been removed; and to your fellow collectors who, being in a hurry and not noticing the missing items from the package, are now unable to display certain figures due to missing accessories or are unable to complete the BAFs of waves they did buy in their entirety because your scumbag ass stole the right arm.

Your actions also ensure that you’ll spend eternity roasting in darkness amidst action figure packages that, from a distance and in the dim light, look like awesome new figures from that wave you’ve been anticipating since last year — yet when you finally reach the figure after hours of stumbling across searing coals and white-hot spikes, you’ll find packages empty of all contents with Post-It notes affixed to their surfaces. The notes will read, “Ha ha! Got first.”

Please consider this impending punishment before you commit your next reprehensible crime against the retail establishment and toy-loving children everywhere and the toy collecting community at large.

Your pal,

Wes

-posted by Wes | 4:23 pm | Comments (3)
A quick progress update!

Hey, folks! Just wanted to post something to let y’all know I’m not dead… which, with comment threads now being included in articles, is probably the kind of thing the blog will end up being used for. 😛 Also, I wanted to make clear that I haven’t forgotten about the SDCC content. It might end up being fashionably late, but it’s coming! And hopefully it’ll still be interesting no matter how timely it is.

I was planning to post a couple of SDCC pieces tonight, but then I got kinda sidetracked (for HOURS) fooling around with gallery plugins and image layout and whanot. Probably won’t end up changing too much visually, but it’ll greatly simplify things on my end — which will ideally mean more and more frequent posts in the long run, since it’ll take me less time to put them together. Anyway, here’s a preview of the next SDCC-related article in the queue (it’s entirely possible I’ll post a really quick review of something else before I get it up).

Dude got eted real gewd.

(more…)

-posted by Wes | 8:20 am | Comments (1)
July 22, 2012
Scary-Crayon survived California!

Hey, all — just a quick note to say that I’ve returned safely from my trip to SDCC 2012. Apparently the trip really tired me out — I’ve been doing a lot of sleeping since my flight landed on Thursday morning (I even sadly slept through half of The Dark Knight Rises, which I’m guessing was the good half because what I did see was kinda weak) — but I’m starting to recover my strength and will be posting more SDCC content in the coming days.

Also, once I get done with that, I’ll have reviews of some of the items I picked up at the convention! In the meantime, though, here’s an article highlighting the toys I brought home from the con. It’s cool stuff, but I’m still kinda miffed I couldn’t get Zecora and the Marvel Legends Uncanny X-Force set. 😐

-posted by Wes | 11:18 pm | Comments (2)
July 15, 2012
More SDCC 2012 coverage to come…

Hey, guys! I’d hoped to have more SDCC 2012 content up on the site — the working conditions here haven’t been ideal at all — but I hope you’ve enjoyed what I was able to get up. Anyway, with the con ending tomorrow and me having some pretty eventful days ahead, I probably won’t have a chance to post more coverage until I return home late this week… by which time the con will be over and much of what I post will already have been reported thoroughly by other sites.

Still, if you’re here, I’m hoping you’ll appreciate my unique take on the repeat info. In any case, I’m sure I’ll have at least a handful of con perspectives and products and companies and individuals to spotlight that you won’t have heard much about from the larger and infinitely more popular news and review sites.

Anyway, take care — and thanks again for reading Scary-Crayon! I’ll see you again real soon. 🙂

-posted by Wes | 6:01 am | Comments (0)
July 9, 2012
July 2012 news and updates!

Hey, guys!

So it’s been a few weeks since I posted an entry to the blog, but hopefully you haven’t missed out on the updates we’ve had since then! If you’re only subscribed to the blog RSS feed, you might want to consider liking our Facebook page or following our tumblr feed. I’ve been less inclined to add a new blog entry for each update since modifying the features to include comments, but I have posted about them via those channels! (Sorry to bug you with that again; it’s just a suggestion. 😉 ) But if you have in fact overlooked those updates, we’ve posted A Crayon Haiku #139, A Random Lunch #12 (yep, it’s back!), a review of A Series of Unfortunate Events (the books, not the movie), and, today, Dusty Plastic HELLside #38. Check ’em out! (more…)

-posted by Wes | 4:30 pm | Comments (2)
June 17, 2012
Quick Father’s Day features!

Hey, SC readers — and happy Father’s Day to any dads stopping by! To mark the day, we’ve got a couple of quickies for you: A Crayon Haiku #138 and Dusty Plastic HELLside #37, the latter of which also has a few notes about the selection process I used when organizing the group. Not super exciting, but I figure that kind of thing belongs on the content pages now since that’s where folks will be commenting.

Anyway, enjoy! We’ll see you next time. 🙂

-posted by Wes | 12:42 pm | Comments (0)
June 14, 2012
Shredder’s spear is bigger.

Hey, all! We’re back again — and in less than a month, w00t! — with Dusty Plastic HELLside #36, in which the Shredder and Loki compare spears to earn bragging rights. The title I chose is stupid as hell, but it made me giggle madly for some reason. Yes.

Link plugs! I mentioned this on our tumblr, which should also have sent it to our Facebook page — but in case you’re not watching either (why not? ;___; ) I’m mentioning it here as well. The good folks of Interrobang Studios are participating in a small business grant contest of sorts (see this comic for the rundown and some backstory), and Internet voters get to choose which entrants are eligible for the money. Apparently IS is already way over the qualifying threshold, but why not lend ’em your support anyway? Or — if you’re like me and are hesitant to support something you don’t think is neat — click the studio link above and browse their archives. I’m sure you’ll find something you like enough to justify taking a minute to vote.

Also, here’s a link I stumbled onto via a site comment (see, if you people comment you might get PLUGS! 😛 ): shezcrafti. ShezCrafti (I suppose the individual is distinguished from the site title by the capital letters?) posts a whole bunch of articles about stuff, and far too often for any one person to keep track of! But there are quite a few nifty and entertaining pieces and links on the site, so it’s worth a shot. Frex, I’d never have found out about the Saved by the Bell YouTube game if it weren’t for ShezCrafti’s post about it on shezcrafti! (See, that’s how it works.) Heck, I didn’t even know there were YouTube games. What will they think of next? And I’ll be posting a full-length response to this piece soon — it was simply going to be a comment, but then it got too darned long. So if nothing else, read that and await the Scary-Crayon rebuttal. 😛

And that’ll do it for this SC blog entry. There’s more content on the way — and actual articles at that! — so please stay tuned. 🙂

-posted by Wes | 10:41 pm | Comments (0)
June 10, 2012
Another Crayon Haiku!

What the post title says — A Crayon Haiku #137 is up. Man, I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed these things! They are kinda lite, though, so I’m thinking maybe I should modify the site layout so that they don’t ultimately crowd more substantive content off of the front page listing. Like maybe give them a sidebar block, the way the blog is listed now. I dunno; we’ll see if I post them frequently enough for it to get to that point.

As noted previously, you can now comment directly on features, so feel free to do that. 😀 I’m also thinking I’ll add that capacity to some of the older articles as well, or at least ones that don’t have preexisting discussions already taking place on related blog entries. Again, we’ll see!

More substantive content on the way — I still have some food product reviews I’d like to do. I didn’t photograph (or consume) General Tso’s chicken from Dollar Tree for nothing…

-posted by Wes | 6:36 am | Comments (0)
June 8, 2012
Comments on features… are live!

SHOCKINGLY, as promised, A Crayon Haiku #136 and Dusty Plastic HELLside #35 are live. I’m still not sure everything’s working as intended, so give commenting on them a try — if you feel so inclined!

More to come…

-posted by Wes | 10:39 pm | Comments (0)
Comments on features…

Hey, all! Quick update on what’s been and will be happening with the site.

First, if you haven’t been following Scary-Crayon on tumblr, please do so! I’ve been comparatively prolific on there when it comes to posting images — mainly action figure photos — and occasionally I have something brief to say about a film I’ve just watched or some other observation. Scary-Crayon also has a Facebook page, so feel free to like us there, too.

So I know we’ve been pretty lite on content lately — hopefully (and I know I always say that) that will change soon! Among other things, we’re going to be in attendance at the San Diego Comic-Con, which means awesome daily coverage assuming that everything acts right with the laptop and wi-fi and stuff. AWESOME. (more…)

-posted by Wes | 7:39 am | Comments (0)
May 5, 2012
Avengers Assemble!

And following another unexpected delay (sigh), we’re back with a review of Marvel’s The Avengers. I was a kinda disappointed with it, honestly. More in the review, but it seemed like for everything it did right — or at least every “cool” nugget — there was something it did wrong, and the things it did wrong occurred on a more substantive level. I suspect some folks out there would blast me for actively searching for flaws in the film. And yeah, that’s true — I was looking for them, just as I was looking for things to like about it. I tend to watch movies with an eye to evaluate them on all levels, and I’m not one to cover my eyes and stick my fingers in my ears (or devise my own theories to resolve issues that weren’t sufficiently explained in a movie/show/etc.) when I find something that doesn’t gel. That’s just me.

But that’s not necessarily you, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be at all down on The Avengers — as I note in the review intro, I suspect most readers of Scary-Crayon will enjoy it immensely. For an alternate take on the film, check out this review by Jeffrey K. Lyles.

Also, admittedly, this is probably a movie I’d enjoy more on DVD after I fished it out of the $5 bin at Walmart (or, even better, a cart at Dollar Tree). It’s legitimately flawed, but somehow those flaws are less bothersome to me when I didn’t pay $12 for a ticket — and when I’m not noting them in a theater filled with cheering, clapping people. Like, many of the one-liners were amusing, but they certainly weren’t substantive — so they weren’t the kinds of things I’d walk out of the movie quoting and discussing and referencing endlessly as if they actually made the movie significantly better for their inclusion. And while there were a few really good ones, most of the lines were hardly hilarious, so it was a little annoying to hear the theater erupt into raucous laughter in response. At moments, watching The Avengers in a crowded theater reminded me of watching a sitcom, and I generally despise sitcoms. The reason is this: if a joke in a show falls flat and there’s no laugh track, it’s not irritating — it’s just another throwaway line of dialogue and (unless it’s really bad) I forget about it. But if the joke doesn’t work and it’s punctuated by five seconds of yukking, as is the case in most sitcoms, it’s fucking stupid.

Anyway, yeah — thanks for reading; leave a comment if you like. See you next time, which will hopefully be sooner rather than later!

-posted by Wes | 1:44 pm | Comments (4)
April 2, 2012
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 is amazing.

I meant to post this yesterday, but here it is — a review of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1. It’s a fantastic film and you should watch it as soon as possible.

In other news, our “Todd & The Book of Pure Evil” DVD giveaway ended last week — I’ve notified the winners and will be mailing their prizes very soon. (Hopefully once they receive them, we’ll be able to hear a little something from them.) I’m admittedly a little disappointed in how it went, though. The article and blog post didn’t appear to receive any fewer views than any other new entry on the site… but apparently folks didn’t read the text or found the entry methods too bothersome because only two people entered! Lucky for them and easy for me, since that made them the winners by default, but yeah. Nobody even entered by following SC on tumblr (so I still have an extra “Todd” Season 1 DVD set to give away via other means).

So if you’re reading and have something to add, feel free to give us some feedback about what you might have preferred from a contest. Do you hate Facebook and/or tumblr? Dislike leaving comments? Were the instructions unclear and/or too lengthy? Were you simply uninterested in the prize? (Or if you’re new to the site and didn’t see the contest, let me know what kind of contest prizes and/or entry methods would appeal to you.) Really, I’d appreciate anything you have to say on the matter. I’d like to do more contests, and I want them to be events that readers find appealing!

Thanks, folks. See you next time!

-posted by Wes | 6:15 am | Comments (2)
March 23, 2012
Review: Poker Night at the Inventory (PC/Mac)

And we’re back with more blog content! Today’s feature, which comes to us from Andrew Perry of Poker Junkie, is a review of Poker Night at the Inventory. It’s a game I’d never heard of until very recently, but one that will probably appeal to a lot of you netizens out there! Anyway, enough from me — let’s hear what Andrew has to say about it.

If we told you about a poker title that has only one form of poker to play, most of you would immediately go elsewhere. Instead, we are going to tell you about a poker title that allows you to get cussed out by Tycho from Penny Arcade. Interested? If so, you should check out Poker Night at the Inventory.

Poker Night at the Inventory

Poker Night at the Inventory is a poker title released by Telltale Games for the PC and Mac that pits you against several popular characters from games and the web. You get to play in an underground poker game at a secret club called “the Inventory” against the aforementioned Tycho — as well as the Heavy from Team Fortress 2, Strong Bad from Homestar Runner, and Max from Sam & Max. (more…)

-posted by Wes | 5:32 pm | Comments (0)
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