The COMICON site has posted an interview with the writers of the TRON comic: Landry Walker and Eric Jones.

In it, they talk about the challenges of bringing the comic into being, and hint of what the future of the comic has in store for us. They also mention the possibility of more new TRON comics in the future.

Additionally, you'll find preview pencil sketches (SPOILER WARNING!) of the new artist on the comic: Michael Shoyket. And I can now say that any worries I had about the change in artists, have been put at ease. The sketches are incredible.

Michael's style appears similar enough to Louie's, that the change won't be that startling. And if he can get the coloring and shading down — particularly during scenes inside the electronic world — then we will have nothing to worry about.

What the?! A new TRON 2.0 item from Disney, out of the blue.

Living Mobile, a division of WDIG (the Walt Disney Internet Group, the same people who made the TRON VMK), has quietly released a new game for cell phones called TRON 2.0 3D. Though if you do a search on Living Mobile's site, you won't find anything about it.

Apparently, this game was announced two years ago and to be released by a company named Superscape. But the deal must have fell through, and the game didn't come out until now.

There have already been two TRON 2.0 cell phone games released in the past: TRON 2.0: Discs of TRON, and TRON 2.0: Light Cycles.

Both received poor reviews. Hopefully, this new game will fare differently. It certainly looks quite nice.

Sample screenshots of TRON 2.0 3D

Hmm, first the TRON room in VMK. Now a new TRON 2.0 cell phone game. WDIG is certainly showing a lot of interest in TRON these days, unlike their sister company BVG.

Get with the program, programs! BVG, give us that TRON 2.0 expansion — for the PC and Mac, not just consoles — that we've all been waiting for.

YouTube has been a great source for TRON-related videos, as of late. There are some really cool things to be found there, that I'll continue to share with you all from time to time.




MCP on God
(Don't watch if you're easily offended)






TRON Project







TETRON



Saved the best for last. It's a video of the PeopleMover ride at Disneyland, recorded in 1991. (This ride is no longer in operation.) At about the 1:50 mark in the video, you'll see the TRON segment of the ride. Pretty cool. They goofed on the MCP's name, though. (Master Control, not Master Computer.)

Had you for a second, perhaps? Were you thinking "oh no, not another delay"? No, I'm talking about Issue #3 now. According to SLG's site, it's scheduled for December.

Let's hope so. The huge gulf between #1 and #2 has been a bit disheartening. As you can see in an earlier article: Issue #2 has been delayed three times since July, and is now scheduled to come out in October. My suspicion as to the reason for the delay has changed, which I will get into in a moment.

Above is the proposed cover for Issue #3. Also, here is the description from SLG's site. (Strangely enough, Issue #2 is not listed on the updated "New Releases" schedule yet.)

Highlight the description with your mouse to read it (SPOILERS!):

Trapped in the digital realm, at war with the Master Control Program, and now plagued by nightmarish visions of talking rabbits, Jet Bradley fights for his sanity as his descent into cyberspace takes a turn for the bizarre.

Now, I have to admit: that synopsis for Issue #3 does not exactly sound all that appealing to me at this moment. I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised, and there will be a good explanation for that description, once I actually get to read the story.

As for the reason that Issue #2 has been delayed so long. Well, when I saw the preview cover for Issue #3, I thought something was odd. The artwork didn't really look the same. Then it struck me. The page on SLG reveals that the artist has changed. Louie De Martinis is gone, and in his place is Mike Shoykhet.

Uh oh.

I'm definitely not pleased to hear about that. I don't like it when artists change. Especially on a limited-run title, like TRON is going to be. It's jarring to see the art style change from one issue to the next. I just hope that the new artist does justice to the TRON universe. Louie was doing a pretty damn good job, I must say.

So, now I'm guessing the delay has something to do with the change of artists. Perhaps Louie became too busy with other projects and had difficulty completing the work for Issue #2. Hence the delay, and the change. Just speculation, mind you.

At any rate, here's looking forward to Issue #2 next month. And hopefully Issue #3 will come out on time.

It's finally ready . . . the TRON 2.0 chat room mentioned earlier on Boxhat, is up and running. A little fine-tuning may still be required, but the testing went well.

The address to reach the chat room is: http://tronchat.boxhat.com/


Screenshot of Login page        Screenshot of Main page


For site owners that would like to direct players to this chat room: one line of HTML code on your web site will present a sort of "chat box" that will indicate who is in the chat room at that moment, and also provide a way for them to log in and enter the chat room. This box can be seen on the right side of this page, in the grey sidebar area. Bigred will be working on integrating the box into the front page portal of the Boxhat site soon.

The code to use is:

<iframe src="http://tronchat.boxhat.com/online.php" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" width="150" height="322"></iframe>

In the future, the LDSO site, the upcoming REZ Handler 2.0, and TRON Link, should also all point to this chat room. So hopefully it will be put to good use.

The main purpose of the chat room is, of course, for players from around the world to arrange times to play in TRON 2.0 Multiplayer. But it can also simply be a place to hang out and get to know one another.

Visual Futurist: The Art & Life of Syd Mead director Joaquin Montalvan has recently had another interview, this time with site Artist Interviews.

This interview provides a lot of insight into how the documentary came to be: which is definitely something I've been curious about, ever since I first learned of Visual Futurist last year. You really owe it to yourself to read this interview, if you are a fan of TRON or Syd's work in general.

Also, don't forget about the second screening of Visual Futurist at the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival, mentioned earlier.

As an aside: I appreciated reading Joaquin's comment about how Blade Runner was considered a failure at the time of its release, yet today it's clear that the film's impact was monumental. And I think this very same comment could also be applied to TRON.

Yes, the site is down at the moment. Again.

Bigred already knows about it. The site will likely be back up before noon today. (This was article was posted shortly after midnight.)

He's probably going to switch hosts, due to the current host being very unreliable as of late.

UPDATE: Sure enough, Boxhat went back online again today. :)

Wow, this is kind of depressing. The SLG Publishing web site indicates that Issue #2 of the TRON comic has been delayed again, for the third time in a row.

I was beginning to suspect another delay, when I read this blog entry by SLG's Editor-in-Chief Jennifer de Guzman.

I hope these delays don't impact the sales of the second issue, as people begin to forget about or lose interest in the title.