According to SLG Publishing's site, Issue #2 of TRON: The Ghost In The Machine has been delayed yet again to December.

The issue has been delayed five times in a row. It was originally supposed to have come out in July. I'm at a loss for words at this point.

November 3rd UPDATE: Landry Walker (one of the writers of the comic) has just informed me that the production schedule on SLG's site is in error. Issue #2 is still set for a November release, and Issue #3 will appear in December.

It's the Attack of the YouTube videos! (Anyone still watching G4 TV might get a chuckle out of that. I think.)

This video seems to have been posted by Paul Baumgaertner, just in time for Halloween. Paul is the most well-known creator of a TRON costume, after Jay "The TRON Guy" Maynard.

In the video, we see his appearance on The Screen Savers from a couple of years ago, while in costume. This was back when The Screen Savers was still on G4, and Kevin Rose was still a host. (Damn you, Comcast, for ruining TechTV!) Jay's costume is also briefly talked about.

I came across a video on YouTube, that was created as an advertisement for the UK version of the Sci-Fi Channel. This animation was inspired by TRON, as will become evident when you watch it.

The video had a link to the video creator's blog site, where he explains the making of it. You can find out more for yourself, by visiting The Gagaman Is In. It's quite cool to read the creative process that goes into an animation like this. And the animation itself is very creative. Nicely done!

I'm late with this update. Really late. And most of you probably know about this already. But for those that don't . . .

Xistence is preparing an update for his 4 vs. 1 Derez map, which is also now called The Pit. This map was never completely finished, as some of you might have already guessed. The completed version will feature the holding cells as seen in the film, and ICP AI opponents guarding them.

Sample screenshots from The Pit

There's no release date for this map. But I still thought it was worth bringing to the attention of those who weren't aware of it, as another project to look forward to.

The Disc Arena and Derez Mac map pack has been updated.

Changes in Mac DA/DM Map Pack
Airstrike UPDATED
CLU Dispatch ADDED

There is also a new, specially prepared version of the Capture the Bit (aka CTB2 TDM) Team Derez map available. Because of the nature of this map — which is also a mod, at the same time — it has been kept separate from the DA/DM map pack.

Both map updates are available in the All TRON 2.0 Files section.

This is a clip from VH1's I Love the 80's program, where celebrities from the 80's and today discuss what they think about the movie TRON. It's interesting to see how many of the celebs liked the film, and "get it". Only one of them really hated it.

Better hurry and watch the clip before it possibly disappears, though. Now that Google owns YouTube, they've started cracking down on any videos that come from media sources.

The Boxhat site has been intermittently going down and coming back up, during the last 48 hours. If you can't get through at first, keep trying.

The continual problems Boxhat has been experiencing the past few months, is due to poor service from the hosting company. It seems the only way to eliminate these issues is for Bigred to switch to another host, but the company is making that difficult for him the last I heard.

Hopefully he will be able to switch hosts soon, and eliminate the problems once and for all.

As mentioned on the home page for director Joaquin Montalvan's documentary, Visual Futurist: The Art & Life of Syd Mead: an interview with Syd has appeared on the Pasadena Weekly web site.

The interview briefly talks about Syd's careeer, as well as the documentary. There is also brief mention that the documentary will become available for purchase, next year. Seems like distributors are interested in making the film available on DVD. Which is great news.

Normally, I prefer not to copy news headlines that have already been featured on another major TRON site, but this was just too cool to pass up.

DaveTRON posted a link to a video on TRON-Sector, sent to him by Richard Taylor (who I suspect may have even contributed to the commercial, in some way). You'll need QuickTime to see it.

This Honda Civic ad kicks some serious ass!

October 6th UPDATE: The site Digit Online has an article discussing the creation of this ad.

Click here or on the picture to see the commercial

According to the latest update on SLG Publishing's site, Issue #2 of TRON: The Ghost In The Machine has been delayed for the fourth time in a row. It's now scheduled to be released in November.

What else can be said, except, this really sucks. I've been waiting patiently for the release of the second issue . . . meanwhile, I'm not so sure other, more casual fans still are.

These repeated delays are bound to hurt sales of the title.

I'm guessing Landry and Eric, the writers on the comic, are equally as dissatisfied with this situation. Here's hoping things get back on track, soon.

Click here or on the picture to see the video
It's amazing it's taken them this long, but the producers of Robot Chicken have finally done an awesome TRON spoof. (WARNING: If you're easily offended, then don't watch it!)

Click on the picture or link above, to see the clip. You can save a copy of the video, by looking in your browser's cache and copying it out of there.

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.

TRON-Sector admin DaveTRON has come up with a really intriguing idea for a campaign, to let the people at Disney know that we want to see another TRON film.

His plan is for TRON fans to (preferably) record themselves on video, or send in a photo, with a message stating how they are a TRON fan and want to see a film sequel. The videos will be collected and put together into one longer piece, along with the photos, and then sent to Disney.

I also have plans for mailing a hard-copy of the TRON 2.0 Petition in the near future: so hopefully the combination one-two punch, will have a significant effect.

If you want to participate or simply find out more, visit this message thread on Tron-Sector and make yourself seen and heard!