Deadpool (real name Wade Winston Wilson) is a fictional antihero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by artist/writer Rob Liefeld and writer Fabian Nicieza, the character first appeared in The New Mutants #98 (February 1991). Initially Deadpool was depicted as a supervillain when he made his first appearance in The New Mutants and later in issues of X-Force, but later evolved into his more recognizable antiheroic persona. Deadpool is a disfigured and mentally unstable mercenary with the superhuman ability of an accelerated healing factor and physical prowess. He is known as the “Merc with a Mouth” because of his talkative nature and tendency to break the fourth wall, which is used by writers for humorous effect and running gags.
Barney Rubble is the secondary main character of The Flintstones, an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that was broadcast from 1960 to 1966 on ABC. The show, produced by Hanna-Barbera, fancifully depicted the lives of a working-class Stone Age man, his family, and his next-door neighbor and best friend. The show’s continuing popularity rested heavily on its juxtaposition of modern everyday concerns in the Stone Age setting. The Flintstones was the most financially successful network animated franchise for three decades, until The Simpsons debuted. In 2013, TV Guide Magazine ranked The Flintstones as the second greatest TV cartoon of all time (after The Simpsons). Barney Rubble and other characters from The Flintstones have been mascots of Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles breakfast cereal since 1969.
Fred Flintstone is the main character of The Flintstones, an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that was broadcast from 1960 to 1966 on ABC. The show, produced by Hanna-Barbera, fancifully depicted the lives of a working-class Stone Age man, his family, and his next-door neighbor and best friend. The show’s continuing popularity rested heavily on its juxtaposition of modern everyday concerns in the Stone Age setting. The Flintstones was the most financially successful network animated franchise for three decades, until The Simpsons debuted. In 2013, TV Guide Magazine ranked The Flintstones as the second greatest TV cartoon of all time (after The Simpsons). Fred Flintstone and other characters from The Flintstones have been mascots of Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles breakfast cereal since 1969.
Beavis is one of the title characters of Beavis and Butt-head, an American animated sitcom created and designed by Mike Judge. The series originated from Frog Baseball, a 1992 short film by Judge. After seeing the short, MTV signed Judge to develop the concept. Beavis and Butt-head first ran on MTV from 1993 to 1997. In 1996, the series was adapted into the animated feature film Beavis and Butt-head Do America. In 1997, Daria, a spin-off show based on their classmate Daria Morgendorffer, was created. During a short-lived revival in 2011, new episodes of Beavis and Butt-head aired on MTV.
Butt-head is one of the title characters of Beavis and Butt-head, an American animated sitcom created and designed by Mike Judge. The series originated from Frog Baseball, a 1992 short film by Judge. After seeing the short, MTV signed Judge to develop the concept. Beavis and Butt-head first ran on MTV from 1993 to 1997. In 1996, the series was adapted into the animated feature film Beavis and Butt-head Do America. In 1997, Daria, a spin-off show based on their classmate Daria Morgendorffer, was created. During a short-lived revival in 2011, new episodes of Beavis and Butt-head aired on MTV.
Stuart is one of the minions from the Despicable Me franchise. Minions are small, yellow, cylindrical creatures with one or two eyes and metal goggles. One-eyed Stuart is the shortest minion in the first movie. He has a slim body with flat, center-parted hair. Stuart is among the most sincere and innocent of the minions. He is also always hungry and at one point attempted to eat minions Kevin and Bob by visualizing them as bananas. In another scene, while in a dark ventilation shaft, Stuart’s minion friend Jerry picks him up and cracks him, which turns him into a glow stick.
My two-year-old daughter Ramona has a small Stuart doll given to her by my dad. She’s never seen the movies and knows nothing about minions, but Stuart is among her favorite dolls and stuffed animals, which also include Pooh Bear, Margot, Lufkin, Domo-kun and Garfield.
Marty McFly is a fictional character in the Back to the Future trilogy. In 1985, Marty plays guitar with his group The Pinheads and is a talented skateboarder. His girlfriend is Jennifer Parker and his best friend is Emmett Brown, a scientist whom Marty and Jennifer call “Doc.” Marty is portrayed by actor Michael J. Fox. Marty also appears in the animated TV series (1991-92) and the episodic video game (2010-11).
Popeye the Sailor Man is a cartoon fictional character, created by E. C. Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and theatrical and television animated cartoons. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre in 1929; Popeye became the strip’s title in later years. In 1933, Fleischer Studios adapted the Thimble Theatre characters into a series of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoon shorts for Paramount Pictures. These cartoons proved to be among the most popular of the 1930s, and the Fleischers—and later Paramount’s own Famous Studios—continued production through 1957.
Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear, is a fictional anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne. The first collection of stories about the character was the book Winnie-the-Pooh (1926). This was followed by The House at Pooh Corner (1928) and two children’s verse books. All four volumes were illustrated by E. H. Shepard. In the 1940s, Agnes Brush created the first plush dolls with Pooh in his red shirt. Rights to Winnie-the-Pooh were first licensed to Walt Disney in 1961. Disney has released numerous animated productions starring Pooh and related characters, including theatrical featurettes, television series, and direct-to-video films, as well as theatrical feature-length films.
A stuffed Pooh Bear from my 1980s childhood is one of my daughter’s favorite toys. She also believes that old Pooh and Baby Margot are some kind of inseparable team. It’s sweet. I am often reminded of the final passage of On the Road by Jack Kerouac: “So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars’ll be out, and don’t you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.”
Green Lantern is the name of a number of fictional superheroes appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. They fight evil with the aid of rings that grant them a variety of extraordinary powers. The first Green Lantern character, Alan Scott, was created in 1940 during the initial popularity of superheroes. Alan Scott usually fought common criminals in New York City with the aid of his magic ring. In 1959, to capitalize on the booming popularity of science fiction, the Green Lantern character was reinvented as Hal Jordan, an officer for an interstellar law enforcement agency known as the Green Lantern Corps. Additional members of this agency, all of whom call themselves Green Lanterns, were introduced over time.
Wolverine is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, commonly in association with the X-Men. Born James Howlett and commonly known as Logan, Wolverine is a mutant who possesses animal-keen senses, enhanced physical capabilities (including three retractable claws housed within each forearm) and a healing factor. He has been depicted variously as a member of the X-Men, Alpha Flight and the Avengers. Wolverine is typical of the many tough antiheroes that emerged in American popular culture after the Vietnam War; his willingness to use deadly force and his brooding nature became standard characteristics for comic book antiheroes by the end of the 1980s. As a fan-favorite character, Wolverine has appeared in most X-Men adaptations, including animated TV series, video games and the live-action X-Men film series.
Dana Scully is a fictional character in the science fiction-supernatural television series The X-Files (1993-2002) played by Gillian Anderson. Scully is an FBI agent, partnered with fellow Special Agent Fox Mulder for the first seven seasons, and in the eighth and ninth seasons partnered with John Doggett. In the TV series, they work out of a cramped basement office at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. to investigate unsolved cases labeled “X-Files.” In contrast to Mulder’s “believer” character, Scully is the skeptic for the first seven seasons, choosing to base her beliefs on what science can prove. She later on becomes a “believer” after Mulder’s abduction at the end of season seven. Scully also appears in the feature films The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) and The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008).
FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, portrayed by Kyle MacLachlan, is a fictional character and the protagonist of the television series Twin Peaks (1990-91), created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. Cooper is an eccentric FBI agent who arrives in Twin Peaks in 1989 to investigate the brutal murder of popular high school student Laura Palmer. He displays an array of quirky mannerisms such as giving a “thumbs up” when satisfied, sage-like sayings, a distinctive sense of humor, and a love for good cherry pie and a “damn fine cup of coffee” (which he takes black). One of his habits is speaking into a microcassette recorder, through which he addresses a mysterious woman named “Diane.” Cooper briefly appears in the 1992 prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.
Note: The Twin Peaks pilot episode was first broadcast 25 years ago, on April 8, 1990. It was recently announced that MacLachlan will return as Cooper for a nine-episode continuation of Twin Peaks in 2016. The new limited series will be set in present day, picking up 25 years after the events of the 1991 finale. It will air on Showtime.
Major Motoko Kusanagi is the main protagonist in Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell anime and manga series. She is a cyborg employed as the squad leader of Public Security Section 9, a fictional intelligence department of the real Japanese National Public Safety Commission. Her counter-terrorist unit specializes in technological warfare against cyber-crime. Being strong-willed, physically powerful and highly intellectual, Kusanagi is known for her skills in deduction and hacking.
Mike Wazowski is a green, one-eyed monster and employee at Monsters, Inc. in the 2001 computer-animated Pixar film of the same title. The parallel city of Monstropolis is inhabited by monsters and powered by the screams of children in the human world. At the Monsters, Inc. factory, employees called “scarers” venture into children’s bedrooms to scare them and collect their screams, using closet doors as portals. But the monsters are themselves afraid that the children may contaminate them. The plot of the film involves Mike Wazowski (voiced by Billy Crystal) and his best friend Sully (John Goodman) discovering and trying to return a young human girl who has entered Monstropolis.
Usagi Tsukino, better known as Sailor Moon, is the superheroine protagonist and title character in the Sailor Moon manga series and anime adaptations. Usagi is introduced as a carefree, underachieving schoolgirl in Tokyo. She is initially believed to be an Earthling, but is later revealed to be Princess Serenity of the moon kingdom Silver Millennium. Usagi meets Luna who discovers that she is destined to save Earth from the forces of evil. Luna gives Usagi a broach to transform into Sailor Moon, and asks her to form the Sailor Soldiers, find their princess and protect the “Legendary Silver Crystal.” As Usagi matures, she becomes one of the universe’s powerful warriors and protects her adopted home planet, Earth, from villains who wish to harm it.
This 8-bit Sailor Moon was created at the request of my wife Heidi and her sister. Speaking of sailing (or at least ferries), Heidi and I are heading to Orcas Island, the largest of the San Juan Islands, to stay in an apartment in Eastsound for the next few days. It’s her birthday present from me.
Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski is the protagonist of The Big Lebowski, a 1998 crime comedy film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. The Dude, played by Jeff Bridges, is a single, unemployed slacker living in Venice, California who enjoys marijuana, White Russians and bowling. The Dude is mostly inspired by Jeff Dowd, a member of the anti-war radical group the Seattle Liberation Front (The Dude tells Maude Lebowski during the film that he was one of the Seattle Seven, who were members of the SLF). A friend of the Coen brothers, Vietnam War veteran Pete Exline, also inspired aspects of the character.
Tetsuo Shima is the main antagonist of the manga and 1988 anime movie Akira. One of the youngest members of a motorcycle gang in Neo-Tokyo, Tetsuo was once the best friend of leader Shotaro Kaneda. At the beginning of the story, Tetsuo is severely injured in a mysterious motorcycle accident, which causes him to display immense powers, including telekinesis, teleportation, mind-reading and a shield that allows him to breathe in space. Tetsuo’s mental instability increases with the manifestation of his powers. This ultimately drives him insane and destroys his friendship with Kaneda, who becomes his nemesis.
Note: I created 8-bit Tetsuo after the point in the story where he synthesizes an artificial, metal arm to replace his severed right arm. Also, today is 9/11. Last year on September 11, I published my 666th pixel art character, Nero. In 2012, I posted Augusto Pinochet on this day. That’s three villains in a row. But if you go back to 2011, on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I published Captain America. Because, ‘Merica.
Oompa-Loompas are knee-high beings who originate from Loompaland and work in Willy Wonka’s factory. They appear as characters in Roald Dahl’s 1964 children’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, its sequel Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and the film adaptations of these books that followed. In the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the Oompa-Loompas were written to be played by actors with dwarfism and are portrayed as orange-skinned, green-haired men in striped shirts and baggy lederhosen-like pants. However, in the book, the Oompa-Loompas insist on maintaining their native clothing: men wear skins, women wear leaves, and children wear nothing.
Note: Perhaps you’d like to play Oompa-Loompa vs. Willy Wonka. The Oompa-Loompa throws golden eggs. It’s a pity they don’t throw miniature Veruca Salts. I want it now.
Willy Wonka is a character in Roald Dahl’s 1964 children’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, its sequel Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and the film adaptations of these books that followed. The book and the film adaptations both vividly depict an odd Wonka, a phoenix-like man arising from his creative and eccentric genius. In the 1971 film adaptation, Wonka is memorably played by Gene Wilder. Wonka’s reasons for giving away his fantastic factory are never revealed in the books, but in the 1971 film, Wonka tells Charlie he “can’t live forever,” so he wanted to find a sweet child he could trust with his candy-making secrets.
Stuart the Minion (Despicable Me) – No. 927
Stuart is one of the minions from the Despicable Me franchise. Minions are small, yellow, cylindrical creatures with one or two eyes and metal goggles. One-eyed Stuart is the shortest minion in the first movie. He has a slim body with flat, center-parted hair. Stuart is among the most sincere and innocent of the minions. He is also always hungry and at one point attempted to eat minions Kevin and Bob by visualizing them as bananas. In another scene, while in a dark ventilation shaft, Stuart’s minion friend Jerry picks him up and cracks him, which turns him into a glow stick.
My two-year-old daughter Ramona has a small Stuart doll given to her by my dad. She’s never seen the movies and knows nothing about minions, but Stuart is among her favorite dolls and stuffed animals, which also include Pooh Bear, Margot, Lufkin, Domo-kun and Garfield.