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Sell Out Copy #16 - November 24, 2008
"John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." I love that quote, it's the very essence of the "screw this, I'm doing things my way" ideal. And the fact that this statement was supposedly aimed at a United States Chief Justice makes it that much more powerful (and screwed up). Andrew Jackson is our favorite U.S. president here at Twisted Jenius. As Vicious has pointed out, most people don't know much about Jackson and those who do, don't normally considered him to be their favorite president. But it is precisely all of the malevolent behaviors which many people tend to link to Jackson that makes him appealing to us. Simply put, Andrew Jackson is probably the most Villainesque president in American history. This is a man who fought a total of thirteen duels in his life, one in which he killed Charles Dickinson; an individual who had killed 26 people in his many previous duels. Since Jackson knew that Dickinson was an expert duelist, he allowed him to shoot first, hitting Jackson in the chest, narrowly missing his heart. As Dickinson tried to reload, Jackson, still standing, took his time aiming and killed Dickinson. Aside from this, Jackson was also involved in what is arguably the most fierce and dirty presidential election in American history (you think that our elections are petty now, at least contemporary candidates don't generally go around publicly accusing their opponents' wives and mothers of being prostitutes). Jackson did technically merry another man's wife, openly threatened and vowed revenge against other prominent politicians and, after a botched assassination attempt (the first ever attempted assassination of a U.S. President), he flew into a rage and attacked his own would-be assassin with his walking cane. He is also often credited with this little incident known as the "Trail of Tears"; which you may have heard something about. Anyone who has done much reading on Andrew Jackson tends to have some strong opinions about him and his subsequent legacy. He really is one of those "love him or hate him" type of historical figures. It can be argued that he did a lot of good and a lot of bad. Personally, as the amoral, misanthropic individual that I am, I find his exploits to be pretty entertaining (especially when compared to that of others who have held that office) and I find his darkest moments to be the best. Suffice it to say, he was one politician who definitely had a firm grasp of his own principles and knew how to get things done. Andrew Jackson was not the kind of person that you wanted to fuck with. - False Prophet |
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Sell Out Copy #15 - November 17, 2008
I would say that one of the most often overlooked features of this site is our desktop wallpapers in the leisure section. This is a shame (they're the only desktop images that we use on our own computers here at the asylum). I would encourage anyone who finds Twisted Jenius imagery appealing, to try one of our wallpapers out for size (and yes, of course they're free). As the person who created these images, I'm proud of them all, but I have to admit that some of them do tend to make better wallpaper than others and some are just better art (I created them at different times, and as you can tell from looking at the Villains & Heroes comics, my work has been steadily improving). I would now like to tell you which four of these wallpapers that I use most frequently on my own desktop; taking into consideration both aesthetic and practical function (I tend to keep my desktop icons to the left of my screen). The one that I probably use them most is "Modern Day Moriarty", under the Product Wallpapers section. This is probably the darkest wallpaper that we have and I find it helps me to focus while working (plus, let's face it, I just like things dark!). The next two are "Thing O' Wickedness" and "Mr. Cain" character themed wallpapers which will be found in the Villains & Heroes Wallpapers section. I find that the colors and layout of these two in particular serve my needs very well. Of course this is just my opinion and I encourage you to try some of the other characters out and see how you like them. Lastly, we have "Random Evil" under our Twisted Jenius Wallpapers section. I was originally just working on this picture for fun, but afterwards decided to make it into a desktop image. The critter in this image is loosely based on this Nyarlathotep Plush by ToyVault (and yes I have one). Somehow I doubt that Mr. Lovecraft ever imagined just how toyetic his is literary menagerie of cosmic horrors could be. - False Prophet |
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Sell Out Copy #14 - November 10, 2008
R.I.P. Toonami- I realize that I'm a couple of months late here, but I'd still like to offer my condolences. As many of you probably know by now, Toonami, a block of action animation which had been featured on Cartoon Network since 1997 was officially canceled late September. I, like many of you, have been a Toonami viewer since the beginning (when Space Ghost's Moltar was still hosting) and as with so many other American anime fans, was first introduced to anime through Toonami. I believe this is why so many anime fans have such positive memories of the Toonami lineup; it was the initial starting place of what would become a lifelong passion. Many people have noted, for several years, that Toonami's programming had been going down hill (though I'm not quite as critical of Naruto as I know some of you are). Truth is that there was a time when it was much better and I think it is this nostalgic quality of those times and experiences which makes many people sad to see it go. I can sympathize. It can be argued that Toonami, in its prime, represents a landmark element within certain American subcultures. And I think it's safe to say that its effects are still being felt. That initial first glimpse that we had into a foreign culture which, as American youths, we could have known nothing about. That awe and amazement at this animation which was, and arguably still is, better than anything we had seen coming out from our American televisions before. We, who were there and watched, knew that we were witnessing something special. Those were great times and I know that we can't help but to lament the loss of them. We all instinctively know that this is the end of an era. Strangely enough, one of my favorite things about the Toonami block was always the promos. Moltar's and then later Tom's motivational speeches, the cool and almost abstract promotions involving various show montages, the kick ass show intros as well as Toonami's many notable events and schedules such as the Midnight Run, the Rising Sun and Villiantines Day (personal favorite). And indeed, kids did love it! Those were some of the best promotions I've ever seen and now that I'm running an entertainment site I appreciate them all the more. I also believe that the quality and quantity of animated programming that was on during Toonami's prime has never been duplicated on regular American television. I still recall one of our host Tom's more memorable speeches from years ago and his words seem almost prophetic and haunting now: "Until the sun rises on a world without toonami. We remain the first and still the best. Only Toonami." Goodbye Toonami, there are many of us who will never forget you. - False Prophet |
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Sell Out Copy #13 - November 7, 2008
Here at Twisted Jenius, we not only strive to improve our products but, as with any evil business, we are concerned with our advertising as well (we call this page Sell Out for a reason). Lately I've been thinking about the advertising implications and uses of color. Now, for the most part I'm very pleased with the colors that I've chosen for our various page layouts and I wouldn't want to change them (I am actually extremely happy with the general look of this site, as it's not likely to be confused with many others). However, it has occur to me (and yes, this is fairly well known in advertising) that the color red can have a positive impact on sales as it tends to more readily catch the eye and excite the mind than most other colors do. After considering this (as well as many other ideas and options), I've decided to change the small text flanking the tops and bottoms of each of our poster ads to bright red, as opposed to the darker colors which they have been thus far. This decision should not have any adverse affects on our overall color scheme, due to the fact that it's so relatively minor (and we do use the color as a regular part of this site's palette anyway). But it should call more attention to the original Twisted Jenius posters and therefore perhaps generate a few more sales. Another thing to note is that the main site content will now be using css files almost exclusively; as opposed to the styles being specified in html like they have been up to this point. Practicing the dark crafts of evil advertising and sinister site optimization may not always be easy, but in the end, nothing worthwhile is. - False Prophet |
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Sell Out Copy #12 - November 4, 2008
This is the true story behind the conception of one of our best-selling posters. I had been working at the city zoo for a couple of years and had my eye on a better position. I knew the person that was interviewing me (I would describe us as being more acquaintances, than friends) and, more importantly, I understood the essential attitude of this department as well as the zoo in general. Realistically, I knew my chances of getting this position were minimal, but you'll never get anywhere if you don't try. For the most part, the interview went about as I anticipated; but one question really threw me off. The gentleman interviewing me asked where I saw myself in five years. This was very odd to me for two reasons, the first being that the question itself is so ridiculously cliché that I couldn't believe he'd even ask that. But, more significantly, it was my understanding that this kind of question is designed to gauge ones level of ambition. This was odd considering that everything in this work environment seemed designed to squelch ambition to the point where having any significant motivation or grand plans was laughable, as well as taboo. There was nothing in this workplace to indicate any desire for employees, on any level, to possess anything but the most basic level of ambition required to come to work on time (we're talking about a city zoo, a nonprofit organization). This put me in a very interesting situation. I had to answer a question intended to determine if I was adequately motivated and ambitious, in a workplace which seemed to be wholeheartedly against such ideas. I would have thought it was a trick question, but I'm sure that my interviewer wasn't that smart and definitely didn't have such a sense of humor (I suspect the opposite; he was actually delusional enough to take himself that seriously). To this day, I still have no idea what the correct response to that question would have been in that particular interview. But for the brief moment that I paused to think about this, an image flashed through my mind that was very telling. This image was a symbolic representation of what I considered to be the only acceptable answer to that question (to me and for me). I couldn't have articulated this idea very well in that interview, even if I had wanted to (and it would have been insane for me to have tried, for multiple reasons). But as I was walking away, I remember thinking about it and understanding that this image which had popped into my head represented what my real answer was. In the end, I may not have managed to get the job; but I did get a really evil poster idea out of it! - False Prophet |
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Sell Out Copy #11 - October 24, 2008
Here's a seasonal ghost story for you. It was nearly six months ago to the day that we deleted one of the links in our Villainesque section. Though it was among the first group that we had put up on the page, we casually discarded it without conscience due to the fact that this particular link was dead. But this would not be the last of it, for a few days ago I was casually scrolling down our Villainesque page when I saw it. Sitting there idly in its place on the list; just as it had for many months before we unceremoniously cast it into oblivion. Upon noticing this familiar and yet out of place text, I timidly brought my cursor to rest over the large red letters of the link; and clicked. In an instant the screen in front of me changed and to my abysmal horror, I found that the link was still dead! My mind could not fathom how this could be. How could a dead link which we, ourselves had unremorsefully deleted from our own links page just come back?! As I pondered this, the terrible truth came flooding into my mind. This link's hatred for us must have been so powerful as to allow it to resurrect itself despite the fact that the site which it had served as the link to, was no more. A dead link which, through some unfathomable form of dark craft, had managed to return for its revenge; an undead link! I immediately contacted Vicious and together, we were mercifully able to banish this abomination's vile code and descriptive text to a sacred folder deep within one of our hard drives before it was able to destroy us all. And this is where the evil, which we had unwittingly unleashed, shall forever remain as we pray that we have finally seen the last of the link of the undead (Dun Dun Dunnnn...). Actually, what really happened was that we had accidentally copied that link from a backup file that we keep and had unknowingly pasted it there the last time that we updated the Villainesque links. I noticed it was back, clicked on it and confirmed that the link was still dead. I then notified Vicious (overlord of logic and master of programming) and he quickly corrected the oversight. Although this version of the story is more accurate, I still think my other, "slightly embellished" one is a lot more interesting. There is definitely a very spooky side to site maintenance. - False Prophet |
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Sell Out Copy #10 - October 21, 2008
Like any ambitious designer of sinister creations, I'm never completely satisfied with my work. This is what compelled me to make some aesthetic changes to two of our posters. The 'Be as a shark among sheep' poster features a new and improved image of the shark. Although he's still in the same pose, I've redone virtually all of his shading and have given him more variation in color and depth; resulting in a much more visually stunning effect. I've also redone the titular figure of the 'Modern Day Moriarty' poster to look a bit more menacing and thus more befitting of one of literature's first real super villains. I have to say that I am quite pleased with the improvements that I have made and I now feel that these posters are finally living up to their potential. You can easily view the two works that I just mentioned, along with the others, by scrolling down to the bottom of this page or by clicking on our products page. As you know, we are constantly plotting new and more elaborate villainous entertainment products here at Twisted Jenius; but for right now I welcome you to enjoy these wonderfully evil motivational posters. I know I will! - False Prophet |
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Sell Out Copy #9 - October 10, 2008
Villain Archetypes: I've noticed that we've been getting a steady stream of people coming to this site searching for "villain archetypes" (or some minor variation of that subject). If you happen to be one of these individuals and have come upon this post, I'd like to point out the best places to find that kind of information here at TwistedJenius.com. First and foremost is my "Essay on Villain Archetypes"- Parts One and Two which you will find in our Evil Rant section (I've been knocking around the idea of doing a third one, but I'm not sure if or when I will). These are pretty lengthy and deal primarily with analysis of basic villain archetypes. Secondly, we have the Villains & Heroes Character Key under our Leisure section. Although not such a straight forward explanation of villain archetypes, these characters are all designed based on very clichéd character types and they might provide you with some insight into this subject. Finally, we have two links within our Villainesque section which I would highly recommend. The first is So You've Decided to be Evil and although intended as humor, presents basic information about villain archetypes from several different angles (categories include: what they wear, what kinds of lairs that they inhabit and what different villain goals and objectives are). Last, but certainly not least, is The Sixteen Villain Archetypes, and consists of a list with some brief, but insightful descriptions about each of these classic evil doer archetypes. This site will probably appeal to those of you who are looking for a more academic or literary approach to villain archetypes. I hope that this quick guide will be of help to those of you who have come here looking for this sort of information. Congratulations on making the choice to further develop your evil education! - False Prophet |
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Sell Out Copy #8 - October 6, 2008
Tonight I'd like to share with you, my values readers, some more of the influences which went into creating Twisted Jenius. Towards the end of my Dark Comedies- Part Two: The Continuation rant, I briefly mention that I am a fan of Little Shop of Horrors and I cited the original, 1960 Roger Corman version. The truth is that I'm a fan of both the original and the 1986 Frank Oz versions (yeah, I know, "heresy"!). I actually saw the Oz musical version first and became an instant addict (when I finally got the video of it, I watched it so many times that I broke the tape). The first time that I saw the film, was actually when it was shown to us at a day care center (which is pretty messed up, even by my demented standards; though I guess the film does kind of resemble Sesame Street, what with the singing, the "puppet", the wacky characters and the urban setting). At a young age, I was unbelievably fascinated with that Man-Eating Plant (I wanted one very badly), and it sparked a lifelong tendency to look at household flora in a very bizarre way. You may have noticed that our mascot Twisty has some basic design similarities with the botanical antagonist in Little Shop of Horrors. Although this was not my conscious intention when designing him (in-house, we often compare Twisty to a hideous, evil version of Pac-Man), I doubt that it's a complete coincidence either. Another design element that may have been partially and inadvertently inspired by Little Shop of Horrors is our logo itself. The blood which Twisty uses to write on the padded wall does have some vague similarities to the movie graphic. And while we're on the subject, I think that it's only fair to mention that the general "movie poster look" is what inspires quite a lot of the commercial art here at Twisted Jenius. We're all about entertainment. - False Prophet |
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Sell Out Copy #7 - October 3, 2008
You probably don't know this about me (in fact, I'm quite sure that you don't), but I'm a big advocate of trackball usage. Vicious and I Recently had an in-depth conversation about the advantages of using a trackball as opposed to a mouse. Now I realize that there is a lot of stigmata among many computer users about trackballs. Many people claim that they don't like them. I think that people often come to this conclusion based on using a trackball only once and then realize that it is not quite as intuitive as mouse (intuitive meaning simple; I'm fairly sure a monkey would have a much easier time using a mouse than using a trackball). Now I'm not one of these snobby tech bastards who believes in making things more complicated than they need to be (I'm a capitalist and user friendly is definitely more profitable), but once you get used to it, I do think that the trackball is a superior device in both speed and especially precision of use. If you want a Star Wars analogy (well too bad, you're getting one), I would say that a mouse is probably more like how blasters are described in the films (clumsy and random, but probably easier to use) and trackballs are more like lightsabers (elegant weapons, which require a little more practice to get the hang of). You only have to move one finger instead of your entire arm while using a trackball and you never have to pick up the entire device while in use as is occasionally necessary while using a mouse. Vicious suggests that all of you hardcore gamers out there consider using a trackball as opposed to a mouse from now on, as you will see a noticeable improvement in your game play. For example, in the online game World of Warcraft, it is to your strategic advantage to be able to circle around a lot and effortlessly and this is something that trackballs excel at (he describes tournament level Rogues in the game as having to "constantly circle around like a twelve year old crack addict" in order to be any good in pvp). I imagine this would be an advantage in many games; especially first person shooter types. As a graphics guy, I find trackballs to be much less cumbersome than a mouse would be. This would probably also apply to individuals in fields such as architecture and engineering as well. In fact, anyone who spends a significant amount of time on the computer should consider using a trackball. It may take some getting used to, but in the end I think you'll find that it's well worth it. - False Prophet |
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Sell Out Copy #6 - October 1, 2008
Happy anniversary to us! Twisted Jenius is 2 years old this month and you know that we're absolutely brimming with dastardly pride! Twisty is celebrating on the Welcome page, Vicious has made his annual anniversary post on the forum and year 3 is off to a fiendishly excellent start. Stick around, this year promises to be a very eventful one! - False Prophet |
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Sell Out Copy #5 - September 27, 2008
Tell me, who's feeling nostalgic tonight? Recently, my associate Vicious introduced me to the Internet Wayback Machine. Upon hearing about this, my immediate reaction was "we need to look up EvilPeople, Inc." Although intended as humor, EvilPeople, Inc. was very inspirational to me early on. It had been years since I'd seen this site and I was pleased to reminisce. Chock full of sinister content, I recall a much younger (and admittedly, much less focused) version of me looking at this site and thinking "wow, I wish there were real companies that were so blatantly and unapologetically dark and evil; that's what I'd like to do for a living"! Strange, that was over ten years ago (1997). Well, sometimes dastardly dreams really can come true and I think we can safely say that EvilPeople, Inc. must have helped to make an impression; based on the sorts of activities which I'm currently engaged in right now. In fact, I considered EvilPeople, Inc. to be such a notable influence on what would become Twisted Jenius, that I included it among the Villainesque Links even though the site was down and it didn't even have an actual link! Well, for any of you who were not fortunate enough to see this site in its prime, we're now including the link to the Wayback Machine archive for this site in our Villainesque Links section. You will find this link in the paragraph under EvilPeople, Inc., the last entry within the humor category. I suggest that any aspiring villains out there go and check this out. EvilPeople, Inc. may not have tried to be as realistic or practical or made as much sense as we do here at Twisted Jenius (yeah, I know...), but damned if it wasn't a lot of fun! - False Prophet |
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Sell Out Copy #4 - September 23, 2008
October 1st will mark the second year anniversary of Twisted Jenius. Twisty will be celebrating all month on our welcome page. In two years we have amassed a fair amount of content; 45 article length rants, 24 interactive Villains & Heroes comics, plus various products, desktop wallpapers and an assortment of other random site content. Of course we're still just getting started and the best is still yet to come (2 years really isn't very long for a business or even a halfway decent website to be around). Incidentally, we're adding two new links to the Villainesque page. We normally update this section as needed, and whenever we find a couple of sites that we feel are worthy to be included within our Villainesque links. I think you're going to find these two to be most enjoyable. - False Prophet |
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Sell Out Copy #3 - September 20, 2008
Vicious and I have made many improvements to our products section recently. We have changed, altered or otherwise tweaked quite a few of the colors of the general layout, in order to make our products page more accessible and inviting (while trying to minimize any compromise to the sinister aesthetic, of course). The whole thing has become much more streamlined and less chaotic in appearance. All in all I do think it is a vast improvement. We have also added a few new features to this section, as well as rearranged things a bit, in order to make it more convenient for you to navigate through. Like any good web site, TwistedJenius.com is a work in progress and is constantly evolving. But you can be sure that our commitment to quality evil shall remain the same. - False Prophet |
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Sell Out Copy #2 - September 3, 2008
This is the second installment of what will become a semi regular feature on our sellout page. "Sell Out Copy" will be our way of communicating to you some of the internal goings on and thought processes here at the asylum (something which has been conspicuously lacking on the site up until this point). The reason I am doing this here (as opposed to, let's say, the Evil Rant page) is because I don't want to compromise the established themes of our other content at TwistedJenius.com with this sort of thing. Basically, we're going to be really breaking the fourth wall with this one. Think of this as a fan communiqué, as opposed to our more direct entertainment related content. As we have stated in one of our earlier announcements, we are currently working on a very large project and, although I cannot give you any details on it right now, I do have every reason to believe that it's something which you're going to enjoy. Compared to most of our current content, it's pretty big! However, due to limited resources we have not been able to update quite is much as we would like. You will be receiving a new rant in the next couple of weeks and damned if it isn't a big one (quite literally about five times longer than most of my evil rants!) which is another reason why we haven't updated those as frequently lately. I will try to keep you a little more well informed about what's going on via this new Sell Out Copy section; assuming there's anything of interest to tell, of course (translation: if I don't update, that means I got nothing). I may also give you an occasional glimpse into some of the inner psychological lurkings that go on behind the scenes here at Twisted Jenius; if you keep your eyes open. - False Prophet |
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Sell Out Copy #1 - August 23, 2007
Well, I hope you're happy. We have now compromised any shred of integrity that we might have possessed (it's actually a relief; we don't have to concern ourselves with that anymore). Initially, the idea was to keep this site clear of ads (except for our own in-house ones of course) in order to maintain a certain degree of desirable aesthetic. However, this proved to be less than profitable. So now we're truly selling out. What's the difference between this and what we've been doing so far? This is the first thing that we're putting on the site that's here only for purposes of making money. Everything that was here before these extremely clickable, pay per click ads, was here because we liked it and genuinely wanted it here. This is a landmark day for Twisted Jenius, because we are now honest to evil sellouts. Although we have been claiming this for some time, this is the first time since the site launched that we have been able to backup our claims of being royal sellouts. Our greed has now surpassed our standards of quality for this site. Such decisions can only do to aid us along the ever winding boulevard of true villainy. For the time being, I will try to restrict the placement of these tantalizing, click ads to the less predominant places on our site. It will be argued that this is not the best strategy for monetization, but I still have some standards for our creepy and sinister aesthetic (for now) and I prefer to at least keep the tops of most of our pages free of such clutter. Maintaining the kind of strange, ominous or even somewhat lonely look of some of the pages on the site is important to me and, as I've said before, I enjoy spending time on this site as much as anyone. Perhaps, one day Twisted Jenius will be rid of these enticing little ads and rely completely on our own dark entertainment products, the way I intended it. The collection of villainesque entertainment on this site will continue to grow, as will the sales of our uniquely enviable posters and other future products. But, for now, I'll leave you with an entire page dedicated to those delicious little click ads that I kept talking about, because that's just the kind of guy I am; enjoy! - False Prophet |
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