toddly6666

Maybe this is all a marketing ploy?
Step 1. Create a cheap dvdr product and see how many people would order it.
Step 2. Realize that there actually is a huge demand, so lower the price and hope that pre-order buyers dont notice.

SPIDERone

Just received it -

This is a 2-disc set. The DVD's are blue-backed despite what some say about the Amazon service (stating they're silver like pressed DVDs)

canaryfarmer

What kind of disc labels are there? Some pics'd be nice, too.

SPIDERone

Here are some pictures I just took:











One other thing to note - my disc 2 came fairly scratched - similar to how some CD-R/DVD-R's are when on a spindle. Be sure to check yours if you receive the set!

EDIT: Cool - apparently this disc qualified for "Disc on Demand" - if you buy it, you can watch the episodes free on Amazon.com

Tscott

Mine arrived yesterday too.

And I just got my email notification for the $3.00 refund because of the price drop on release day.

Chas Speed

It would be nice if a person who has watched it could mention what the quality is like, so the rest of us will know if we should order it or not. I wonder if they have changed the song about "wanting to marry a lighthouse keeper" (it was on the Clockwork Orange soundtrack). I noticed it was altered to "I want to marry a schoolteacher" (or something) for the VHS release. Also, how is the bonus stuff?

My Other Self

Is there a reason why the actual DVD logo isn't on the spine? What's with the cheap-o one they replaced it with?

JohnnyDaBull

Thats the createspace dvd logo

Chas Speed

I guess I was the ony person who was actually interested in what the DVD picture quality looked like and it wasn't important enough to mention in this thread.

tylergfoster

Patience, son!

SPIDERone

I havent had a chance to watch it on my TV yet, but on my PC it doesn't look so hot. Flickering was very noticeable and it seemed to be pretty aliased (stairstepping/jaggies). I'll hopefully get to sit down and check it out tomorrow on my TV though.

Jay G.

As droidguy1119 wrote, patience. This is forum, and not everyone on it is checking the forum every few hours, or even every day, and they may not have time to view the DVD instantly and write up a review. If your question hasn't been responded to after a few days, you could post a follow up then, but posting a passive-aggressive follow up after only 6 hours is impatient and rude.

I found a review on Amazon's forum:
http://www.amazon.com/quality-episod...x1LSA9GK5I8QQN

Crow331

This is slightly OT, but was this show created with computers or typical "cel" animation. If it was cel animation, has anyone ever SEEN any cels for sale or know where I can get any? I would love to pick one up.

wishbone

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maxx

An interesting read about the comic book style of the animated show.

toddly6666

I haven't seen any over the years. The only MTV cartoon animation cels that I've seen on Ebay are for Beavis & Butthead and Aeon Flux.

Crow331

Thanks guys! Sam Kieth is probably hoarding the cels just like he does the comic book art!

syntheticgerbil

I really doubt he's hoarding the cels, since he didn't actually animate on the show and all. It was adapted from his comic book, but a whole team of animators and directors made it work.

Of course sometimes the actual animation frames and art were lifted from the comic, I don't think it works the other way around.

wahlers

According to the commentary, the best source of the show available is on Beta, and that's what they used for this. They specifically mentioned fearing that people would request a HD copy of the show since one does not exist and would require recompositing every layer of the show again (translated: It's not gonna happen).

Also, as for Sam Kieth's art, he says that he gave all of the finished, inked pages to the inker (stating that's what he always does).

The commentary and interviews (10 min.) are definitely worth the price of admission, and the show looks better than it ever has.

I appreciate them putting the MTV Oddities opening and closing on here, but found it a little obsessive and incorrect to put it on every episode since the shows originally aired with two episodes back-to-back fitting in half-hour slots (with only one opening and closing credit sequence). In fact, the recap episode was aired as part of the 2-hour finale immediately followed by episodes 11-13 (again with only one opening and closing for the entire 2 hour presentation).

Crow331

Well Sam is very protective of The Maxx so it wouldnt surprise me. Why does Aeon Flux and Beavis cels come up for sale, but not The Maxx?

There was a comic book put out by Image called "Kiss Psycho Circus" based on the rock band KISS and even though Gene Simmons didn't draw the art, he had it worked into the contract that he would get all the art used to create the comic. A few pieces snuck out here and there but there is no art to those books out there.

Maybe Sam asked for the same thing with these cels

Wahlers, I am referring to the animation cels, not the comic book art. And I have already inquired in regards to the comic book art and I know that Sam has it all. I also just checked and Sam Kieth is listed as one of the inkers

wahlers

The way they were talking on the commentary track, I don't think they used traditional cels. They were all talking about having to get used to Photoshop so they could scan in the artwork and digitally paint things, etc. It definitely doesn't look like traditionally hand-painted artwork.

As far as the comicbook artwork, I know that Sam sometimes inked stuff later on, but most of the early stuff was inked by Jim Sinclair, I believe, cause Sam was complaining on the commentary about how he used to put 8-Balls in the backgrounds and stuff and always pissed him off.

syntheticgerbil

I said he wouldn't have the cels, he's not an animator, therefore he doesn't animate. So he wouldn't have been the one drawing the animation frames. That would lead me to assume that he wouldn't have had his hands on them much besides handing off his comic book art for them to use. It's not as if he inked every frame of animation with his bare hands and handed it off to the digital paint department to scan. His only credit on the whole show is a writing one (along with William Messner Loebs) for the creating the comic which is was adapted from.

Then if that's the case, he definitely wouldn't have those digitally painted image files. They probably have ended up on a dusty Viacom server or old CD-Rs somewhere by now.

It's just as Sam Kieth didn't have the color information for the comic reprints in TPB form because he didn't color the actual comic himself outside of certain panels, it was done by a contracted team. So therefore the reprints all had to be rescanned from the printed pages of the past, making them look somewhat soft or murky compared to the original comics. That is a small price to pay though for a comic that should have been properly collected years before that happened.

Usually all materials in an animation house stay with the studio. Not always, as you noticed cels do get sold many times, but the show isn't exactly Sam Kieth's property. His creator rights were licensed for the show.

This is half true. It was explained early on in one of the letters pages in I think one of the first 10 issues. Jim Sinclair was usually given the task of inking the backgrounds Sam Kieth couldn't or wouldn't finish, while Kieth always did the characters himself.

He's certainly not the greatest at backgrounds, if anything for the sake of not trying. The latest Batman and Lobo comics he did that DC put out had them all floating in pink misty nebula more than half of the whole story when they were supposed to be on a space ship. I think when he's less rushed, he puts more background detail.

Crow331

Well I got the scoop on the art from the supervising producer. There are no cels. It was digitally colored and composited, so there were only drawings. The other thing is, he told me that MTV owns all the art and when the show wrapped, they boxed up all the art and sent it to MTV animation, which is now defunct, so he said it's anyone's guess as to what happened to it and he doubted Sam had any of it. So there you have it.

I got my dvd from amazon today, but the disc has some problems. It played for about 10 minutes and then froze up on me. Then it advanced ahead and the disc had all these digital pixelation problems, Just ordered a replacement. Anyone else have a problem? Any reason to think my dvd player won't play this dvd-r ? It was working for a bit before freaking out though

Crow331

I have a question about the ending to The Maxx since I never saw all the episodes when they aired and I haven't read the comics in years. I was a little confused: