Maze Comic Book Cover #75 - Scoville

The next 4 mazes in the comic book collection are going to be a bit of an experiment for me. I wanted to try something new to see how it goes. I was inspired by some popular cartoons. This is the first of 4.

Issue #75 in my comic book cover series is called Scoville and features the maze of a Chili Pepper. The background was made using starryai. I think a chili pepper makes a great bad guy as far as foods go.

My comic book cover mazes can be found in 2 places:

Comic Book Cover Mazes - Year 1 (Issues #1-53)

Comic Book Cover Mazes - Year 2

Chili Pepper Maze Comic Book

To receive a book of my first year of comic book book mazes (Volume 1 with mazes #1-53) you can sign up for my book alerts - any time I launch a free maze book, or paid book (on Amazon), I will send you a note about the new book launch.

Maze of the Week 92 Redux - Kresge Auditorium (MOTW #179)

Of all the re-duxes this was the most difficult for technical reasons. I had to re-make parts of the maze 11 times before I got the final new maze. And along the way I was testing various possible problems as to why things were not appearing in the PNG and PDF files as they were on my screen. So basically I did my changes but couldn’t show them unless you saw my computer screen….so I tested and tested and changed and changed…

Here is my original post:

Maze of the Week #92 - Kresge Auditorium Maze

Here are the enhancements I made to improve the maze:

1. Added textures. That included the grass and the wall on the right side as well as the tree trunk on the left.

2. Changed Size. I reduced the height of the maze from 6 to 5.5 inches, then down to 5 and reduced the lawn.

3. Pathways Widened. The pathways through the windows that make the maze were increased by 20% to make the maze more enjoyable to solve.

And then I made these changes reluctantly to get the maze to render correctly:

4. Moved Writing. The branding and title moved to the top

5. Tree on right eliminated. It was causing problems with the roof ?? I have no idea why

6. Changed the sky. Color slightly different as I played around.

Here is the before and after:

Eh. Not all changes are good changes or meaningful changes. This was more work than it was worth.

Some data: The new file is 680MB from 113MB.

If you like this type of content check out all of my case studies:

A Collection of Maze Design Case Studies to Improve your Mazes

Happy maze-ing !

Jack and the Beanstalk (2009) Movie Review

Jack and the Beanstalk (2009) (IMDB)

Jack and the Beanstalk 2009 movie poster

This is the story you know with a bit of a modern twist. NO, not the version from 1912, 1913, 1917, 1920, 1923, 1924, 1931, 1933, 1943, 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1970, 1974, 1990, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2005, 2014, 2018, or 2020, but the 2009 version that includes Chloë Grace Moretz, in one of her early roles. (i don’t have an hour to link all those versions, just trust me they exist) She isn’t the only recognizable face (and voice) you will see (hear) in the movie, but you can discover that on your own ! In this version of Jack’s quest up the beanstalk he meets a variety of fairy tale characters along the path of his quest. During the quest, while in a stone maze a pillow fight breaks out between a good ninja and 4 bad ones. The good ninja helps our characters get to the center of the maze where the guard is played by an iconic comedian ! The story plays out generally how you remember from there. Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum. The target audience for this is kids with not many things for an adult to enjoy. Overall the movie is fine, but not an award winner.

I give it a 5.2/10.

Moscow Zero (2006) Movie Review

Moscow Zero (2006) (IMDB)

Moscow Zero movie poster

The start of this movie sets a tone, and that tone is cold, snowy and overcast. Our movie is about a priest (played by Vincent Gallo) who visits the underground of Moscow in search of a friend who went missing. It just so happens this underground has many layers to it and is rumored to contain demons and the entrance to hell. This underground is basically a labyrinth which is difficult to navigate, full of homeless people and demons. It does not seem much warmer than ground level. As far as maze movies go, it reminds me a bit of Catacombs which takes place in the catacombs of Paris, The Depraved which takes place in Berlin’s underground and Jeruzalem which partially involves the underground of…..Jerusalem (that one was easy). Here are my review of those 3:

Catacombs (2007) Movie Review

The Depraved (2011) Movie Review

Jeruzalem (2015) Movie Review

What do those movies and this one all have in common ? They all suck.

I give it a 4/10