I just got the first six issues of Young Avengers in the mail from an ebay seller and the guy was nice enough to throw in some freebies, a Spider-Man "Back in Black" postcard, some Planet Hulk and Civil War cards, and an issue of the Daily Bugle. But the most incredible freebie was a comic book from DC called King James: Starring Lebron James. Good lord, is this awesome. The basic plot is that Lebron has been selected by the "Hetairia", a shadowy organization "looking to control every major athlete in sports...not just sports...music, art, and who knows what else" to play in a one-on-one tournament to decide the "King of Basketball". It's basically a 28 page ad for Powerade, which Lebron is constantly chugging between games, but there are still some incredible panels, especially since Lebron is drawn to be as big as the Incredible Hulk, and there are about a hundred different sound effects used during the games. For instance, there is the understandable "swish" for a sweet finger roll layup and several "whoosh" sounds for long range jumpers. However, there is the less well-known "bishhh" for the game-winning heave while being fouled by Flexxor in the Court of Illusion, as well as "whumppp" for a slam dunk, "booshhh" for another long range jumper, and "whoom" for the underhand falling away shot. The best are the sounds of missed shots, "bink" and "blapppp" and then the inexplicable "kalasshh" when Yuri Dragonin, the Siberian hoopster, causes an ice avalanche to fall on a crowd, requiring Lebron to allow Yuri to go in uncontested for a slam dunk while he saves the imperiled cheerleader. Lebron ends up the King of Basketball and I am ready for a six-part series. As far as sports comics go, it's ten-times better than the New Universe stinker, Kickers Inc. (and let's not even discuss NFL Superpro from Marvel) but, it is nowhere near as amazing as Godzilla vs. Barkley, the greatest of all sports comics (Okay, Musa D, "Eddie Stanky, Baseball Hero" is pretty good too).
While I agree with you, "Kalasshh" IS a little unorthodox for an ice avalanche, I've had some difficulty thinking of a better substitute. Certainly the "Sh" sound should figure into the latter half of the noise, but the beginning part is problemmatic. Do you group some letters together that mimic the sound of the ice cracking? Or is it better to call attention to an avalanche's rumbling bass-y sounds? I don't know. Here is my attempt: "CraaaBOUSSSSSSSHH!"
ReplyDeleteI think you also have to be sure to simplify your phonemes wherever possible. For instance, by replacing "Cr" with "K" and "OU" with "OOO" such that "CraaaBOUSSSSSSSHH!" becomes "KaaaBOOOSSSSHH!"
ReplyDeleteEddy "The Brat" Stanky was not only a fighter and a battler, but also a hero in the mold of Mickey Morandini.