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Poptropica’s Tumblr, robot ad follower, and comic writer interview!

Samwow5

Hey everyone! First off, before the post, I’m sorry I haven’t been active really at all – life has been a bit rough, so bear with me in this tough time! Anyway, Poptropica recently tweeted that they now have an Official Tumblr page!

From looking at their Tumblr, I see some really cool stuff! I see the creators re-blog a lot of stuff on Tumblr, like how they also retweet a lot of stuff over on Twitter. I just hope the creators don’t re-blog any inappropriate language that people post on Tumblr, as they did on Twitter.

Big Hero 6 ad: Baymax Follower

To get the Baymax Follower (from the movie Big Hero 6, which was released into theaters today), just watch the video ad on any Main Street, and boom – you get the cool prize!

baymax

LOL! Is it just me or does the Baymax Follower kind of look like the Michelin Man or the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man? xD Tell me what you think in the comments.

The Michelin Man
Stay Puft Marshmallow Man
Baymax Follower

Interview with Poptropica comic writer Paul Gilligan

Remember Slippery Raptor’s post about an interview with Poptropica’s comic artist, Kory Meritt, conducted by L’Idea Magazine? (He confirmed the release of the upcoming Poptropica graphic novel!)

Well, the magazine did another interview with another Poptropica employee – Paul Gilligan, the writer of the Poptropica comics. Although he didn’t give away any important details like Kory did, Paul said some pretty interesting stuff – check out this little tidbit:

L’IDEA MAGAZINE: In June of this year you debuted with another comic strip, Poptropica. Could you tell us how it came about and what is the storyline?

PAUL GILLIGAN: Poptropica is a popular website where players can create avatars and travel through a plethora of interesting islands.  The website’s creator, Jeff Kinney (of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” fame) wanted a comic strip to go with it, and so he hired me to do the writing.  There were pre-existing templates for the two main characters of Oliver and Jorge.  I fleshed them out and gave them the motivation that they’re searching for a way out of Poptropica by traveling from island to island, kinda like that show “Quantum Leap”, like each time they hop to the next island it will be the one that leads them home.

A Poptropica strip

L’IDEA MAGAZINE: In Poptropica you share the credits with Kory Merritt. How do you operate in the creation of the strip with him? 

PAUL GILLIGAN: I do the writing, accompanied by thumbnails if necessary, and Kory pencils out the strips and runs them by me.  I bring up any alterations that might be necessary for clarity, etc, and then he inks and colors the work.  It’s been a fairly seamless collaboration thus far; Kory’s a great artist and super easy to work with.

Wow! I never thought of jumping island-to-island as something like Quantum Leap! Anyway, that’s it for this long post. Have a great day!

~SW5~

Advertisements, Comics, Popstorms, PoptropiCon Island

Wimpy Kid: Long Haul ad, P-Con public release date, & more Twitter tidbits!

Slippery Raptor

Hi guys! Slippery here. There’ve been a lot of Poptropica updates and other tidbits over Twitter and the Poptropica world lately, so here’s a recap! Let’s start with the minor ones.

Poptropica Name-All Islands Quiz

Poptropica recently shared an awesome Poptropica quiz! It’s a name-all island quiz. Can you name them all? Just click this link to take the quiz. I’ve got an extra challenge for all of you: can you beat this score? 😀

result

Concept art: Black Flags Common Room and new PopStorm hair idea!

Another behind-the-scenes moment was featured on Twitter – an early concept idea for the Black Flags tribe common room. Who’s a Black Flag member here? However, if you’ve ever visited the Black Flags room, you’ll recognize that this was not what they went with – it was a rejected idea. What do you think?

blackflags

Here’s the latest PopStorm entitled “Helpful Hairstyles”!  Hairstyles that you can control on your own?! These are odd-looking hairstyles. How awesome is that?

B1pJMksCYAAhL7h

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book 9: The Long Haul ad

The 9th book of Diary of a Wimpy Kid has made it to Poptropica! As mentioned above, the title of the 9th book is The Long Haul. In this advertisement, Greg Heffley and his family visits a country fair, which Greg finds boring. When you get inside, just talk to Greg and he’ll tell you that if you can roll the pot-bellied pig, you’ll win great prizes!

The game is simple, similar to the mini-game on Great Pumpkin Island where you push the biggest pumpkin. You’ll run through moles, mud puddles, barns and crazy fair booths. Here’s a tip: Use physics! (Push the pig with great force from a far spot.) You can also watch a pig fly to the sky and crash a pie eating contest. When the pig lands on the weighing scale and breaks it, you’ll receive two prizes: a Pig Costume and a Pumpkin Bazooka Game (which leads to an external link, and awards you an in-game Pumpkin Bazooka).

Win an autographed Poptropica sticker book!

DK Publishing is holding a raffle draw for a chance to win an exclusive Poptropica Sticker book signed by Jeff Kinney! Enter now and you could be the lucky winner of this awesome treat! This tweet contains the link (note: you must be aged 13+ and live in the U.S. to enter):

Interview with Poptropica comic artist Kory Merritt confirms upcoming graphic novel

One of Poptropica’s artists, Kory Merritt, was interviewed on an online magazine named “L’idea Magazine”.  He talks about his creation, Lost Side of Suburbia and of course—Poptropica! He also confirmed the Poptropica graphic novel  which is coming in 2015.  Here’s an excerpt of the interview. If you would like to know more about this interview, visit this link.

L’IDEA MAGAZINE: You are illustrating a graphic novel for a famous author. Are you still keeping the details secret or are we ready for the revelation of this mysterious author?
KORY MERRITT: Ah, that’s the Poptropica stuff. The famous author is Jeff Kinney, the Wimpy Kid himself – I think I’ve dropped that name a few times already. He created Poptropica and the characters from the Poptropica comics, along with author/editor Jess Brallier and some others. I’m presently drawing and coloring a 105-page graphic novel based on the Poptropica comic characters. It’s an original story from Jeff and Jess, and the script was written by Max Brallier, who has another illustrated series in the works. They’re really cool people. I’m lucky to be on board. I nearly geeked-out the first time I heard from Jeff, but luckily managed to keep it together (or at least that’s how I remember it).

Best of the Lands: The Best of the Best

Who will be reigned as the best of the best? The Poptropica Creators asks everyone of us to judge and vote our own Lands champion! The battle is between Zany Crown’s terrific tree house, Serious Bird’s tasty village, Silver Lightning awesome obstacle course and Fast Lizard’s haunted house! Who’s the best of the best? Vote in the poll!

From Fast Lizard, an amazing paranormal panorama.
From Silver Lightning (another repeat Land challenge champ), this multi-screen course is truly a-maze-ing!
“From Serious Bird, you don’t have to go far for a bite to eat in this town. Does the building on the right shake in an earthquake?”

Ladies and gentlemen, here’s what all you’ve been waiting for…

PoptropiCon Episode 2: Spoiler Alert public release date!

What’s coming next Thursday, 13 November (on my birthday)? PoptropiCon’s second episode, Spoiler Alert will finally be released next Thursday! What an awesome birthday gift, Creators! 😉 Do you want to know a spoiler? Guess what? SPOILER ALERT: There will be an awesome plot twist!

That’s every update on Poptropica right now, so I better go too! What do you think of the recent updates? Leave a comment below!

-Slippery XD

Blast from the Past

What Might Have Been: Poptropica’s Concepts in 2006

Brave Tomato

Hey guys, BT here to talk about an interesting post on the Creators’ Blog, featuring a few words about Poptropica’s history from its founder, Jeff Kinney.

On today’s post, Jeff talked about how Poptropica was originally going to be like before it became the island-hopping adventures we know and love today. It turns out that Poptropica, as a first concept, was going to be just daily missions in single-scene rooms– even with a common room mixed in to it.

If you look at this picture, you’ll see a massive grid of tiny squares to represent these rooms, possibly representing the single-scene rooms you go through… and holy guacamole, that’s a lot of them. Another thing you may notice is that Poptropica’s signature color seemed to be originally yellow, much unlike the well-known light blue color that is currently associated with the game.

Also, there’s the inventory, which is represented by an MP3 player because….. kids like MP3 players? And finally in this picture, you’ll notice a tiny sketch of a map, which details what each room would be (some labeled with question marks, others more certain), such as the Common Room, “Game Show” (huh, the Creators were a bit ahead with the name there), “The Pit“, “Springs and Ladders“, and “Terror Tower“. 

Now before I move on to the next picture, I want to look back at another conceptual Poptropica picture the Creators posted way back in September 2010:

There again is that yellow color. The original Poptropican appearance looked more like one of those kids from one of those cartoon PopTarts ads, and it had the boy, girl, and grade spinners similar to Funbrain’s other games.

Now I’ll go back to the new post. This is the second picture associated with Poptropica’s concept…

Wow, what a difference. O.O This is the Inventory in ’06 Poptropica. There is prominently a piece of paper telling the player a “misson” (Professional spelling, ’06 Creators.) telling to snap a picture of a character from China with blue hair (Hey, Fishy! Have you seen any person with blue hair?) I have no idea what that mission is supposed to be.

Another thing that caught my attention is the “spells” and “gadgets” categories. Wait… our Poptropicans might’ve had the ability to use spells? That’s interesting…

Now before the post ends, Jeff briefly mentions how Poptropica was originally going to be called Poptropolis, stating that the reason why they changed it is because of a competitor that ended up sharing a similar name… and I know exactly who that competitor was.

Nicktropolis.

In case you don’t know, Nicktropolis (today known as NickClub) was a virtual world spawned by the childrens’ TV channel Nickelodeon, well known for Spongebob Squarepants, Fairly OddParents, and the Avatar series, among many other shows.

In January of 2007, 8 months before Poptropica became public, Nicktropolis opened: a Club Penguin-esque virtual world with live chat and minigames (honestly, this game made up a lot of my elementary school childhood – it was even the time I first came up with my “1313cookie” username!).

It was because of this old game that Poptropolis became Poptropica, and instead of just a single-room mission-stravaganza, it is the island-hopping adventures– each island with its own distinct storyline.

To me, it’s pretty interesting to see Poptropica as it could’ve been, and I can tell you right now: I love the game for the way it is, and the choice the Creators made back then to make this game about saving the islands, was the right one.

BT out!

Hellos & Goodbyes

New author: Slippery Raptor!

Slippery Raptor

Greetings Poptropicans! I’m Slippery Raptor, the newest author here at the coolest blog ever, the PHB!

oie_transparent (11)Before you react, please take time to read this awesome post. I thank Slanted Fish for adding me here. By the way, I was really excited when I got the email and invite from Fishy. I’m still nervous about Fuzzy-B’s departure because I know it’s pretty rude to squeeze in during a time of sadness. Please don’t be mad at me.

Moving along, this blog inspired me to create my own blog, Slippery Raptor’s Blog. This blog also inspired me to continue Poptropica until now.

Here’s a poem I created for all of you. I hope you like it!

 I am very honored,
  To be in this great team,
Special thanks to Fishy,
It was my only dream.

To all of the authors,
BT, SD and Blake,
Then to Sam and HP,
You are all so great!

Lastly, to the readers,
I hope you will like me,
Thank you for your support,
Here at the PHB! 

I know some of you know me but here’s a little info about me:

I’m Slippery Raptor! I’m thirteen. I love books and listening to music (and poetry). I have read The Hunger Games, some books in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and so much more. I listen to Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, Imagine Dragons, Paramore, Owl City, and A LOT of other artists. Above all, I’d like to thank God for giving me this opportunity and I’m so happy! I’m also a couch potato every Saturday, watching Disney Channel. 😀

I will give you the best posts in the best way I can! I think that’s enough for an introduction. I hope you’ll like me as the newest addition to the PHB!

-Slippery XD

Magazines

POPCORN, the PHB magazine: issue #21 out now!

HPuterpop

popcorn212

Hi Gs – Issue #21 of the PHB magazine, known as The POPCORN, has just been released, with all sorts of Poptropica fan creations, including part 1 of a Poptropic adventure, crazy colorful art, and a video recap playlist!

check out issue #21 of our Poptropica magazine now!

…clicked it yet? If not, you’re missing out on a piece of the PHB legend.  😀

For more information about The POPCORN, check out our Magazines page to find out what kind of entries we’re looking for and how you can submit something in for publication!

The deadline for emailing entries to phbpopcorn(at)gmail(dot)com is December 7th if you’d like to be a part of our next magazine!

Hope you enjoy our pop-pop-Poptropica Help Blog fan magazine!