Dale Eaglesham
Dale Eaglesham is a Canadian comic book illustrator, working in the American industry since 1986. He is best known for his work on titles like Conan, Green Lantern, Villains United, Justice Society of America and Fantastic Four. In 2008, the Shuster Awards selected him as Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Artist of the year. Eaglesham has worked with DC Comics, Dark Horse, CrossGen, among others, he worked for DC Comics for several years, before returning to Marvel in early 2009. There, his high-profile work includes pencilling Steve Rogers: Super-Soldier, he worked on Incredible Hulk for a three-issue arc with writer Greg Pak. On February 15, 2011, Marvel announced that it was bringing back Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight, with writers Fred Van Lente and Greg Pak as the writing team, Eaglesham on pencils. Speaking about the project, the Canadian artist said "I'm pretty excited to build a Canadian superteam into a force in the mainstream...there's a lot of depth to these characters and a lot of potential.
If there's anything different in my approach at all, it'll be an authenticity to the locales because this is where I live."One feature of Eaglesham's work for the first two years of his return to Marvel was that his projects were uninked, in other words colored and shot directly from his finished pencils. His work on Fantastic Four and Steve Rogers: Super-Soldier earned him the nickname "The Evolutionary Jack Kirby," referring to Eaglesham's ability to keep his art fresh and innovative while paying homage to classic comic book art. Previous work for DC Comics included the Villains United series, written by Gail Simone, he is known for his work inaugurating Batman: Gotham Knights, as well as his two-year run on Green Lantern, which included the landmark issue #150 featuring Jim Lee's new Kyle Rayner costume and the "Hate Crimes" story arc featured in The New York Times and on the Phil Donahue talk show. He wrapped up his award-winning run on Justice Society of America in December 2008, with his final issue released in April 2009.
2008 Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Artist Eternal Warrior #45-46 Eternal Warrior: Digital Alchemy Killer Instinct Special #1 X-O Manowar #66 52 #14, 25 Batgirl #12 Batman #564, 574 Batman 80-Page Giant #3 Batman Chronicles #18 Batman: Gotham Knights #1-2, 5 Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #116, 126 Batman: Shadow of the Bat #84, 92 Detective Comics #731, 741 Firestorm, vol. 3, #11 Green Lantern, vol. 3, #136, 138, 141, 143-145, 147, 149-151, 153-156, 158-161 Green Lantern: Our Worlds At War #1 Hawkman, vol. 4, #38 H. E. R. O. #15-22 JLA, vol. 3, 80-Page Giant #3 JSA, #81 Justice Society of America, vol. 3, #1-4, 6-7, 9-12, 14. 4, #11 President Luthor: Secret Files and Origins #1 Superman #649. 3, #1, #3 Teen Titans, vol. 5, Annual #1 Villains United, miniseries, #1-2, 4-6 Villains United: Infinite Crisis Special Alpha Flight, miniseries, #1-8 Amazing Spider-Man #591 Amazing Spider-Man: Extra!, miniseries, #3 Captain America #600 Captain America, vol. 3, #6-7 Conan the King #53 Excalibur #122, 124-125 Fantastic Four #570-572, 575-578 Guardians of the Galaxy #42, 43 Hulk #53-57 Incredible Hulk #623-625 Iron Man, vol.
7, #9-12 2099 A. D. Genesis #1 Punisher Annual #6 Punisher Back-to-School Special #2 Punisher Holiday Special #3 Punisher War Zone Annual #2 Punisher: Year One, miniseries, #1-4 Savage Sword of Conan #145, 149, 152, 157, 185, 215 Silver Surfer, vol. 2, Annual #4, 6 Steve Rogers: Super Soldier, miniseries, #1-4 Uncanny X-Men #19 What If? #200 What If?, vol. 2, #30, 45 Dark Horse Presents #56-58, 60-61, 63-64 Sigil #36-38, 40-42 Official website Talking JSA with Dale Eaglesham, April 30, 2007 Transcript of press conference with Geoff Johns and Dale Eaglesham about Justice Society of America #1 Dale Eaglesham: At Home With the JSA, September 19, 2005 Dc-Kingdom interview with Dale Eaglesham about Justice Society of America
The Honky Tonk Man
Wayne Farris better known by the ring name The Honky Tonk Man, is a retired American professional wrestler. He wrestled for World Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Federation, he is best known for his first run with WWF, where he held the WWF Intercontinental Championship for a record 64 weeks, lost it to The Ultimate Warrior at the 1988 SummerSlam. He is the cousin of color commentator Jerry Lawler. Farris was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of the 2019 induction ceremony. Farris began his career in 1977 working in Malden and wrestled alongside his training partner Koko B. Ware for promoter Henry Rogers. Farris moved on to Memphis Wrestling in 1978, he wrestled in Birmingham, Dothan and Pensacola as "Dynamite" Wayne Farris. Starting out as an undercard wrestler, he achieved greater success when he teamed with Larry Latham to form The Blond Bombers when they were put together by Gerry Brisco in Florida Championship Wrestling; the Bombers were put with Sgt. Danny Davis as their manager when they came back to Memphis.
The Blond Bombers were involved in heated feuds with several fan favorite teams across the two competing Tennessee promotions, appearing in both Nick Gulas's Nashville based territory, Jerry Jarrett's Memphis area. Their signature moment was the now famous "Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl" against Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee, he had stints in the American Wrestling Association, Jim Crockett Promotions, World Wrestling Council, Southeastern Championship Wrestling, Southwest Championship Wrestling, National Wrestling Alliance and Stampede Wrestling through the early 1980s, winning multiple singles and tag team championships in each. Farris entered the World Wrestling Federation in 1986 under the ring name The Honky Tonk Man. Honky made his televised WWF debut on the September 28, 1986 episode of Wrestling Challenge, defeating Terry Gibbs. Pushed as a fan favorite wrestler with an Elvis impersonator gimmick, Honky soon cut a series of promos with Jesse "The Body" Ventura that aired on the WWF's syndicated programming asking fans for a "vote of confidence", while these promos insulted fans in the manner of Andy Kaufman before him.
The results predictably came back negative, it was not long before Honky turned into a cocky villain and took on "Mouth of the South" Jimmy Hart as his manager. Hart was billed as "Colonel Jimmy Hart" for Honky's matches, a reference to Elvis' manager, Col. Tom Parker. Honky's first major feud came against Jake "The Snake" Roberts, in the midst of a fan favorite turn; the feud intensified when Honky attacked Roberts on The Snake Pit. According to Roberts, Honky was supposed to hit him with a gimmicked balsa wood guitar. Roberts believes Farris accidentally grabbed a real, non-gimmicked guitar and smashed it across Roberts' back, legitimately injuring him, starting him on his dependence of prescription pain medication; this has been disputed. However, in an interview for World Wrestling Insanity, Honky disputed Roberts' assertion saying, "That's not true and, in fact I attribute most of that to Mick Foley, who wrote about it in his book, Jake, who lied about it", although television footage of the incident showed that the guitar did not break like a gimmicked one would have and that it took several more hits to Roberts' back for the guitar to break apart.
Yet Roberts continued to wrestle following this angle bringing into question the alleged non-gimmicked guitar shot. During their feud, which culminated at WrestleMania III, Honky grabbed the ring ropes to score a tainted win. On the June 13, 1987 episode of Superstars, Honky defeated Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat for the WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship. Honky was meant to be a transitional champion to only hold on to the title for a short period of time. However, Roberts failed several drug tests following WrestleMania and Honky became booked to remain champion for what would be a record-setting run. In a interview, Honky remarked that Hulk Hogan, whom he had a friendly, collaborative relationship with outside of the ring, had helped give Honky a chance at the title after a coincidental meeting between Hogan and Vince McMahon took place. Hogan stuck up for Honky though McMahon had someone else in mind. To preserve his title, which could only be taken by pinfall or submission, Honky got himself deliberately counted out or disqualified against challengers such as Steamboat, Billy Jack Haynes, Bruno Sammartino, George "The Animal" Steele.
During this time, Honky began using a 50s-styled, themed entrance song performed by Farris. By September 1987, "Macho Man" Randy Savage was in the midst of a fan favorite turn and began challenging Honky for the title. Although they had several matches beforehand – they had met in 1986, when the then-villain Savage was champion and challenged by the fan favorite Honky – the first Savage-Honky match to air on national television was on the October 3, 1987 episode of Saturd
Cosplay
Cosplay, a portmanteau of the words costume play, is a performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character. Cosplayers interact to create a subculture, a broader use of the term "cosplay" applies to any costumed role-playing in venues apart from the stage. Any entity that lends itself to dramatic interpretation may be taken up as a subject and it is not unusual to see genders switched. Favorite sources include anime, comic books, live-action films, television series, video games; the rapid growth in the number of people cosplaying as a hobby since 1990s has made the phenomenon a significant aspect of popular culture in Japan and some other parts of Asia and in the Western world. Cosplay events are common features of fan conventions and there are dedicated conventions and local and international competitions, as well as social networks and other forms of media centered on cosplay activities; the term "cosplay" was coined in Japan in 1984.
It was inspired by and grew out of the practice of fan costuming at science fiction conventions, beginning with Morojo's "futuristicostumes" created for the 1st World Science Fiction Convention in New York City in 1939. The term "cosplay" is a Japanese portmanteau of the English terms play; the term was coined by Nobuyuki Takahashi of Studio Hard after he attended the 1984 World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles and saw costumed fans, which he wrote about in an article for the Japanese magazine My Anime. Takahashi chose to coin a new word rather than use the existing translation of the English term "masquerade" because that translates into Japanese as "an aristocratic costume", which did not match his experience of the WorldCon; the coinage reflects a common Japanese method of abbreviation in which the first two moras of a pair of words are used to form an independent compound:'costume' becomes kosu and'play' becomes pure. Masquerade balls were a feature of the Carnival season in the 15th century, involved elaborate allegorical Royal Entries and triumphal processions celebrating marriages and other dynastic events of late medieval court life.
They were extended into costumed public festivities in Italy during the 16th century Renaissance elaborate dances held for members of the upper classes, which were popular in Venice. Costume parties or fancy dress parties were popular from the 19th century onwards. Costuming guides of the period, such as Samuel Miller's Male Character Costumes or Ardern Holt's Fancy Dresses Described, feature generic costumes, whether that be period costumes, national costumes, objects or abstract concepts such as "Autumn" or "Night". Most specific costumes described therein are for historical figures although some are sourced from fiction, like The Three Musketeers or Shakespeare characters. A. D. Condo's science fiction comic strip character Mr. Skygack, from Mars is arguably the first fictional character that people emulated by wearing costumes, as in 1908 Mr. and Mrs. William Fell of Cincinnati, Ohio are reported to have attended a masquerade at a skating rink wearing Mr. Skygack and Miss Dillpickles costumes.
In 1910, an unnamed woman won first prize at masquerade ball in Tacoma, Washington wearing another Skygack costume. The first people to wear costumes to attend a convention were science fiction fans Forrest J Ackerman and Myrtle R. Douglas, known in fandom as Morojo, they attended the 1939 1st World Science Fiction Convention in the Caravan Hall, New York, USA dressed in "futuristicostumes", including green cape and breeches, based on the pulp magazine artwork of Frank R. Paul and the 1936 film Things to Come and created by Douglas. Ackerman stated that he thought everyone was supposed to wear a costume at a science fiction convention, although only he and Douglas did. Fan costuming caught on, the 2nd Worldcon had both an unofficial masquerade held in Douglas' room and an official masquerade as part of the programme. David Kyle won the masquerade wearing a Ming the Merciless costume created by Leslie Perri, while Robert A. W. Lowndes received second place with a Bar Senestro costume. Other costumed attendees included guest of honor E. E. Smith as Northwest Smith and both Ackerman and Douglas wearing their futuristicostumes again.
Masquerades and costume balls continued to be part of World Science Fiction Convention tradition thereafter. Early Worldcon masquerade balls featured a band, dancing and drinks. Contestants either walked across a cleared area of the dance floor. Ackerman wore a "Hunchbackerman of Notre Dame" costume to the 3rd Worldcon, which included a mask designed and created by Ray Harryhausen, but soon stopped wearing costumes to conventions. Douglas wore an Akka costume, the mask again made by Harryhausen, to the 3rd Worldcon and a Snake Mother costume to the 4th Worldcon. Rules governing costumes became costuming trends; the first nude contestant at a Worldcon masquerade was in 1952. This led to "No Costume is No Costume" rule, which banned full nudity, although partial nudity was still allowed as long as it was a legitimate representation of the character. Mike Resnick describes the best of the nude costu
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry. It aired from September 28, 1987 to May 23, 1994 on syndication, spanning 178 episodes over the course of seven seasons; the third series in the Star Trek franchise, it is the second sequel to Star Trek: The Original Series. Set in the 24th century, when Earth is part of a United Federation of Planets, it follows the adventures of a Starfleet starship, the USS Enterprise-D, in its exploration of the Milky Way galaxy. After the cancellation of The Original Series in 1969, the Star Trek franchise had continued with Star Trek: The Animated Series and a series of films, all featuring the original cast. In the 1980s, franchise creator Roddenberry decided to create a new series, featuring a new crew embarking on their mission a century after that of The Original Series; the Next Generation featured a new crew that starred Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Jonathan Frakes as Commander William Riker, Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data, Michael Dorn as Lieutenant Worf, LeVar Burton as Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge, Marina Sirtis as counselor Deanna Troi, Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher, a new Enterprise.
An introductory statement featured at the beginning of each episode's title sequence stated the ship's purpose in language similar to the opening statement of the original Star Trek series, but was updated to reflect an ongoing mission and to be gender-neutral: Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise, its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before. Roddenberry, Maurice Hurley, Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor served as executive producers at various times throughout its production; the show was popular, reaching 12 million viewers in its 5th season, with the series finale in 1994 being watched by over 30 million viewers. TNG premiered the week of September 28, 1987, drawing 27 million viewers, with the two-hour pilot "Encounter at Farpoint". In total, 176 episodes were made, ending with the two-hour finale "All Good Things..." the week of May 23, 1994. The series was broadcast in first-run syndication with dates and times varying among individual television stations.
Several Star Trek series followed The Next Generation: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Discovery. The series formed the basis for the seventh through the tenth of the Star Trek films, is the setting of numerous novels, comic books, video games. In its seventh season, Star Trek: The Next Generation became the first and only syndicated television series to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series; the series received a number of accolades, including 19 Emmy Awards, two Hugo Awards, five Saturn Awards, "The Big Goodbye" won a Peabody Award. Some of the highest rated episodes were the pilot, the finale, the two-part "Unification", "Aquiel", "A Matter of Time", "Relics". Four episodes featured actors DeForest Kelley, Mark Lenard, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan from the original Star Trek reprising their original roles; the Star Trek franchise originated in the late 1960s, with the Star Trek television show which ran from 1966-1969.
Star Trek: The Next Generation would mark the return of Star Trek to live-action broadcast television. As early as 1972, Paramount Pictures started to consider making a Star Trek film because of the show's popularity in syndication. However, with 1977's release of Star Wars, Paramount decided not to compete in the science fiction movie category and shifted their efforts to a new Star Trek television series; the Original Series actors were approached to reprise their roles. By 1986, 20 years after the original Star Trek's debut on NBC, the franchise's longevity amazed Paramount Pictures executives. Chairman Frank Mancuso Sr. and others described it as the studio's "crown jewel", a "priceless asset" that "must not be squandered". The series was the most popular syndicated television program 17 years after cancellation, the Harve Bennett-produced, Original Series-era Star Trek films did well at the box office. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy's salary demands for the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home caused the studio to plan for a new Star Trek television series.
Paramount executives worried that a new series could hurt the demand for the films, but decided that it would increase their appeal on videocassette and cable, that a series with unknown actors would be more profitable than paying the films' actors' large salaries. Roddenberry declined to be involved, but came on board as creator after being unhappy with early conceptual work. Star Trek: The Next Generation was announced on October 10, 1986, its cast in May 1987. Paramount executive Rick Berman was assigned to the series at Roddenberry's request. Roddenberry hired a number of Star Trek veterans, including Bob Justman, D. C. Fontana, Eddie Milkis and David Gerrold. Early proposals for the series included one in which some of the original series cast might appear as "elder statesmen", Roddenberry speculated as late as October 1986 that the new series might not use a spaceship, as "people might travel by some means" 100 years after the USS Enterpris
Montreal
Montreal is the most populous municipality in the Canadian province of Quebec and the second-most populous municipality in Canada. Called Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city; the city is centred on the Island of Montreal, which took its name from the same source as the city, a few much smaller peripheral islands, the largest of, Île Bizard. It has a distinct four-season continental climate with cold, snowy winters. In 2016, the city had a population of 1,704,694, with a population of 1,942,044 in the urban agglomeration, including all of the other municipalities on the Island of Montreal; the broader metropolitan area had a population of 4,098,927. French is the city's official language and is the language spoken at home by 49.8% of the population of the city, followed by English at 22.8% and 18.3% other languages. In the larger Montreal Census Metropolitan Area, 65.8% of the population speaks French at home, compared to 15.3% who speak English.
The agglomeration Montreal is one of the most bilingual cities in Quebec and Canada, with over 59% of the population able to speak both English and French. Montreal is the second-largest French-speaking city in the world, after Paris, it is situated 258 kilometres south-west of Quebec City. The commercial capital of Canada, Montreal was surpassed in population and in economic strength by Toronto in the 1970s, it remains an important centre of commerce, transport, pharmaceuticals, design, art, tourism, fashion, gaming and world affairs. Montreal has the second-highest number of consulates in North America, serves as the location of the headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organization, was named a UNESCO City of Design in 2006. In 2017, Montreal was ranked the 12th most liveable city in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit in its annual Global Liveability Ranking, the best city in the world to be a university student in the QS World University Rankings. Montreal has hosted multiple international conferences and events, including the 1967 International and Universal Exposition and the 1976 Summer Olympics.
It is the only Canadian city to have held the Summer Olympics. In 2018, Montreal was ranked as an Alpha− world city; as of 2016 the city hosts the Canadian Grand Prix of Formula One, the Montreal International Jazz Festival and the Just for Laughs festival. In the Mohawk language, the island is called Tiohtià:ke Tsi, it is a name referring to the Lachine Rapids to the island's Ka-wé-no-te. It means "a place where nations and rivers unite and divide". In the Ojibwe language, the land is called Mooniyaang which means "the first stopping place" and is part of the seven fires prophecy; the city was first named Ville Marie by European settlers from La Flèche, or "City of Mary", named for the Virgin Mary. Its current name comes from the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city. According to one theory, the name derives from mont Réal,. A possibility by the Government of Canada on its web site concerning Canadian place names, is that the name was adopted as it is written nowadays because an early map of 1556 used the Italian name of the mountain, Monte Real.
Archaeological evidence demonstrates that First Nations native people occupied the island of Montreal as early as 4,000 years ago. By the year AD 1000, they had started to cultivate maize. Within a few hundred years, they had built fortified villages; the Saint Lawrence Iroquoians, an ethnically and culturally distinct group from the Iroquois nations of the Haudenosaunee based in present-day New York, established the village of Hochelaga at the foot of Mount Royal two centuries before the French arrived. Archeologists have found evidence of their habitation there and at other locations in the valley since at least the 14th century; the French explorer Jacques Cartier visited Hochelaga on October 2, 1535, estimated the population of the native people at Hochelaga to be "over a thousand people". Evidence of earlier occupation of the island, such as those uncovered in 1642 during the construction of Fort Ville-Marie, have been removed. Seventy years the French explorer Samuel de Champlain reported that the St Lawrence Iroquoians and their settlements had disappeared altogether from the St Lawrence valley.
This is believed to be due to epidemics of European diseases, or intertribal wars. In 1611 Champlain established a fur trading post on the Island of Montreal, on a site named La Place Royale. At the confluence of Petite Riviere and St. Lawrence River, it is where present-day Pointe-à-Callière stands. On his 1616 map, Samuel de Champlain named the island Lille de Villemenon, in honour of the sieur de Villemenon, a French dignitary, seeking the viceroyship of New France. In 1639 Jérôme Le Royer de La Dauversière obtained the Seigneurial title to the Island of Montreal in the name of the Notre Dame Society of Montreal to establish a Roman Catholic mission to evangelize natives. Dauversiere hired Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve 30, to lead a group of colonists to build a mission on his new seigneury; the colonists left France in 1641 for Quebec, arrived on the island the following year. On May 17, 1642, Ville-Marie was founded on the southern shore of Montreal is
Voice acting
Voice acting is the art of performing voice-overs or providing voices to represent a character or to provide information to an audience or user. Examples include animated, off-stage, off-screen or non-visible characters in various works, including feature films, dubbed foreign language films, animated short films, television programs, radio or audio dramas, video games, puppet shows, amusement rides and documentaries. Voice acting is done for small handheld audio games. Performers are called voice artists or voice talent, their roles may involve singing, although a second voice actor is sometimes cast as the character's singing voice. Voice acting is recognised in Britain as a specialized dramatic profession, chiefly owing to the BBC's long tradition of radio drama. Voice artists are used to record the individual sample fragments played back by a computer in an automated announcement; the voices for animated characters are provided by voice actors. For live action productions, voice acting involves reading the parts of computer programs, radio dispatchers, or other characters who never appear on screen.
With a radio drama or Compact Disc drama, there is more freedom in voice acting, because there is no need to match a dub to the original actors, or to match an animated character. Producers and agencies are on the look out for many styles of voices such as booming voices, which may be perfect for more dramatic productions or cute, young sounding voices that are perfect for trendier markets; some just sound like regular, everyday people and all of these voices have their place in the Voiceover world, provided they are used and in the right context. In the context of voice acting, narration is the use of spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. A narrator is a personal character or a non-personal voice that the creator of the story develops to deliver information to the audience about the plot; the voice actor who plays the narrator is responsible for performing the scripted lines assigned to the narrator. In traditional literary narratives, narration is a required story element. One of the most common uses for voice acting is within commercial advertising.
The voice actor is hired to voice a message associated with the advertisement. This has different subgenres; the subgenres are all different styles in their own right. For example, television commercials tend to be voiced with a narrow, flat inflection pattern, whereas radio commercials tend to be voiced with a wide inflection pattern in an over-the-top style. Markerters and advertisers use voiceover all over their projects, from radio, to TV, to online and more! Total advertising spend in the UK is forecast to be £21.8 billion in 2017. Voiceover used in commercial adverts is the only area of voice acting where de-breathing is used. De-breathing means artificially removing breaths from the recorded voice; this is done to stop the audience being distracted in any way from the commercial message, being put across. Dub localization is a type of voice-over, it is the practice of voice-over translation altering a foreign language film, art film or television series by voice actors. Voice-over translation is an audiovisual translation technique, in which, unlike in Dub localization, actor voices are recorded over the original audio track, which can be heard in the background.
This method of translation is most used in documentaries and news reports to translate words of foreign-language interviewees. Automated dialogue replacement is the process of re-recording dialogue by the original actor after the filming process to improve audio quality or reflect dialogue changes. ADR is used to change original lines recorded on set to clarify context, improve diction or timing, or to replace an accented vocal performance. In the UK, it is called "post-synchronization" or "post-sync". Voice artists are used to record the individual sample fragments played back by a computer in an automated announcement. At its simplest, each recording consists of a short phrase, played back when necessary, e.g. the "Mind the gap" announcement introduced by London Underground in 1969. In a more complicated system, such as a speaking clock, the announcement is re-assembled from fragments such as "minutes past" "eighteen" and "p.m." For example, the word "twelve" can be used for both "Twelve O'Clock" and "Six Twelve."
Automated announcements can include on-hold messages on phone systems and location-specific announcements in tourist attractions. Seiyū occupations include performing roles in anime, audio dramas and video games, performing voice-overs for dubs of non-Japanese movies, providing narration to documentaries and similar programs; because the animation industry in Japan is so prolific, voice actors in Japan are able to have full-time careers as voice-over artists. Japanese voice actors are able to take greater charge of their careers than voice actors in other countries. Japan has 130 voice acting schools and troupes of voice actors, who work for a specific broadcast company or talent agency, they attract their own appreciators and fans, who watch shows to hear their favorite actor or actress. Many Japanese voice actors branch into music singing the opening or closing themes of shows in which their character stars, or become involved in non-animated side projects such as audio dram
Europe
Europe is a continent located in the Northern Hemisphere and in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Mediterranean Sea to the south, it comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Since around 1850, Europe is most considered to be separated from Asia by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas and the waterways of the Turkish Straits. Although the term "continent" implies physical geography, the land border is somewhat arbitrary and has been redefined several times since its first conception in classical antiquity; the division of Eurasia into two continents reflects East-West cultural and ethnic differences which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp dividing line. The geographic border does not follow political boundaries, with Turkey and Kazakhstan being transcontinental countries. A strict application of the Caucasus Mountains boundary places two comparatively small countries and Georgia, in both continents.
Europe covers 2 % of the Earth's surface. Politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a total population of about 741 million as of 2016; the European climate is affected by warm Atlantic currents that temper winters and summers on much of the continent at latitudes along which the climate in Asia and North America is severe. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast. Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization; the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and the subsequent Migration Period marked the end of ancient history and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Renaissance humanism, exploration and science led to the modern era. Since the Age of Discovery started by Portugal and Spain, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at various times the Americas all of Africa and Oceania and the majority of Asia.
The Age of Enlightenment, the subsequent French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars shaped the continent culturally and economically from the end of the 17th century until the first half of the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to radical economic and social change in Western Europe and the wider world. Both world wars took place for the most part in Europe, contributing to a decline in Western European dominance in world affairs by the mid-20th century as the Soviet Union and the United States took prominence. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the West and the Warsaw Pact in the East, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1949 the Council of Europe was founded, following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill, with the idea of unifying Europe to achieve common goals, it includes all European states except for Belarus and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, a separate political entity that lies between a confederation and a federation.
The EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The currency of most countries of the European Union, the euro, is the most used among Europeans. In classical Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess; the word Europe is derived from her name. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, "wide, broad" and ὤψ "eye, countenance", hence their composite Eurṓpē would mean "wide-gazing" or "broad of aspect". Broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. There have been attempts to connect Eurṓpē to a Semitic term for "west", this being either Akkadian erebu meaning "to go down, set" or Phoenician'ereb "evening, west", at the origin of Arabic Maghreb and Hebrew ma'arav. Michael A. Barry, professor in Princeton University's Near Eastern Studies Department, finds the mention of the word Ereb on an Assyrian stele with the meaning of "night, sunset", in opposition to Asu " sunrise", i.e. Asia.
The same naming motive according to "cartographic convention" appears in Greek Ἀνατολή. Martin Litchfield West stated that "phonologically, the match between Europa's name and any form of the Semitic word is poor." Next to these hypotheses there is a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning "darkness", which produced Greek Erebus. Most major world languages use words derived from Europa to refer to the continent. Chinese, for example, uses the word Ōuzhōu. In some Turkic languages the Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa; the prevalent definition of Europe as a geographical term has been in use since the mid-19th century. Europe is taken to be bounded by large bodies of water
