Yes, I heard Scrappy killed that version of Velma…after being evil and before that Velma returned the favor, so I’m not impressed.
This is my first time drawing Scooby-Doo characters since that time Scrappy socked James Gunn. I’m actually surprised Shaggy came out as well as he did. I will never be hired to draw Scooby, though.
Over at The Clutter Reports this week, I actually did some reorganizing with my dusting.
This continues the Chapter By Chapter review of Star Trek: The Vulcan Academy Murders as we hit chapter 24. I don’t know what else I have planned outside of one article I’m turning into a commentary in the Vs style, and I have a few more digital copies of 2024’s Free Comic Book Day, so Tuesdays will have more “Today’s” Comic to go alongside the usual “Yesterday’s Comic”, where we’ve reached the Charlton years of the original Blue Beetle. I’ll do my best to make the rest worth your time. Have a great week, everyone!
When I was a kid my local cable company’s community access channel (later called “cable access” for some reason) would air a bunch of random stuff during the day when no local shows were airing. I don’t have that company anymore for various reasons, but one show that I had wanted to see in full was Spectreman, but all I got was an extended clip of the first episode as far as my memory recalls. Let’s fix that tonight.
While today the environmental movement complains about carbon emissions, the 1970s environmental movement had the easier to see goal of fighting general pollution. Many shows would use this as a theme for stories and full series in the 70s and 1980s. One of them was P Production’s Spectreman. When rejects from the apelike Black Hole Aliens of the Godzilla franchise (nobody there was involved here) decide they like a nice, polluted Earth and plot conquest (Tokyo apparently had a huge pollution problem at the time), Nebula 71 Star decide to follow their neighbors from M78 (the Ultraman people weren’t involved, either) and send a cybernetic hero, disguised as government pollution fighter Gamou Joji, or “George” in the US dub. To transform he holds up his arm and asks his bosses to switch him to hero mode. With his new friends both in and out of disguise, Spectreman fights the evil doctor Goji and his assistant, Rah (Karas in English).
I have to apologize to the sub fans. Usually I try to get a version for you but I couldn’t find it. Instead all I have is a Japanese intro and outro untranslated, which will surround the Richard L. Rosenfeld produced dub, directed by Mel Welles. Welles played the original Seymour in the first movie version of Little Shop Of Horrors, made before its more famous musical version. Welles would add some comedy and change names, but for the most part the Spectreman fandom wiki (because of course there’s one) says not too many other changes were made outside of toning down the violence for American kids. I guess Japan doesn’t have as many parent groups. The first two-episode opener sees hero and villains alike come to Earth and begin fighting over it, with us humans in the way. Apparently the show was popular and many who grew up with the show are nostalgic for it, so they did something right. Enjoy.
Imagine if Conan and Trap Jaw did the fusion dance.
Image Comic was a bunch of Marvel artists looking to start their own publisher. However, in the 1970s a former Marvel editor tried to form his own comic company using Marvel’s old name. Siskoid’s Blog Of Geekery goes into the history of these Marvel knockoff characters. Were they ALL knockoffs? You’ll just have to stick with his site and check out his full look the various Atlas titles.
Remember this headline from I/O9 when Donald Glover wanted to play Spider-Man? At the time there was no Miles Morales, which was created for Brian Michael Bendis’ kids. Glover wanted to play Peter Parker.
Yeah, we know at least partly where this is heading. I’m actually talking about a different character, but no matter what I write here the usual suspects will take one look at the intro and call me racist while the opposition will claim this is an anti-woke article. Political culture is seeping into pop culture thanks to people who hate entertainment and want you as angry and stressed as they are because they know no other way to live. While Glover’s declaration came during the downturn of the pre-“woke” “political correctness” I have no doubt he wanted to play Peter Parker…or rather he thought he did.
This really all came up because Winston Duke, during an interview to promote his role in the Fall Guy re-imagining (the original TV show was about a stuntman who paid the bills between movies by becoming a bounty hunter), said he would like to play Batman. In a way he did thanks to audio dramas…but he still didn’t. I don’t know why “news” sites who keep pushing the “superhero fatigue” narrative nonsense continue to ask these actors about MCU and DC Movie roles during non superhero projects. You’d think they’d want to ignore the superheroes if they dislike them so much, but that’s just me venting. The real takeaway you should have is when many of these actors say they want to play this or that superhero or other pre-existing IP role, even when they do resemble the character, they really don’t. And while Duke does make a social statement in his comments, I don’t think (on his part, like with Glover) they really want to play that part…or rather they don’t want to play that character.
I was kind of hoping we were done with the true crime stories.
Blue Beetle #60
FINAL ISSUE
Fox Features Syndicate (August, 1950)
Here we are, the last issue of this numbering, and the last of the second and final Fox Features run. We aren’t done with the Blue Beetle’s public domain stories, but next time we will be starting a new home for the Blue Beetle, but we’ll still have the same trio for a while…and a very strange numbering system that we’ll get into when we get there. Will they head out on a high note? I hope so. Only one way to find out.
It’s an…interesting time to be a cartoon fan. Not all of the news is good, what with the likes of Velma and Netflix’s live-action demakes around. Disney doesn’t really make its own cartoons for TV outside of Disney Junior (and I’m willing to bet even the Mickey Mouse and Winnie The Pooh material was made by an outside company) unless its disasters like Strange World and Wish, while Pixar hasn’t been up to their usual standards either. Meanwhile, I hear Max, the Warner Brothers Discovery streaming service, is pulling down animated shows from their line-up. Cartoon Network and Boomerang, which charges extra to go to a higher cable tier or a subscription online, don’t have the best offerings. And did any of you remember Nicktoons existed before I just mentioned it a few words ago?
On the other hand, Netflix has put out some good animation, Cartoon Network still has the Toonami block, and we have a new player in the TV cartoon game. MeTV, which I can’t get on my current TV provider because they don’t want to pay the new higher rate and I don’t have an HD antenna, is entering the game with their third channel in the classic television family with MeTV Toons. This will join regular MeTV and MeTV+, their second channel, both of which do already show some classic animation among their offerings. Variety reports that there will be some original content and Bob Bergen, the current Porky Pig, will serve as the voice of the ads. Bounding Into Comics collected a bunch of shows not on the list, including a few old DIC Entertainment shows. Their own website is teasing a ton of shows, many of which comes from the Warner Brothers, Hanna-Barbera, and Rankin Bass, among other classics WBD doesn’t own like Popeye and The Mask. They’re even teasing Challenge Of The GoBots! And Kwicky Koala. I was convinced I was the only person who remembered that show. What’s next, Pandamonium? Wonder Wheels?Now I really wish we could get this channel!
The question is of course why so many of these Warner-owned shows are showing up outside of the offerings they have. Discovery Family has some Looney Tunes stuff and Hanna-Barbera’s take on the Smurfs along with their own programming and some leftover shows from The Hub (that time Discovery Kids was rebranded and ran with Hasbro) they still rerun. Due to all the acquisitions that led to Warner Brothers Discovery they have one of the biggest animation libraries on the planet, fighting Disney for the top spot, yet do little with it while other contenders are also out there. Then there’s streaming, official YouTube channels, and we’re not even going to get into anime. Do you know how easy it is to watch cartoons now, and yet somehow Warner Brothers Discovery is still not fully embracing their huge library despite so much competition.
BW Media Spotlight 