Previously in this series of reviews when a chapter flowed into another one, like our last installment, I’ve done two articles together. However, skimming through the next few chapters as they seemed to be doing the same thing it’s at least three chapters if not more connecting together. Plus this week’s chapter is short and so is my time tonight, so a shorter chapter is to my benefit.
Anyway, Jake and Bethdroid are still on the run from the bad guys. Who are they and what are they after besides Beth’s android “sister”? I don’t know and we may not find out this chapter. Let’s get back to the chase.
“This wasn’t mentioned in the weather forecast.”
Robotech #4
WildStorm Productions (May, 2003)
“Conflict Of Interest”
STORY: Tommy Yune
SCRIPT: Jay Faerber
ARTISTS: Long Vo, Charles Park, & Saka
LETTERER: Jenna Garcia
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Kristy Quinn
EDITOR: Ben Abernathy
I know the game was about Baby Pac-Man (interesting game, a video game/pinball machine hybrid I’ve seen once but didn’t get a chance to play), but having the BABY run around town on his own and building things in a workshop seems an odd choice. Nice story, though.
Bonus fact: I didn’t have this but I did have The Pac-Man Picture Album, a full-size record with pictures on it, that was a musical about the world inside the Pac-Man video games (at the time just Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man). Same theme song so I’m guessing it was the same company.
It’s also a gift for the fans. I expect DC to return it as soon as possible.
I wonder how they’re going to do it, since they’ve said there isn’t going to be magic involved, like when Mxyzptlk restored DC 2 Superman as the definitive DC 3 Superman, only now with a son they hyperaged because they hate kids? Will Jon get to keep his boyfriend, will Lois remember, what about the Supertwins, and just exactly how are they going to screw this up. It’s sad that they’ve done such a poor job in the past decade that I’m waiting to see how they’re going to screw it up rather than be excited that “Clark” is coming back…unless they give him a new secret identity and continue to completely miss the point.
Over at The Clutter Reports this week I decorated the studio for Christmas.
Looking over my Watch Later playlist’s numerous Christmas offerings on hold Saturday Night Showcase isn’t going to be enough to go through all the potential new Christmas specials I want to add to the playlist. I’m weighing my options, but the new Christmas songs and shorts should be easier to manage. Meanwhile, we continue looking at TekWar for Chapter By Chapter because nothing says Christmas like noir anti-drug sci-fi story…look, some things are beyond my control, and scheduling is a pain this year. At any rate there will be Christmas and non-Christmas stuff all month so everybody wins. Have a great week, everyone!
I should make a Christmas version of this someday. Not sure how.
It’s December, which means adding to my Christmas YouTube playlists. Tonight I bring you two versions of A Christmas Carol: Being A Ghost Story Of Christmas. Well, three really since I’m also linking to Project Gutenberg’s post of the book itself free and legal to download. They even have a version for the Kindle, so…more than three? However, only two of them feature the actor Alistair Sim as the reformed miser. (Yeah, people keep forgetting how that story ends.)
A Christmas Carol is an amazing work by Charles Dickens. It doesn’t chastise Ebenezer Scrooge for his wealth but how he acquires it and what is done with it. The ugliness of humanity is present in any financial demographic and Dickens highlights that. Rich or poor, there is good in evil in both, as seen with the Cratchits and Scrooge’s uncle as well as the people shown to Scrooge in the visions, especially from the Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come. Meanwhile, Present tends to throw his own words back at him, since Future can’t talk. Through Past we see how he became the old miser of today and it makes perfect sense. He isn’t put down for what happened to him so much as how he reacted to it, hardening his heart and focusing on his wealth rather than using that wealth to help others. Again, the story doesn’t attack him for what he has but who he is, and believes that he can become a good man, which in the end he does, presumably avoiding Jacob Marley’s fate.
Tonight I bring you two version of Alastair Sim portraying Scrooge and Michael Horden as Jacob Marley, and only because I know someone will be bothered if I only look at the one. Yes, both men took on the two roles in animated and live-action form. Adding to the Christmas special playlist this year is the 1971 animated version, originally airing on ABC, produced by Chuck Jones and directed by Richard Williams. However, it’s master animator Ken Harris whose visual styles make this a stand out take among the many, many interpretations.
If you’re here for Sim and Horden themselves however you were probably expecting the 1951 live-action black and white movie where they physically plays the old and dead respectively misers. Well, I have that too for everyone’s benefit. Or maybe you’re a fan of both, in which case it’s a double special event. Whichever you prefer, enjoy!
Featuring characters not in this book and a story that never happens.
Wonderworld Comics #4
Fox Features Syndicate (August, 1939)
After missing a few Saturdays for holiday or illness it’s time to get back to this anthology. I won’t be discussing the text stories or that stupid Don Quixote story about him and Sancho coming out of a book into the real world for no good reason, and the other short gag comics because they aren’t funny. In the case of the text story there’s so many comic stories to read that I need some kind of break, and since I don’t discuss the articles in the Star Blazers magazine I might as well make it the text tale. This is “yesterday’s” COMIC after all. 🙂 I’ll also ignore the one-page stories because this is going to be a long enough list for you, the reader. Comic Book Plus also credits the ads but naturally I won’t go through those.
I don’t usually bother with teaser trailers. History has shown them to be useless in getting a real idea for the movie, just a bunch of stuff to get people talking without any real idea of what the movie will be like. However, I am a Transformers fan, which hasn’t been easy for me as of late. IDW’s series was going in a direction I lost interest in before the politics creeped in. The new shows are currently only available on Netflix or Paramount Plus (though EarthSpark will hopefully get to Nickelodeon at some point and the older shows are available on YouTube and ad-sponsored streaming sites). Then you have the Michael Bay movies. I rage-quit on Age Of Extinction after trying to be optimistic on the first movie only to have Michael Bay live down to my expectations by going in hard on everything he got wrong. I didn’t return until Bumblebee because Michael Bay wasn’t part of it and fans were actually praising the movie. As it turns out Travis Knight nailed it hard and won me over.
With Bay also not part of Rise Of The Beasts, the introduction of the Beast Wars to the nostalgia of the live-action movies, I end up concerned but hopeful. I don’t know anything about Steven Caple, Jr or screenwriters Darnell Metayer and Josh Peters, nor do I know anything of Joby Harold’s original draft or what was changed during the delays from the 2019 release to this June 2023 intended release. So maybe this will be good. I just looked up Caple and apparently he worked on Creed II and the pilot episode of Transformers: EarthSpark, the only one I’ve seen because that’s actually aired off of Paramount Plus. I even posted and reviewed it (sadly the video is now on private) and it was okay. It may explain why TF Wiki made it a point to mention that the main cast, director, and writers are all people of color, but I don’t care about that. I want it to be good and if I never knew that information, as we discussed yesterday, I wouldn’t have cared. I will judge the end product even if it was made by actual robots. So let’s look at the teaser, because it’s the rare case of a decent teaser trailer.
Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Four Color Media Monitor The Clutter Reports (my other site) Cartoon Hero’s Lair Four Million Years Later SF Debris
BW Media Spotlight 