“I still hate needles more.”
Sonic Universe #10
Archie Comics (January 2010)
“Echoes Of The Past” part 2
WRITER: Ian Flynn
PENCILER: Tracy Yardley
INKER: Jim Amash
COLORIST: Jason Jensen
LETTERER: Teresa Davidson
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Paul Kaminsky
EDITOR: Mike Pellerito
Catch more from The Roundtable on YouTube
This video is from two years ago prior to post time. It’s only gotten worse from there, and original YouTube animation is in trouble. The Odds 1 Out had to cut staff because he’s not doing as well because even the storytime animation channels are being hurt. The way the west approaches animation and “cartoons” is insulting!
I have nothing against AI. Is it art? I’ve never been pedantic on the term. Some people will tell you video games aren’t art in the way movies are, yet video games as storytelling has created a new form of storytelling. If storytelling is art, then some games are indeed art, or at least make good use of it when it’s just a game for fun like puzzle games. It’s like Tetris or Bejeweled have been given some deep backstory. Yet. AI has its uses like any other tool. It’s when you try to replace better tools and their users for a given task that we start having problems.
Above you see NVIDIA’s newest GeForce chip, using AI to upscale images to make the people and environments look more realistic, like a physical place. It’s continuing the belief that the pretty pictures are the most important part of the game. When games use this poorly it takes the place of working on the gameplay. On the other hand, more realistic visuals could help a game like LA Noire, which made reading people’s expressions and body movements a central play mechanic. So don’t think I’m trashing or pushing AI here. Artificial intelligence is a tool like anything else and can’t replace the emotion of a human artist or the skill of a human creator, doctor, or anyone else who uses AI in their field.
I do have this issue with “realism”, however. I have a different form of weird paranoia about all this based on what I’ve seen from the entertainment industry and the Hollywood mindset that goes beyond Hollywood into Silicon Valley. It’s a mindset that seems to continue an anti animation trend, the fear of making things look “cartoony” and pushing for “photorealism”. We have seen this before in games, the idea of making it look like you’re operating an actual person in an actual world. Anyone remember FMV?
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Firebrand’s home remodeling company is off to a bad start.
Police Comics #4
Comic Magazines, Inc (November, 1941)
So we have four pre-DC characters: Plastic Man, Firebrand, the Human Bomb, and Phantom Lady. Plus a bunch of other characters. Time being a factor as I try to put my life together I’m not sure how long I can do two of these a week and might end up putting this in Golden Age Fridays in the future. As of this writing I haven’t decided yet so don’t hold me to it. Mostly I’m just trying to pad out the homepage again since for these I keep the credits with the stories, if we have any.
Usually, this book is in prose form. It’s also a work of fiction, and the last time I broke that rule I wasted a whole summer with multipart articles cutting down Seduction Of The Innocent. Hopefully this won’t break the one a week part of the format.
However, this is a graphic novel. It’s a pretty long one as original graphic novels go. Usually they’re not 11 chapters unless they’re a trade collection. This is one story and each chapter is longer than you would expect. It’s almost as big as the Watchmen graphic novel and sequels I won at Free Comic Book Day in 2025, the same day I ended up with this one as a giveaway. So you know I’m bias here. It came from my local comic store as they had a bunch to give away. How could they do that? I’ll explain in the review. Yes, even I can break out the tease now and then.
Admittedly this is not my usual graphic novel. An autobiography about an indie band isn’t usually in my wheelhouse. But it was free, the art looks good, and the plot does at least sound interesting as they chronicled a record breaking attempt that took them across the country. So there’s no reason not to review it, but due to the length of the book and the chapters it’s a bit long for me to find time to read for Scanning My Collection. Thus I made the decision to review it in the Chapter By Chapter format. If they can do something different, so can I. And so, the 26th book in the Chapter By Chapter Review series (and we’ll be back to prose for 27) is…………………
“Wake up when I try to kill you!”
The Solution #9
Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (June, 1994)
“The Hunt”
WRITER: James D. Hudnall
PENCILER/COLORIST: Timothy T. Divar
INKER: Lawrence G. Welsh
ADDITIONAL COLORING: Violent Hues
LETTERER: Timothy J. Eldred
EDITOR: Hank Kanalz
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
BW Media Spotlight 