Chapter By Chapter> Star Trek: The IDIC Epidemic chapter 19

Chapter By Chapter (usually) features me reading one chapter of the selected book at a time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as a read-along book club.

Last time we managed to save and doom everybody in one chapter. Just another day on the Starship Enterprise.

We’re now halfway through the book, the point where I often start to run out of non-spoiler ways to pad out the intro. I can say that, while I’ve been more critical since this is a review and I’m a critic, overall I’m still enjoying the book. Minor remembrances from the first time I read this book have crept in a bit, but who knows what I’m misremembering? The book seems to be piling on problems, but we mostly resolved two of them, and it could have put people where they need to be for the story. There’s still the big plague and the social fallout, the two big issues of the story. One is the plot and other the character drama Star Trek used to be known for. It will be interesting to see what I remember as we continue on.

So…let’s continue on. We’re still on the ship, but potentially so is the plague.

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BW’s Daily Video> More About The Canceled Mass Effect Game

Catch more from Dantics on YouTube

In the interest of full disclosure and protecting my butt, I don’t know for certain that the host actually had an inside track into the story and gameplay plans for Mass Effect Universe. This is the first video I’ve seen from him. If he’s right, however, it does sound like an interesting direction for the franchise. Shame BioWare listened to the wrong people and committed seppuku.

Jake & Leon: Best Of Year Seventeen

Yes, this was technically the first comic.

So one day I try to mess with an art style inspired by a webcomic I enjoyed at the time and Matt Groening’s style. I liked the look, but had trouble recreating that character. After getting too frustrated to even draw it well by my skill level at the time, I went to bed. Next day I try again and it actually came out pretty good. So I gave him a friend. The first character I named Jake and the second Leroy. However, when I went to show it off I ended up calling the second guy Leon, decided that was better, and needed to figure out what to do with them. At the time I was having trouble coming up with new ways to introduce the weekly comic reviews, and decided to put them into a comic strip, usually inspired by whatever I picked up that week.

When the comic reviews went daily so I wasn’t using up my Sunday, Jake & Leon eventually took over the spot completely, after a compilation of what’s now the daily article link. More characters followed, and I’ve somehow worked on this comic for seventeen years…EDIT: eighteen years. Apparently I didn’t get my best of list right. Fixed the title, but can’t help the page URL being messed up. It’s allowed me to be creative, work on my comic skills, and eventually led to other comics and prose, both of which now has their own archive, and this year I was forced to redo this comic’s archive due to how many comics I had.

Before I start the new year’s worth of comics (this doesn’t go by calendar year), it’s time to look back through the previous year and see what were my favorite comics. Which ones had a gag I really liked, had me try something new artistically, or was a push in my storytelling skills? Let’s look back at the year that was for the rare moment when I let myself have an ego. I’m not the best comic creator out there, far from it. I have been improving though.

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BW Programming Note> Jake & Leon Day?

If I timed this correctly, you should see the early stages of the NEW Jake & Leon archive. The old gallery was so full that early strips were being pushed off. Also, some images that shouldn’t have been there got in and I don’t know why. So I redid the archive, with 50 comics per page so the new galleries weren’t too long. Go through it and give me some feedback so I can improve it.

The update is here because in the usual comic slot it’s the anniversary. Rare to have it on posting day, so the gang has the week off to focus on my favorites of the comics I did in year 16 before starting year 17. Being annoyed about the archive is a coincidence in timing. Working on the archive even took up declutter time, so this week’s Clutter Report, which should also be up right now, looks at whether or not you can have too much storage if you’re trying to declutter.

Come back later for the Best Of Year 16, and tomorrow we’re back to normal, including the Chapter By Chapter review of Star Trek: The IDIC Epidemic hitting the halfway mark. Whatever else happens depends on the week. Last week had some good discussion topics and hopefully that trend continues. Have a great week, everyone! See you later for the bonus posting. Maybe.

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Big Shot Comics #1

“Actually, she owes me money.”

Big Shot Comics #1

Columbia Comics Corporation (May, 1940)

Just when I thought the list was finalized for a while, here comes a new company with a new comic. This is one I never heard of before, so it should be interesting. And we have Charlie Chan back. Figured he’d show up eventually. There was a time he got licensed a lot, I guess. Interestingly, I think the only time he was played by a Chinese man was Keye Luke in Hanna-Barbera’s The Amazing Chan And The Chan Clan. That was a cartoon. But enough padding. Let’s see what this comic has to offer and see whether we go on past this issue.

[Read along with me here or here]

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Saturday Night Showcase> The Apothecary Diaries

Here’s one I’ve heard about, but due to being behind Crunchyroll’s paywall I haven’t been able to watch it until recently, when they dropped the first episode to promote season three on their YouTube channel.

The Apothecary Diaries is based on a series of light novel, translating to “The Pharmacist’s Monologue” according to the fan wiki, written by Natsu Hyūga, with Touko Shino on art. The last volume came out in Japan in 2025, having been serialized online since 2021. The anime came out in 2023 after the manga adaptations came out starting in 2017.

Set in the fictional country of Li, which takes inspiration from ancient China, the story follows Maomao, a young woman growing up in the red light district of her town until she’s kidnapped to work at the Imperial Palace. I…have questions on how and why that works, but maybe that gets addressed at some point. Maomao used to work at her dad’s apothecary shop, testing various poisons and remedies on her own arm. That gives her some insight when she’s kidnapped to work at the palace laundry when two of the prince’s sons end up sick. Season three’s first episode is also up as of this writing but we’re just going to watch the first episode tonight.

The video uses YouTube’s multiple audio track, so you can listen to the original Japanese using closed caption subtitles or the English dub. At least on YouTube the captions start up automatically, but I have my audio track set to English if that’s the option. I left the captions on because I was curious about the differences between the two languages, but you choose your experience. Enjoy.

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BW’s Saturday Article Link> C.S. Lewis Predicted His Works’ Corruption

Greta Gerwig’s take on Narnia’s prequel book, The Magician’s Nephew, has met with quite a bit of scrutiny from Narnia’s fans. From not appearing to understand Aslan’s being not just a representation of Jesus but Christ himself in a form better suited for the world of Narnia, to the tone going more into rock opera because that’s what she likes, everything we’ve been shown thus far has not sat well. While some alteration is necessary for the media change and even keeping the spirit of the original connecting with today’s audience (as opposed to the alleged “modern audience”, which seems to be based on modern stereotypes from the “important people”), has the movie gone too far?

Writing for That Park Place, author and editor Carrow Brown looks at some of C.S. Lewis’ other works as evidence of what he might think. She does acknowledge that Lewis himself isn’t here to give commentary and some things do change over time and between media, but being fair doesn’t mean she’s supporting anything Gerwig and Netflix’s marketing department have shown us thus far. She also notes that when you take on a property for adaptation you take the fanbase as well. Taking what fans enjoyed enough to make it popular out of the work and expecting them to still support it? Not a great plan.