“Around the same time some pencilneck started asking me stupid questions.”
Dr. Blink: Superhero Shrink #0
Dork Storm Press (April, 2004)
John Kovalic
Christopher Jones
I was checking the news sites to see if I could come up with a good article topic for today. Clearly I need more news sites, but sometimes they’re hard to get through. Some have very politically motivated writers, others had way too many ads. I used to have one for Variety but between glitches in the email, the RSS feed not even working, and ruining which celebrity is demasked on this week’s The Masked Singer when I’m a week behind meant I had to drop that one. I keep looking for openings to expand.
One of today’s articles came from Bounding Into Comics, who posted on poor Peter Parker getting hit with the retcon bomb. From what they’re saying, Peter’s history has been altered so that at least at one point another kids kept pulling him towards pranks, robbery, and nudie magazines before he was even a teenager. This is a terrible and unnecessary addition, and I even did an Art Soundoff V-Log about the dangers of the retcon bomb. Retcons have been a big problem, but like with activist writers is only a symptom of a larger problem. I was going to write about that “addition” to Peter’s history until I realized something important.
I don’t care.
I haven’t cared about main universe Spider-Man since even before One More Day due to all the annoying stuff being done to him. There’s a random story I might be interested in, but it’s possible being more DC than Marvel, I like Peter Parker but overall I just haven’t gone through the trouble of grabbing a lot of his adventures. I’ve enjoyed him more on television. Even Iron Man I finally stopped following when Tony Stark became Secretary Of Defense, as that series didn’t seem to know what to do with him. That was long before “woke” meant anything other than no longer being asleep rather than people who clearly went crazy from not getting enough.
And I’m not alone in no longer caring about franchises they like. I’m use to having a version of it I wasn’t into. Voyager and Enterprise were Star Trek shows I never got into while Deep Space Nine wasn’t as interesting as the similarly premised Babylon 5. I dropped out of professional wrestling in the early days of the “attitude era” for the WWF (now WWE for stupid reasons) and WCW lost me before it lost itself. I don’t even watch wrestling anymore, though I have tried the occasional smaller promotion out of curiosity. Star Trek hasn’t gotten me excited in years. I don’t need new Trek when there’s so much old Trek I still haven’t explored or revisited in years. That’s just some of the many things I grew up with that I don’t care for new versions of, and data shows I’m not alone in that.
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This is not a safe way to make chilli dogs.
Sonic The Hedgehog #87
Archie Comics Publications (October, 2000)
COLORIST: Frank Gagliardo
EDITOR: Justin F. Gabrie
Sonic: “Heart Of Hedgehog” part 2: “Lava Storm”
WRITER: Danny Fingeroth
ARTISTS: Sam Maxwell & Jim Amash
LETTERER: Jeff Powell
Monkey Khan: “Against The Haunted Past” part 2
WRITER/PENCILER: Frank Strom
INKER: Harvo
LETTERER: Vickie Williams
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Okay, how do we sell our dog food?
I know! The Blondie Song “One Way Or Another.” It’s catchy and anytime any nostalgic music fan hears it, they’ll think of us! Or Hyundai. Or Swiffer. It worked for them.
Isn’t that a song about a stalker?
Nobody pays attention to the story of a song anyway.
Hi.
Coming off their 1978 album Parallel Lines and released as a single in 1979 with “Just Go Away” as the B-Side, Blondie’s “One Way Or Another” was the fourth single off of the album and is one of their well known hits. Now it’s being used to sell dog medicine and occasionally other products, none of which have to do with stalking. Is that the oddest choice for advertisers to use as their music? We’ve had secret gay romance ballads used to push party cruises, and a girl about to leave prison talking about her and her boyfriend’s favorite music to push almost everything. There was even a song I apparently didn’t cover about how teachers are brainwashing kids used in an ad to celebrate teachers. Dumb choices are nothing new.
I mean, you can tell it’s about stalking, though the question is whether the singer realizes it or not. Her character could be a crazy person talking about how she’s going to win someone’s heart. Then I do research before even looking at the lyrics and find that is not the case. Not a first for this series. I’ve learned a lot of fascinating things about songs since starting this series, but this one was quite personal for Blondie frontwoman and future soloist Deborah Harry. She actually lived it.
Writing Clips Versus Writing Movies
This a clip from The NeverEnding Story, my all-time favorite movie. Yes, I acknowledge it’s an inaccurate adaptation of the Michael Ende novel and I probably wouldn’t enjoy the book because it has a counter message to this movie. I didn’t know that at the time I saw this movie, or for many years later. I don’t “deserve” my version but I will enjoy it since it’s here. That’s not being a hypocrite. I believe the fans of the book and the author have the right to be upset and I’m not against a proper translation. Sorry, where was I?
It’s also one of my favorite scenes in movies. It goes into why I enjoy stories so much, not just books. We’re with the heroes on their adventures, whether it’s winning a true love, conquering a mountain, or defeating a great evil. However, the clip only works because I did live the adventure through the movie, following Bastian as he was drawn into the story of Fantasia, then with Atreyu as he searched for the human child, and then Bastian again as he restored Fantasia through wishes and imagination, to dream of something better. The second movie does note that wishing isn’t enough. You have to make it happen and follow through rather than just wishing everything to happen. The third movie is not worth existing.
I’m seeing a growing trend that writers now seem to be more interested in scenes than full stories. They want people talking about the clip on social media, sharing that big moment with everyone, as a sense of personal validation perhaps. Perch of Comics By Perch even has noted that writers in comics talk about wanting to tell a particular scene, like Superman having lunch with Lex Luthor, and just want to do that rather than Superman doing some superheroics. They want to write scenes people talk about, but I don’t think they understand why those scenes work.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on April 24, 2025 in Comic Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, Television Spotlight, web series and tagged Comic Strips and Panels, commentary, movie clips, movie scenes, writing comics, writing movies, writing tips.
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