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I am not happy.
2014 was supposed to be the year I got more creative. It’s also the year my sleep schedule went nuts, I had to add another doctor to my list (I’m not sure how people in worst states than me get anything done, and I’ve been worse) which I have to go see on what’s already the busiest week of any month, and the end result has been not even close to how productive I want to be. That’s gone into my decluttering as well, and this week’s Clutter Report is basically me finding something positive to report (clearing another RSS feed) just to remind myself I did something. Why am I so tired lately?
So no comic this week, but I hope to have one next week. Don’t be surprised if I miss a feature article as I used up my drafts already, but I should get this week’s chapter of Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Mirror Image if not the comic reviews. I’m getting annoyed. And tired.
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I took a week off to get ahead on various things. That did not happen because I had sleep issues for half the week. The last few days was a lesser version of that. So I didn’t have time to track a Saturday Night Showcase entry not only because of afternoon naps but because I wanted to get some of the things I planned to do during my week off done. That’s also what I’ll be telling the Clutter Report readers, only there I’ll describe a few things I got done, and I’m hoping this week’s Jake & Leon will still be done by Sunday night ET. Next week includes a doctor’s appointment and still trying to get things done, but I’ll try to find something for the Showcase next week.
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Here is the last of the currently banked reviews. I hope to get a few more banked at some point, the sooner the better.
Fantasy, especially high or dark fantasy, are not really my cup of tea. I have nothing against it, but it isn’t for me. It’s one of the reasons I never played Dungeons & Dragons, along with me being too much of a control freak when it comes to storytelling to lead to a good experience for everyone involved. Video games are easier because there’s only two voices: mine and the game creators, and I’m willing to accept theirs as the dominant voice, even in games like BioWare’s more famous (and sometimes infamous) content, where your choices lead the story down one of a few different paths. It’s like combining video games and Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks.
I really didn’t watch the first Dungeons & Dragons movie many moons ago because it looked lame, and apparently it was one of those movies so bad it became comedy. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves decided to embrace the comedy and the stranger aspects of the tabletop role-playing game franchise, and from the trailers it just looked like a lot of fun. So I decided to check it out when the opportunity arose. And now I have a review of it, some months after I saw it, though the bulk of the review was written right after I saw it. Edited for spelling and clarification, here is my review.
RELEASE DATE: 2023
RELEASED BY: Paramount Pictures, Entertainment One, & AllSpark Pictures
RUNTIME: 2 hours 14 minutes
RATING: PG-13
VIEWING SOURCE FOR THIS REVIEW: MGM+ Hits
STARRING: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, & Sophia Lillis
SCREENWRITERS: Johnathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, & Michael Gilio (Chris McKay credited for story with Gilio)
DIRECTORD: John Francis Daley & Johnathan Goldstein
BOX OFFICE: $93,277,026, $208,177,026 worldwide gross, according to IMDB
ESTIMATED BUDGET: $150,000,000 according to IMDB
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These Asylum Films plots get weaker every time.
Feature Comics #23
Comic Favorites Inc. (August, 1939)
I’ve been trying to avoid the newspaper strip collections because there’s enough comics for me to go through and I’d rather focus on the original comic book comics. Plus newspaper strips weren’t really designed to be read in a comic book format. In this case, there is some reformatting, so you don’t have to see the title every page, just the start of every story.
I was also curious about the comic being introduced here. The Charlie Chan movie series is rather controversial to “modern audiences” because the main character was always an actor in make-up even when there were other Chinese actors in roles like Charlie’s “number one son”. I never understood that myself, but I’ve also not really watched a Charlie Chan movie all the way through, just episodes of Hanna-Barbera’s The Amazing Chan And The Chan Clan in reruns. Yes, that actually existed.
Imagine if Chan’s other kids joined de-aged number one son and formed both a rock band and their own detective group while having access to an advanced version of Inspector Gadget’s Gadgetmobile, and kept sticking their noses into dad’s mystery solving, then needed him to save their butts. It’s not even as interesting as it sounds, and I probably lost some of you already. Anyway, to the reviews!
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Of course it was a Dan DiDio decision. And yet, though he’s no longer there, his Darker DC still remains active.
BW Media Spotlight 
BW’s Saturday Article Link> The Anti-Hero Cruelty
Nobody calls them out on that.
Here at BW Media Spotlight, heroes rule and villain drool! Seeing the hero win is catharsis against our own troubles, and remind us that at least some evils, or whatever obstacles there are in our lives, are surmountable. Modern writers seem to take the defeatist attitude that evil will always win and there’s no point in trying, like a bummer Homer Simpson. Telling kids especially to just lay down and die is a terrible message as this writer discusses in a pushback against nihilistic stories where good becomes evil and evil becomes good.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on September 28, 2024 in Uncategorized and tagged commentary, writing tips.
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