Catch more from Owen Likes Comics on YouTube
“Help! We’re trapped in our company symbol!”
FCBD 2024–The Valiants
Valiant Comics/Alien Books (May, 2024)
EDITOR: Lysa Hawkins
“The Valiants”
STORY: Lysa Hawkins & Ryan Cady
WRITER: Ryan Cady
ARTIST: Al Barrionuevo
LETTERER: Ezequiel Inverni
“The Void”
WRITER: AJ Ampadu
ARTIST: Emilio Correa
LETTERER: Yasmin Govoni
Tell others about the Spotlight:
Catch more from Black Nerd Comedy on YouTube
Learn more about MeTV Toons on their website
I think he’s being too hard on Speedy Gonzales and Pepe Le Pew. Sadly I have to agree with him on the Dick Tracy cartoon that turned Tracy into a dispatcher for a bunch of ethnic stereotypes law enforcers who somehow fight a city mob around the world. You really are better off if you never saw it. I wish he had asked about animated movies. I know the closest the other two MeTV channels get to movies is Svengoolie but it would be nice to see animated movies on TV, especially the ones I can’t find on ad-sponsored streaming.
Tell others about the Spotlight:
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.
Two chapters left to go. Last time Kirk lived because of course he did. Anything else would be a spoiler and I don’t do that on the intro because that ends up on the homepage and I won’t ruin it for the random visitors. If you clicked on the article directly I’m assuming you’ve been following my reviews or read the book on your own at some point, and even then I keep spoilers to what’s necessary to discuss the book. We encourage reading around these parts.
With two chapters left, and the last one most likely the wrap-up and good-byes part, which won’t have any real good-byes because the sequel book that came out a few novels later takes place right after these events if memory serves, this has to be the part where the killer is finally revealed to all, though by now I think we all guessed who it is. Not much left to say so let’s see I’m right or if the author snuck a M. Night style twist in there.
Tell others about the Spotlight:
Oh, yeah, we still left this guy on the moon. Get back to it, reading order guide!
ULTRA-Monthly #2
Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (July, 1993)
ULTRA-Monthly is not actually a comic book. It’s a fake newsmagazine following events in the Ultraverse published supposedly within the Ultraverse, a way to help promote the Ultraverse comics to readers. Normally I’d move on, but until I read it I didn’t it wasn’t a comic, and the next item in the reading order guide I’m using is actually a direct-to-video movie we’ll be talking a look at on this week’s Saturday Night Showcase if the post I found is still active, as it leads into the next comic according to the guide.
So that leave me stuck going over this. Does it compliment the comics or is it only worth tracking down for a completist? I won’t go over all the contributors, just the articles.
BW Media Spotlight 
The Three-Way Media War
It’s an…interesting time in the world of storytelling media.
There seems to a battle for dominance, or at least some mutual benefit, some kind of understanding, when it comes to our comics, shows, games, and so on. Between tempers, egos, and the activists who happily manipulate both for their own ends, the storytelling industry is losing steam. American comics are selling worse despite more people in the world, streaming services are losing subscribers (even our recent cord cutting is only sending us to ad-sponsored free offerings), game trailers inspire rage more than anticipation, theaters are not coming back from the 2020 lockdowns like they should, and everybody is fed up for their own reasons. Old stories are getting a second look while new stories fail to live up to the past even as they try to replace the past.
There is a three-faction struggle for the fate of entertainment: the creators, the studios (or publishers, but for the sake of convenience I’m going to group them all under “studio”), and the fans. Each has their own goal, and there was a time when more often than not something came out that made everybody happy or at least satisfied with the result. Creators told their stories, fans enjoyed their stories, and studios made money from the stories and related merchandise. Sure, we still got the stinkers, and not everything worked out as planned for reasons often unique to that product’s creation, but for the most part everybody found something to love and the people behind it reaped the financial and resume benefits while the fans found their money well spent on something that they needed to deal with the day’s nonsense.
This is no less and less the case, as these groups are now screwing each other, though one group is getting it worse than the other because they’re the most disconnected from the storytelling process, no matter what certain “news” outlets try to say otherwise. Understanding where both groups are succeeding, failing, and being forced to fail is important to try to make sense of the future of the properties, pop cultural and regular cultural icons, and the future of media itself. Maybe this is what led to the Star Trek future where only plays, choir and jazz music, and a few books remain of media.
Continue reading →
Tell others about the Spotlight:
Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on July 23, 2024 in Comic Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, Streaming Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Video Game Spotlight and tagged commentary, fans vs creators.
3 Comments