“Time to start that diet.”
Prime #6
Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (November, 1993)
“Primal Changes”
WRITERS: Gerard Jones & Len Strazewski
ARTIST: Norm Breyfogle
COLORIST: Keith Conroy (also listed for “interior color”, Violent Hues, whatever that is)
LETTERER: Tim Eldred
EDITORS: Chris Ulm & Hank Kanalz
Behold my first attempt at chibi. Look upon this work and despair!
I found a chibi guide that showed you how to do it wrong and I was actually going to do it wrong on purpose. Then I realized it’s my first attempt. It’s going to look wrong anyway. It’s not a style I’m interested in working in, but never say never.
Over at The Clutter Reports this week I stopped making this comic long enough to set up my artputer. Or at least as much as I could yesterday. I’ve got all kinds of art programs on there but I never really use either of them to their full potential, even Clip Studio Paint, which I used to make the comic, and Paint Shop Pro, which I use for most of the images. This was my first step in trying to fix that.
Here at the Spotlight this week I get to the next chapter of Star Trek: The Vulcan Academy Murders as the investigation continues. The last two Ninja Turtle reviews begin as I look at the adaptation of the first live-action movie. I’ve also seen some decent commentary fodder, but we’ll see where the week takes us. Have a great one, everybody!
With some question as to how Disney owned LucasFilm (I call them DisneyFilm) is treating Star Wars as of late I recall the words of YouTube channel Retroblasting when host Michael says “fans are doing the best work”. As long as they don’t fall into “pet character syndrome” and are at least decent at their craft, and noting the limited budget for no financial rewards due to, you know, laws, he does have a point. Check tonight’s feature out.
Set in the old Expanded Universe, aka the “Legends” period that DisneyFilm tossed out so they could create their own continuity without fighting stuff that was probably not canon to the films to begin with, Star Wars Legends: Legacy Of The Force is a 2015 fan film adapting a scene from the novel Invincible by Troy Denning. Instead of evil Solo son Ben/Kylo Ren we have evil Solo son Jaycen/Darth Cadeus. Instead of everchanging parentage Rey we have good Solo sister Jaina Solo, who is here to put an end to her brother’s reign of terror. This may be bad timing, however, as Jaycen is trying to stop the Moffs from doing a genocide but at this point nobody trusts him. The whole Sith Lord reigning terror thing makes you hard to trust.
This is one, as of this writing, two Star Wars fan films produced by YouTube channel…Fan Film, which again makes no money and was just produced out of a love for the source material that current DisneyFilm offerings seem to lack. Is this the Star Wars story we should have gotten, adaptations of existing material? It’s still a good woman and evil man, but does it work better than the sequel trilogy of Abrams vs Johnson we ended up with. Decide for yourself and hopefully enjoy.
We were always told, even before Disney took over and ruined the franchise and blamed the fans, that the reason Jake Lloyd left acting after his role as young Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace was the negative reaction by the fans, to the point even kids in his class were picking on him for it. We heard that he was so distressed that the former Star Wars fans smashed up his toys in anger.
Well, apparently that’s not the case. Oh, the bullying happened, but what led him to leave acting was, according to Lloyd’s mother Lisa, Lloyd actually suffering from mental health issues plus his family’s divorce distressed him and that’s why he left acting. He didn’t even know about the fan backlash, but did deal with kids in school making fun of him. Whether they were jealous he was acting or saw the backlash and joined in, we don’t know. It’s still a sad story, but whatever problems I had to the response to the prequels (which admittedly had problems but it was still an overreaction, especially compared to what we get now) it still goes against the “toxic fan” narrative, which I was part of perpetuating when it came to Lloyd. I hope he’s getting the help he needs.
I should update that thing. MatPat did. What started as Matthew Patrick making a resume and trying to get into theater turned into a five channel empire, a bunch of merchandise, a side gig helping other YouTubers reach his level of success or close to it, and entertaining thousands of people around the world using science, history, looooooooooooooooore, and other random trivia to prove theories both interesting and questionable. I’m not even sure the theory itself was always the goal so much as teaching people about other topics and just having some fun.
Well, MatPat is gone…from the theorists. I think he might still be doing GT Live for awhile, but the four channels he created will now have new hosts, previous writers and contributors to the Theorist Network and their specific shows who have gotten practice in cameos and YouTube Shorts. Now they’re in charge, but how well do they compare to MatPat or do they do a good enough job on their own that I might keep watching. That’s OUR theory for today.
All week the four channels–Game Theory, Film Theory, Food Theory, and Style Theory have dropped their first full episodes with the new host, so we’re going to watch them and see how they did. Two of these shows I’ll probably give a better chance than others as far as what I’ll be watching based solely on my interests, but like I keep saying, I don’t have to enjoy something to recognize it as a quality work. Those are the two things I’ll be looking at: are they worthy successors, and will I continue watching? A couple of shows are topics I only watched first out of curiosity and then because of MatPat, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop watching with the new crew. It also doesn’t mean I’ll keep watching or that said decision reflects on the show more than what I’m into and my still large YouTube backlog. So let’s get started.
Come on, even Holyoke put the Beetle prominent on the cover and they seemed to be trying to ditch the character.
Blue Beetle #53
Fox Feature Syndicate (February, 1948)
Seriously, who designed this cover? Kids looking for an image of the Blue Beetle fighting crime will see this true crime type cover and unless they catch the title and see Dan in the small bubble won’t know it’s a Blue Beetle cover. Unless that’s supposed to be Dan tying a woman up. I mean, what he and Joan…never mind. Let’s get on with our two Blue Beetle stories and a true crime story.
[Read along with me here or for some reason here]
I’m not sure what the difference is between the two versions outside of the download format, which from Comic Book + you can only due if you sign up. As if I’d want a copy of Otis’ terrible Blue Beetle adventures.
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 