May 6, 2023

My Free Comic Book Day 2023 Haul

Pre-empting Saturday Night Showcase this week because it’s Free Comic Book Day! I live-tweeted the comics I picked up this year and this is my wrap-up of those tweets. I ended up getting most of what I wanted, only missing out on The Smurf and a preview of the biographical graphic novel I Am Stan Lee. I looked at a few others, including Animal Castle from my initial want list, but nothing else really got my attention.

And to prove I’m no hypocrite I bought something to thanks the store for taking part in the event. I needed more boards and bags anyway, but I also saw a recent reprint of Detective Comics #38. I’ll review that in place of The Blue Beetle on Saturday because more than one Golden Age anthology will eat my time like a starving Pac-Man. So with that, let’s get started with my Free Comic Book Day haul via Twitter:

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Posted by on May 6, 2023 in Comic Spotlight and tagged , , , , , , , .

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May 6, 2023

“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Blue Beetle #11

Didn’t know Jimmy Olsen was into that.

The Blue Beetle #11

Fox Publications Inc (February, 1942)

Fox must have been building up their superhero library. There’s an ad for another anthology comic, because that’s how the Golden Age ran–just a bunch of anthologies with the same casts, even in a comic with a title character like Blue Beetle. This comic opens with an ad for Weird Comics, and when Yarko and Zanzibar aren’t in it how weird can they be? Included are The Eagle and Buddy, The Dark and Ace (because sidekicks were also a thing; even Dan will get one eventually), The Sorceress of Zoom (who I have to assume is going to be the girl version of Yarko and Zanzibar and will bring the weird based on their adventures and Davy over here), and The Black Rider. It also boasts the story of some guy named Varnoff, trying to rescue his wife and his country from presumably the Nazis. Maybe we’ll get to meet them someday, but now that the homepage is padded let’s get to Beetle and his pals.

Read along with me here.

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Posted by on May 6, 2023 in Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , , , , , , .

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May 5, 2023

Sing Me A Story> I Shot The Sheriff

I had this article that I really wanted to write. I even teased it earlier this week AND on Twitter. Today, I just can’t get myself to focus on it for some reason. So I had this waiting in the background. Apologies to everyone and hopefully I can get it going next week.

logo for the Sing Me A Story article series

There are songs that you hear one or two lines from constantly, whether they were used in numerous advertisements or, if you’re part of the time when they made such things, some compilation album used a snippet to show the songs that are on there. For me “I Shot The Sheriff” by Bob Marley And The Wailers is one of those songs. I’m not a huge reggae fan but I do like the genre for its musical quality. Still, all I knew about the song before writing this article is that he shot the sheriff in self-defense but not the deputy. Was there more to the story? Reggae isn’t exactly country when it comes to narratives.

Released for the 1973 album Burnin’, a few months before I was born actually, it’s one of those songs I’ve never heard on the radio but have heard. Eric Clapton would release his own cover a year later, but Marley wrote it and his band played it first so that’s the version I’m focusing on. It’s time for me to finally learn why he shot the sheriff and whether or not this is a reliable narrator. After all, this was still a time when certain parties were not exactly friendly to the cops and wouldn’t mind seeing them hurt or killed. Glad that neeeeeeeeever happened again. Oh yeah, there’s some interesting backstage stuff to share as well.

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Posted by on May 5, 2023 in Sing Me A Story and tagged , , , .

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May 5, 2023

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Tron #1 (based on Tron 2.0)

“You can’t rez a simple goalpost?”

Tron #1

SLG Publishing (April, 2006)

“Ghost In The Machine”

WRITERS: Landry Walker & Eric Jones

ARTIST: Louie De Martinis

EDITOR: Dan Vado

Please note a few things before the review starts. This is based, or rather continues, the video game Tron 2.0, which came out well before Tron: Legacy and the game, despite being a direct sequel, may not be considered canon officially. I don’t know if there’s a list of what is and isn’t considered canon by Disney or the movie producers. I sadly have yet to finish this game so there may be details better followed if you did. I do want to finish it as it was quite fun. I’m also guessing on the credits with the help of the Grand Comic Database since they’re gag-style credits tied to the movie and game presentation.

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Posted by on May 5, 2023 in Movie Spotlight, Video Game Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , , .

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May 5, 2023

BW’s Daily Video> The Culture War Vs. Media Reviewing

Catch more from Shady Doorags on YouTube

 

Posted by on May 5, 2023 in Uncategorized and tagged .

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May 4, 2023

Watch Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures We Shall

DisneyFilm is trying to get kids interested in Star Wars. Sure, they’re still replacing George Lucas’ legacy with their own and flipping off fans of the original Trilogy and previous media, but is everything they’re making crap? Well, since I’m hearing previous fans of The Mandalorian are now in the same spaceship as every other Disney-era Star Wars viewer perhaps so. Still, I’m hoping someone with skills who understand the franchise and why it grew such a strong fan base sneak in somehow.

Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures is show on Disney Junior, the only place in Disney that still remembers what a superhero story should be considering P.J. Masks, Spidey & His Amazing Friends, Superkitties, and I’ll even toss in Puppy Dog Pals out of desperation is hosted there. Then again, it’s set in the “High Republic” time period, so I’m waiting to see if they do something worse than the navigator who’s a big rock.

For May The Fourth, Disney Junior unleashed the first episode of Young Jedi Adventures on TV but only one story on their YouTube channel. (Disney Junior’s shows carry two to three stories per episode.) We’ll look at the first full story but they also put up a series of shorts to introduce the character. It’s too many videos for one post so I’m going to focus on a few to introduce our new younglings and then the full adventure. Let’s see if this is any good.

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Posted by on May 4, 2023 in Animation Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged , , .

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May 4, 2023

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Overwatch #1

At least that’s what ComiXology calls it. It’s a ten page promo comic.

“I’d ask if you have a ticket, but I don’t even have one.”

Overwatch: McRee (or #1)

Dark Horse Comics (December, 2017)

I can’t get the site to allow me to read the credits and the internet gave me jack in straight answers. Dark Horse’s site gave me the writer, Robert Brooks, and the artist, Bengal, and that’s about all the information I could get despite all the other blurry credits I see on the credits page. Yes, I am rather upset because I didn’t get much sleep last night and this is not helping my mood! Get your act together, internet!

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Posted by on May 4, 2023 in Video Game Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , .

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