In keeping with these last few comics I’m betting it isn’t a computer program.
Tandy Computer Whiz Kids “V2 #3”
FINAL ISSUE
Archie Comics Publications (1992)
WRITER: Mike Pellowski
PENCILER: Stan Goldberg
INKER: Mike Esposito
COLORIST: Barry Grossman
LETTERER: Bill Yoshida
EDITOR: Victor Gorelick
You’ve seen them. You’ve been amused by them. You’ve been confused by them. You’ve gotten bored the over 9000 times you’ve seen the same meme reconfigured…but can you explain to the internet unsavvy what a meme is? Well, it’s no rickroll to send someone this article from Grammarly explaining what a meme is and how to make one of your own. Though it doesn’t explain if a rickroll is actually a meme.
As part of my inability to get out or do a lot of physical stuff until recently my time out yesterday really drained me. I went to the comic store and two grocery stores, and I wasn’t even up to checking out the other comic store (or see if it’s still open) because I was too tired. Today I didn’t get to finish this week’s Jake & Leon because panel 3 is going to need a bunch of characters. So I missed that deadline twice in a row and I’m not happy. I’m also too tired to care; apologies for my apathy. And I’ll be going out again later this week because I’m going to be selling off a big bag full of comics hopefully and I have to bring it to the comic book store. Still, I’m determined to get this comic done finally. Right now I’m so drained that I didn’t even do anything for The Clutter Reports this week, not even as a non-report.
Over the coming days I’ll continue the Chapter By Chapter review of Batman: Nightfall and in the Blue Beetle’s Saturday spot (because I don’t want to do TWO Golden Age anthologies in the same week) I’ll look at Detective Comics #38, which includes among other stories the debut of Robin The Boy Wonder. I managed to get the reprint yesterday and I’m looking forward to reviewing it. There will be non-Batman stuff as well, and I think I finally have a format for that article I wanted to do last week. We’ll see how all that goes, hope you had a great Free Comic Book Day, and have a great week.
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:
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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 