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Chapter By Chapter 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 read-along book club.
Well, it seems jealousy waylaid our heroes last chapter, but since we’re around the last third of the book they better not get away from the main plot again. This looks like a decent lengthed chapter with another blank page division between this and the next section. I don’t know if that’s intentional for the story, something with the printing, or what but I’m hoping it’s an indicator we’re moving along.
Most because by now I’m out of things to discuss to lengthen these intros for the homepage. So let’s just dive in and see how Jake and Bethdroid are going to contact Warbride now.
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In hindsight one of them should have grabbed a spacesuit.
Runners: Bad Goods #1
Serve Man Press (January, 2003)
WRITER/ARTIST: Sean Wang
Note that my collection of the miniseries, picked up at a ConnectiCon, is the original black and white miniseries while on the website and in current graphic novel collections (he started using solely graphic novels in the second story in the series) it’s in full color.
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The biggest reason video games movie adaptations fail is that Hollywood writers couldn’t care less about the source material, elitist media snobs that they are. However, William Silvia also points out a hurdle that these writers would have to consider, that despite the cinematic cut scenes video game stories don’t operate the same way as linear, non-interactive movies do.
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I wish I knew what that was the case but every time I take a break, willingly or not, I get stat boosts. Someday I’d like to find out why and if that’s a good thing.
Over at The Clutter Reports this week I took down my Christmas decorations and use Operation: A Place For Everything to better organize them.
So there’s a reason I missed Saturday’s comic review. Friday was just way too busy. I hurt my toe back in November and I had to see the foot doctor because the toenail wasn’t healing right. That’s all dealt with for the most part. Unfortunately it was the same day we got a new TV provider. (Frontier seems to be shutting down one channel at a time and we didn’t want to get caught in the rush since we’ve heard they may be closing the TV side of things down altogether.) Not sure how I feel about the new TV service right now. We lost a couple of channels we really like but some neat ones have taken their place and there’s a lot more music options. We’ll see how it goes.
Hopefully the Wonderworld Comics review will be back on Saturday, along with our continuing Chapter By Chapter review of TekWar on Monday. I’m also getting to start reviewing the physical comics I have from my favorite webcomic, Sean Wang’s Runners, which I’ve brought up before. Looking forward to reading those again. Now that I’m caught up on Robotech comics it’s time to move to the next series, as you saw on Friday. Also have other things to discuss this week…and no, what’s going on with the Joker right now will not be on that list. If you haven’t heard, you’re better off. If you have heard, it’s a cheap publicity stunt and I’m not going to join those falling for it by giving it even enough play to hate on it. To them even negative press is still press and they don’t care if you hate them (since they already hate you) so long as you’re talking about them. So outside of this paragraph I’m not going to talk about it. I win.
Have a great week, everyone!
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Tonight’s video is a long one, but don’t worry. One way or another I’ve got your back with alternatives.
I’ve talked about my first three comics (including a certain Batman comic you’re possibly sick of me talking about but I only do so to make a point about the current state of Batman) but what actually got me collecting comics was Marvel’s The Transformers. I first learned of the comic at a local drug store with issue #5 but it wasn’t until issue #6 that I started collecting them and #17 when I did the old fashioned subscribe by mail that they don’t do anymore. I’ve reviewed all the Marvel Transformers comics, including the stories by Simon Furman that made me lose interest in the series. He is just not my style of writer.
So for tonight’s showcase I have a retrospective of the Marvel US run and the IDW “Regeneration One” series that supposedly continued that continuity, where the world went further down the dumpster. For a quick overview I have Chris McFeely’s The Basics, which is a quick overview of the continuity in both the US and the UK. The heavy showcase comes from Linkara and Atop The Fourth Wall with an deeper examination of the stories by Bob Budiansky, Simon Furman, and that one filler story by Len Kaminski that turned me into a Bumblebee fan, though I don’t remember him covering that one, focusing on the main stories so not even really diving into the the G.I. Joe crossover. You can find reviews of those here as well.
If you don’t have time to sit through the whole thing Linkara made two posts on his site that collected the shorter videos that formed a two-part episode. [PART 1| PART 2] What I have here is the collected full examination of the entire Marvel run, featuring Generation Two and Regeneration One, but not the convention comics that also had an alternate version of the Marvel continuity past issue #80. So you can either get a primer, see the episodes in easier to watch in multiple sitting parts, or the full three-hour plus deep dive. Choose your preference and enjoy!
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New Who does seem to end up there quite a bit.
The Doctor should not travel alone. It was the addition of Companions in his life besides his granddaughter that formed the Doctor’s moral compass, and eventually led him to becoming the protector of time and space we know today. Without a Companion, especially in New Who, the Doctor loses his (or her) way. For the Tenth he grew cold, seeing himself as the Time Lord Victorious. For Eleven the loneliness kept him out of action.
The Companion also serves a role for the audience, someone to explain all the science fiction stuff. Even with the original TARDIS team, Ian and Barbara served the show’s original mission of science and history education being schoolteachers in those respective fields. Over time though the show became less accurate in both and just became a serialized sci-fi adventure. So the humans are the relatable ones to the alien Time Lord, they can ask the questions the audience needs to know the answers to, and gives the Doctor someone to talk to besides himself.
However, life aboard the TARDIS is not necessarily a safe one. Some Companions left on a world other than their home planet, and a few have even died. In the following video, Harbo Wholmes goes over every Companion the Doctor has had. Well, not all of them. While mentioning events in external media (books, comics, and Big Finish audio dramas among other sources of questionable canonicity) he does leave out Companions from them. So if you wondered what happened to Charlotte Pollard you’re out of luck. What disappoints me though is the one major show Companion he left out.
BW Media Spotlight 