Chapter By Chapter> TekWar chapter 14

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.

Time to dive back into The Future and the high-tech VR drugs. Last time the plot was actually more important than the worldbuilding as Jake got to do some actual investigating. This time I hope the momentum keeps going.

I’m a little confused on the spelling, as you may have noticed. The back cover calls the book TekWar with the W capitalized, but so often when I look it up it gets spelled Tekwar with the small W. Considering my own screenname, ShadowWing Tronix, and my fight to get GoBots spelled with the capital B and kept one word I know what a pain it is to get the internet to do it right. I even added the capitalized second W because people were trying to tell me there was only one w, and “Shadowing” wasn’t my name. So if I end up going back and forth know it’s the same typo issue that for some reason makes me go back to make sure Chapter By Chapter has the “By” capitalized. Otherwise the book says “TekWar” and that’s how I’m going to try to spell it, typos aside.

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> Robotech #0 (WildStorm)

Nice poster. Where’s the comic cover?

Robotech #0

WildStorm Productions/DC Comics (February, 2003)

“Promise”

STORY: Tommy Yune

WRITERS: Jay Faerber

ARTISTS: Jim Lee, Alé Garza, Carlos D’Anda, Lee Bermejo, Trevor Scotty, Richard Friend, and Sandra Hope

COLORING: Udon Studios

LETTERER: John E. Workman

EDITOR: Ben Abernathy

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BW’s Daily Video> Fox Kids X-Men And The Art Of Respecting The Lore

Catch more from Just Some Guy on YouTube

Here’s the article with the head writer, which also goes into how people working on Netflix’s The Witcher adaptation didn’t care about the source material. A Netflix adaptation that doesn’t care about the source material. Imagine my (lack of) surprise. To quote myself from the comments: You don’t even need to be a fan specifically. Look at Harve Bennett and Star Trek. He wasn’t a fan but he watched the old show to get the tone right and Wrath of Khan is considered by many to be the best Star Trek movie. Or how about Mel Brooks, self-admittedly not into science fiction but Spaceballs is not only a great sci-fi parody, if you took out the gags you’d still have a decent sci-fi adventure. The point is to care enough about the fans who made something popular enough that you’re making a movie based on it, not do something that loses the casuals in the process (a concern with having a fanboy who may end up with a pet character or something), and wants to tell a good story with these characters that honors the legacy while drawing in new fans who may actually like this stuff but never saw it.

Jake & Leon #544> Conspira-DC Theory

There’s your Halloween nightmare.

That’s how it started over at Marvel, right?

Over at the Clutter Reports this week I did some tech work again, including setting up for this year’s Art Soundoff. Yes, it’s almost November so it’s time for me to do this again. Hopefully I won’t be alone but we’ll see what happens. Even if I’m the only one…again…I kind of need to get my own thoughts together.

Also this week I forgot to do a Jake & Leon anniversary post…again…between the Scooby-Doo intros and other stuff so we’ll do that this week along with the latest Chapter By Chapter of TekWar. Not sure what else is coming but it won’t involve intros. Have a safe Halloween and a good week, everyone!

Saturday Night SCAREcase> Freddy Kruger’s 1-900 Hotline Stories

It is rare when I don’t actually watch (or in this case listen) to one of these for Saturday Night Showcase, and I don’t usually do Halloween but this was on my Watch Later list and even though I didn’t get past a minute before noping out I thought this would be fun for all of you.

900 hotlines were a huge deal in the 1980s and 1990s. Instead of getting customer service you (or your kids who didn’t know better) would get a story with your phone bill being charged for every minute you were on. There were other uses too but for this showcase we have some dude pretending to be Robert England as Freddy Kruger telling horror stories. It’s a silly idea but horror stories are not what I’m into. If you are into it or just curious what one of these sounded like, then by all means enjoy and I hope you have a happy and safe Halloween.

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> Wonder Comics #2

In the late 1930s anybody could put on a cheap turban and have unidentified psychic powers. It’s a part of history that’s been forgotten.

Wonder Comics #2

Bruns Publication (Fox Features; June, 1939, posted to Comic Book Plus)

From what I can tell, Bruns Publication was one of the many sub-publishers owned by Fox Features Publications. I’m not sure of that but I know they’re connected somehow. time for another batch of stories. Again, quick reviews with the credits near the titles.

I want to call this the final issue but they may have just rebranded as Wonderworld Comics. It’s one of those weird things they did in the early days of comic books. Also of note is that Comic Book Plus’ scans came from a fiche and not scans of the comic itself. The first story is reprinted in Blue Beetle #1, which was a better quality scan, so I was able to read a few panels unreadable in the fiche scan.

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The Many, MANY Intros Of Scooby-Doo> Another Celebrity Guessing Game

For our final (for now) look into the long-running Scooby-Doo franchise through its logos, we find the series returning to a previous gimmick–the celebrity guest star. The New Scooby-Doo Movies wasn’t the last time for celebrities playing themselves and meeting with the gang. What’s New Scooby-Doo had the occasional guest appearance while the direct-to-video movies has a huge stretch of just teaming up with everyone from the Flintstones to WWE wrestlers to KISS, and even more unusual parings like Bobby Flay and the TV series Supernatural. You know, the adult show where people die rather gruesomely, I hear. Not only has the gang showed up on that show but a direct-to-video Scooby movie had the traveling brothers (I know so little about this show) joining the gang. (I think the TV episode had them traveling into a Scooby cartoon, not unlike that one episode of The 13 Ghosts Of Scooby-Doo where the team went into a Frankenstein sequel parody or that other time where they were sucked into the Sunday newspaper strips.)

Scooby-Doo And Guess Who? would go all-in on this, bringing some of the old celebrities back and teaming the sleuths with current celebs and even DC heroes. For October 2022 Cartoon Network posted a bunch of episodes to the main Cartoon Network channel but usually it’s a Boomerang show, because the station intended for old cartoons would naturally air new ones. I haven’t seen many episodes. My YouTube and DVR backlog was just too heavy. However I have seen enough to know that this really wasn’t as good as the show that inspired it. The modern intro isn’t helping.

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