April 3, 2022

Jake & Leon #522: Note Taking

And what if you misspell it?

Over at The Clutter Reports this week I wanted to clear those comics out from under my art desk, which meant shifting comics now that I’ve taken a bunch out of the collection. Things went as planned and yet somehow I still screwed up part of it. I’m amazing like that.

I’m determined to do a Finally Watched this week, which given my luck probably increases my chances I won’t be able to. It depends on what else there is to discuss this week plus what level of garbage gets thrown at me. We have the next chapter of Robotech: Before The Invid Storm to look at on Monday and then who knows what else during the week. I don’t want to schedule everything, you know. I need room to discuss new stuff. Anyway, have a good week!

Posted by on April 3, 2022 in Animation Spotlight, Comic Spotlight, Jake & Leon and tagged , , , , , , .

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April 2, 2022

Saturday Night Showcase> Magic Knights Rayearth (repost)

I posted this once a long time ago, back when Hulu still allowed you to embed their videos on your site. They dropped that to go all Netflix, but I wanted to make sure y’all saw this because it’s one of my favorite Japanese animated series.

Magic Knights Rayearth is based on the manga by the group known as CLAMP, which I’ve reviewed on this site already. The series (except for the OVA I recommend avoiding) follows three Japanese schoolgirls who are given magical powers to awaken giant metal warriors to save another dimension from evil. Yes, it’s a isekai magical girl mecha anime, and it comes together beautifully! TMS has posted the first episode (hopefully not an April Fools gag and more will be coming but I don’t know if Japan celebrates that particular holiday from Hades–as a former bully victim you can understand my issues), and I’m hoping that means more episodes will follow. Enjoy!

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Posted by on April 2, 2022 in Animation Spotlight, Comic Spotlight, Saturday Night Showcase, Streaming Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged , , , , , .

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April 2, 2022

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Scooby-Doo Team-Up #38

What Mask Of The Blue Falcon should have been.

Scooby-Doo Team-Up #38

DC Comics (July, 2018)

“It Was A Dark And Gritty Knight…”

WRITER: Sholly Fisch

PENCILER: Walter Carzon

INKER: Horacio Ottolini

COLORIST: Silvana Brys

LETTERER: Saida Temofonte

EDITOR: Kristy Quinn

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Posted by on April 2, 2022 in Animation Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , , .

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April 1, 2022

Sing Me A Story: Snoopy Vs. Osama (and other Royal Guardsmen Snoopy songs)

logo for the Sing Me A Story article series

You know, the more I work on this site the more I learn about things that exist. Sing Me A Story has probably been the most surprising to me of all the articles here at the Spotlight. I have learned things about old songs via research for this articles that I never would have before. How “Mack The Knife” has ties to an old opera, or “Ghost Riders In The Sky” was inspired by Norse mythology despite a Christian leaning. I found out that “Pass The Dutchie” was based on a drug song but not a drug song itself. I even reassessed “Same Old Lang Syne after learning the song’s origins. It’s a weird journey I have here, and here’s another leg on that trip.

While trying to re-embed videos for my article on the Royal Guardsmen series of songs where Snoopy went up against the Red Baron, YouTube informed me of something I didn’t know. Not only is the band still around, but they actually produced ANOTHER Snoopy song. This time the famed German pilot wasn’t his target, but Osama bin Laden! Charlie Brown I think is even referenced (though a song lyric page I checked out spelled it “Charley” who else would they reference?), which is a first for the Guardsmen trilogy plus two, or now three. I couldn’t find a video with lyrics but I gotta let you guys know this exists if you don’t already. And if you did…why did nobody tell ME?

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Posted by on April 1, 2022 in Comic Spotlight, Sing Me A Story and tagged , , , , .

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April 1, 2022

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Space: Above And Beyond–The Gauntlet #1

“Sorry, ma’am. Wrong house.”

Space: Above And Beyond–The Gauntlet #1

Topps Comics (May, 1996)

“Running The Gauntlet”

WRITER: Roy Thomas

PENCILER: Yanick Paquette

INKER: Michel Lacombe

COLORING: Digital Chameleon

COVER ART: Markus Harrison

EDITOR: Len Brown

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Posted by on April 1, 2022 in Television Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged , .

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April 1, 2022

BW’s Daily Article Link: Translating Books To Movies Is Hard

If you can’t draw yourself riding Falcor why are you drawing at all?

The NeverEnding Story is my favorite movie of all time, but I completely understand why fans of the book would hate it…because the author hated it! I didn’t even know there was a book for a lot of years. Translating a book to movie form has a number of hurdles and that leads to some understandable and some very not understandable changes to the source material. Author James Harrington goes over the reasons good and bad that the pages are altered when turned into frames.

Posted by on April 1, 2022 in Book Spotlight, Movie Spotlight and tagged .

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March 31, 2022

Trope Shark: Cursed Artifacts (with an assist)

I was going to build off of the comic review today and go into the trope of sewer workers coming across a monster or portal to the netherworld or whatever, but believe it or not this isn’t an officially recognized trope. I went to three different websites that examine tropes and there wasn’t anything. I even had two great examples: the 90s Spider-Man episode “Night Of The Lizard” and the first episode of Extreme Ghostbusters. Neither recap (when there was one, and frankly workers finding portals to hell are rampant in both Ghostbuster shows, and probably the Filmation one as well) came up with anything. A general look at sewer tropes would come up with underground worlds but nothing even showed this to be part of a wider trope, like guys coming across monsters in museums or something. So I’m not sure where I can go with that so if any of you trope experts can point me somewhere I’d appreciate it. However, I still need a topic.

Therefore I’m going to use a potential daily video posting that YouTube recommended to go over a trope I probably wouldn’t have considered doing for Trope Shark: the cursed object. My fantasy watching is admittedly low and while there is a sci-fi equivalent I’ve never really thought about it for some reason. Lucky I have a video by someone who does, the duo over at Overly Sarcastic Productions and their show/segment Trope Talk. In the video below Red (I think I’m getting that right, there’s nothing in the about section so I’m going by their website) discusses the history of cursed objects. And since this isn’t filler or a quick post I’ll drop a few comments of my own. This trope fishing however I’ll leave to an expert. Minor cursing in this video that is only mentionable because of how I do things around here.

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Posted by on March 31, 2022 in Trope Shark and tagged , , , .

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