“If we hurry we might find a cover artist who doesn’t just draw posters.”
Sonic X #2
Archie Comics Publications (December, 2005)
“See Sonic! Sea Battle! See Sonic Sea Battle!”
Okay, this isn’t the usual review portion but this title…really? This was the best you could come up with?
WRITER: Joe Edkin
PENICLER: Tim Smith III
INKER: Andrew Pepoy
COLORIST: Ben Hunzeker
LETTERER: Jeff Powell
EDITOR: Mike Pellerito
Well at least someone at DC still knows how to have fun…although I’m still not convinced they won’t screw it up somehow. If you think the idea of the Justice League as anthropomorphic dinosaurs isn’t possible to get wrong look up Dino Squad, a show for kids about teens who can turn into normal dinosaurs to fight monsters. If they can screw that concept up with the most boring thing I’ve seen, then a more violent version of the Jurassic League in modern DC Comics isn’t out of the question.
My real question though is why this guy wasn’t brought in on the project?
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And that’s just one sample.
For something that used to be a Friday series I haven’t worked on this in a while. For the new people, Art Of Storytelling is about looking at the various forms of storytelling to go over their strengths and weaknesses. Whether it’s been prose versus comics, animation versus live-action or even drawing vs computer (and that’s not even the complete list), I’ve noted that each does their own thing well and none of them are necessarily better than the other, just better for a particular story. We still have more to go before we start digging into genres and then whatever it is I think up next.
Last time I mentioned getting into puppets, so let’s do that for this installment. If you want to see a form of storytelling less appreciated than comics and video games, puppets would be it. Outside of parody you don’t see many adult productions that use puppets. It’s considered “kids stuff”, but if I’m not accepting that for cartoons I’m not about to let puppets get the negative treatment…because the ones who make that claim are the same people who look down at kids entertainment, which is a whole other topic.
There are two general types of puppetry, but we’ll discuss stop-motion in the future. I want to look at the more traditional puppets this round, the hand puppet and the marionette. I won’t get into the full history of puppetry because there are more learned discussions on that than I can give you, but we will look at how puppetry can tell a story in a way other forms can’t.
Well, considering what their name means….
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #12
Marvel/Paramount Comics (December, 1997)
“Telepathy War” part 2: “Command Decisions”
WRITERS: Michael Martin & Andy Mangels
PENCILER: Tom Grindberg
INKER: Bob Almond
COLORIST: Glynis Oliver
LETTERER: Chris Eliopoulos
EDITOR: Tim Tuohy
More people should talk about this movie. Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow is a great example of retro science fiction, a homage to the 1940s period of science fiction and a good story besides. I wish the colors were better or just embrace the black and white, but nothing’s perfect. The movie did introduce new forms of digital effects work but sadly doesn’t get the same treatment as The Matrix in this period. Sadly the movie was buried in competition at the theaters but you really should check it out.
And then check out the new art book coming from Dynamite. It promises to go over the history and influences of the movie and the effects created for the movie that are still used in today’s films.
2021 was not the best time to go to the movies. Even if you lived in an area that didn’t have major lockdowns you were still scared of the new forms of the 2020 plague and it’s not like the movies have been worth seeing. The reviews I’ve seen for modern movies have ranged from Pet Character Syndrome and its various sociopolitical counterparts, more not-stalgias and namesakes, sequels so unnecessary the creators don’t want to do it, and people who just don’t care overall. Every now and then a good movie sneaks through but it has to be an original property made by someone who actually wants to tell a good story. That seems to be on the decline.
Godzilla Vs. Kong came out when theaters were practicing social distancing even if the state wasn’t in full lockdown, and wearing a mask makes enjoying your popcorn difficult. That’s on top of the rising prices of theaters and snacks and the problem of people who think they’re in the theater of the Satellite Of Love rather than the mall. Streaming is the dominant form of watching movies followed by regular television and maybe somewhere a physical DVD or Blu-Ray. This movie came in at a bad time, and I was still recovering from non-plague related illnesses so I didn’t make it to the theater either. Meanwhile the HBO Preview Weekend recording has been sitting on my DVR for months, so today I finally got to watch it.
RELEASE DATE: 2021
RELEASED BY: Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures
RUNTIME: 1 hour, 53 minutes
RATING: PG-13
STARRING: Alexander Skarsgård
Millie Bobby Brown
Rebecca Hall
Brian Tyree Henry
Shun Oguri
Eiza González
Julian Dennison
with Kyle Chandler
and Demián Bichir
SCREENWRITERS: Terry Rossio, Michael Dougherty, and Zach Shields (story) with Eric Pearson and Max Borenstein (screenplay)
DIRECTOR: Adam Wingard
BOX OFFICE: $468,216,094 worldwide, $100,916,094 domestic according to Box Office Mojo
ESTIMATED BUDGET: $155-200 million according to Gojipedia
I know why this comic didn’t do better. The covers aren’t even trying.
Spider-Man: The Manga
Marvel Comics (January, 1999)
WRITER/ARTIST: Ryoichi Ikegami
TRANSLATION: Mutsumi Masuda & C.B. Cebulski
RETOUCH/PRODUCTION: Dan Nakrosis
EDITOR: Tom Brevoort
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
