Punching the cover artist for not giving her a proper shirt like she has in the comic. Too bad it’s the same artist.
Robotech: Mechangel #3
FINAL ISSUE
Academy Comics, Ltd. (May, 1996)
“War In The Wastelands”
WRITER: Bill Spangler
ARTIST: William Jang
Maybe not this version though.
Variety is reporting that Warner Brothers has decided to do what sounds like a Cars style series called Batwheels, in which the Bat-Families vehicles decide to go out and fight crime. I wonder if the Supermobile will make a guest-appearance. You probably won’t see the Invisible Jet make a cameo. It’s not like a world where vehicles are sentient and there are no humans is something new. Not only are there a few preschool shows on TV right now doing it but I grew up with Wheelie & The Chopper Bunch and a couple different MGM shorts where humans only showed up as doctors. Actually, now I’m surprised it took this long for someone to come up with this idea.
As I’ve chronicled in the past the people in Hollywood don’t really connect to stories the same way viewers do. And recently an article by Bounding Into Comics, focusing on an interview with Jonathan Frakes but also into other comments on the Star Trek movies, highlighted this yet again. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m sure that Frakes loves his fans and is good to them. I’m not attacking the man personally. However, his recent comments and those of Karl Urban, who played Dr. McCoy in the Kelvin timeline movies, are something I feel the need to challenge because they don’t get into the heart of why they don’t see what the problem is.
I think actors look at movies based on roles they want to play, directors based on movies they’d like to shoot, and modern writers (as we’ve gone over many, many times) stories they want to tell without thinking about adaptation or the franchise they’re continuing. They don’t see these movies the same way the fans do and that disconnect is the source of the current strife and the division between fans and modern creators. It gets more confusing for the fans when the actors don’t look at their time on a show, for our discussion the example of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the same way they do. Actors will tell you about how fun it was to play a character, shoot a scene, associate with fellow actors for a long time, or get to do something they hadn’t before while fans want to know about the character themselves, motivations, and just what they thought of the story. In the interest of continuing to attempt to bridge the gap and reduce the angry fans tweets (good luck, and I’m not even going to try to calm the actors on Twitter) I want to go over this article and find where those disconnections are.
Deanna’s worried because she knows that in the next crossover Kirk’s going to hit on her.
Star Trek: The Next Generation Annual #6
DC Comics (1995)
“Convergence” part 2: “Future Imperiled”
WRITER: Michael Jan Friedman
PENCILER: Ken Save
INKER: Sam de la Rosa
COLORIST: Rick Taylor
LETTERER: Chris Eliopoulos
EDITOR: Margaret Clark
Imagine the ship is 2020 and the White House represents everyone…which will be frustrating based on your political ideology but work with me here.
A couple of articles from /Film and a couple from Variety about the current theater situation. First is Regal Cinemas in the US and fellow Cineworld owned UK movie chain Odeon will be closing October 8th. That’s every cinema in every marker, regardless of what Covid-19 is doing in that area. For example Connecticut is expected to finally move into stage 3 of our reopening plan, with increased capacity but still requiring masks and social distancing. Good luck eating your popcorn. These restrictions and media panic about C-19 is why people aren’t returning to theaters on top of the reasons they’ve been abandoning the theater experience for a while now, like prices and other patrons being jerks to everyone else.
Fathom Events, which works with many Regal theaters, will also be releasing new events, including a re-release of Total Recall, an independent documentary on Donald Trump ahead of the 2020 election, a CG Lupin III movie with fan favorite dub actors, and a Rifftrax Live later in the month as part of their month long Halloween horror film fest, all of which I won’t get to see with the nearest theater too far away. This seems like a rather odd time just because two states, New York and California, still won’t be opening their biggest cities.
Meanwhile, AMC and Cinemark have announced they will be keeping their theaters open in regions where they’re allowed to. If I were Fathom I’d work fast to get into as many of those theaters as possible. Or maybe some of the smaller theaters that are hurting even more than the big theaters, who according to Variety are actually asking for a bailout. Considering that movie theaters were losing money before the pandemic and quarantine I’m a bit suspicious. And that article about small theaters was still talking about small chains. There’s an independent theater near me that’s not part of a chain, owned by one family who just recently lost the man who ran the theater to I think a car accident or hit-and-run or something who I bet is hurting even more than that. It’s the small and independent businesses that have taken the biggest hits thanks to the quarantine and the looting and we need to get that message out there.
When an actor leaves a show usually his or her character leaves with him. This isn’t always possible and you either need a decent reason for the change in actor playing that character or you ignore it completely. There’s something to be said for both situations but it depends on the show. When M*A*S*H said goodbye to McLean Stevenson they also said goodbye to his character, Lt. Colonel Henry Blake, the frazzled leader of the 4077th (not an actual MASH unit during the Korean War) who ran a hospital first and a military base…somewhere close to second. The scene above shows how that went down, as the producers decided to take the risk of an unhappy ending for Blake before calling in Colonel Potter as the new commanding officer.
I stumbled across the first video last night, an interview with producer and director Larry Gelbart on the decision to kill off the character and filming that scene. Plus I have some commentary on the decision and why Stevenson decided to leave the show. There is one swear but it makes sense being there.
“I already shaved today!”
Spider-Woman #20
Marvel Comics Group (November, 1979; as reprinted in Spider-Man Family)
“Tangled Webs”
WRITER: Mark Gruenwald
PENCILER: Frank Springer
INKER: Mike Esposito
CO-SCENARIO (whatever that is): Steven Grant
COLORIST: Nelson Yomtov
LETTERER: John Costanzao
EDITOR: Jim Shooter
I should note those last four and the publishing date I looked up on the Grand Comic Database. The credits don’t have first names while Spider-Man Family doesn’t tell me when the comic came out. I’ll have to look that up for all the reprints I’m reviewing from this book.
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
