Navy’s Memorial Day Virtual Concert

Even if you’re one of the states opening up, Phase 1 still means getting together for Memorial Day celebrations is highly unlikely. However, by now we’ve learned how to use recordings, webcams, and other virtual resources to honor those who gave their lives so the rest of us could live free. I can’t let Memorial Day go without posting something so this year I bring you the US Navy’s Memorial Day tribute. It features music of celebration, tales of those who fell, and honor the current heroes against an enemy of a different kind. Enjoy, stay safe, and don’t forget to give thanks for those who gave all for all of us.

 

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Justice League Unlimited #19

“Ummm, Diana, you ain’t got ‘iron’, just a lasso.”

Justice League Unlimited #19

DC Comics (May, 2008)

“The Justice Rangers Ride Again”

WRITER: Adam Beechen

PENCILER: Gordon Purcell

INKER: Bob Petrecca

COLORING: Heroic Age

LETTERER: Travis Lanham

EDITOR: Michael Wright

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BW’s Daily Article Link: So Did Sailor Moon’s Creator Whitewash Her?

Normally I stay out of this kind of drama but maybe someone can explain this to me. During what was supposed to be a fun Twitter challenge to redraw a frame from the anime adaptation of the manga Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon got a lot of rather odd praise and dumb criticism. The short version is apparently someone doesn’t know the characters were being drawn by other creators exactly as they are in the show…CREATED BY A JAPANESE WOMAN AND DRAWN BY ACTUAL JAPANESE PEOPLE…and claimed others in the challenge where “whitewashing” the Japanese heroine, while others complained that the Malaysian artist was drawing her too Japanese. I mean, does any of what’s in that article make any sense to you?

BW Programming Update: Let’s Get Seasonal

This wasn’t a good week to get a Jake & Leon comic done. I had to get thing set up for the change to Spring and Summer here in BW Attic HQ, which I mention in this week’s Clutter Report and a friend is trying to figure out why the computer is going blue screen on me. We think we know what the problem is and just need to work on the solution. Luckily I can still continue normal BW operations. It’s just by the time we (well, he) was done and I had lunch I didn’t think I could do a proper comic without rushing it. Yes, even the art style designed to make it easier to rush has its limitations. So hopefully we’ll have a new comic next week.

As for what else is coming, Art Of Storytelling continues the comic marathon with comic books, I’ll be reviewing the same comic books as I have been (just different issues, naturally), we’re getting closer to the end of Spider-Man: Carnage In New York for Chapter By Chapter, and if I can track down the next Free Comic Inside comic I want to use (maybe integrating them into the regular longboxes wasn’t such a good idea after all because I own this one) you’ll see that. So this week may be very comic sided depending on what’s going on in the reel world to comment on. Some studios are resuming work, publishers are seeking to get back into slowly opening comic stores, so maybe there will be something interesting to talk about this week. The only video game news has been in a franchise I don’t follow, and outside of celebrities being idiots on the internet as they try to pretend they’re just like us (I’ve seen Madonna pretend she know how to sing in a YouTube video…meanwhile YouTube-based musicians are making her look like more of a chump by being good without a huge staff and studio) so there haven’t been as many current events to discuss. We’ll see what comes up or what I can come up with.

Have a good week everyone. I’m still waiting until I can get a haircut again.

Saturday Night Showcase: G.I. Joe–Arise, Serpentor, Arise

In our last Showcase featuring G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero I posted the first three miniseries that led to the full series. Since then Hasbro has posted a few other multipart episodes, like the time Cobra created synthetic people or the time some of the canceled toys went to another dimension. However, one of the most important miniseries comes from this period, when Hasbro decided to shake up the toyline by creating a new Cobra leader, relegating Cobra Commander to Starscream. (I wonder if Chris Latta felt typecast at that point?) Since the cartoon had a heavy sci-fi bend and even the comic could break out the superscience now and then the backstory was that Dr. Mindbender stole DNA from some famous warrior generals to create a new leader from scratch. They got Serpentor. It…didn’t go as planned. Serpentor might have been as bad if not worse than Cobra Commander. He’s hot-headed, impatient, and believe he can win because he says he can. Old CC may have had an ego problem but Serpentor didn’t exactly come off as the right solution. He would take back command in the DIC miniseries “Operation Dragonfire”, one of the rare good(-ish) stories from that run.

“Arise, Serpentor, Arise” is just as memorable as the pre-series miniseries so tonight I bring you that. And since YouTube is still doing their rather lame “solution” to their COPPA failings, which somehow involved not allowing kids shows to be saved to personal playlists (and the way Hasbro posted these later ones is kind of all over the place, five videos await you below. Enjoy.

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes #1

I must not have gotten this issue. I have reviews of issues #2-4 when they came out but not the first one and I didn’t recognize either story. Well, let’s complete the set finally, shall we?

“They just reopened the shawarma shop! Let’s go!”

Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes #1

Marvel Comics (November, 2010; posted to comiXology January, 2011)

WRITER: Christopher Yost

COLORIST: Jean-Francois Beaulieu

LETTERER: Dave Sharpe

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Michael Horowitz

EDITOR: Nathan Cosby

“Adaptation”

ARTIST: Scott Wegner

 

“Trust”

ARTIST: Patrick Scherberger

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Art Of Storytelling: The Comic Strip

Without going into history and homages and whatnot I have a feeling for most of us our first introductions to comics were in the daily or Sunday newspaper. Probably not so much anymore with newspapers losing to the internet, but that’s where the comic strip thrived, one or two pages of three or four panel strips with maybe a one-panel comic or two thrown in there. You had comedy and you had adventure. Some of you may even have gone to the opinion page and read the political strip, but that only works if you share the cartoonist’s perspective on that particular issue. That would be one example of a one-panel strip, but most of you probably thought of something like The Family Circus, Marmaduke, or Dennis The Menace (though in the UK there’s a different comic by that name that is totally different so maybe not if you’re from there). The comic strip is the most classic form of comic.

Even in today’s web culture the comic strip continues. While the big name comic publishers have posted online and some newspapers have daily comics on their site, I’m actually referring to web comics that continue in the strip layout. For some comics this is actually a great way to tell a quick story. For others I don’t think it works as well as it used to.

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