May 17, 2020

Jake & Leon #453: Countdown To Normal

Yeah, but I’d still have to draw them 6 ft. apart.

So that was the first full week back under the new computer. Over at The Clutter Reports this week I took time to redo the mini-comic spreadsheet I lost when the hard drive died on the old computer. I’m going to have to find all the information I lost and work on other records to keep track of various article topics I’ve already covered. I don’t need another posting of the same intro review.

As far as the week ahead I’m hoping to get a Finally Watched in, if only to open a little room on the DVR. There’s also the next Chapter By Chapter on Spider-Man: Carnage In New York as we move further towards the finale, the next Art Of Storytelling covering comic strips, and we’ll see what else crosses my path this week for the other two articles. And coming to the Star Trek Wednesday reviews we get to the Malibu run of Deep Space Nine alongside The Next Generation from DC Comics I don’t know how Malibu got DS9 when DC was doing the other two series but that’s what we ended up with.

Have a good week everyone and stay safe.

Posted by on May 17, 2020 in Jake & Leon and tagged , , , , , .

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May 16, 2020

Saturday Night Showcase: MST3K Riffs MST3K

Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a cult hit. Instead of doing skits presenting schlock sci-fi and horror movies Joel Hodgson got the idea of having himself and two robots sit in a movie theater and make fun of them. Between three hosts, three spin-off projects (The Film Crew, Rifftrax, and Cinematic Titanic), and a host of imitators nothing really matches the show in approach or comedy. It’s also inspired certain jerks to ruin the theater-going experience by loudly making fun of a movie they weren’t enjoying before the cellphone made things worse, but that’s another topic.

With many people stuck in their homes during the Covid-19 pandemic and even the workers deemed essential (medical staff, delivery people, first responders, and a host of others who usually don’t get celebrated without a crisis) needing some time to relax, celebrities have found other ways to stay relevant when they can’t work in a studio entertain people and reduce our stress a bit. For one of those the current creative team at MST3K, who posts the new shows to Netflix but still works with Shout Factory to officially release the old ones, did a livestream on numerous platforms where the cast of the traveling road show (who obviously can’t travel at the moment) riffed an actual episode of the old show. The movie is Moonbase Zero Two, a mediocre piece of sci-fi junk, in an episode from the show’s first Comedy Central season. That means Joel along with Tom and Crow’s old voices and Dr. Forrester’s first minion Larry, being riffed on by the current Tom and Crow, GPC (Gypsy’s replacement, a name change probably due to her old name being considered a derogatory term to traveling Romanian groups), and live tour human host Emily, with Joel serving as host for the MST3K LIVE Social Distancing Riff-Along Special. The event was posted live to various platforms and fans got to get a few riffs of their own in. Enjoy!

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Posted by on May 16, 2020 in Movie Spotlight, Saturday Night Showcase, Television Spotlight and tagged , , .

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May 16, 2020

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Avatar Free Comic Book Day 2011

The last known picture of this wall intact. People claim a tornado hit it.

Free Comic Book Day and Nickelodeon Avatar: The Last Airbender

Dark Horse (May, 2011)

Except according to the comiXology store page it was printed in February 2013 and released digitally November of 2018. Also the description doesn’t match the comic’s actual two stories. Somebody screwed up somewhere.

COVER ART: Bryan Konietzko, Hye Jung Kim, & Bryan Evans

LETTERING: Comicraft

EDITORS: Samantha Robinson & Dave Roman

“Relics”

WRITER/ARTIST: Johane Matte

COLORIST: Hye Jung Kim

“Dirty Is Only Skin Deep”

WRITER: J.Torres

ARTIST/COLORIST: Gurihiru

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Posted by on May 16, 2020 in Animation Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , , , , , .

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May 15, 2020

The Art Of Storytelling: Comics–An Overview

When a new medium for storytelling appears, or even for entertainment in general, people who only grew up with the old media will look down upon it, even attack it. Yet somehow radio, TV, and even video games have shown their ability to tell a story, though video games are still low on the chart in some people’s minds. Tabletop RPGs are regulated to a dark corner even though nobody really questions them the way they used to. Maybe D&D ditched the symbolism worrying some Christians or the games found a more stable audience despite some approaching some darker themes. I don’t know. I don’t really follow RPGs due to a lack of time and a writer’s desire to control the narrative. I’m not cut out for it if I’m playing with others. Probably caused me some issues playing adventures with my friends, too.

However, while video games and animation are finally breaking out of their stigmas and finding wider audiences, for some reason comics are still seen as the lowest rung of the storytelling totem pole…and yet somehow it’s a format that’s widely used by everyone outside the stuck-up entertainment industry in advertisements, textbooks, and even instruction manuals. Comic publishers are so down on their own industry that they’ve been hiring novelists instead of comic writers to write their stories in the hopes of upping their profile with a bigger name in the literary world. Trying to understand the reaction to comics out there in an exercise in confusion.

However that won’t be the discussion topic for this article or for the next batch of Art Of Storytelling articles. Instead I will be going over what comics in general and the three forms of comics specifically–strips (including one-panel comics), comic books, and graphic novels. How does each format tell a story and where is it weak? Why has the medium endured for so long when it’s looked so down upon unless they can raid an idea for one of the “approved” storytelling media? Before we go into specific types of comics let’s look at what the comic itself brings to storytelling.

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Posted by on May 15, 2020 in Art Of Storytelling, Comic Spotlight and tagged , , , , , , .

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May 15, 2020

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Scooby-Doo #13 (DC)

“Like, I think he needs that more than you do, Scoob.”

Scooby-Doo #13

DC Comics (August, 1998)

COLORIST: Lee Loughridge

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Mike Brisbois

EDITOR: Brownwyn Taggart

“Welcome To Monsterville”

WRITER: Chris Duffy

PENCILER: Joe Staton

INKER: Andrew Pepoy

LETTERER: John Costanza

“No Bones About It!”

WRITER: Michael Kraiger

ARTIST/LETTERER: Tim Harkins

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Posted by on May 15, 2020 in Animation Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , .

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May 15, 2020

BW’s Daily Article Link: Scooby-Doo’s Slasher Movie?

Well, not exactly. (I have heard there’s a dog-less porno but I’m not investigating that.) However, Screen Rant’s Bradley Harding saw Shriek of the Mutilated, a slasher movie he’s convinced was inspired by the human members of Mystery, Incorporated. Again, no Great Danes in sight. Kind of misses the point I think.

Posted by on May 15, 2020 in Animation Spotlight, Movie Spotlight and tagged , .

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May 14, 2020

BW Versus Bleeding Fool: Comic Podcasters On Comics’ Future

Arguably the most iconic cover in Transformers comics ever.

This whole pandemic shutdown, whether you agree with it or not or fall somewhere in-between, has hit the entertainment industry hard. In most cases the celebrities and creators will be fine, but the guys running the cameras or adjusting the lights or catering the studio are in trouble. With “non-essential workers” being told to stay home or outright being forced to have no income, and some businesses are so hard hit by no customers that they may never open again. This includes comics, an industry that’s already been hurting due to really bad decisions by the publishers, a few key creators I won’t go into here, and near-monopoly distributor Diamond. The stores are hurting and while some states are starting to slowly reopen to see what the health impact is it may take some time for comics to be profitable again.

However as I said, the industry has been going down due to bad decisions. Stores were closing even before Covid-19 was a household name. This forced “pencils down” action on the part of publishers (due in part to not having a distributor for physical comics right now, though DC has been trying to work around them…a discussion for another time) has also hurt creators but many fans and sellers see this as a good opportunity to course correct some of the many mistakes the publishers and Diamond have been making. In a recent article for Bleeding Fool, comic podcaster Chris Braly decided to grab some people from other comics podcasts and get their view on the future of comics post-cornoavirus. They seemed to agree on two big issues: comic stores are being the hardest hit and the longer people don’t have new comics to read the harder it will be for them to return to the habit. As someone who has been reading through his years-long collection of comics and been out of work since 2013 I’m still no expert but I’m not convinced on that last part, but the comic stores are taking a pounding.

You can read the full breakdown here, but my focus is going to be on the parts where the podcasters discuss what they want to see in comics on the other side of the quarantine. There are comments I actually agree with but with this being a versus article (still need to make a logo just for that) then you know I also have some disagreements.

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Posted by on May 14, 2020 in Comic Spotlight and tagged , , .

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