Animation, regardless of country (though today’s link is focused on Japanese animation), can be good or bad. It takes a lot of effort to make good animation. Some shows get by thanks to great storytelling or working with their limits to produce a unique style. Kurai at The Anime Almanac takes a look at what makes good or bad animation and why it happens. Time and budget are not the only factors.
The promotional, pack-in minicomic is a sadly obscure piece of media even in comic circles. It’s not all that surprising considering the only way you had them growing up is if you bought the toys or someone you knew did and gave you the comic or let you read theirs. A good promo minicomic is the same as those TV shows that get ignored for being “30 minute toy commercials” in that a good one needs a good story to create a playscape for kids to play in. In the days before President Ronald Reagan drained the FCC of a bit of their power the minicomic was the only way to push the line. Maybe someone would buy you the toy or it looked interesting on the shelf, the comic made it look like a world you wanted to explore, and maybe you’d get more figures and vehicles to play in that world. If you weren’t interested in the toys (or couldn’t afford them all) but really wanted the stories you were out of luck. Nowadays you can find scans and people selling the comics on eBay or whatever but it’s still a niche interest unless you’re a huge fan of that toyline no matter how big or small the line was.
Free Comic Inside was started on the premise of promoting these lost comics. Today comic creators will create minicomics for fun or as something cheap to have at the selling table to draw in prospective fans but it was the likes of Mattel and their toystore friends you have to thank for that. Since starting this article series I’ve learned of more toys that came with free comics, as well as promotional comics for the main comic series packed in with snack cakes or breakfast cereal and even other products like video games. It’s only increased my desire to discuss these lost comics. While I can easily find comics for Masters Of The Universe and Princess Of Power (owning the comics would be better but scans at least allow me to read and review them) some comics that I’ve either already known about or learned through stumbling across information are harder to find. In this installment I thought I would try to find some of these I already know about and see if I could find them. If not they went on this list. Note that this may not be all the toys that came with promo miniature comics so if you know of another one, by all means tell me. If I haven’t reviewed something from the series yet or it isn’t on this list I probably don’t know about it so check the series archives before you suggest or maybe I’ll do a separate article of what I could find. I did finally find a potential archive for the Starriors minicomics so anything is possible.
I want to make a Tekwar joke but I don’t know how many people read or watched it.
Iron Man volume 3 #58
Marvel Comics (October, 2002)
“Sympathy For The Devil” part 3
WRITER: Mike Grell
PENCILER: Michael Ryan
INKER: Sean Parsons
COLORIST: Arsia Rozegar
LETTERER: Chris Eliopoulos
ASSISTANT EDITORS: Marc Sumerak & Andy Schmidt
EDITOR: Tom Brevoort
Catch more Extra Credits on their YouTube channel.
From the video description:
If you want to learn more about Game to Grow, please check out their website https://gametogrow.org/ and take a look at their Critical Core project at https://gametogrow.org/criticalcore/ which is just so cool.
For those of you who missed yesterday’s announcement the final book report on our last book is up over at The Clutter Reports. Now it’s time to move on to another book in my library.
You don’t have to be here long to know I love books and superheroes. I can read about superheroes in comics, watch them on TV, and play as them in video games. Novels are a territory there aren’t many superhero stories for since they dominate comics (at least culturally as the indie scene plays with other story types) but there are a few available. Most of them are of course based on the DC and Marvel characters. There might be a few original superhero novels but they’re even rarer to the point that I couldn’t tell you of any off-hand. In a previous Chapter By Chapter I looked at an adaptation of the Death and Return of Superman arc. This one isn’t going to be as huge because it’s an original story. Also it doesn’t involve DC heroes.
Yes, Marvel too put out novels. For example there was an X-Men crossover with Star Trek: The Next Generation that started in the comics and ended in a novel I don’t currently own. They’ve also produced a number of original novels over the years and I happen to have one. Only one mind you as the other four prose superhero stories I have come from DC and all but the “choose your own adventure” Superman story are adaptations of comic story arcs or the one movie novelization. The thing is I don’t remember reading this novel or if I got it from the comic store catalog I ordered my comics from or something I saw at a bookstore or book section of a regular store. The book came out in 1995 and if I’m not sure if I read it I definitely won’t remember how I got it. So let’s make sure I call this book read because our fifteenth book in the Chapter By Chapter review series is….
“Why is it every time a Justice League suspects a traitor they point fingers at the green guy?”
Justice League Adventures #16
DC Comics (March, 2003)
“Hide And Seek”
WRITER: Scott McCloud
PENCILER: John Delaney
INKER: John K. Snyder
COLORIST: John Kalisz
SEPARATIONS: Heroic Age
LETTERER: Bill Oakley
EDITOR: Stephen Wacker
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
