February 17, 2019

Jake & Leon #396: Busy

This what happens when I come up with a good comic too late to get it done on-time.

I came up with a good story idea. On Friday. As I was going to bed. I wrote it down but I’m going to need more time than I had to get it finished. Lucky for me I came up with this.

In this week’s Clutter Report some of that time was taken up with another sorting project, this time my computer games and utilities. I didn’t even get to finish that.

So this week in the comic reviews I’m re-sorting a few other things. Robotech will be taking over Transformers’ spot on Thursdays since that series is done. Fridays will be back to going through my comic collection for one-shots and shorter series, miniseries, or “I just bought these few issues and didn’t get into it” kind of reviews. I also just realized that my DC collection is almost completely reviewed, at least for the main DC Universe. When that finally runs out the DC Animated Universe “Adventures” titles will still have a long life. I’ll move them to Mondays and go back to going over my comiXology library on Saturdays. There’s still some time left on it though.

I want to get a Free Comic Inside review in this week and another commentary. It won’t be as long as Thursday’s rant on the problem with comics as I see them. I have no plans for a new Friday series at this time so that’s going to be an open space until I find something to put there. I have considered bringing back Friday Night Fights as a solo series, featuring the best fight scene of the comics reviewed that week, but I’m not sure just yet. It won’t be this week, but if you guys would like to see it return in that form let me know. Anyway, it should be an interesting week for both of us.

Posted by on February 17, 2019 in Jake & Leon and tagged , , , .

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February 16, 2019

Saturday Night Showcase: Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego

Not having access to Netflix means I haven’t seen their new take on Carmen Sandiego, the master thief of the Broderbund Software video game series and other spin-offs. You may recall from the trailer that I had a few problems with the plot we were given, and I hear that the show may be fairly decent but just as poor an adaptation as I expected. The thing is not only can you do a proper translation of the games, they already did.

For those not in the know, the Carmen Sandiego game franchise, and every other medium it’s been translated to I’m aware of, has the player (or their stand-in) playing an agent for ACME Detective Agency (or “Crimenet” in the game shows). Your mission: track down Carmen Sandiego and her henchman in the organization V.I.L.E.  (Villain’s International League of Evil). As a more comedic game, Carmen and her crew have managed to steal the Eiffel Tower, The Statue Of Liberty, “Brahms’s Lullaby”, and all sorts of weird items around the US, the World, and even time itself. While there are different reasons given in various series in just the video games alone, my favorite is that Carmen was a former ACME agent who deciding thievery was more challenging, and like Batman foe the Riddler would leave clues to make the “game” more fair. Her agents are a bit quirky with the names to show for it, possibly codenames tied to their skills or gimmick.

The new incarnation has Carmen stealing things to stop V.I.L.E. from getting to them first, with the ACME agents trying to stop both of them. Two of her partners in crimefighting-through-crime are Zack and Ivy, and that is the polar opposite of everything in the franchise. Zack and his big sister Ivy are supposed to be ACME agents, first introduced in Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego, a show that is much more faithful to the video game series and a great show on its own. It’s like they took a plot and slapped Carmen iconography on it. Although there is no licensed posting of the show available I want to show you how to do adapt this game properly, plus it’s just a really good show, airing on Fox Kids from 1994-1999, produced by DIC Entertainment (now owned by Media DHX when they took over Cookie Jar Entertainment, which bought DIC’s library). THIS is how you translate Carmen Sandiego.

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Posted by on February 16, 2019 in Animation Spotlight, Saturday Night Showcase, Streaming Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Video Game Spotlight and tagged , , .

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February 16, 2019

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Batman Beyond vol 2 #8 (DCAU)

Glow sticks are a surprisingly hot commodity in the future.

Batman Beyond #8

DC Comics (June, 2000)

“Vendetta”

WRITERS: Hilary J Bader & Rich Fogel

PENCILER: Craig Rosseau

INKER: Rob Leigh

COLORIST: Lee Loughridge

LETTERER: Tim Harkins

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Frank Berrios

EDITOR: Joseph Illidge

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Posted by on February 16, 2019 in Animation Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , , , , .

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February 15, 2019

Finally Watched…Ant-Man

It’s time for the last movie in my Finally Watched marathon during the game of musical cable companies. While the entire list of movies I want to see is still long and getting longer I can wrap-up this list anyway. Some of the ones I had recorded I had to drop but hope to pick up in the future since they’re already on broadcast TV. This one was during one of the premium preview events so I had to get those done as soon as I could.

I’ve never really followed any of the characters who took up the role of Ant-Man. Hank Pym was undone by an artist’s mistake. Scott Lang, the one used for the movie, seems interesting but not enough for me to want to see his adventures every month, and the last one I don’t know the name of but I hear he’s a total scumbag and I’m not into scumbag characters. I was interested in seeing the movie based on how fun the trailer looked. Finding a fun superhero story gets harder and harder all the time as, if you missed yesterday’s long rant, keeps getting into the hands of the wrong people, and not just in comics.

RELEASE DATE: 2015

RELEASED BY: Walt Disney Productions and Marvel Studios

RUNTIME: 1 hour, 57 minutes

STARRING: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Bobby Cannavale, and Michael Peña

SCREENWRITERS: Edgar Wright and Joe Parish (also story), Adam McKay, and Paul Rudd

DIRECTOR: Peyton Reed

GROSS INCOME: $519,445,163 out of an estimated budget of $130,000,000

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Posted by on February 15, 2019 in Finally Watched, Marvel Spotlight and tagged , , , , , , .

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February 15, 2019

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Robotech: Return To Macross #36

How many more covers have Roy peeking out over water?

Robotech: Return To Macross #36

Academy Comics, Ltd (September, 1996)

“High Combat”

WRITER: Bill Spangler

ARTIST: Dusty Griffin

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Posted by on February 15, 2019 in Animation Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged , .

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February 15, 2019

BW’s Morning Article Link: A Martin Luther King Jr. Comic

Civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers a speech to a crowd of approximately 7,000 people on May 17, 1967 at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza in Berkeley, California. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Here’s one I should have linked to closer to Martin Luther King Day. During the Civil Rights movement a comic was created to celebrate Reverend King and promote his message of peaceful protest for the rights of black people to be treated like people. There’s also a link at the end of the article so you can read the comic yourself.

Posted by on February 15, 2019 in Comic Spotlight and tagged , .

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February 14, 2019

The Problems With Comics In 2019

I’ve loved comics since my age was in single digits. Comics can tell stories in ways no other medium can, and vice versa which is why I love any form of good storytelling. I have my genre preferences but not really a format. Comics are amazing in the way they can tell a story…which is why seeing sales numbers drop and comic stores closing in a time when adapting them into movies, cartoons, and video games is at an all-time high makes me sad.

Why are comics doing so poorly? I don’t think you can point to one or two factors or even something recent. There isn’t one movement or one mindset to blame. This has been going on since the 1990s and the stupid speculator bubble altering the way people saw comics, and not necessarily for the better. It’s been going on since writers and editors decided Watchmen should be the rule rather than the exception. However, it is more recent mindsets that I think is responsible for the comic book losing its status as a storytelling format. Where comics used to be everywhere now they’ve gone into hiding except on the internet. And no, I don’t think digital comics are a big factor in reduced floppies and graphic novels. This is of course something I think about a lot and while I can’t say I’ve most definitely isolated every problem or have THE solution to the falling cultural value of comics I think I have identified a few things the industry as a whole needs to work on besides the distribution issues mentioned in yesterday’s Morning Article Link. I’m not saying following my advice will “save comics” or anything like that. Comics as a whole still has life online and in the independent and self-publishing fields, but these are things the comic industry should start thinking about…and probably won’t.

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Posted by on February 14, 2019 in Comic Spotlight and tagged , , , , , .

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