I don’t live in Chicago and I don’t have a lot of business experience, so what I would do with a comic store may not be business savvy even if I think (read: “hope”) it would be good for comic fans. However, if you do live in Chicago and know what makes a comic store great, this “win a free comic store” contest may be something you’d consider entering. You have until the end of February, 2019 to convince the owner you’re the right person for the job, so get going.
In case you forgot I wanted to do this.
This is still a thing I want to do. I just need to get to it. On top of everything else I want to get to. At least in this week’s Clutter Report I cleaned up the art corner some more.
I didn’t get to the He-Man newspaper review last week, which means I will this week, or at least try to. I also found some interesting Thundercats-related info (nothing on Thundercats Roar because I’m scared enough of this slamming of a childhood favorite as it is) that you might find interesting. Nothing really else to update because outside of the comics, the next Finally Watched, and the Chapter By Chapter novel I have nothing else actually planned. So hope the week works out for you.
You’ve roared with Thundercats and maybe flown on wings of silver with the SilverHawks. But have you ever gone swimming with the TigerSharks?
The Comic Strip was an anthology series created by Rankin/Bass, the last of their full series. (There was another special or two but that was pretty much it for series.) It contained four shows in rotation during the week. Camp Mini-Mon was about two human children who end up at a summer camp for actual monster kids because their parents misunderstood the “little monsters” part. (I guess they were a couple of brats.) I’m not really into the “Universal” type monsters so I barely watched it. Street Frogs was one of two anthropomorphic worlds, this one inhabited by amphibians. The title frogs are a rap group and while most of the kids were voiced by actual black kids you can tell the writers weren’t. The raps weren’t very good and neither were the stories. Those two shows I tended to avoid.
On the other hand you had Karate Kat, about an all-feline anthro world. The title character (and that’s his actual name) works for a detective agency that always seems to run into the same three would-be mobsters and foiling their schemes. It was actually pretty good and I enjoyed it. All three of these shows were on the comedic side, but then you had TigerSharks, an adventure show in the same vein as Thundercats and SilverHawks. While the others would be features in self-contained 10+ minute adventures, this show would air in two parts, with part two including the epilogue. I wonder if Rankin/Bass was worried they were getting into a rut and used the other three shows to make this look more appealing to stations?
The story follows the adventures of the TigerSharks, an intergalactic salvage team whose specialty is underwater salvage. Their latest assignment takes them to the planet Water-O to recover a crashed ship. They just invented a machine that may help them in this and future missions, but they’re really going to need it when the space criminals Mantennas join forces with the crazed pirate Bizarlly and his crew. The solution is for our heroes to transform themselves into…fish?
“Seriously, Dick, who cares if it’s a pit or an oubliette?” “Let’s just say I have issues with rats.”
Batman: Gotham Adventures #24
DC Comics (May, 2000)
“Missed Connections”
WRITER: Scott Peterson
PENCILER: Tim Levins
INKER: Terry Beatty
COLORIST: Lee Loughridge
LETTERER: Tim Harkins
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Frank Berrios
EDITOR: Darren Vincenzo
We’re nearing the end of pre-reviewed movies for Finally Watched. While I’m far from being caught up with my list (which I don’t have an actual written list of for the record) these were the ones I ran through during the whole musical cable companies fiasco.
I’m not a super-huge martial arts movie fan. Sure I’ll watch one if I come across it and I’ve seen quite a few. It’s just not a genre I typically go looking for. 2000s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is probably the only exception not featuring Jackie Chan. The movie has become a meme for two reasons: the name and the “wire-fu”, where the actor is strapped into a harness and is made to fly during fight scenes, although “fly” is more like “float like you’re on the moon and occasionally glide” than anything Superman does. I guess that’s flying in China. The movie is from China and the version I saw, recorded during a Starz or HBO preview weekend–I forget which at this point–and it was the subtitled version. Chinese is a strange verbal language to my ears, but that’s the version they showed so it’s the version I went with. I don’t even know if it has an official dub out there.
The movie looked beautiful in the trailers and I think it was mainstream US audience’s introduction to wire-fu, if not the first use of it. From there many Chinese martial arts movies with a similar spiritual lean have used the technique and it’s been parodied to a small extent. The question is how good the movie’s story is, because all I’ve ever heard about the movie is the visuals. Kind of like Cirque Du Solei–you hear about the visuals but not the story.
RELEASE DATE: 2000
RELEASED BY: I’m just going to say Sony Pictures Classics in the US because between production and distribution it’s a VERY long list.
RUNTIME: 2 hours
STARRING: Chow Yun-fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, Chang Chen, and Cheng Pei-pei
SCREENWRITERS: Hui-Ling Wang, James Schamus, and Kuo Jung Tsai; based on the book by Du Lu Wang
DIRECTOR: Ang Lee
GROSS INCOME: $213,525,736 out of an estimated budget of $17,000,000
“Now I’d like to demonstrate how Robotechnology enhanced this cruise ship. Icebergs beware!”
Robotech: Return To Macross #34
Academy Comics (July, 1996)
“Storm Surge”
WRITER: Robert W. Gibson
ARTIST: Dusty Griffin
(image source: TFU.Info) I need to better set up my media library.
I haven’t seen the third Toy Story movie (heck, I still have to watch the second) but I hear it ended on a good enough note. And yet they’re making a fourth, which may well be ending entirely if the social media postings from two of its stars are any indication.
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
