January 6, 2019

Jake & Leon #390: Cameo Style Fun

Did you spot the cameo?

If not, check out Captain Yuletide #5. They should be pretty easy to spot.

The Clutter Reports returns next week, and I did a quick post about that. I also did something I said I was going to do a year ago and I’m taking a break from Patreon. I don’t think anybody goes there and it’s just early access to stuff I post here. Nobody supports me there anyway, and I don’t know what I can offer to gain Patreon support. I’m also worried about some recent decisions they made that makes me question their commitment to free speech but that’s a whole other topic. I do still plan to update the rewards and milestones but considering how little it’s helped me and been more of a time waste reformatting an article between sites for no results I can’t get better through here it’s not a priority. I had hoped that I could make some money to help out around here but a job really is my only option at the moment. I am taking suggestions for rewards though. I want to give you guys my best and to get better and that’s what most of the money would go towards, but what are you going to do?

We also may be ready to change cable providers again and I most likely will lose my own phone line, which is going to be an adjustment but that’s how badly I need income, whether it’s a job or somehow BW projects lead to something. That means all the movies on my Finally Watched list need to be watched. I plan to make a file of all my reviews before I lose this DVR and still post them with some decent spacing. Hopefully that will give me time to find any movies I’m going to lose and find more movies on my list. I may post one of those this week but I don’t want to use them up at all once.

In comic reviews this week the Marvels will be reaching the “Eighth Day” story arc on Tuesday, a minor crossover event that I remember liking at the time. We’ll also be reaching the final leg of Transformers comics with a few comics based on Transformers Animated, only one of which I’ve actually reviewed when it came out. The miniseries and preview Free Comic Book Day issue I’ll be reviewing this week came out before I started the site. After that Transformers will be done outside of a few trade collections of UK stories I’ll be saving for Scanning My Collection.

If you want me I’ll be reading want ads and watching movies.

Posted by on January 6, 2019 in Captain Yuletide, Jake & Leon and tagged , , , , .

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January 5, 2019

Saturday Night Showcase: Reboot

In the days when computers were still new and scary without the internet, Tron could get away with almost anything in creating a world within the computer. It gets tougher now as computers become less “magical” and more a part of our lives we didn’t know we needed. (Some would say too much but that’s more a case-by-case individual problem than a group whole.) In 1991 Mainframe Entertainment (now I don’t know what they go by as they’ve changed names a few times recently) decided to get one last shot in by creating Reboot, which is also the first all-computer animated TV series. Not the first attempt. That’s at least as far back as Computer Warriors and I’ll tell you that story someday, but the first series to make it on TV, on YTV in Canada and ABC in the United States.

The show follows Bob, a Guardian–a program whose job is to protect the local computer, in this case the city of Mainframe (I don’t know if the production company name came first or not, but I’m sure it’s not a coincidence), from being deleted by games, imputed allegedly from outside the net by a user. While the intro claims that Bob’s personal goal was to find out if that was true this never comes up in the show itself. Instead Bob deals with viruses like Megabyte and Hexadecimal and their various forces, as well as other threats to Mainframe. Joining him are Dot, a business program who runs the diner as well as appearing to having a lot of influence in the city, and her little brother Enzo. Together they travel into games and deal with non-game threats.

The first episode is the only one that shows what happens to the city when the user wins. I wonder if this scared some kid out of playing games again? Megabyte wants Bob to do a mysterious favor for him and he’ll cause trouble until he does. Can Bob learn to rely on the help of others before the city is deleted?

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Posted by on January 5, 2019 in Animation Spotlight, Saturday Night Showcase, Television Spotlight and tagged , , .

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January 5, 2019

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Batman Beyond v2 #6 (DCAU)

This grittier remake of Wuzzles didn’t go over very well.

Batman Beyond vol. 2 #6

DC Comics (April, 2000)

“Most Dangerous Island”

WRITER: Hilary J. Bader

PENCILER: Craig Rosseau

INKER: Rob Leigh

COLORIST: Lee Loughridge

LETTERER: Tim Harkins

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Frank Berrios

EDITOR: Darren Vincenzo

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Posted by on January 5, 2019 in Animation Spotlight, DC Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , , , , , .

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January 4, 2019

Free Comic Inside: Sectaurs–Spidrax & Spiderflyer

Just as Kenner did with the DC Super Powers Collection, Coleco had each figure in the Sectaurs toyline come with his own comic. (Had the line gone on long enough there would have been females as well but I don’t think it lasted that long.) In our last visit to Symbion we looked at the first one, with Dargon and Dragonflyer. For newbies, the toyline’s story takes place on a planet where scientists made a huge oopsie and mutated the planet, turning the people into insect-like beings, supersizing the insects and making them psionically linked with these “Sectaur” people, and basically ruined the planet. Now two sides fight over remaining laboratories, or as they call them “hives”, for control of the planet, Dargon leading the Shining Realm where all the mostly human people live, and Spidrax leading the forces of the more insect-like Dark Domain. Unlike the cartoon, the comics do not have Spidrax as leader, but leader of the forces under Empress Devora.

The second comic stars Spidrax and his mount, a winged spider fittingly called Spiderflyer. Like Dragonflyer (who at least is actually a mutated dragonfly), Spiderflyer the toy was a puppet with a seat for his Sectaur to ride. In all the line had four of these, two in the air and two on the ground, the rest coming with smaller partner Insectoids. Although this story focuses on the villains I don’t think they’re going to get off any more victories than the DC Supervillains, but we’ll see. There are no credits for this comic (or at least not seen in the scans over at Sectaurs.com, where you can follow along) so I’ll show you the cover and dive right in.

And somewhere in the distance insect Captain Marvel is born.

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Posted by on January 4, 2019 in Free Comic Inside and tagged , , , , , , , , .

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January 4, 2019

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Robotech: Return To Macross #30

“I bet I get blamed for this one, too.”

Robotech: Return To Macross #30

Academy Comics, Ltd (March, 1996)

“Gloval’s War”

WRITER: Robert W. Gibson

ARTISTS: Michelle & Frances Birchfield

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Posted by on January 4, 2019 in Animation Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , .

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January 4, 2019

BW’s Morning Article Link: Public Domain Flood

2019 sees a huge flood of books, movies, and music entering public domain. These products were never re-copywrited under the extensions certain studios and publishers keep making to extend their works forward. These items come from 1923 but there are some interesting ones on the list, like the first of the Alice In Wonderland books, numerous classic music pieces, and the original Cecil B. DeMille version of The Ten Commandments. The article also has a list of a few places you can find these works or a larger list of newly free-to-use content for creators and educators. You can also try the Internet Archive and various other online book, film, and music distributors and streamers. That doesn’t mean a certain printing is free mind you, so don’t think that Charlie Chaplin DVD you’ve had your eye on over at Amazon is now free. It cost the same it did on December 31st unless the price changed by the seller.

Posted by on January 4, 2019 in Book Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, Music Spotlight and tagged , , , .

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January 3, 2019

Finally Watched Kong: Skull Island

Ever since the Marvel Cinematic Universe showed a comic-like shared continuity was possible other movie studios have tried to jump on the new hot thing…and failed miserably. From the DCEU to the monster-filled Dark Universe, they’ve been all about setting up this extended universe not realizing that Marvel succeeds by not doing that as their primary mission. Each movie can be enjoyed individually, with teasers drawing you to the next movie or a later movie you might be interested in. It also helps if the movies are good, and failing that is why the Dark Universe never got out of the parking garage.

And yet, some studios are still trying to get up the building. Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures are trying that with their own “kaijuverse”, a reworking of Toho’s monsters, dropping the suits and models for CG. There’s some debate as to which is better when they should work together. However that’s a debate for another time. It started with 2014’s Godzilla, which I already covered. It was okay but the big problem was that we never got to see the monsters fight since Garth Edwards focused on the people…who weren’t all that interesting. The next movie in the series is Kong: Skull Island, a 2017 reboot of King Kong. While Kong isn’t a Toho creation he and Godzilla have tangled before. Legendary is banking on a rematch after the upcoming King Of Monsters movie. This will also feature Mothra and Rodan, who I think should get their own movies first (poor Rodan hasn’t had his own movie since the original) while the threat is going to be King Ghidorah. Since that is coming out in a few months and I have Kong on the DVR (during a HBO free preview week), it was time to check out movie two and see if it shows promise for this continuity.

RELEASE DATE: 2017

RELEASED BY: Warner Brothers & Legendary Pictures

RUNTIME: 1 hour. 58 minutes

RATING: PG-13

STARRING: Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, John Goodman and John C. Reilly

SCREENWRITERS: Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, & Derek Connolly (story by John Gatins)

DIRECTOR: Jordan Vogt-Roberts

GROSS REVENUE: $566,652,812 ($168,052,812 domestic) from an estimated budget of $185,000,000

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Posted by on January 3, 2019 in Finally Watched and tagged , , , , .

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