BW’s Morning Article Link: Penny Marshall Passes Away

Oct 15, 1943 – Dec 17, 2018
image source: Wikipedia

Because I can’t seem to stay away from death at the moment, we also have to bring up the passing of Penny Marshall. Known as Laverne DeFazio from LaVerne and Shirley (a spin-off of Happy Days), Marshall’s biggest successes were in directing and producing movies, including Tom Hanks’ Big and the historical drama A League Of Their Own, about a woman’s baseball team during a time all the male players were drafted into World War 2. (A DJ yesterday noted that it’s the most profitable or popular sports movie ever. I forget which.) Prayers go out to her surviving family and friends.

Hey 2018, can I get back to talking about Birth instead of death please? We’re a few days out from Christmas week after all!

Eulogy For A Monstrobot

This is not a post anyone would look forward to write, especially this close to Christmas. It wasn’t the post I had scheduled for today. However, it’s one I felt I had to make. I tend to be part of three communities. My connection to the reviewing community has waned in recent years but I still maintain friendships from there. My focus has been on the comics community, tumultuous as certain parts of it has been lately, since that ties into my goals. However, blogging was my first connection to the internet outside of the Transformers community, which I’ve also lost ties to, and today the old comics blogosphere has suffered a huge lost.

Reports on Twitter are that Brian Snell of Slay Monstrobot Of The Deep passed away over the weekend.

I don’t have access to a picture of him, so forgive me for using the above panel for the RIP picture. It’s from the comic panel that the site gets its name from. The report comes from Facebook, where I admittedly don’t follow him so I’m going on reports from others. However, I have no reason to believe that he would lie about it, even if I didn’t see the post there myself since I’m not one of his Facebook friends. Even as I write this new posts, likes, and retweets are coming out as those who enjoyed his site struggle to deal with the news. I haven’t followed social media much as of late (since 2016 to be exact since I’ve either been sick, recovering, or catching up with stuff as well as other life issues) so I didn’t even know he was sick. As I write this no cause of death has been reported so I don’t know what exactly happened. But I do know what he left behind.

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> Doctor Who Classics series 2 #7

The real reason Craigslist dropped their dating section.

Doctor Who Classics series 2 #7

(collects comics from Doctor Who Magazine #67-69, 1982)

ORIGINAL PUBLISHER: Marvel UK

REPRINTER: IDW (June 2009)

WRITER: Steve Parkhouse

ARTIST: Dave Gibbons

EDITOR: Alan McKenzie

IDW COLORIST: Charlie Kirchoff

IDW EDITOR: Denton J. Tipton

DESIGNER: Amauri Osorio

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BW’s Morning Article Link: Lil Jon & Kool-Aid Man’s Christmas List

You read the title of this post. If you haven’t already decided to click this link I’m not sure what else I can say to convince you. It’s a music video with rapper Lil John and Kool-Aid Man possibly meant to sell Kook-Aid. Do I really need to say anything else? I don’t expect it to be a holiday classic mind you, but…this is a thing that exists in our universe.

BW Filler Video: Trusting Holiday Charities

I was listening to the radio today while getting cleaned up and someone called in during a Salvation Army charity drive wondering if the Salvation Army was legit or not. A lot of false rumors circulate this year from well-meaning people on Facebook and Tumblr supposedly warning about bad popular charities this time of year because nobody does any research of their own. In 2016 one of my fellow Reviewers Unknown contributors, Rowdy C, did his own research and produced a video (part of his short-lived Newscrap series) cutting through the rumors and telling the truth of what charities do with their contributions. After hearing that caller on the radio I thought it was something I should reshare with you guys.

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> Contest Of Champions II #1

Please, in the Marvel Universe this is your average Wednesday.

Contest Of Champions II #1

Marvel Comics (September 1999)

If you want to see my review of the first miniseries in trade form here it is, but there isn’t any real connection between the two. The link goes to an overview, but there are links to each issue in the story as well as my overall review of the trade from The Clutter Reports.

“The Gathering”

WRITER: Chris Claremont

PENCILER: Oscar Jimenez

INKER: Eduardo Alpheate

COLORING: Atomic Paintbrush

LETTERER: Albert Deschesne

EDITOR: Ruben Diaz

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BW’s Morning Article Link: I Typed “obscure Christmas music” Into Bing…

…and picked up this article from Buzzfeed, listing 15 obscure Christmas songs. I’m not sure about a few of them given their description, and the one in the above video is sadly absent (and yet it’s part of my Yule Log playlist on YouTube), but you might find your new favorite Christmas song. Although I have heard a different cover of “Christmas Island” than the one listed there.