August 5, 2018

Jake & Leon #373: 200+ Subscribers

At this point even Max’s bad expectations are too high.

Yep, as of this writing I’m at 202 subscribers between email and WordPress Reader. (I don’t have stats on RSS feeds.) And while I still have trouble getting more commentors to the posts, I’m glad 202 of you at least are curious what topics I’m discussing. Now if you’d all read them all my stats would be through the roof, but I don’t read every article of every site I read either. Just remember, likes are nice, shares are better, and thank you for your patronage.

And because I’m not allowed to be happy my laptop isn’t booting up (some kind of memory read/write error and memory address line failure) so I had to do this comic on the desktop, where it’s a more awkward set-up than my art corner. That’s an older but recent Clutter Report link where I showed the corner off. This week I took the first breather I’ve had between weather, dentists, and other stuff to relax a bit. I’ll be doing some virtual clutter cleaning this week. And working on the laptop if I have time.

Coming up this week we have one of my favorite Batman and Robin comics in Scanning My Collection and Nightwing returns to “Yesterday’s” Comic. I’m hoping to do a Finally Watched this week, and of course more Superman being dead and Star Trek TNG being born. And we’re beginning the regular Marvel run of Doctor Who. All this and trying to find a source of income. Hopefully there are no distractions this week (especially the part where another loved one is lost…I’ve had enough of that, thank you) so I can focus on these tasks. Maybe I’ll even sneak in one last BW Panelling before the week is out. Now that’s wishful thinking.

Posted by on August 5, 2018 in BW Progress Report, Jake & Leon and tagged , , .

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August 4, 2018

Saturday Night Showcase: The Shadow

The Shadow as depicted on the cover of the July 15, 1939, issue of The Shadow Magazine. (image source: Wikipedia)

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men. The Shadow knows.

Between comics, movies, and pulp novels, the Shadow has used his psychic abilities, especially the power to cloud men’s minds, to strike at the criminal element. But The Shadow began on radio. Just not how you might think. Yes, there was a radio show, which we’ll be looking at in tonight’s Showcase, but he actually started as a narrator for a series of advertisements for a series of crime books by Street & Smith Publications. The voice, provided by James LaCurto and later Frank Readick Jr., introduced adaptations of their stories for The Detective Story Magazine Hour. And people asked for the magazine with the Shadow, so they knew they had a potential hit here. And obviously they did.

The Shadow would return to the radio voiced by the late great Orson Wells. While his team of agents in the pulps was reduced to just his fiance, Margo Lane, and Lamont Cranston (for simplicity) would be his only identity, the series would continue on from 1937 to 1954, and would have other actors in the role of the Shadow. Tonight we listen to the first episode, “The Death House Rescue”, which features his origin in exposition, as the Shadow and Margo help clear a framed man of bank robbery and murder. And it’s the only bit of good luck the man and his wife has had lately. So turn down the lights, sit back in your favorite chair and see what evil gets up to. The ShadowWING knows. Because I already listened to it. 😀

What, you knew I had to get that pun in somehow! I chose this screenname and I have to work with it! (And know The Shadow had no influence on my screenname.)

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Posted by on August 4, 2018 in radio/audio drama, Saturday Night Showcase and tagged , .

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August 4, 2018

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Batman: Gotham Adventures #17

Linkara is wrong about rock & roll. Batman’s real number one hatred is windows.

Batman: Gotham Adventure #17

DC Comics (October, 1999)

“Daddy Dearest”

WRITER: Scott Peterson

PENCILER: Tim Levins

INKER: Terry Beatty

COLORIST: Lee Loughridge

LETTERER: Tim Harkins

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Joseph Illidge

EDITOR: Darren Vincenzo

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Posted by on August 4, 2018 in Animation Spotlight, DC Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , .

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August 3, 2018

Star Trek: The Next Story Bible–The Set-Up

Now that we have the backstory for the writer’s guide let’s dig into the backstory of the show as created by this point in the season one guide. “These Are The Voyages” sets up the world the writers will be creating. Next week we’ll get into the early concepts for the characters (which will be expanded on later) but this week I’m going to focus on the similarities and changes between the original and the sequel.

By this point in time Star Trek had only existed in two TV series, one created for Saturday morning, and a series of movies. (Novels and comics are not canon and while the SatAM cartoon’s canon status is debated I count it and some aspects did make their way into the show and spinoff media.) In fact the movies were still going on as The Next Generation was airing. All we really knew at the time was that the show was set after the original crew, but the writers and directors needed to know more than that, and so this section was to update creators who grew up with the original series what they would be doing differently in this updated approach. So what was planned?

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Posted by on August 3, 2018 in Star Trek: The Next Story Bible and tagged , .

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August 3, 2018

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Robotech: Academy Blues #0

“I know, General, but your sons buzzing the proceedings with their RC planes isn’t helping make a good impression on our first day.”

Robotech: Academy Blues #0

Academy Comics LTD (May, 1995)

WRITER: Robert W. Gibson

ARTIST/LETTERER: Sean Bishop

Spinning off from Return To Macross, Academy Blues focuses on the cadet years of characters we know from the Robotech saga as they deal with their personal lives while learning to do their part in the Robotech Defense Force. Unlike its parent title the focus here is on character more than action and mystery, but as we go on there will be crossovers between the two.

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Posted by on August 3, 2018 in Animation Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , , , , , , .

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August 3, 2018

BW’s Morning Article Link: A Misuse Of Lettering

Letterers are not acknowledged enough in comics. They write the dialog and sound effects you see in comics. Maybe that’s why one letterer (or supposedly an intern) used the opportunity to take a series of popshots at a comic creator he didn’t like by hiding it as an alien language. And you though only video game developers hid things in their code.

Posted by on August 3, 2018 in Comic Spotlight and tagged .

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August 2, 2018

Unsuccessful Pilot: The Hero Code

Having been in the reviewing community I became aware of artist and animator Andrew Dickman. He’s done work for review shows as well as worked on television animation, and has done some of his own review work as well as a series of comedy shorts about Doctor Wily and his Robot Masters. Dickman (yes, that is his actual last name) is a huge Mega Man fan you see, even running an annual Mega Man drawing challenge on Tumblr. So when he decided to create a pitch for his own animation concept, guess what he was inspired by.

The Hero Code was a futuristic superhero comedy Dickman pitched to Nickelodeon, which he was working for at the time. The pitch came with a 3+ minute animatic showcasing what the tone of the show would be like. Recently he posted this animatic to his YouTube channel and I thought it was interesting enough to share.

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Posted by on August 2, 2018 in Animation Spotlight and tagged .

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