Let’s talk straight here: I own a LOT of really awful comic books. But, in my defense, I’ve also seen a lot of terrible television, read a lot of terrible books, and I’ve seen the Prequel Trilogy of Star Wars at least once. I know from bad stories is what I’m saying here, but even in the darkest of clouds there is sometimes a Silver Lining. Witness the wonderful conversation in the other wise execrable ‘The Nude Bomb’ as Don Adams tries to brainstorm a bra made of cantaloupes and linguine (you kind of had to be there), or even…
Browsing: Question Of The Day
As a long-term fan of the sitcom ‘How I Met Your Mother’, I have to admit that one of the major complaints about the show is 100% true: Our protagonist, Ted Mosby, is a card-carrying Jerky Jerkface with a side order of schmuck. Not withstanding his repeated inability to accept when his paramours turn out to be real people who have their own thoughts and expectations about relationships, he continually shoots himself in the foot by insisting that relationships be “easy” for him while placing undue stress on his partner. The old married man in me is offended by his…
Today is Independence Day in the United States, which in my neighborhood will mean booze, barbeque and the repeated detonation of small pyroclastic devices well into the early morning hours. (Of course, with the exception of the firecrackers, that’s pretty much par for our hometown course.) In that vein, the radio stations will be blasting any music with the words “America”, “flag” or “proud” in ’em, regardless of whether they’re actually appropriate or not. Regardless of where you live in the world, though, there are moments that remind you of your home, be it the playing of the Marseilles in…
From the age of ten or eleven through my early teens, I spent a great deal of time sitting up late to watch mostly inappropriate things on my already-ancient Magnavox TV show. Benny Hill taught me about the female anatomy, Monty Python about the beauty of absurdity, and Rod Serling knew how to push buttons across the entire emotional spectrum, hitting all the highlights of the human condition. Rod even knew how to scare the hell out of me, but one of the most terrifying moments in my life came when I accidentally caught ‘Night Of The Living Dead’ on…
Several years ago, during a viewing of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, a couple of friends told me that I really needed to read George RR Martin’s ‘A Song Of Ice And Fire’ novels which, at the time, consisted of four massive tomes of material. Though I’m a fan of Martin’s work from the ‘Wild Cards’ shared universe novels, I balked at the sheer size of the material, instead choosing to watch ‘Heavy Metal’ for the 847th time. It’s not that I don’t enjoy new things, but as I age, the impetus to join in and read/watch/listen to massive…
Over the years, I’ve had quite a few conversations about matters involving comic books and the denizens thereof, but none have caused the kind of consternation that discussions of coloring have. For instance, when Batman went to an all-black costume in the 90s, there were those who were angry that he had given up his traditional midnight-blue-and-grey color scheme. Part of it is a matter of identity (as Scott McCloud famously pointed out, the occasionally questionable printing quality of old-school comics made the color schemes an essential way to identify the heroes), while part of it is a matter of…
The best part of having cable movie channels for me is the ability to just “bump into” movies that you didn’t know you want to watch, which often leads to me remembering how good those stories were the first time around. A recent rewatch of 1999’s ‘American Beauty’ threw me for a loop, though, as the movie feels very different fifteen years after the fact. Sure, there’s still great power in the performances, even Mena Suvari’s jiggly nose-talking, and it still holds up as a viewing experience, but I had forgotten how literally EVERYONE in the film (save maybe for…
The worlds of fiction are full of characters described as bad-ass, from Darth Vader all the way through Daenarys Targaryen (whose name contains far too many vowels and broke Spellcheck forever.) Of course, there are as many definitions of “badass” as there are consumers of pop-culture, and I’ll vehemently make the case that Jerry Mouse is a legendary figure whose toughness is equivalent to that of Wolverine in his own genre, and whether or not you’re a fan of Batman or not, you have to appreciate that he has his moments. Grudgingly. Through gritted teeth. All that aside, the question…
Many years ago, the always-brilliant Calamity Jon covered Krypto the Super-Dog on his awesome blog, Gone And Forgotten, leading the phrase “made of stinky poop” into my vocabulary (always a big hit with the Widget, even in her new pre-teen phase.) Recently, Jon re-presented that classic bit of comic ephemera with some updates and such, reminding me of the wonderful days where it didn’t seem like that big a deal for Jor-El to have fired his kid’s Airedale into space. Still, Superboy isn’t the only one with a goofy big dumb animal hanging about during their adventures: The Superfriends had…
In this, the age of snark and dismissal, there are entire websites designed to do nothing but post an image of a television show, comic or movie and say “LOL FAIL.” At least some of the blame for this has to be laid at the feet of the (now bleedin’ demised) website “Jumping The Shark”, which catalogued a laundry list of moments that derailed their home media, leaving the shows in question “forever ruined.” I think what’s hardest to remember is that all of those moments, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, was a subjective judgment, left to the eye of…
During our Major Spoilers Podcast trade paperback review of ‘Teen Titans: The Judas Contract’ some months ago, Rodrigo commented on how odd it was that Nightwing’s big debut was immediately overshadowed by the introduction of Deathstroke’s son (or, in story terms, his OTHER son) as Jericho. I have never been puzzled by that decision, as I found the character of Jericho to be fresh and unlike anything I’d ever seen in comics, while Nightwing was just a grown-up Robin, a concept that DC had been toying with since the late 50s. Even 30 years later, there’s never been another character…
With the news of a possible Powerpuff Girls reboot swirling, original Bubbles VO artist Tara Strong has been quietly campaigning on Twitter to return to the role. For my part, I think that a proper take on the PPG really NEEDS the cuteness that Tara and her fellow actors bring to the show, and my first instinct here is to support Tara’s campaign, but I’m still of two minds on I frankly (no pun intended) love that Frank Welker has been the voice of Fred Jones since nineteen-sixty-something, but on the other hand I find it highly irritating when ‘Batman:…
They say that television is called a ‘medium’, because it’s neither rare nor well-done, but it is a business of cycles. Every few years, certain genres and stories recur, among those the superhero story. After Batman in ’66, the likes of Mr. Terrific and Captain Nice arrived, while the end of the 70s brought another bumper crop, featuring Spider-Man, The Hulk, Wonder Woman and lesser lights such as Automan. 2014 is another big year for fans of the super-dupers, with Green Arrow already in play, The Flash and Constantine on their way, and hopefully another batch of low-rent knockoffs like…
This year, I had the odd experience of a pretty okay Father’s Day being bittersweet due to the death of one of my voice-over heroes, the immortal Casey Kasem. For many people my age, it’s a toss-up as to whether Casey’s golden pipes are more recognizable from his years of hosting America’s Top 40 or from his turn as Norville “Shaggy” Rogers in the first few iterations of Scooby Doo. Oddly for me, just the night before I got the news, Stephen and I watched ‘Ghostbusters’, which features a Kasem voice-over cameo, and the night before that I took in…