Ahoy mateys! Greet your friends and enemies alike with your best accent as per those great movies, inaccurate they may be, they’re still fun. Some places might even give you a discount if you’re dressed in your best pirate garb.
Here’s the trailer for an upcoming movie I helped out on. No, I’m not in it or anything but I did do something useful, I loaned the creator some money to help him make it. So I guess that classifies me as a producer because I recall those are the people who secure the funding to get films made. I’m really looking forward to the completed project and I will just go with the title of, person who helped out, nothing silly or pretentious.
This JLI is pretty close to the Eighties lineup.
Entry number two regarding the DC reboot of their core 52 titles: two of my favorites from the Eighties getting another attempt. Actually, they’ve reappeared periodically as miniseries or in the dreadful Blackest Night crossover (the only impressive element was how they numbered the cancelled comics, e.g. Suicide Squad has 67 on it because it ended at 66 back in the Nineties).
First up is Justice League International, a rather odd move in my opinion. Why? I think my personal politics are atypical of most comic fans, especially in Texas, so a modern-day multi-national group working with the UN feels like a short-lived publication. You continue to hear Right-Wing idiots ramble on constantly about the following fictional conspiracies: black helicopters, the UN taking away guns, Sharia law in the courts and how much debt the Chinese hold. Since entertainment often reflects popular sentiment, right or wrong, why would DC waste the paper? Then again, the UN was a favorite whipping boy of Phaorah Reagan 25 years ago and yet the Justice League becoming an international force had no negative effect. It had the opposite effect as Marvel’s Avengers charter changed to something similar and the Justice League launched a European branch based in Paris by 1988-9.
Where this new team fits in the larger DC Universe remains a mystery because the parent title Justice League opened five years before the events happening in JLI. Ergo, there’s no strong explanation why heavy hitters Wonder Woman, Superman and the Green Lantern Hal Jordan were excluded from the Security Council’s consideration, all three heroes don’t hold any national allegiance. They do go with a decent mix but I’m confident Booster Gold is the leader due to him being author-artist Dan Jurgens’ creation. It’s not a complaint, I dig the character, I just never found BG to be the in-charge type nor is the UN handler’s rationalization credible: BG loves publicity which makes him easily manipulated. Batman is unofficially onboard to help Booster and to represent American skepticism/paranoia. Rounding out the planet are Vixen (fake African country yet really American), Fire (Brazil), Ice (Norway), Rocket Red (Russia), Godiva (UK, third character to use this name in DC), August General in Iron (China, he needs a better name) and Green Lantern Guy Gardner (comic relief). I was disappointed that Rocket Red isn’t the cheerful Dmitri from the past (an OMAC killed him), it’s a different guy who seems to antagonize the Chinese character.
With the group formed in a hurry, JLI is off to its first mission…investigate the disappearance of a UN survey team in Peru. Meanwhile, some Americans take matters into their own hands by blowing up the League’s HQ to express their anger at the UN. This definitely needs more issues to see where it’s going. I have confidence in Dan Jurgens though and I’m very grateful DC didn’t give this to hack Judd Winick.
Suicide Squad only has one original member.
Suicide Squad‘s return is the bigger mystery since it was definitely a product of its time expressing the cynicism I remembered then. Sadly, DC chose not to involve its original co-creator John Ostrander (the other, Kim Yale, passed away which sucks, I actually met her, got her advice on becoming a comic book writer, a story for another day). The premise appears to be the same as it was 25 years ago: all the villains the superheroes put away are recruited by the American government for covert-black ops missions. It’s not clear if they’re turned lose afterwards but I assume they will be, three members are in Batman’s rogues gallery: Harley Quinn, Deadshot and Black Spider. The remaining three are El Diablo, King Shark and Voltaic. Traditionally, at least one character is killed during a mission. The smart money says Voltaic, I’ve never heard of him. They also gave the team’s de facto boss, Amanda Waller, a makeover if that was indeed her on the final page. She’s no longer a middle-aged obese black woman but a younger, svelte black woman. I’m confident Rush Limbaugh will say it’s supposed to be Michelle Obama.
Squad devotes the entire issue to exposition on why the team exists, how they ended up in prison, how they’re kept in line (explosives are planted in their bodies, no more wristbands) and why the villains were selected…they didn’t crack when tortured. I think Harley would’ve snapped if Dick Cheney were there to read excerpts of his fictional memoirs. Then it ends with a cliffhanger, the team is dropped from a plane and ordered to kill thousands trapped in a stadium a la New Orleans-Katrina.
I’m willing to see how this goes. However, a major reason why I loved the Eighties version was the superheroes with bad reputations being members: Bronze Tiger, Nightshade, Shade the Changing Man, Major Victory and Nemesis. They went along to keep the villains in line and ensure the mission’s chances of success. Maybe someone like them will be added should this title survive.
Stay tuned (or is it tooned?). I hope to revisit these like Justice League at issues three or four to re-assess.
Next up? The Teen Titans reboot and the introduction of Justice League Dark, the focus is on DC’s magic-based characters: Zatanna, Madame Xanadu, John Constantine, Deadman and Shade the Changing Man.
Since I’m “too old” for MAD, I tend to catch the rest of Sergio’s prolific work through his contributions to Bongo Comics (Matt Groening’s company). I’m sure he’s doing Groo and other stuff for Dark Horse too.
Anyway, Sergio has been writing various Simpsons stories since 2009 and had an awesome cameo last year in Futurama (as a head in a jar of course). It was cool to hear him speak. Now Bongo gave him his own comic book. Where this man gets the energy to keep going blows me away and at 74, it doesn’t look like he’ll be slowing down anytime soon neither.
Funnies is a filled with his trademarked silent cartoons, a couple puzzles (spot-the-difference stuff), a short illustrated story and personal tales about his past or current activities. The section regarding his past is what got me hooked. Within the last year, I caught an interview the Onion AV Club did which probably gave me the impetus to know more about the guy.
Kids will probably skim through the stories and feel gypped over the small silent gag sections. It’s definitely aimed at a more adult audience wanting to enjoy Sergio’s storytelling abilities as an alternative to the long-underwear comics are known for. After three issues, I give it my personal endorsement but I’ll probably keep the issues I’ve accrued around until I can replace them with trade paperbacks before donating them to someone else who will appreciate these.
It was a rough weak for the streaming service and as always, the “geniuses” known as the Investor Caste of Wall Street responded by ditching the stock, its value dropped by 15 percent. Remember, if these jackasses were doctors, they’d diagnose a tourniquet on your upper arm whenever you get a paper cut on your finger.
The Executive Caste running Netflix didn’t help. Their selloff was revealed in other stories regarding the decline. My personal guess is that the company has a bunch of seagulls running things and they’re only sticking around to cash out overpriced stock.
Personally, I welcomed to the shift. Sometimes we dragged our asses with the DVDs. Streaming is more efficient and the selection has improved in the last couple years. Even if we kept both, it was still cheaper than commercial-laden, Fox-polluted cable.
Now the bean-counters flushing most entertainment industries down the toilet with their short-sightedness have decided Netflix could become another Amazon or iTunes telling them what to do; plus people are abandoning cable in significant numbers. Ergo they’re starting to pull content and/or asking for more than it’s actually worth. A couple people at the D&D game whined over this. I say, let’s wait and see. Sure those conglomerates may try to make their own solution like Hulu (still have to pay to watch ads!) but infrastructure costs could get them to reconsider. Here’s some food for thought. Wal-Mart tried to take a piece of Apple’s music action with its own online store. It closed last month despite being cheaper. My point is that the content or options may not matter if the so-called competition (really multiple walled gardens) are onerous to use. After these corporations lose the budgets of small European nations, they will probably come crawling back to Netflix or its successor, remember MySpace was first and it lost the social network war.
Again, I’m not too worried. As long as it remains commercial free and has enough selection to keep me amused, the PS3 won’t get much gaming usage. Many complainers who canned their subs will come crawling back due to the alternatives proving how much worse they really are. Should Netflix go through the roof like Dish and its ilk did, we at least have a nice collection of DVDs to go through.
Muffin, can you help me find my keys?
Feline HIV, or “Cat AIDS,” isn’t anything new to me. I had a friend infected with it 20 years ago. The poor guy (Copper was his name) got loose, then in a fight with another cat gave to him through a nasty bite. He was a sweet animal and I think he lived for many years, about the average for a domestic indoor cat.
Whenever our pets (or as I sometimes call them, monsters) go to the vet, they’re always checked for this and they pass because they’re not allowed outside unsupervised.
Now NPR published the Web version of their radio story about the glowing side effect to a treatment; it’s caused by mixing monkey and jellyfish genes. I recall there are species of primates which are immune; there’s also a special colony in Louisiana that proved to be ineffective for testing, their physiology was too different from humans, hence they’re “retired” until they die out. If you read the story, you will see the explanation on why jellyfish genetics were put in the mix.
I still have my doubts on the validity of this. Jellyfish aren’t even mammals and I don’t understand how their DNA wouldn’t be rejected outright in such a Dr. Mephesto-esque design…except the cat only has one ass.
Fear not, I won’t retract this should snopes, Mythbusters or FactCheck prove it false. I think I’ll be tracking this myself to make sure.
At least the glowing element isn’t cruel like the other intentional modifications I’ve seen to other breeds: short front legs, almost no fur and freaky ears.
The Scared Stiff machine at Austin's own Pinballz!
The Mistress of the Dark is now 60. Normally, I don’t like to disclose a lady’s age but what can you do when it’s publicly available through imdb.com or on my Simpsons calendar. A couple years ago, I had the awesome opportunity to meet her. Unlike the Goth kids I encountered in college (they used to be called Vampires, Tanks Girls and Eddy Munsters), Ms. Peterson was really nice, doesn’t take it seriously and for her, the look is a costume, not a lifestyle.
Last night, as a pre-emptive celebration, we played the pinball machine she licensed a couple times. Somara even won a match game on it. The game definitely has her DNA because it’s filled with very tongue-in-cheek gags, namely when you trigger the jackpot: Elvira lists possible monsters in the crate you broke open and concludes it’s the everyday horrors…lawyers and salesmen!
I hope Ms. Peterson comes back to Austin again. I want to ask her a question regarding a D&D-like book she licensed her likeness on and get another autograph to the biggest horror fan I know. He knows who he is since he has an RSS feed of this site.
This week I got to meet the addition to the Laser-Thompson family…Lily who is now the baby sister to Leila. Tracy and Dave (the parents obviously) were generous enough to come by work to show the girls off!
I think the name is awesome because Blazing Saddles is one of my favorite movies of all time. No, I will not be torturing the poor child with my Madeline Kahn imitation. It would be wasted on her since she’s about a month old. But you know it’s inevitable when she’s growing up, that and references to the obscure Who song. We all have a mutual friend/co-worker whose younger son is Neo, thus, all of geeks have to say the line from The Matrix upon first meeting him.
Now to go through the wrybaby.com box to find the right gift for this week’s additions to the Maggi Universe.
Netflix finally having the Star Trek cartoons must’ve been an omen or the other way around? Although Ensign Chekhov is obviously absent in the series, he was replaced by the six-limbed Edoan navigator Mr. Arex, Walter still contributed as the writer of “The Infinite Vulcan.”
Walter also has a major role in another Sci-Fi franchise close to my heart, Babylon 5, as the recurring villain Mr. Bester. It was nice to see him get a new lease on his acting career in my favorite genre. It became a family affair for a brief while since his daughter was a writer for the cult fave Invader Zim.
Spotted on the back of a car at Costco. Possibly Sovereign or Eon picking up a snack tray to share at the next council meeting?
Friend, co-worker and fellow Stars fan Ben is the new proud father of the guy you see above! After a couple weeks, Alex finally decided to make his debut. I warned Ben that he shouldn’t be surprised if this continues to be the trend when the boy is late for school.
I know I’m stoked. Another kid to spoil because we scoped out Toys R’ Us yesterday to see what’s hot and happenin’ these days. Alright we were looking for action figures of The Venture Brothers.
Somara and I knew there were a small group of babies coming too. It’s why we bought some stuff in advance when wrybaby.com had a sale a while ago. Now if the great card from Noble Works would hurry up and get here, the ensemble will be complete!
The current record-holders in my circle of friends from university on. I think the odds continue to stay in their favor.
Gift department? Probably no-hastle to low-cost/free babysitting so they can enjoy the meal and evening on the town.
For September, I’m trying to use the pictures of female singers I like as the “artwork” on my podcasts. Chrissie Hynde kicks off last week’s which is also behind schedule.
When I complete this week’s, it will be Kay who most people probably remember as the lead singer in Letters to Cleo. The band a couple minor hits back in the Nineties, “Here and Now,” “Awake” and the Cheap Trick cover they did for the movie Ten Things I Hate About You. If you are into trivia like I am, you’ll be interested to know, she was also the singing voice for Rachel Leigh-Cook in Josie and the Pussycats, a cute throwaway movie despite it starring living-punchline Tara Reid and franchise-desperate Rosario Dawson. The soundtrack is quite good, Kay performs songs written by her, Michael Eisenstein (Letters to Cleo, also Kay’s spouse), Jason Falkner (Jellyfish, solo), Adam Duritz (Counting Crows), Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne, Tinted Windows), Jane Wiedlin (Go Go’s, solo), Babyface, and Anna Waronker (that dog).
Recently she also turned up on the latest Bowling for Soup album as the female accompaniment to their song about the dangers of dating waitresses from Sonic. I thought I recognized the voice after a couple listens. The CD’s booklet confirmed it. Another advantage the old media has over the download world.
Yesterday was the Saturday I had been looking forward to for a while…taking one of my older nephews with me to all the favorite Austin-based hangouts of Uncle Steve, his geeky relative by marriage. Hunter has three other uncles who are pretty cool too. My short-term memory with those gentlemen is poor so I can only remember that one is a scout for the Houston Astros. I promise to take better notes on them to avoid future awkward meetings which will make me come off as rude.
Enough about me, it was Hunter’s day. Due to him living over in College Station (aka the Aggie Motherland), I don’t get to see him as much as I used to; his family moved away from nearby Georgetown when his dad (Aaron, Somara’s brother) accepted a new job. Somara’s upcoming surgery contributed to us missing out on Hunter’s recent birthday celebration(s) back in August too. However, his family was in the Austin area and I got to “borrow him” for an afternoon of sensory overload.
First stop was lunch at his (current) favorite place, Mighty Fine. He just turned 12 which means he’s getting to the age when young boys turn into bottomless pits, no more eating a few bites and calling it a day. Hunter’s team-school sport is swimming and if the stories about Michael Phelps’s consumption of 50,000 calories/day are at least half-true, our burgers and fries were just an appetizer.
Next was the primary destination I wanted him to see, Pinballz. We played a slew of machines, especially if it piqued his curiosity. He got me hooked on Twister (after the Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt movie about tornadoes, not the party game) which has this cool magnetic multi-ball schtick. Whenever I triggered a multi-ball, I quickly let him take over my game to enjoy pinball’s best feature over video games and I let him have the games I won via points, thankfully I was able to pull it off a couple of times! (Thank you Spider-Man for dropping your required score to five million right away!) Hunter was pretty stoked to win his first match game with Batman Forever.
With a few bucks in tokens saved for his next visit, we hit the biggest Nerdvana on the North Side, Dragon’s Lair. I would’ve preferred to take him to Rogue’s Gallery which is my comic book/game store but we had to keep moving south for our eventual rendezvous with his mom and grandma. The game side was a bit much, maybe in another year he’ll be interested. Pathfinder will have a basic set this Fall which I can give to him and the other kids to let them test the waters. The comics were a harder sell than I anticipated. I think he was a little intimidated by all the choices yet Hunter knows the difference between DC and Marvel; which superheroes belong to their proper universes. The other problem I think he was experiencing was trying to find a good, complete story. Most “long underwear” comic books have even slower paces than a TV soap opera. One issue doesn’t contain much, you usually need at least three to make any headway on where the plot might be going. We investigated the trade-paperbacks, usually reprints of past issues packaged into collections. No luck on finding Essential Avengers #1 to get him ready for next Spring’s big movie. The DC stuff was primarily from the Golden Age, rather confusing and “crappy looking” at his age. Then boom, I found Batman & the Outsiders Volume One. It remains a personal favorite to this day. I sold Hunter on it by explaining how Batman told the JLA to get lost in 1983 and formed a new team to fight bad guys like Kobra. Besides, the book covered the comic’s run from issue one through 17; Batman had a falling out with them by number 32; plus all the crossovers. Lastly, I gave him the Uncle Steve guarantee; if he bought it, read it and decided this totally sucked, I would refund his money. (His mother Anje will make sure to get his final opinion.)
Five PM was approaching and we arrived at the final stop, Waterloo Records! A couple of years ago, Hunter said he really liked the Beatles. Hence we (Somara and me) gave him the remastered boxed set of their catalog. It did seem a bit much to give a 10-year-old kid yet I felt that just giving him a couple CDs or an iTunes card was a half-assed measure. (Nowadays you can give somebody all seven Harry Potter books in a special collection thing, why should music be different?). Anyway, I scored new releases I knew I wanted and afterwards got Hunter some stuff to help him learn more about the bands he said he likes: new RHCP, their greatest hits with EMI, and Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. However, being a music fanatic I had to indulge…ok, impose…one selection on him. A Queen compilation, only because it was Freddie’s birthday last Monday.
Anje and Grandma showed around sixish. Hunter hopped in the car to read his new comic. I debriefed Anje on what a cool dude he was and our adventure, hoping we’ll get to do it again. She sent me a follow-up a couple of hours later telling me how stoked Hunter was over the afternoon; unlike other kids I know, he’s extremely quiet and I don’t have parental radar to gauge if he’s bored. I figured he was having a good time though. The harder trick for a DINK uncle like me to learn is to just let things happen, don’t keep trying to pry an opinion out of a kid, it makes you seem needy or odd.
Can’t wait to do this again (well, my wallet can). I’m also campaigning to get my brother’s oldest kid down to Austin for similar fun; fear not, the other children in my family won’t be ignored, they’re just not old enough yet. Short of being a kid-show host, the DINK and/or geek uncle role is pretty sweet when you have a Saturday like ours.
The puckish duo They Might be Giants posted this collection of prank, yet truthful, signs around New York City.
I think they’re appropriate in in all urban areas…especially the anti-sagging-pants ruling. With the overexposure the zombie genre is getting you’d think that fashion faux pas would finally end. Think about it. Those doofuses will be the earliest meals because they’ll trip over their pants and fall down after a couple steps. Therefore, we less athletic types (thanks to my treadmill’s busted status for five weeks, I’ve rejoined the regular crowd) receive better survival odds.
