Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday

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In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like. Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.

The EU hosted a summit where over 40 countries and global organisations promised a starting figure of over $8 billion to the development of a covid-19 vaccine.

Much of the world is starting to experiment with opening up again in a new sort-of-post-Covid19 world, with places like Germany and Spain relaxing, gradually, some of the lockdown protocols, with strong limitations and provisos.

In New Zealand, consistent reminder that competent politicians exist Jacinda Ardern has suggested that the country may not have open borders for a long time to come.

In the UK, a phone app is being developed for contact tracingM and notification of people you may have been in contact with who develop Covid19, though in true current UK style, it's going against every other countries developed app by not using the personalised data storage method (Where your information never leaves your phone), but a centralised database, which is raising some concerns about the storage and disposal (or not) of this data.

The US government is planning on borrowing around 3 TRILLION dollars in the next quarter to pay for pandemic support initiatives. That's 3,000,000,000,000 (Which I only mention because I've never had a reason to type an actual number that big in a real world context!)

The US is also starting to open up in places, though the wisdom of this is being called into question by... well, pretty much everyone else on the planet, and a goodly number of the local population of course.

The Clone Wars seventh and final season came to an end with a frankly spectacular arc which saw Ahsoka Tano facing off against Darth Maul in the sort of iconic fight scene that, truth be told, the sequel trilogy was mostly completely lacking, at least on an emotional level), and giving us a chance to see the impact of General Order 66 from the point of view of Ahsoka, as well as the actual Clone Troopers who we have got to know and care about over the years of this series. THIS is how you do it!

The long overdue, repeatedly delayed, New Mutants movie was briefly appearing as forthcoming video on demand from Amazon, though without a release date, but it has now disappeared again. This DOES seem to suggest it might go straight to digital with no cinema release.

Also a new image of a new baddies form the movie have been released in the shape of the Smiley-Men.

And I've clearly been watching waaaay too much anime, or at least listening to too many anime soundtracks when a random video from something called Argonavis (A games based anime from what I can see) popped up and I thought "Gosh that sounds like Unison Square Garden" (who did "Orion o Nazoru", the belter of an OP for Tiger and Bunny) only to discover it's not, but it was written and arranged by two of the members.

In terms of podcasts, alongside old favourites like "Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men" (pretty much what it says on the tin and currently looking at Age of Apocalypse), "The NoSleep Podcast" (Horror fiction) and "The Arkham Sessions" (An actual qualified clinical psychologist, Dr Andrea Letamendi, examined, firstly "Batman the Animated Series" and is now looking at the "Doom Patrol" TV series for their depictions of mental conditions), I've just started Mockery Manor, a horror/mystery/drama set at a gloriously awful (and thankfully fictional) British theme park in the late 1980's.

So today's extra curricular activity for the community: What podcasts are you currently listening to that you'd recommend to others?

Gotham High

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"I always remember this quote from Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, where he’s talking about the killers and he says something like, 'We came from the same place, but I walked out the front door and he walked out the back door.' There’s this feeling that they’re the same person, just with different circumstances. I wanted to put that in the Batman-Joker dynamic: They’re almost the same person, but Bruce has all this privilege and Jack has nothing. What does that do to who they become? And then there’s a girl in the middle — the hottest girl to ever walk the halls of high school [laughs] — and what does she want? It came out of trying to figure out all their desires. What does Jack bring to Selina that’s different from what Bruce brings to Selina? Ultimately you don’t know who she’s going to pick. You root for both of them, and there’s a surprise in the end." -- Melissa de la Cruz

"There’s so much of that Instagram culture and social media culture with teens today, so I tried to interject that into the style and look of the characters, specifically with the Joker character. He was the hardest character to visualize and design because he’s not your average villain. He’s almost not a villain at all, in a way. He goes back and forth where you sympathize with him sometimes and sometimes you see him as a villain. So I wanted to give him a look that played off both sides of his personality... In a weird way, the Joker character is the most like me." -- Thomas Pitilli

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ATLA: The Rift Part One

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"After I signed on to do these comics, Toph quickly became my favourite character to write. Mike, Bryan, and their writing team made her so vibrant. I can close my eyes and hear her voice. We didn't include her in The Search for narrative reasons, but I really missed her. I'm glad we got to throw the spotlight on everybody's favourite blind Earthbending master here."

Gene Yang

(24 pages out of 72)
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The Remaining

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Chrononauts: Futureshock #2

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CANCELED! Five Cartoonists on Their Problematic Faves

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