Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday

[icon_uk]

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 amongst yourselves.

The atrocious events in Charlottesville aroused the ire and blanket condemnation of pretty much everyone (Even senior Republicans were straightforward about that), with one notable exception of course.

As one commentator put it, when the people who made the Tiki Torches the White Supremacists were using (Adding a quirky, yet jejeune aspect to their hate march), offers a more literate and resounding put-down of their actions than the President of the United States, it's a REALLY depressing, and worrying, situation to be in.

Oh, and when juvenile brinksmanship tactics bringing the world that bit closer to a possible nuclear exchange is STILL the SECOND worst thing you've done in a week, words really do fail.

A 1940's Anti-Nazi film has gone viral on youtube and might be worth a watch

At the other end of the scale, the new "Duck Tales" premiere aired, to very good reviews, and Disney have made the whole episode available on their Youtube channel if you're in the US. The rest of us can just... wait, I suppose.

Also, new Scrooge McDuck David Tennant is continuing his steamrolling through every cartoon, fantasy and sci-fi franchise he can think of by not only returning for the next season of "Jessica Jones" as Killgrave, but also by being cast in the long awaited TV production of Neil Gaiman's and Sir Terry Pratchett's brilliant "Good Omens". Tennant will play Crowley (a cynical, rather jaded demon) against Michael Sheen's Aziraphale (a fussy but equally jaded angel) as both seek to deal with the imminent Apocalypse, and the apparent absence of the Antichrist they've been expecting.

Brexit shambles on with the gracefulness of an inebriated yak... and the way things are going I think I'd rather have the inebriated yak running it.

Happy 70th Indian Independence day for today (and slightly belated happy Pakistan Independence Day for yesterday!)

"Wonder Woman" picked up most of the movie categories at the Teen Choice awards. But in an inspiring choice which gives me some hope for the future, Teen Vogue did NOT livetweet it as one might expect, but instead, spent the time calling out White Supremacist terrorist bullshit.

The tone and ending of the forthcoming Justice League movie are being changed, most likely (but perhaps not 100%) due to Joss Whedon coming on board. Originally intended to end with Steppenwolf, the bad guy, being defeated, but Darkseid arriving on Earth anyway (making the whole movie essentially a lead in for a sequel), Darkseid will now not appear, giving the movie an actual ending of it's own.

Oh, and I can recommend the podcast The Orbiting Human Circus (of the air) from some surreal, quirky diversions as we peer into the life of a janitor working in the Eiffel Tower, home of the world's most popular radio show and it's unusual acts?

Comments

[informationgeek]

So I went to Florida this past week to visit my dad and went to Islands of Adventure. While I was there, I went and saw the Marvel section and checked out one of its stores. Inside, a few things caught my attention:
1. There was no merchandise for female characters at all. No Storm, no Captain Marvel, no Ms. Marvel, no Wasp, no Black Widow, no nothing. There wasn't even any merchandise for POC characters either with no Black Panther or Falcon stuff. So no T-shirts, no magnets, no mugs, no nothing for these characters (their comics were sold but that's it)
2. I only found a single shelf volume of X-Men comics and it was a small shelf. There was two shelves dedicated to just Guardians of the Galaxy material. Also, no X-Men merchandise besides some Wolverine statutes.
3. No trace of Fantastic Four anywhere. Just absolutely nothing. No merch and no comics. If not for the cafe restaurant based off the characters in the park, it was almost like they never existed.

That's all rather sad.

[cyberghostface]

No excuse for #1 but #2 and #3... yeah keep on telling us that it's just a 'conspiracy theory', Brevoort.

[commodus]

They won't give those characters any merchandise, then throw up their hands as to why sales are poor and people don't seem to take to them.
Though, in Falcon's case, I still maintain he needs a makeover. For such a cool character, his costume always felt kind of generic.

[lilacsigil]

It's really bizarre - I know it's been discussed at length that they want to divide children's merchandise into absolute boy/girl categories, which means if something is for one group it cannot be for the other. But what kid wants a coffee mug or an adult-sized t-shirt? And it doesn't at all explain why no Falcon or Black Panther.

[informationgeek]

Anyone here a fan of the Zero Escape franchise? I got my hands on the final game and I'm determined to finally get the true ending for 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors before I move on to the next game.

[kamino_neko]

I've only played 999 (don't have a 3DS and the PC version of...whichever game in the series is on PC is way too expensive)...and never did get the true ending.

[thatnickguy]

It's apparently the early 2000s again because a NEW STRONG BAD E-MAIL RELEASED!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpelIgwoUKw

[stubbleupdate]

Every day checking on my email, hoping that I get one from a female

[nightauditguy]

I've been watching Big Brother and these idiots, minus Cody, are letting Paul control everything.

[zachbeacon]

Speaking of the late Sir Terry Pratchett, I finally got around to reading the final Discworld book.I'd been putting it off because I didn't want my favorite book series to end. Every book we got since the Alzheimer's diagnosis has been an unexpected gift and - while I'm sad we'll never get Death and Taxes and the many book ideas mentioned in the epilogue - I'm happy we got as much time as we did with the Witches, Wizards, and Watch on the Disc.

All things considered, The Serpent's Crown is a pretty solid ending. We got to see the themes of progress carry over from Raising Steam (I seem to recall Sir Terry saying that trains would have been the end of things because the Medieval fantasy setting wouldn't survive that). For the most part it deals with the fallout of the death of one of the most important characters in the series.

It was probably what I needed at the end of a terrible week that caused my family to deal with thoughts of real life mortality more than we'd like.

[icon_uk]

Sorry to hear of your family problems, I can see where they might make the experience especially impactful.

I didn't hold off on reading it, though I can understand the POV of those who did. "The Shepherd's Crown" is not A-grade Pratchett, it's obvious that this was, at best, middle draft which he would have worked on significantly before it was published. For example, it's been mentioned by Neil Gaiman (Who knew more of the plot than was released in the book from his conversations with Sir Terry) that "You" would have played a different role in things, amongst other changes.

However, there's still a LOT of top quality Pratchett writing in there, and for the note-perfect scene between Death and... the character whose identity I won't spoil for those who haven't read it, I'll forgive it a lot

In years past I'd read online discussions about how those two characters might interact at such a moment, and seen many suggesting a fight and I KNEW that wasn't how such a meeting between two such consummate professionals would ever go and I was pleased that I was proved right, and sad too of course.

There's even lovely moments of typical Pratchettian logic whereby the otherwise perfectly irritating Letice Earwig gets a moment to shine as her complete self-centred-ness makes her immune to glamour, to the point that she doesn't even notice it.

And after the discussions of gender identity in "Raising Steam" with the Dwarf King, the introduction of an aspiring male witch was a nice counterpoint to the much earlier Eskarina, as a female wizard,

God alone knows we could do with a few more calm weavers like Geoffrey in the world

[commodus]

I've started reading the second Redwall book, and am really enjoying it! It's the kind of story that would actually lend itself really well to a high production TV show along the lines of Game of Thrones. Ah, we can but hope!

Speaking of Game of Thrones, this series has been pretty good so far. Though I'm still hoping we learn what the White Walkers actually want, so they can be humanised a little. Villains who are just evil for the sake of it are not worth anyone's time.

[icon_uk]

There was a Redwall cartoon series back in 1999/2000 or so which was, IIRC, well received.

The opening and more info on it

[reveen]

They were going to give the Justice League movie a fucking cliffhanger ending?! Warner Bros you dumb bastards.

[locuatico]

If it is true, I believe they wanted to have their "To challenge them... is to court Death" from the original Avengers. The problem is that, Darkseid coming to conquer earth? at this point... it feels beneath him.

from the great state of North Carolina

[dr_archeville]

In response to the actions in Charlottesville, VA, protesters in Durham, NC tore down a Confederate Monument in front of the Old Durham County Courthouse. (Under a state law passed in 2015, local governments are not allowed to remove Confederate monuments without permission from the legislature. The protesters were having none of that.) Additionally, protesters draped a black cloth over "Silent Sam," a Confederate/White Supremacist Monument on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus.

Coincidentally (or not), last night Orange County schools prohibited “the Confederate Flag, swastika, and any KKK related symbols or language in our Student Dress Code Policy,” following a months-long debate.

In more positive/personal news, I have an interview with a temp agency next Monday. Depending on how long it goes, I may miss the near-total solar eclipse... but the weather folks are predicting heavy clouds that day, so I would probably miss it anyway.

Re: from the great state of North Carolina

[icon_uk]

As someone noted, in Germany, there are no monuments to the swastika, but there IS a Holocaust Memorial... it's really not a complicated thing.

I can't handle politics soooo minor crap.

[lb_lee]

I'm back from Boston Comic Con! It was huge and overwhelming, and I probably will not be tabling there again even though I broke all my sales records--it's just too much, like three solid days of being a salesman in a giant pinball machine.

I also applied for a cartoonist residency that's fairly local. It'd be a great opportunity if I got in!

My roommate's very loving, very stupid cat lost a fight with a yogurt container. Twice. It is a good thing this animal is a treasured house pet, because he would not survive five seconds in the wild.

[owlbrigade1]

If it wasn't so sodding tragic then that march of the tiki torches and polo shirts would be so absurd that it would be more appropriate to a Monty Python skit mocking racists. Reality is now more surreal and absurd than Monty Python, and we should all be ashamed of that.

Bloody brexit too... What the hell happened to our world? I mean, I know a lot of it is Rupert Murdoch, but it cannot all be Rupert Murdoch, surely?

[zachbeacon]

I just can't get over the fact that the company making the torches condemned these people before Trump did

[featheredserpent]

Vote Inebriated Yak 2018

[commodus]

On the subject of fascistic demagogues, are we all ready for Nigel Farage: The Movie?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/15/nigel-farage-the-biopic-disaster-movie-no-one-is-waiting-for
You know, if he hadn't done so much to harm my country, I might find this grimly amusing, but as it is, the last thing the UK needs is more simpering praise of this awful man.

[stubbleupdate]

Will it have an alternate ending, and cut short in 2010?

[astrakhan42]

Gaiman adapted the Good Omens script and is the showrunner, so my concerns are allayed. Hopefully they can get Queen to sign off for the soundtrack.

[scorntx]

Looking forward to Defenders on Friday.
The only major hurdle is Danny Rand.
And even then, it's not that much of a biggie, if he's part of an ensemble that includes three other really great characters.
... unless, of course, somehow, this just makes him look less interesting somehow.
(Though it really would be nice if he just friggen shaved...)


Apparently the long-promised Legend of Korra comic came out.
Despite much searching through all of Saturday, couldnea find it.
Very upset about that.
(also apparently Avatar Kyoshi faced discrimination for being bi.
Somehow that seems the least plausible aspect of the whole comic.
... though it might explain certain events from Avatar.)
Also Kyoshi was bi. That is awesome.

Thinking about an adaptation of Good Omens, it's a tragic loss that we won't be able to hear Christopher Lee deliver That Specific Line of Death's.
*sigh*

[long_silence]

I believe that the line was that Kyoshi was unable to affect change to the public perception of same sex relationships despite being an openly bisexual public figure. Not that she necessarily faced discrimination. I could see her position and power affording her certain privileges and protections that other people in her time couldn't get.

Plus keep in mind that this is a woman who created her own island in order to get away from oppressive Earth Kingdom politics.

NSFW? I think?

[deh_tommy]

What on this Earth and beyond did I just read?

Re: NSFW? I think?

[lilacsigil]

Oh this! I read about it a few months ago and just the words "Silent Hill" now make me remember and boggle at this astonishing story.

[stubbleupdate]

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was obsessed with the new Hello Saferide album, especially I was Jesus, a song about what how key historical figures would have been received if they were women.

In the last week I've properly discovered Rocky the song about a man discovering that you can be vulnerable without losing your masculinity and still be loved, and Last Night Bus, about how a 15 year old girl narrowly avoids getting involved with neo-Nazis
The neo Nazi boys, they were nice to me
They smiled at me and they noticed me
But the best thing that ever happened to me
Is that none of these boys hit on me
I could have demonstrated
Played the bass guitar in a neo Nazi band
Would have been the same in some ways
And someone else in other ways
It’s my scariest sliding doors memory
I want it sliced in a shredder
Thrown out of me

They're brilliant storytelling.

[spider_man6]

I just got the first two volumes of The Wicked + The Divine, the first volume of Paper Girls, and the first volume of Monstress. These are my first Image titles, and they all are great. Monstress is fantastical, Paper Girls is weird, and TW+TD is awesome, but they're all really different and in a good way. Looking to get more volumes and series going forwards.

[informationgeek]

*starts smashing head against a wall*

He did it. The jackass did it again. Trump went back on his comments and went on blaming both sides for everything. Just what the f**k.

Article here:

In addition to equating Neo-Nazis with what he described as the “alt-left,” Trump once again blamed “both sides” for a violent outbreak that resulted in the death of a 32-year old counter-protester and he demanded to know whether members of the media “like” George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Trump insisted he “didn’t wait long” to make a statement condemning white nationalism, arguing he “wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct, not make a quick statement.”

“The statement I made on Saturday, the first statement, was a fine statement but you don’t make statements that direct unless you know the facts,” Trump said. “It takes a little while to get the facts. You still don’t know the facts. It is a very, very important process to me. So I don’t want to go quickly and just make a statement for the sake of making a political statement.

“When I make a statement, I like to be correct,” he continued. “I want the facts.”

Trump later refused to call James Fields Jr.—the white nationalist who allegedly drove his car into a group of counter protesters—a terrorist, calling him a murderer and “a disgrace to himself, his family and this country.”

“Is it terrorism?” he asked. “Then you get into legal semantics. The driver of the car is a murderer. What he did was a horrible, horrible, inexcusable thing”

“What about the alt-left that came charging at, as you say, at the alt-right?” Trump later asked. “Do they have any assemblage of guilt? What about the fact that they came charging with clubs in their hands swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do.”

“I’m not finished, fake news,” Trump said as members of the media pressed him on his moral equivalency.

“If you were honest reporters, which in many cases, you are not, many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,” Trump later said. “This week, it is Robert E. Lee … is it George Washington next? You have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”

The president later insisted his ability to bring in good jobs will “have a tremendous positive impact on race relations.”

“I think there is blame on both sides,” Trump later restated. “You look at both sides. I think there is blame on both sides. I have no doubt about it. You don’t have doubt about it either. If you reported it accurately, you would say that.”

“Are we going to take down statues to George Washington?” Trump demanded to know. “How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson?”

“You are changing history and culture,” Trump argued.

[kamino_neko]

Trump insisted he “didn’t wait long” to make a statement condemning white nationalism, arguing he “wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct, not make a quick statement.”

It's funny, isn't it, that he takes this stance when talking about Nazis, and not, oh, accusing muslims of committing attacks that never actually happened ('what happened in Sweden last night') or of which they're the victims (Montreal mosque attack, committed by a supporter of Trump and Marine LePen).

[dewinged]

...they're adding a Marvel legacy comic in November. Power Pack #63.

I...kinda...wanna see it...

[icon_uk]

And Devin Grayson is writing it.

I assume since Alex is in it, it's a flashback because he's out in the great beyond with the FF and his absence was noted in the otherwise completely forgettable appearance they made in a CIvil War II tie-in.

[skjam]

Still having no luck on finding a new place and stress is rising.

Meanwhile over on my blog, I review "One Night in Sixes", a Western-flavored fantasy book. https://http://www.skjam.com/2017/08/13/book-review-one-night-in-sixes/

I really hope I'm not a bad person for thinking this

[deh_tommy]

I'll be honest. While I'm rather disturbed by the Charleston rally, I'm a bit scared by the illegal tearing down of the statues, as well as said tearing down of the statues being presented as a good thing. I also kind of agree with some of what Mr. Trump said (there's something I never thought I'd say), and am disappointed by the violence and lack of civility shown from both sides at the rally.

Re: I really hope I'm not a bad person for thinking this

[icon_uk]

I am nervous about any mob action, but I am significantly less perturbed about the destruction of momuments to people who fought for the right to own people as property than I am by the actions of people who think it's okay to shout nazi slogans and phrases like "The Jews shall not replace us" whilst marching as a literal torch wiedling mob.

And whilst a peaceful, respectful solution would always be appreciated, the White Supremacists were not there for a peaceful, respectful display, so my sympathies lie entirely with those standing against them and I do not hold their actions against them.

There is not blame on both sides, when one side were reacting to the presence of actual neo-Nazi's and White Supremacists.