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 latest tragic school shooting in America has caused the usual ripples and platitude for "Thoughts and prayers, but in an impressive and actually rather inspiring move, the surviving students themselves, in conjunction with the youth branch of the same movement that led the Woman's March, are motivating for change calling for a days walkout from schools on March 14th.

The Winter Olympics continue, with a new generation of sportspeople doing things like staying up late the night before their event to watch a boxset (and then winning a gold), texting from the top of the ski jump, or in the case of Norway's curling team, having the most objectively fabulous assortment of different daily themed trousers.

The New York Toy Fair had the VERY surprising news that Bandai, after 25 years, will no longer produce Power Rangers toys for the US market (though Bandai Japan will continue to do so for Sentai series). Instead, Hasbro has the licence.

The other surprise announcement was that next years Power Rangers will not be based on either of the most recent sentai (Zyuohger, with humanoid animals from a parallel Earth, or Kyuranger with it's astronomy theme and 12 strong team) but instead will be based on 2012's "Go-Busters" which will become "Power Rangers: Beast Morphers".

The Brexit Secretary was the third UK political figure to make an incredibly unconvincing speech about how bad Brexit isn't going to be. Apparently, it won't be a Mad max scenario, which is setting the bar kind of low I'd have thought, and the thought of Theresa May as Auntie Entity boggles the mind.

In a rather embarrassing incident, two thirds of the UK's branches of KFC had to shut after they ran out of... well... chicken! Apparently a new contract with a new delivery company started up and within a week over 500 restaurants had to shut due to incomplete deliveries. Someone's next Annual Appraisal interview is NOT going to be a pleasant one I suspect.

An American tourist caused a bit of an international incident, by taking a selfie with one of the famed Chinese terracotta warriors (currently on display in the US), before snapping one of it's thumbs off as a souvenir. Words fail.

Comments

[scorntx]

IDW's current Transformers stuff is apparently ending this year, after the whole Unicron thing.
Honestly not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Hasbro announced the next Big Thing after Power of the Primes will be a "War for Cybertron" trilogy.
Only it's nothing to do with the game of the same name (yaaaaay!)

Oh, and there's another movie based toyline, designed to celebrate ten years of explosions (except with no toys based on Dark of the Moon, so far).
Which... ehhh... I mean, okay, a screen-accurate Stinger is neat, I guess, but... y'know, toy shops are still utterly clogged with Last Knight Grimlocks and Berserkers. Is there even any room for another toyline?
(And proving Hasbro has learnt nowt, the first wave has, yes, Yet Another Bumblebee toy, to clog up what shelves are left!)

also, Transformers 6 has been cancelled, with the word just being that after the Bumblebee movie, the film series will "reset".
Which isn't a reboot because HEY WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? *runs away*


oh and I saw black panther on sunday and it was good.

[icon_uk]

Bumblebee remains a regular top seller, with his own movie (including an actual VW Beetle alt mode) and the Bumblebee-centred "Cyberverse" series coming out later this year

[scorntx]

-Bumblebee remains a regular top seller-
Maybe on your street.
I still recall seeing swarms of RID Bee on the shelves just the other year.
(Well, that and Drift. Bumblebees and Drift, as far as the eye could see...)

[icon_uk]

Chris McFeeley, in one of his excellent "Transformers: The Basics" youtube series devoted an episode to the little yellow fellow, which explains part of why he is so prevalent.

[owlbrigade1]

I'd not heard about IDW, is this a hard reboot of their lines or have they lost the license to publish the books or something?

I know I hated how Gastro-Intestinal Joe and Visionaries had screwed up the main book (they killed Kup!!) but I'll be sad to lose the Lost Light stuff.

[scorntx]

I don't think they've lost the license.
But it might have something to do with the increasingly low sales, so they've decided to end it, rather than limp on, Ultimate Marvel-style.

[owlbrigade1]

I suspect any low sales are more due to the curse of the Bro verse, all the crossovers and "Event" storylines. I mean, that is just my opinion though and utterly unbacked up by any actual facts, of course; but I know I have dropped the non Lost Light comics because of it (and they killed Kup!!!) because of all those shenanigans.

[devastron]

There is no confirmation at all that IDW is ending their Transformers comics, as far as I can tell its just fan conjecture from the FCBD solicitation for the Unicron comic.

[skjam]

Learned a bit late that Barnes & Noble (a big book retailer here in the U.S.) laid off most of its full-time employees as a "cost-savings" measure-- I won't be surprised if they're gone within two years.

Monday night at Toastmasters, we were short a speaker, so I did an impromptu speech on Abraham Lincoln for President's Day. Good thing I'd studied up last week! I included a call to action to continue making the promise of the Declaration of Independence (that all men* are created equal, with the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) comes closer to reality.

*meaning "humans" at the time

Over at my blog, I review another volume of the Shigeru Mizuki "GeGeGe no Kitaro" manga: http://www.skjam.com/2018/02/18/manga-review-kitaro-meets-nurarihyon/

[zachbeacon]

I think you'll find most retail stores don't really have full time people aside from management. At least that was my experience when doing that kind of work.

Retail in general isn't in great shape.

[skjam]

The one big advantage B&N had over Amazon was the full time people who knew how to help people find the books they wanted. That's gone now.

[zachbeacon]

I don't have a huge amount of affection for B&N. It isn't that I dislike them; I'm just surprised they outlasted Walden/Borders when my experiences there were so much better. Granted I may be biased because I'd worked there for a few years as seasonal holiday help and quite liked most everyone there. I don't want see anyone out of a job but especially so when its people I know.

*Just hit me I'm typing this shortly after buying a gift on Amazon because its cheaper, faster, always open, and I don't have to wait until the weekend to drive out of the way only to find out the store is sold out. I might be a monster*

[dr_archeville]

While at a working dinner with other lawmakers discussing legislation aimed at curbing domestic violence, Thomas Corbin, a SC GOP Senator, insulted women in general and fellow Senator Katrina Shealy in particular by comparing women to "lesser cuts of meat" (b/c Eve was made from Adam's rib) and referring to earlier comments where he said women shouldn't be elected officials but instead be barefoot & pregnant.

Disney aired their latest made-for-tv high school/teen musical, Zombies. It was... less than impressive.

As part of an attempt to expose how easy it was to get fake news into supposedly peer-reviewed scientific journals, an anonymous biologist submitted a fake research paper based on the Star Tek: Voyager episode "Threshold" (i.e., the one where going part Warp 10 turned Paris and Janeway into salamanders, and which pretty much everyone agrees is non-canon). The paper was accepted by four different journals, and actually published in one, American Research Journal of Biosciences. While amusing, this does shine a light on the problem with "predatory" scientific journals & weak peer review.

Last Monday, all 781 Barnes & Noble stores laid off every single one of their full-time employees. Most stores lost 3-7 people, with a total estimate of around 1,800. This was done to save the company $40,000,000... after paying out $14,500,000 to two Executives. The same day this happened, B&N announced the hiring of a new Chief Merchandising Officer, Timothy Mantel. A quick background check reveals Tim Mantel has been bouncing around jobs every 1-2 years his whole career, and during his stint as Chief Merch Officer at GNC, he helped tank their revenue by $2,500,000,000 in his first year on the job there, as part of a "Pump & Dump" scheme.

A (White) teacher in Lafayette, CO, upon seeing one of her (Hispanic) students refuse to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, dragged the child out of the room and into the hall. The teacher -- who has 20 years experience -- has been suspended and charged with 3rd degree Assault.
(Working as a substitute teacher, it still boggles my mind when the loudspeakers instruct us all to rise for the Pledge of Allegiance every morning at around 10:00am.)

[janegray]

I'm so angry about the news that the IDW continuity might be ending, because it would mean that AGAIN they won't do shit about the mess between Megatron and Starscream. Aside from M. Scott (and bless her for that, even if she could only address one of the two POVs, so the picture was one-sided and incomplete), for years they have been actively going out of their way to ignore the elephant in the room. I kept hoping Megs would eventually come back in the hands of another writer, but now it seems that's probably not going to happen, he is stuck in another universe for good.

Same thing with the RiD cartoon. They used the possibility of a confrontation between them as the focus and stakes of the Season 2.5/3 Finale, then they put Starscream in a coma and that was that.

I'm pretty much burned out at this point.

[cypherfdp]

BUSTERS READY GOOOO
KONO KETSUI UNBREAKABLEEEE

Of course, if the past few seasons are any indication, the power rangers version won't be much to write home about

[icon_uk]

I dunno, Dino Charge was very competent, though it seemed to lose some of that focus in Super Dino Charge.

Ninja Steel has a couple of decent performers, but a much thinner story.

Still it's been nice to see things like romance between Rangers being allowed again (Tyler/Shelby, Calvin/Hayley)

[locuatico]

It seems Bandai was the reason why Go-busters was's originally adapted, with them being interest on the more gimmicky seasons. With Hasbro, this changes, since they are traditionally more in favor of having action figures.
The fact they went back to Go-busters makes me feel that they REALLY wanted to do Go-Busters.

It does make me wonder how they are going to adapt Enter, who was, IMHO, one of the most charismatic (if not THE most charismatic) sentai/power rangers villains ever.

[thanekos]

Heckyl from Dino Charge, but more so.

[mizerous]

With no chance of redemption.

[icon_uk]

Human looking villains nearly always get a chance at redemption (or have it thrust upon them) like Rita, Divatox, Jarrod (Dai Shi) and Camille, Marah and Kapri, Tenaya 7).

About the only one I can think of who wasn't specifically shown as redeemed was Morgana/Mora from SPD, and she was just... disturbing.

[long_silence]

I don't think Scorpina, Trakeena and Vypra were ever redeemed

[owlbrigade1]

I think the only reason David Davis has ruled out a "Mad Max" scenario is because Britain is too damp to turn into desert. I'm assuming there are a whole slew of Freedom of Information Act requests being put in to find out just exactly what level of apocalyptic dystopia he does intend to plunge us into. We know IDS wants a full on Galt's Gulch level of dystopia where the poor and dystopia die off in large numbers, that Rees Mogg has his eyes on a new Harrowing of North followed by a complete return to feudalism, and Boris probably wants to end up in Maid Marian and Her Merry Men as a less competent version of King John.

So there are competing dystopian post-brexit visions there.

[commodus]

I mean, at least we know we won't all be driving around in makeshit dune buggies shooting at each other. But I still think we might get to a Logan's Run or Soylent Green type of position.
I mean, I just want to know HOW terrified I should be.

[thezmage]

Found some wave 3 DC Imaginext toys at the store yesterday. Mister Miracle has apparently become my 3 year old nephew’s favorite (non-train) toy almost immediately, largely because of the hanging harness he comes with, I think. Other than trains, interests change pretty quickly for this kid, so I don’t know how long it will last

[spider_man6]

Marvel’s announced plans for yet ANOTHER relaunch in the fall. Kind of interested, but also not too excited. That said, if this can rival Marvel Now, then maybe it’ll be good.

[commodus]

In truth, I think relaunches and reboots are why comics can seem so inpentrable to outside audiences. I have been reading comics since I was first able to read, and even I find it incredibly difficult to tell what's going on in Marvel or what new comics I should check out. I guess it's just one of those quirks of the business, but it's one which has always been very offputting to me.

[commodus]

I have an awful cold :( Coughing, sneezing, aches and pains, needing to sleep all the time. But, on the plus side, I might have a new job!

[junipepper]

Sounds like the flu, actually; you should get to a doctor so you can become an official statistic. :-) Drink a lot of water, get a lot of sleep, and I hope you feel better soon.

[junipepper]

Spent some time watching various Olympics events. Apparently ratings are down, and I do wonder if the network has considered the possibility that people aren’t watching because their broadcasting just sucks. Mr. Junipepper is weirdly fascinated by curling. I’m amused that the Israeli Winter Olympics Team is going by “The Frozen Chosen.”

In other news, I’m still nine months behind in my Nightwing reading despite having all the trades at hand, and my dad seems to have walked off with my Jessica Jones collection.

[bradygirl_12]

Curling is so cool! :)

[junipepper]

...so I hear. A lot.

:-)

[full_metal_ox]

Google, by request of Getty Images, have removed their "View image" button and "Search by image" option; my own experience is that the latter decision actually impedes one approach to copyright protection, in that it makes it harder to compare multiple postings of an image in hopes of determining who the originator might be.

A PSA for Black Panther cosplayers: authentic blankets like those worn by the Border Tribe, made by the people of Lesotho, are available from http://www.clubaranda.co.za. At the moment, they're sold all the way out, but keep an eye out for restocks. (Note also that Wakanda canonically exports textiles.)

[raspberryrain]

I thought at first you meant that they'd removed any ability to search by image, which would be huge. Reverse image search still exists? They just removed a button?

That's a relief. But it just makes it harder to find and harder to use. Hmph.

[informationgeek]

Oh look, a negative review of Black Panther from Armond White. If you know who this guy is, I'm sure you are totally surprised by this as I am (sarcasm). But oh boy... what he wrote about the movie is something else:

This commercial strategy, geared toward adolescents of all ages, resembles the Democratic party’s political manipulation of black Americans, targeting that audience through its insecurities about heritage, social prestige, and empowerment. So Marvel’s new, instant blockbuster Black Panther appeals to adolescent fantasies about birthright and ethnic invincibility — dishing up the routine super-heroics of T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), a black version of Batman who fights crime dressed as a panther. He’s a recent addition to the Marvel Avengers series and the new king of Wakanda, a fictitious African nation devised by two of Marvel’s pseudo–social scientists, writer Stan Lee and illustrator Jack Kirby.

The Black Panther film and its hype are inseparable.

What motivates their methods of racial exploitation are confirmed by this week’s Time magazine: Its cover features Boseman, Black Panther’s star, handsomely replacing Time’s infamously racist, darkened O. J. cover, to prove that the publication has abandoned journalism to become a social-justice-warrior pamphlet. Combining youth and black exploitation is an effective propaganda tactic when audiences don’t recognize how they’re being manipulated; they’re simply flattered by it.

T’Challa’s superpowers, tight-fitting Panther outfit, and Shangri-La-style homeland (transferring the fabled El Dorado from the Western Hemisphere to Africa) distort actual history and anthropology the same way that TV, comic books, video games, and movies have supplanted traditional education and learning. Utopian Wakanda, hidden behind clouds and mountains away from European colonizers, resembles the faux-naïve heaven of the 1933 negro musical Green Pastures. But the old-timey Christianity in that film is now replaced by faux-naïve Afrocentricity, including clichéd tribal customs (T’Challa must fight challengers to his throne).

During the radicalized 1960s, Green Pastures’ stereotypes were considered an outrage. Black Panther would seem similarly fake if people weren’t falling for it without question. Once again, we see the nation’s psychic wounds — and black folks’ desperate need for whites’ appreciation — exposed by stripping off the Obama bandage.

In short...

[junipepper]

tl;dr: Negros get uppity again.

/sarcasm

[icon_uk]

So he's a gay, African-American critic who is also a contrarian, right wing troll and conspiracy nut?

I mean, I've known at an intellectual level that it's possible for someone like that to exist, but... wow

[janegray]

They are the worst. Ben Carson, Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos. The absolute worst.

[bradygirl_12]

Oh, god, Ann Coulter! Smug, smarmy, just horrible.

[starwolf_oakley]

The like has happened before. When "Captain America: Civil War" came out, there were some essays complaining that Steve Rogers had become a libertarian throwing a temper tantrum.

https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/the-dumbest-captain-america-civil-war-review-youll-read/

[starwolf_oakley]

Miranda Otto is set to play Aunt Zelda in the new Sabrina series from Netflix. She joins Mad Men's Kiernan Shipka as Sabrina, and Wonder Woman's Lucy Davis as Aunt Hilda.

I'm wondering if they will do what the 1990s sitcom did, and Salem is stuck in cat form as punishment for trying to take over the world.

Salem: I couldn't have done a worse job than You-Know-Who is doing! Not THAT You-Know-Who. That guy had issues.

[icon_uk]

And Michelle Gomez has been confirmed as the big baddie for the Sabrina series.

[starwolf_oakley]

More casting news! Jessica Chastain is "in talks" to play Adult Beverly Marsh in "IT: Chapter Two." She friends with director Andy Muschietti.

Most fans' responded with "They didn't ask Amy Adams?" Well, maybe they did. Also, Amy Adams could play Audra, who is supposed to look like Beverly. I'm still hoping Beverly and Audra have a scene together in Chapter Two. And a scene with Amy Adams and Jessica Chastain would be pretty cool.

(Intriguing note: Amy Adams and Sophia Lillis are playing the same character at different ages in HBO's Sharp Objects.)

I could go on about how elements of the "grown-ups half" of IT the book was used in Chapter One (Pennywise kidnapping someone as bait), so maybe elements of the "kids half" of IT will be used in Chapter Two. But no need to bore you (too late).

[mrwalker]

Here there be Legends of Tomorrow spoilers...

We learn that the demonic big bad of the season is NOT a fan of the six totems of the sort used by Vixen (wildlife), Zari (air), and Kuwasa (water). John Constantine points out that he only knows of two others, fire and earth. I'm wondering if the sixth totem could be..."the green?" Could Swamp Thing show up on Legends, maybe teaming up with Constantine?

BTW, I'm pretty sure Word of God confirmed it earlier, but Constantine in the Arrowverse is pretty well confirmed bi now, given his flirting with Leo. And being taken, Leo politely but firmly declines the advances.

Much as I'll miss Wentworth Miller and Leonard & Leo Snart...I can't blame him for deciding it was time to go back home to his hopefully soon to be fiancé. Nearly getting an orbital lobotomy while his Captain and resident demon expert were off having a screw in the middle of a mission MAY have had something to do with it too... XD