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.

Well, where to begin...?

After withdrawing from the Iran nuclear arms deal last week, one had to wonder what could top that for global consernation, but we'd all forgotten that American was formally inaugurating it's first Jerusalem based Israeli Embassy, which pleased the Israeli government, and pretty much incensed everyone else on the planet. 58 Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli soldiers, and hundreds more injured. Their funerals are today, and the tensions do not look set to settle down anytime soon.

The holy month of Ramadan starts this week for Muslim's around the world. The BBC put together and article debunking some of the more common myths and misconception that people have about the fasting it involves.

The EU said there had been no major advances in Brexit discussions since March, which surprised a lot of people, who had assumed that there had been no major advances since at least last August.

Popular police sitcom Brooklyn 99 was cancelled by Fox after five years, and social media was not happy (to say the least), with the likes of Mark Hamill stepping forward to declare their love for the show, Within 24 hours of anguished tweeting, tumblring and Facebooking, NBC announced that they would produce and screen season 6. Cue much celebrating in social media.

Another odd social media whirlwind cropped up around the use of the word "gammon" as a derogatory term.

DuckTales most recent episode featured the long awaited guest appearance from Darkwing Duck (well, sort of), and also featured Lin Manuel Miranda's debut as Gyro Gearloose's intern, one Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera, who by the end of the episode had assumed another identity which may be familiar to fans of the old show.

Apparently legal sports betting is close to becoming a reality in the US.

The Eurovision Song Contest took place this last weekend in Portugal. It started with what appeared to Harry Potter crossed with Marilyn Manson rising from a coffin concealed in a grand piano, and that more or less set the tone of the evening. We had the usual assortment of bizarre visuals, ballads in many languages, the metal band from Hungary who did Dragonball poses on stage, the UK's entry dealing with an onstage invasion with effortless grace, and Estonia's operatic performance wearing dress so spectacular is sometimes appeared to open a portal into another dimension completely (Fifth Element's Lucia De Lammermoor Diva Dance eat your heart out).

The event was won by Netta, of Israel and a song I find myself unable to describe effectively. So here it is instead.

Comments

[captainbellman]

I'm contemplating doing diary comics in order to channel some recent conflicting feelings and events I've gone through, but fear that this will lead to angry retaliation from certain parties involved. Thoughts?

[icon_uk]

I think my response would depend upon how important the people who might feel angry/retaliatory are to you in your life, weighed against the importance of you expressing the sentiments the comic will reflect.

[janegray]

Anonymity is an option, as are fake names. If you need to vent, the parties involved don't need to know.

[onsokumaru]

Finished watching Supergirl S2 this saturday, and I may have been less bored if I watched Eurovision instead.
The Superman universe is definitely too cheesy and preachy for my taste. And the sluggish fights are unworthy of a 10s tv show. I've seen far better in japanese live action.

[zachbeacon]

My biggest problem with Supergirl is that it has the most aggressive millennial pandering I've seen outside of an infamous Pepsi commercial. Granted the star of the series actually seems to practice what she preaches so HER part in it comes off as sincere.

Also was disappointed that the best character (Cat Grant) was barely in season two.

Still, this show has the best live action Superman since Dean Cane and it's nice to see Martian Manhunter in something given his neglect in the current comics.

[cyberghostface]

There were terrorist attacks in Indonesia and Paris this week.

[icon_uk]

True, I confess I find it a little difficult to balance the picking and choosing of such instances with an entry that isn't all depressing gloom and doom.

[commodus]

In space news, a jet of water was discovered on the moon of Europa. Scientists are very excited about this, as it could be a good indicator of alien life.

[icon_uk]

NASA scientist - "There MUST be intelligent life there, they've invented water parks!"

[owlbrigade1]

Yeah, but that is the forbidden moon of Jupiter; we can attempt no landings there.

[spider_man6]

I've been playing God of War a lot. As somebody who's never played the series before, it is an INTENSE and AMAZING experience!

[commodus]

I'd love to see a God of War game based around Christian theology one day. Maybe with Kratos going to Hell, and having to fight all these famous Biblical villains.

[janegray]

I will hold to my dying breath that the Ducktales reboot is objectively much better than the original show. It improves pretty much everything!

It includes Donald, who is awesome, and actually lets him be the badass we always knew he was (look guys Donald is an actual fucking superhero in my country, ok? Do you know how frustrating it was to see that American media only ever portrayed him as incompetent?). It gives the triplets different personalities, as brothers are supposed to have, instead of treating them like one person in three bodies. Also gives them different character designs. It lets Webby act as a kid just like the triplets, whereas the original show portrayed the boys as kids and the girl as a toddler. It gets rid of the obnoxious "the boys want nothing to do with the ewwwwwwwww guuuuuuurl, so she has to prove herself to be more competent than all of them combined before they reluctantly admit that she might not totally suck" attitude, and has the boys automatically accept her from the very beginning. It adds a second girl to avoid the smurfette principle. Fenton is a scientist. Gyro is goddamn hilarious (and I know that some preferred the old kindly bumbling version, but imo the new version is automatically much more entertaining if only because it let Scrooge make the 4th-wall-breaking joke about never firing your mad stuff because they'll totally go supervillain on you). Scrooge is genre-savvy in the best way. The YOLO joke had me in tears. THEY ARE ADDRESSING THE DELLA MATTER THAT HAS BEEN A THORN IN FANDOM FOR DECADES!

Tl;dr: watch the duckTales reboot. Watch it.

[zachbeacon]

I saw the pilot and enjoyed it but I'm done with Cable. Hopefully it shows up on Hulu or the upcoming Disney streaming service.

So what's this about Darkwing "sort of" showing up? Drake Mallard cameo?

[dr_archeville]

A “March for Students and Rally for Respect” is happening in Raleigh tomorrow. More than 15,000 educators across North Carolina have signed up for the march and rally, and others are expected to come without registering. The gathering is expected to be the largest act of organized political action by teachers in the state’s history

Mu uncle passed away last Thursday. Three months ago he went to the doctor complaining of back pains, they found stage 4 liver cancer. He passed peacefully, in his bed in his home. I was never that close to him or his side of the family -- largely because his wife, my mother's sister, is an awful human being -- but he was a good and honorable man who was very involved in his church and the community. (Over 400 attended his memorial, at a church whose fellowship hall is named in honor of his family.)

SyFy's The Expanse was also cancelled, though fans (this one included) are hoping it will be picked up by another network. (Maybe USA? Not TNT -- they've done great sff shows, but their budgets are not what this show would need.)

The trailer for the new Predator movie -- directed & co-written by Shane Black, who portrayed Hawkins (the radio operator & "comedian") in the original Predator -- was released last week. Seems the Predators hunt so they can assimilate genetic material from other species in order to improve themselves. And here's a fun bit of casting: Jake Busey is reportedly going to be in this as the son of Peter Keyes, the "Special Agent" in Predator 2 who'd tried to capture the Predator... who was portrayed by Gary Busey, Jake's father!
(Black also co-wrote The Monster Squad and Last Action Hero, and directed & co-wrote Iron Man 3.)

I sub'd in for a Social Studies teacher last week. After taking a quiz the students worked on a "college cost & budget” project.
Overhead from one student: “Hold up... it can’t cost THAT much to go to college... I’d be paying off the loan until I’m 30!”
Me: *tries to stifle bitter laughter*

[commodus]

I am sorry to hear about your Uncle. I hope you are doing okay.

[commodus]

I'm afraid not. What's going on?

[deh_tommy]

Why is Donald Trump vowing to help with the job market in China, when his tariffs and attempted tax war are what caused the problem in the first place?

[commodus]

I've noticed he has this bizarre tendency to do awful things, then a little while later act as though nothing happened. I mean, on the campaign trail he was saying he would lock Hilary Clinton up, and gave some unpleasant winks-and-nods to his followers to use violence against her. But the moment he wins, he's saying what a great campaign she ran - as if he hadn't consistently used these gutter tactics against her.
He seems to shift very, very quickly from one emotion to another, without much consistency. It's truly peculiar.

[every_spiegel]

I've been catching up with Bendis's Infamous/Invincible Iron-Man run and now I'm in an extreme state of WTF. *eye twitching*

[deh_tommy]

In a good way or a bad way? What do you thnk of them?

[malitia]

Would anybody mind if I put a link to my stupid cut-and-paste fan webcomic here? (It's about Cosmic Marvel... sorta.)

Mod Note!

[icon_uk]

Do you want to send a sample/link to the Mod Team for consideration?

scansdailymod[at]gmail[dot]com

[liliaeth]

Damn you Fox for cancelling Lucifer.
Praying that some other station will pick it up, I can't have it end on 'that' cliffhanger.

[owlbrigade1]

This is another week packed full of things that make think I cannot even. Not even a little can I.

I'm going to concentrate on hardening off my dahlias and planting up my pond. Admittedly it isn't much of a pond, more a half barrel, but that just means I need to consider the plants I put in it really carefully to make sure they are appropriate for a small space. I do have a lot of dahlias to harden off to plant out next week though. I'm just concentrating on plants because the news sodding well sucks all the time and so do too many of the people on and in it. Oh, that reminds me, I need to pot on my cucamelon seedlings too.

[icon_uk]

Don't worry, you're not under any obligation to pay attention to the world until you feel up to it. If hardening off your dahlia's gets you through your day then so be it!

[deathcrist2000]

So my Spider-Man blog continues with a post on the Princess Bride: https://thekinginredandblue.blogspot.com/2018/05/my-name-isss-vermin-princess-bride.html

Also I might have written a thing on Peter Parker’s taste in anime.

[nightauditguy]

While Agents of SHIELD has been renewed, it won't return until next summer.

[tripodeca113]

A promo picture for Young Justice: Outsiders was released recently. It showed that (perhaps,somewhat unsurprisingly in hindsight) that the show will feature a version of the Outsiders team. It features Katana, probably Geo-force, probably Forager, probably Lightning and Metamorpho. Nightwing is also with them. My guess is that after he left in Endgame, he never returned and formed his own team.

Also Black Lightning is also seemingly important enough in the new season to be on the poster. Not bad for a guy who only had lines in one episode previously.

[kamino_neko]

He's also a guy who's headlined his own fairly successful, critically lauded, and award nominated show quite recently. Doesn't surprise me that they're front-and-centre-ing him.

[skjam]

Still fighting the leg infection.

Over at my blog, I review a superhero-themed choose your own adventure e-book. Warning: Iron-Age level violence in places. http://www.skjam.com/2018/05/13/book-review-superpowered/

[sisterofbloomerjunior]

Get well soon.

[thatnickguy]

Today in ComicsGate news, the Gaters dig themselves an even bigger hole.

https://twitter.com/VariantEDmonton/status/996481924477501440

[long_silence]

I feel like we all saw harassment coming when D&C started posting the names and information of the shops that didn't want to carry his book. But this real life confrontation just makes their crusade look worse.

[kore]

I'm so bummed about Expanse getting cancelled (right after Dark Matter and 12 Monkeys, too....) but OTOH I got the Black Panther Blu-Ray yesterday, so yay that.

The outside political world IRL is so frightening. Trump seems convinced the best thing to do is alienate US allies and try to get us into as many nascent wars as possible.