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 among yourselves.

The US COVID 19 situation defies comment on so many levels. The White Houses ongoing friction with Dr Antony Fauci and the CDC seeming like a horrific real world embodiment of all those scenes in disaster movies where someone in power doesn't listen to the scientist because it doesn't suit their own agenda, and everyone else pays for it.

It's Bastille Day, so happy, and safe, celebrations to all in La Belle France! The normal parade is not taking place, but a tribute to those who mobilised to help with the pandemic, such as the military and care workers, will take place, and the traditional flypast will include a plane used to carry COVID patients.

Oh, and more importantly French Health Workers are being given what is referred to as an "historic" pay rise in gratitude for their work

Meanwhile in the UK, hospital staff have been told they'll need to pay for their parking again soon. No comment.

However, wearing masks will be mandatory in shops in England... but only enforceable in two weeks time, and after other members fo the Cabinet spent the weekend saying they shouldn' be mandatory, just advisable. Way to sell a unified message guys!

The Washington Redskins have announced they are changing their name and logo, for reasons which should be abundantly clear.

Grant Imahara, host of Mythbusters, White Rabbit Project and former ILM model maker and droid-wrangler, has died at the age of 49.

And former Glee star Naya Rivera has also died suddenly.

To balance out the sad news, the world's happiest chinchilla.

Disney announced a new Star Wars cartoon spin-off, "The Bad Batch". This was rather noticeably set-up in the last season of "The Clone Wars", where a group of Clones who all have genetic variances which give them each a different augmented ability appeared for a number of episodes (and survived). Its an interesting idea, to see how Clones will react to a world beyond the Clone Wars, but with the Empire on the rise and some going mercenary, but I'm not sure the X-Men super-powers addition is the way I'd have gone. Still, in Filoni we trust.

Whitney Avalon has released a charmingly honest, and strangely reassuring, lullaby

Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men, always worth a listen, had one of their own off-topic weeks this week, discussing their formative television and cartoon series. So, what were yours?

Comments

[iamrman]

I quite enjoyed Defenders Masterworks Vol. 4, which collected the beginning of Steve Gerber's run on the title. The Headmen were delightfully silly and I look forward to seeing more from them in the next volume.

As for firmative tv/cartoon shows, I am a child of the 80's so mine would have to be glorified toy commercials like Transformers. In the 90's my favourite shows would have been the various superhero xartoons (Batman: The Animated Series, X-Men, Spider-Man, etc).

Special mention should also go to Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. I think it was my first exposure to superheroes. Either that or repeats of the Adam West Batman.

If you thought the American X-Men opening theme was a banger, take a look at the Japanese one!

https://youtu.be/FTzkxNbb_tc

[zachbeacon]

IIRC a lot of the Headmen come from the pre-F4 Marvel and they really embody the Atlas Era scifi and horror weirdness better than anything aside from maybe Jeff Parker's "Agents of Atlas" take on the 50s Avengers.

I look forward to you getting to the Nighthawk stuff in the Gerber run.

[scelestus]

Formative cartoons for me were stuff from the 70s- Star Blazers (ie: the Americanized Yamato), Battle of the Planets (ie: the Americanized Gatchaman), Robotech (ie: the Americanized Macross).... Huh. Kinda seeing a pattern there...

But also Star Trek, Space: 1999 and Lost in Space!

[icon_uk]

I was technically too old for those, but I remember Marine Boy as a very early anime translation, and also the difference between watching it in black and white, and watching it in colour. (I didn't know either "anime" or "translation" at aged four or five, but even I could see that the words and mouth movements didn't really gel and the way they spoke was very weird)

[leahandillyana]

I watched Sailor Moon as a child. The surprisingly little censored anime created high bar for characterisation and plot complexity, making me despise other children's media for years afterwards.

[lissa_quon]

I can see that. Even as an adult I found Sailor Moon surprisingly enjoyable.

Not sure what cartoons were like in Europe but in the US a lot of the kids shows were just toy advertisements, so plot and entertainment weren't really a factor in their creation.

[skjam]

Formative cartoons and TV shows? Princess Knight (my first clue that gender roles are constructed, not innate), Star Trek TOS, Mannix, Dark Shadows, Gilligan's Isle...

Over at my blog, I look at the new Trigger anime, BNA (Brand New Animal), with some shades of Batman and Robin... http://www.skjam.com/2020/07/12/anime-review-bna-brand-new-animal/

[tripodeca113]

Kingdoms of Amalur will be getting a remaster and potentially a new expansion. This is very surprising news because I was sure EA took it outside and bashed it’s head in for not doing very well.

Well drat. An artist I liked on DeviantArt has gone and deleted all their work. Thankfully I had the foresight to go through and save all the art I liked, but I still feel bummed out.

Oh look, Google has redesigned it’s news page so it’s ugly and cluttered.

Deadly Premonition 2 has been released. On a console I don’t own! And I haven’t played the first game!

Something called Etoro has been in ads a lot. They’ve got Quirky ads, Informative ads, and I’m trying to learn as little as possible in order to keep my soul pure.

Exciting news friends! NO NEW INFORMATION ABOUT BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 2 HAS BEEN RELEASED. No change since 2003!

Well The Clone Wars has finished, I guess I never have to care about Star Wars ever again. What’s that, another CGI show The Bad Batch, is coming out in 2021 and is about clones dealing with the aftermath of the war? Wow!

Avatar The Last Airbender was pretty defining for me. I should probably get round to finishing off those scans of the comics.

[lissa_quon]

I'm curious about Deadly Premonition 2 - I don't have hte console either, so I'm waiting for LPers to play it. I'm curious how much of Twin Peaks The Return they are going to rip off. Since the first game was pretty much a remake of Twin Peaks.

[dewinged]

Doom Patrol. I do like it and all...but I am starting to be concerned about stagnation.

There is criticism of some shows, such as Shameless and post-Roseanne The Connors, that things are never allowed to get better. Any time anyone tries to get out of the situation of improve their lot, it seems like the universe smacks them down for not knowing their place. Whether by the interference of another character, the world around them in some heavy-handed social commentary, or even by the 'escapee' acting wildly out of character to self-sabotage, so long as it ends where they are back where they started. No success, no growth, no hope.

Some critics have referred to the phrase "Poor people are trash and will always be trash." as a condemnation of this status-quo: they should stay in their lane.

I get that. The struggle is fine, but without any success at all, the story stagnates into Misery Lit.

I'm seeing this now in Doom Patrol, after cliff tried to contact his daughter again despite having some closure last season, among other situations. Rita trying to improve leads to repressed trauma, Jane trying to find any kind of stability, or even Larry trying to make peace with himself...something always happens to put them back at the start.

It got really noticeable last week when Cliff tried to ask Vic's father for help, and got told no for so.convoluted reason or another. They're never going to grow, or achieve any goal. Then what's the point?

[icon_uk]

I've been feeling that a little too. Especially Cliff.

Him dealing with his anger at Niles being responsible for his accident is one thing, but doing so by having him destroy any chance of any sort of relationship with his daughter after the mature and sensible endpoint that had reached last season was both painful and pointless.

[deh_tommy]

Saw BNA over the weekend. That was pretty fun, though I found the first half stronger than the second. Probably because I enjoyed the stuff of Michiru reacting to Beastman society’s Darwinist attitudes and dealing with the seedier parts of the city more than I did the big conspiracy and the cult (plus, the characters had to be really, really dense for things to end up the way they did). Netflix’s subs for the show give 2000s fansubs a run for their money in terms of lack of quality, except those were fansubs so I have no idea what happened with professionals like Netflix.

Formative television series... probably too many to list. I watched a lot of TV/movies back in the day. Doctor Who is probably the big one. My father, for one reason or another, thought that was okay to expose primary school age me to Seth MacFarlane cartoons.

[long_silence]

I liked BNA, I hadn't really heard anything about it before hand so I went in blind

I thought the most interesting part was the migration argument the bird dude made. It was like that equality vs equity diagram, treating all of the beast people the same isn't enough when it doesn't account for the needs that can't be met in that city.

[stubbleupdate]

AC Valhalla's gameplay trailer came out this week and I'm quite excited.

The opportunity to dual wield shields sounds like a return to innovative violence that makes AC fun

[deh_tommy]

Odyssey looks like a pretty good game, but that really wasn’t Assassin’s Creed. And I don’t mean that as in “oh, they changed too much, that’s not Assassin’s Creed anymore” (at least not completely), I mean that doesn't even have the Assassins nor the friggin creed, and the DLC that tried to tie the game into the larger mythos was... poorly executed, in my opinion. Glad to see Valhalla finding a way to merge the two styles together, and I hope that turns out well. Speaking of Assassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs Legion looks really, really darn cool.

Sucks that some of the heads at Ubisoft are apparently rather crummy, though.

[lissa_quon]

Hrm -formative media - Gargoyles probably forms a solid backbone of that. The drama, the lore, all the mythology and Shakespeare. Man most everything else kids programming had at the time was weak sauce after that. Even now I'll look back on it and go "hunh - thats probably why I draw [blah] like that." Like it's so ingrained I don't think about it.

Batman the Animated Series, also a huge one. Classic drama, also villians with depth.

After that - a steady diet of BBC comedies and watching the Highlander tv show probably finished up the warping process.

Imahara's death is one of the current events that's actually pierced through my 2020 numbness. Sad to hear of it, and surprised.

As for personal news - Texas at least isn't number one in covid for hte moment. Though that's a small comfort these days I wrapped up the crocheted baby blanket, and have moved on to cat toys. I'm too mentally friend to do much art these days but crocheting requires less brain thoughts. At least our new rescue kitten loves the crocheted toys so I don't look like a complete idiot cranking out multicolor fish.

[icon_uk]

You NEVER have to apologise for cranking out crocheted multicolour fish!

[donnblake]

My parents weren't big on television when I was a child, so most of my formatives were film rather than TV. Dark Crystal and the Rankin/Bass Return of the King on my uncle's... I don't even know what format it was, but the movies were on something like giant floppy disks... stick out.

[lissa_quon]

HAhahah - I think I know the format. Capacitance Electronic Discs? My fam has like a dozen or so of those- the player was a dead weight before I was even experiencing object permeance. They are a hell of a thing to behold.

[thezmage]

So last year Hasbro released Transformers themed around Ghostbusters, this year it’s Back to the Future and Top Gun (https://www.cbr.com/hasbro-transformers-top-gun-maverick/). The Top Gun character even comes with a volleyball for his own homoerotic games

The Sandman audio drama comes out tomorrow

I don’t know what I would consider formative shows. I know my screen name comes from Gargoyles (in a round about way) but other than inspiring a love for shows that actually tell a story I don’t know what was formative about it. X-Men: Evolution was the show that convinced me to get back into cartoons after being “too old” for them. Power Rangers contributed to that as well. I watched Scooby Doo as a child but my current fandom/obsession with it is more colored by Mystery Inc and what came after than the older shows. When I was in first and second grade we played a game that was a crossover of Tom and Jerry and the Ghostbusters. I’m definitely influenced by the large number of detective shows my parents watched while I was growing up

It’s recently been confirmed that Velma was meant to be gay in Mystery Incorporated, and her relationship with Shaggy was always supposed to be a bit wrong for her in ways that she couldn’t quite articulate. It always did sort of remind me of when I was trying to be straight. A bit ironically, the Daphne and Velma young adult novel that came out earlier this year established their Velma as not being into girls (at least that’s what she said. Also she implied she was into Fred). Sequel comes out next week, maybe Velma was lying

[dewinged]

I re-watched Mystery Incorporated a few weeks ago, again. I missed Velma and March so much.

[dewinged]

Jayhne Holmes has a server with testimonials from about 30+ people who came forward about damaging encounters with Warren Ellis after Katie West posted her story.

I am not linking to it here, sensitive and triggering subject matter are there.

[onsokumaru]

As a little child, I loved Grendizer, like most french kids of my generation.
But If I had to pick formative cartoons, it would probably be Dragon Ball (and Z), Saint Seiya (contributed to make me atheist), Touch and Wingman. Wingman, especially, was my trigger to pruchase manga in japanese and then spend almost 30 years filling several shelves with it.

"It's Bastille Day, so happy, and safe, celebrations to all in La Belle France! The normal parade is not taking place, but a tribute to those who mobilised to help with the pandemic, such as the military and care workers, will take place, and the traditional flypast will include a plane used to carry COVID patients."

And this afternoon cops gazed medical workers who were protesting againts the destruction of public health by the very same streak of liberalism Macron is advocating. That's our president: praising the things he is actively ruining.
And still no legal obligation to wear masks in indoor public spaces, despite more and more doctors asking for it, because there are some signs of the pandemy being on the rise again in France. Yesterday, in the supermarket: a woman talking loudly in her phone and then coughing in front of the shelves without covering her mouth. We mock the americans, but we're made of the same wood.

[janegray]

Sailor Moon, The Slayers, Gargoyles, Tiger Mask, Dragon Ball, TMNT, the X-Men cartoon, the Virtua Fighter anime (BEST VIDEOGAME ADAPTATION EVER), Power Rangers (only the first one), Hokuto No Ken.

(Yes, I watched Hokuno No Ken as a little kid. Since it was a cartoon, everybody just automatically assumed it had to be for kids. Apparently not even graphic dismemberment could dissuade them.)

I'll be honest, I wasn't all that fond of BTAS. The episodes, individually, were high quality. But the lack of any real continuity was a mood killer for me. The fact that you could miss a bunch of episodes and follow the story just fine made me lose interest in the story. I fell in love with Gargoyles precisely because it was one of the extremely few Western cartoons with a solid continuity.

TMNT also had no continuity, but for some reason I liked it anyway.

[cyberghostface]

The 90s Spider-Man cartoon was probably my formative cartoon series. In retrospect it hasn’t aged that well especially when compared to Batman’s but I still have a soft spot for it. Christopher Daniel Barnes, Ed Asner and Roscoe Lee Browne were all great. Browne in particular is who I hear in my head when I read the Kingpin’s dialogue.

[iamrman]

Mark Hammill as the Hobgoblin is why I prefer him to Green Goblin.

[zachbeacon]

The level of indifference to masks is here is exasperating. Last time I got groceries, one of the few customers I saw with a mask had it pulled down to her chin. Heck, Trump finally started wearing one (presumably because his staff keep getting it) and he can’t manage to cover his nose properly.

I am genuinely sorry for teachers and those with children. It sounds like schools will be forced to reopen soon despite there not being any plan in place. I’m assuming they’ll handle this like they did the hospitals and throw up some “heroes work here” banners so people can feel better about themselves when the bodies pile up.

On the lighter side …

The new Dresden Files book is finally out so I’ve started listening to that.

Watched Cabin in the Woods over the weekend. Why is there a “release all the monsters” button?
Also watched the Jay and Silent Bob “Reboot”. Y’know, some of Smith’s movies (notably Clerks, Mallrats, and Dogma) are pretty important to me but – between the two J&SB movies and Clerks 2 – the View Askew universe has had so many “endings” its starting to feel like Lord of the Rings.

As for formative TV … don’t think I’m alone in being raised by TV. I’m just going to cut off anything I was into after I was learning to drive (sorry, mid-to-late 90s anime). In no particular order … Addams Family, Beverly Hillbillies, Get Smart, The Muppet Show, Three Stooges, Disney Afternoon (especially Gargoyles, Ducktales, and Darkwing Duck), Looney Tunes, Spider-Man (the two 80s shows and the 90s Fox one), Beast Wars, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Batman (Adam West and tAS), X-Men, the Simpsons, and TMNT. There are a lot of other shows I enjoyed as a kid but these probably left the biggest impression.

[lilacsigil]

I didn't actually watch a lot of cartoons as a kid, because we only got one TV channel at the time and it was the ABC (national broadcaster in Australia, has a lot of BBC content) and they didn't have a lot of cartoons. I would sometimes see Looney Tunes at a friend's house. But then! Starblazers (Space Battle Ship Yamato) was on every Friday (the slot was Doctor Who the rest of the week) and it had a story! I will never get over the shock of the Captain dying without seeing Earth again.

[viridian5]

Really revealing my age here.... My youngest memories are from the '70s, when there were a lot of cheap and crappy cartoons. I mean, one Saturday morning show was Laverne and Shirley in the army with an actual pig for a drill instructor or something. Even at that young age, I was aware that the animation on the Hanna-Barbera shows wasn't good, though some of their plot ideas were interesting. The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang was a time travel show(!) that was simultaneously so crappy while still holding a kernel of something that it resulted in my first fanfics. (In my head, since I didn't know how to write yet.)

Voyagers, Thundarr the Barbarian (I waited years for another season that never happened), The Magic Garden, The Great Spacecoaster, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Tales of the Gold Monkey, The World of Sid & Marty Krofft. Like scelestus, Battle of the Planets and Robotech. Seeing a character in a cartoon actually die in Robotech, Roy Fokker (spoilers?), blew my little mind. Jem, He-Man, and G. I. Joe. My dad showed me some episodes of Doctor Who and the theme song stuck in my head forever.

[deh_tommy]

I had a nightmare about Krakoa last night. Not sure what that says about me.

[matrix_dragon]

The creator of the long-running webcomic Real Life recently came out publicly as trans, and has a storyarc in the comic covering her experiences when she realized it, via her comic avatar. Fair warning, if you're trans or possibly gender-uncertain, a lot of this is likely going to feel familiar.

https://reallifecomics.com/comic.php?comic=june-29-2020

[icon_uk]

Good heavens. I used to follow Real Life pretty religiously, it's flavour of geekiness was always charmingly loopy. But a lot of wecomics fell by the wayside for me a while back due to time.

I see that it has lost none of it's wit or charm, even discussing something so profound (Actually, the internal discourse is some of the best analysis of the situation I think I've seen, well, reading this as a cis guy at any rate). I've enjoyed reading about Greg and his life, I look forward to reading about Mae and hers.

This actually seems to merit it's own on-topic post if you'd care to make a post about it?

[leahandillyana]

Yesterday, a young woman who destroyed a poster accussing LGBT people of being child molesters was arrested at home by plainclothes policemen, taken into unmarked car, and driven to a police station without explanation or even time to put on her shoes. At the same time, it was publicized that the same police falsified a tram driver's drug test to make him responsible for an accident of governmental limousine, even though the camera clearly shows the limousine driver's at fault. I guess we are falling into fascism at a rapid pace in Poland, huh? I wonder whether the recent political murders were really government-sponsored. Plus many, VERY MANY faults and cheatings were found in the recent presidential election, barely won by the far right current president. My personal situation is no better. Not to divulge any details, I am living in an extremely uncomfortable environments alongside people who are angry at me all the time. I have on average two mental breakdowns in three days. I am also hungry because my parents forbade me from buying food I eat, and I don't eat their food, so for the time I'm eating mostly fruit I gather in the garden.

[deh_tommy]

You’ll get through this, friend. You’re one of the strongest folks I know.

Also, happy birthday to you!

[silverhammerman]

The Bad Batch sounds like a potentially interesting idea. I never clicked with The Clone Wars TV show, but the few episodes I was interested enough to watch were almost exclusively about the clone troopers and so a show that sounds like it'll be all about them sounds like it could really be something. I expect it'll be limited in a few ways, but even if it just ends up being The A-Team for Star Wars, that'll be engaging in its own way, and if it actually digs into the idea of the clone army and clones as veterans/defectors, it could be a genuinely thoughtful show.

My most formative shows, since I only had public television until I was a teenager, would have to be CSI and reruns of Frasier, which basically explains most of my personality.