scans_daily | Mod Post: Off Topic Tuesday

icon_uk posting in

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.

A news summary has proven difficult, since the more I read the angrier I got.

Trump gave a bizarre interview on Fox which made Nixon's infamous head to head with Kennedy look like a masterclass in sang froid and PR. Interviewer Chris Wallace managed the not insignificant task of giving Trump enough rope that he'd hang himself with his inaccurate statements, AND not quite pissing him off enough to have him storm off in a tantrum. The results were as horrifying as they were mesmerising.

At pretty much the other end of every possible comparison, John Lewis, a veteran politician, a towering figure in the US Civil Rights movement, and the last of the "Big Six" who organised the March on Washington in 1963, died at the age of 80. He was, amongst other more notable achievmenets, the first member of the US Congress to write a graphic novel. He wrote a trilogy collectively called "March" about his experiences. (He even attended SDCC in 2016, essentially cosplaying as a younger version of himself, wearing his trademark raincoat from the 1963 march, and led a walk around the halls). A genuinely remarkable man of courage and integrity.

A singularly vile memo outlining proposed rule suggesting ways to spot transwomen at homeless shelters so they can be turned away from female spaces has been leaked.

The whole Federal intervention into Portland (with a possibiity of extending beyond there, looks deeply worrying.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, member of the Supreme Court has disclosed her cancer has recurred and is undergoing chemotherapy. We wish her a speedy and full recovery.

In the EU, an agreement has been reached an agreement on a €755 billion joint recovery package after several days of intense negotiation.

A UK Intelligence report which should ideally have come out by October 2019, before the last general Election in December (but was sat on by the then (and still) current Government) into Russian interference in the UK's referendum to leave the EU has JUST been published. Guess what the indications are? Go on, give a guess. This one should have serious consequences, but thanks to the scale of the majority they got in the election, I predict nothing will come of it, which is shameful.

And as for the UK/China situation, sigh...

Infinity Train is getting a third season, this time on HBO Max.

Christopher Nolan's new movie "Tenet" has had it's release postponed indefinitely. One wonders what else might follow.

"The Old Guard" is out on Netflix and is an adaption of Greg Rucka's series about a group of immortals who have been operating under the radar for centuries before radar was a thing, but who find it trickier in the modern era. It's getting a lot of good feedback

Of all the movie prequel possibilities that I might have thought pretty much automatically redundant, the idea of one for Grease would stand pretty tall, but apparently the events outlined in the song "Summer Lovin'" will get a movie of their own.

LEGO are releasing a NES replica... with TV... and on screen gameplay... but not ACTUAL gameplay... I think... it's all getting a bit meta.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

From:

leahandillyana

Things turned much worse this week, and frustratingly I cannot even say HOW they are worse without writing a long essay on Polish history and culture and international coalition if religious fanatics. Note that by much worse I mean to last week.

From:

icon_uk

Deeply sorry to hear that,

From:

leahandillyana

1. Poland preparing to withdraw from Stambul Convention against violence against women: https://polandin.com/49037049/poland-preparing-to-withdraw-from-the-istanbul-convention
2. Nation-, no, let's call things by their names, FASCIST march in Katowice, a capital of a region with a distinct cultural identity: https://www.ruptly.tv/en/videos/20200718-026-Poland--Far-right-nationalist-march-met-with-counter-protest-in-Katowice
3. Now most of Poles are living in LGBT-free zones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT-free_zone
4. The man who made an artistic project out of adding a "You are entering an LGBT free zone" sign under the town names got arrested.
5. A gay couple who protested to police a happening accusing LGBT people of child sex abuse got arrested instead for asking the policemen whether they'd have protected an "all policemen are pedophiles" happening.
6. My (Polish) friend left a suicide note. I felt a wave of relief when a few days later he liked my butterfly photo on facebook.
7. Speaking of facebook, I had to change my identity again because some far righters linked my pseudonymy with who I really am.
8. Belarus is even worse - protests are brutelly ended, people are beaten in arrests, and some people downright disappear. More here: https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c40rjmqdq78t/belarus
I am actually happy my Belarusian friend lives in Poland now. How fucked up it is?
9. My mental and physical health took turn for the worse despite being on a diet and actually physically active for once. I now just ignore the pain until it is like 6/10, and that's REALLY fucked up.
10. My cat killed one of the pidges I tried to befriend.

From:

iamrman

I have started to read the first volume of X-Men: Road to Onslaught. I first started reading X-Men properly with Magneto War, or whatever the story was where Magneto ended up ruling Genosha. As a result, I missed out on many of the big 90's story lines.

In other news, reading Jonah Hex inspired me to make my own gunslinger character, Ploppy the goblin. I don't play Dungeons and Dragons myself, I just make characters for art purposes.

From:

tripodeca113

Ghost of Tsushima has been released. I think I’ll get preowned in six months or so.

Oh boy NEW information on the Usagi Yojimbo show! Lets see….it’s called “Samurai Rabbit The Usagi Chronicles” and it’s a futuristic space show about Usagi’s descendant trying to become a samurai. Oh..so it’s not an adaption of the comics? I don’t think I like this.

Waiting for The Shadow of Kyoshi book to come out…

New information about the animated Invincible show. They announced the voice actors (Steven Yeun, Khary Payton, J K Simmons and others). Apparently the first season will consist of eight hour long episodes.

Well drat, that’s another Deviantart artist gone. Now admittedly I was less attached to them, but it’s the principal of the thing. The fact that I can’t remember their user name, or the title of their art hasn’t made it easy, but I’m fairly sure they’ve deleted. Or maybe the new search system has buried it. I have however found ONE usefully new feature. You can now, search through someone’s favourited artworks. Well done, definitely worth sacrificing the sites functionality.

From:

dewinged

Did they give a release date for Invincible...since it was announced in June 2018?

She-Ra managed to do their entire run between them and now.

From:

cyberghostface

Would it be possible to clean out the tags that have only been used once or twice to make space for some new ones?

From:

icon_uk

Indeed yes, and thanks for your note, completely escaped my mind to reply, adn i should have passed it on to another Mod.

Some housekeeping is curretly scheduled to take place towards the end of the month/start of August.

From:

owlbrigade1

Can I ask a delicate fandom question?

We all know that author Marion Zimmer Bradley was a horrifying person, a child abuser and supplier of children to other abusers, and we should all be rightly shunning her works out of respect to her victims feelings, but what do we know about her friends? I'm asking specifically about Mercedes Lackey.

I loved Mercedes Lackey's books and songs, but she was tight with Bradley. They were personal friends and close collaborators in creative works. There is nothing specific to link Lackey to Bradley's abuse, but I have also been unable to find any statements from her repudiating Bradley or talking about what she did or didn't know.

Does anyone know of any such statements? Is it just my search engine game is weak, that she came out strongly and I just haven't seen it? And if there is no such statement, should I be still buying and reccing her stuff? Given how many authors in recent years have decided to jump onboard the horrible person train, and should never be given the oxygen of publicity ever again, I don't want to lose another past favourite, but I can't ignore the potential either.

On a related note, apparently sales of Harry Potter related stuff has underperformed significantly lately. https://variety.com/2020/film/news/jk-rowling-book-sales-harry-potter-1234708777/

From:

deh_tommy

Can’t seem to find anything regarding Mercedes Lackey making any statements (for or against) about Marion Zimmer Bradley. Doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but a quick google search doesn’t really show much.

Shucks, I liked the resurgence of Harry Potter stuff. The Ickabog looks cool, too. Was what she tweeted really that bad? I don’t really understand what she was trying to say to begin with.

Edited Date: 2020-07-21 05:35 pm (UTC)

Re: CW: Marion Zimmer Bradley abuse allegation. Question.

From:

donnblake - Date: 2020-07-21 07:39 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

zachbeacon

Not really familiar with Marion Zimmer Bradley or Mercedes Lackey but I usually have to take that kind of thing as a case by case basis and I'd be reluctant to hold someone responsible for the actions of a peer. I've worked with too many shitty people and found out too many things about people who used to be friends.

The Harry Potter thing is unsurprising even without the author's general awfulness. Zoomers and Boomers apparently hate the franchise and the fans (Millennials and young Gen Xers) have less money now than ever.

Re: CW: Marion Zimmer Bradley abuse allegation. Question.

From:

werehawk - Date: 2020-07-21 09:05 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

ayasugi_san

I've wondered the same thing about Mercedes Lackey. I really hope she was in the dark/lied to by Bradley. FWIW I've only seen Elisabeth Waters named as a professional collaborator of MZB who was explicitly complicit in the abuse.

From:

lilacsigil

AFAIK Lackey is 20 years younger and wasn't involved in the late 1960s/early 1970s big writer's circle that included a number of open pedophiles, including MZB's husband Walter Breen. And it looks like a lot of MZB's circle knew about (and avoided) Breen but didn't know that MZB was also an abuser rather than an enabler. I think Lackey has just kept quiet about the whole thing, so it's very difficult to say anything either way.

From:

zachbeacon

I’m going to be mad at a novel this week because the real world has me terrified and Supreme Court is the one thing standing between us and literal tyranny (hang in there, RBG).

Jim Butcher’s first full Dresden Files book in six years (Peace Talks) came out last week and it’s a pretty big disappointment.

I’ve been listening to the audiobooks narrated by James Marsters. Normally he’s great but this time it was obvious (a) current events caused him to record from home and (b) no one bothered to clean up the audio or make him do a second take.

The book itself just kinda ends after a lot of setup and no resolution. Considering the next book (Battle Ground) is scheduled to come out in a couple months, it seems pretty obvious this was meant to be one book that got cut in half.

Well that and Butcher previously claimed he was going to alternate between his two series and there’s still no sign of the second Cinder Spires, book. I need to know if the cat survives. And the humans, I guess. Mostly the cat.

Also, caught up on Stargirl and Courtney’s mom is being entirely reasonable … right until she searches for information on Starman on her work computer. Courtney seems to be the ONLY kid on the show with parents that love them.

This may be of interest to this community. Red (of Overly Sarcastic Productions) recently talked about being ace on the Our Queer Experience Podcast.

From:

dewinged

His Cinder Spires books are the thing of Butcher's I give a damn about (I got bored and dropped the Male Gaze file-er, I mean the Dresden Files around the start of book 4.). I've been waiting for The Olympian Affair for comparitively too long considering Butcher's speed pre Peace-Talks.

Bringing the crack since December 2003

Mod Post: Off Topic Tuesday

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