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. Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.

The main topic of conversation on the interwebs this week seems to have been the Ever Given, a ship that launched (ironically enough) a thousand memes as it got blocked the entire width of the Suez Canal, and the 10-12% of world trade traffic that uses the Canal, for nearly a week. Fortunately, no one was injured or anything, and it is now clear again, but oh, the innuendo, the photoshops, the supreme silliness.

World leaders are calling for a treaty to be in place before the NEXT Pandemic hits.

In a not unexpected, but internationally deplored, move, Hong Kong has had any semblance of democracy wiped out by Mainland China when new laws halving the number of elected representatives, and permitting only State vetted"Patriots" to stand for election.

Letters from members of the 1950's New York drag scene have been discovered, showcasing a nearly lost part of queer history, and is now a documentary, which includes some of the surviving letter writers, aged between 84 and 96.

I don't often post to such things, but a Star Wars headcanon led to a post on Tumble which became my favourite thing in a very long time, as it takes a brilliant look at what we thought we knew.

The cartoon based on Robert Kirkman's "Invincible" launched on Prime.

NECA are releasing the first of a series of gorgeous looking figures from Disney's Gargoyles

Netflix has launched The Irregulars, a series looking at the Baker Street Irregulars, Sherlock Holms gang of street urchin informants and agents, but now reimagined as helping them stop supernatural threats. Seems decent enough, though I'm not sure I'd have gone down that plot route myself, but it seems de rigeur these days (Even the recent Hardy Boys series brough supernatural elements into it which seems like cheating in a series about detectives.)

Oh, and playing catchup a little, a Happy Holi/Passover/Easter/Long Weekend, depending on your preferences!

Random question of the week: Your starsign, or favourite constellation if you'd rather not be that personal.

Comments

[tinygaylaura]

THE SKYWALKER NAME SHALL LIVE ON IN INFAMY

Not because anyone knows who Vader really was but because it is synonymous with duplicitous and underhanded property deals

I plan to check out the Invincible show. I do find it hillarious that it has JK Simmons playing a superhero who is in fact both a threat and a menace...

I'll be excited to check out that documentary as well! I always love finding out new facets of queer history

[skjam]

My brother and his family watched the first episode of "Invincible" without knowing anything other than it was based on a comic book. He's pretty sure they won't be continuing.

Over at my blog, I finally read a Jane Austen book: http://www.skjam.com/2021/03/28/book-review-pride-and-prejudice/

[deh_tommy]

Why does dreamwidth sometimes do that thing where the sentence gets all spaced out?

[icon_uk]

Yeah, Invincble is definitely not one for the kids, which is almost a shame as I thought the neophyte hero bits with the family life were really well done.

[deh_tommy]

I always thought I was a Virgo, but my brother informed me that the classical star signs are actually outdated because the stars have shifted since then (or something to that effect?), so I’m actually a Leo. I’ve always identified more with the former than the latter even before I knew what star signs were, though, so that’s a bit of a bummer.

RWBY ended that’s most recent volume lately, and while I liked that for the most part I don’t know if I’m just grieving or genuinely annoyed at a certain development that happened. The Volume as a whole suffered from the Volume 5 issue of being a bit too wordy in places, but at least stuff actually happened from episode to episode.

Just so we’re all on the same page, tinygaylaura is totally just themajesticmoose in a pencil moustache, right?

Mod Note!

[icon_uk]

On Scans_Daily, you do NOT speculate about about another posters identity.

[zachbeacon]

I did know know they changed the dates. I also thought I was a Virgo. I guess I'm a Leo now? Yeah, that doesn't seem right. Whatever, its all make believe.

I'm only about halfway into the current RWBY season but I'm really worried that there's no conclusion planned and they're going to keep spinning their wheels until AT&T shuts them down.

[tripodeca113]

Oh, look they released a preview for the second Animorphs comic. Perhaps' unsurprisingly they choose to downplay the implications of sexual assault, in this adaption.

Six decades later, two icons meet again. I must say it was a bold choice to make two different endings for this film. I enjoyed they bit when Godzilla told King Kong to save Mothra, and later on when Godzilla did a jig.

Invincible the TV show aired, but I am unable to see it.

The Walking Dead chose to use a Holocaust quote in order to advertise their zombie show. I would not have done that.

Devotion is available to buy again! Finally....

Ah twenty years' worth of Smallville....

American God's has finished it's third season. I have no idea if it was good or not.

[owlbrigade1]

The problem I have with American Gods is that the pace of the show is so glacial. The show barely picks up steam before the season is over. It either needs to pick up the pace, or have a longer run. I really do miss the traditional 20-26 episodes run per season.

Well that is one problem. The other is that Laura Moon is the least interesting and engaging character in it, but the show doesn't seem to realise that. And Ian McShane effortlessly steals every scene he is in, the guy has sooo much charisma and presence. I actually want Wednesday to win, just based off his performance.

[owlbrigade1]

"In a not unexpected, but internationally deplored, move, Hong Kong has had any semblance of democracy wiped out by Mainland China when new laws halving the number of elected representatives, and permitting only State vetted"Patriots" to stand for election."

I assume the UK's Priti Patel is taking close notes there, but not for reasons of condemnation.

[leahandillyana]

I am having a particularly awful week even by my standards.
Piko, a minor celebrity singer I've been following on NicoNico and Twitter had a kidney transplant in 2019. I thought it was the end of his problems, but when I checked up recently I learned it wasn't - he has IGA neuropathy, a very serious degenerative disease that tends to return even after transplant, as seemingly it did in his case. Piko is a lovely person who loves animals and is nice in general. I feel a complex set of feelings. It seems that it is always the best people who suffer the most. If you speak Japanese, please tell him something nice, he had a birthday recently: https://twitter.com/piko_niconico/
Somebody stole money from my account to pay for a takeaway, of all things. I had my credit card locked and am awaiting a new one. At least it was a (relatively) small sum. Filthy thief, may the karma kick you in the place it hurts the most.
Meanwhile in Poland, an abusive man returned to the flat he used to share with his family when his wife was absent, killed pet dog, killed a visiting boy, beat his son into a coma he may not recover from, and when police arrived he was busing beating his wife with a metal rod. Awful by itself, the murder came in the middle of the government trying to back out of an international convention against violence against women.
A woman who called me and my mother terrible things a year and a half ago now called us to DEMAND a free and immediate vaccination from my mother (because she is a doctor, something the woman was angry about before). Mother and her broke their close friendship when mother declined giving her a very large sum to pay for a new home, from money mother has been saving for decades. I hope mother doesn't do anything for her.
On a lighter note, why "latte drinking liberals"? Why is milk in coffee an ideological issue?
When possible I would want to visit Trappist-1 star system. It has some many terrestial planets on so tight orbits, it would be super interesting to observe and explore the system even if none of the planets is potentially habitable.

[ironymaiden]

In the US, "latte" implies that you bought a drink made of espresso and foamy steamed milk that someone made while you waited, as opposed to "regular coffee" drip coffee ready-made in huge quantities or at home for a much lower cost. So "latte liberal" implies that you are not working class, that you are spendthrift, snooty, effete.

[zachbeacon]

While redeeming my free PS4 games I discovered that the wishlist is back. Not our old wishlists; those got purged along with the PS3 and Vita stuff. Still, you can create a new one composed of PS4 games and games for that really expensive new system no one can get.

[stubbleupdate]

Finally!

the playstation store's lack of a wishlist is baffling.

[nightauditguy]

American Gods has been canceled. Still haven't seen the third season
Sylvester Stallone is working on a Rocky prequel
A Thundercats movie is in development

[zachbeacon]

"Sylvester Stallone is working on a Rocky prequel"

Is he going to play Rocky's grandpa?

[obsidianwolf]

I keep going back and fourth on watching Invincible I mean the early years of the comic were pretty good and a more stream lined adaption of those periods dropping a few of the clunkier moments and having additional writers to fix some of Kirkman's weak points is a really appealing idea.

On the other hand the last few years and the ending of the comic were just so predictable and worst of all kind of boring that I am not sure I want to watch it happen again in animated form.

[thezmage]

I enjoy it when adaptations take things that didn't work in the comics and make them work (yes, I'm talking about Civil War) so I plan to give it a chance. Although I do have some trepidation about what sounds like a slight escalation of the plot rather than hewing to the original 13 issues of the comics indicating that they might get to the rough stuff sooner rather than later.

[t209]

https://www.cracked.com/article_28595_maybe-we-donE28099t-need-to-hear-from-south-park-right-now.html
(Well, it's been months, but Cracked finally jab at South Park since David Wong--an editor who was more forgiving throughout the website's operation--left.) aside from Safe Space episode.
I agree with the article, but do feel like the author is the type who can't find a difference between George Carlin along with other anti-PC humor and Ben Sharpiro types.

[thezmage]

It's not so much that they can't find a difference, it's that they see the difference as largely academic. South Park, as many before me have noted, has had a pretty consistent message of "caring about things is dumb," and I think it's naïve to believe that people watching it in their edgy teenager phase won't internalize that message. There needs to be a middle point between "all entertainment is just entertainment and nobody should take it seriously" and "rap music is turning children into violent maniacs."

[thezmage]

I found a fanmade X-men audiodrama adapting the earlier comic storylines on my podcatcher recently. Just finished the first season (the first class era) and on to the All New era right now. It's pretty good.

[tinygaylaura]

Have you got a link to it?

[scorntx]

Got me jab at the weekend. Yay!
The almost immediate reaction was "good, you can work on Monday."
(Wrong, as it turned out.)

Think Spring's started. There's daffodils and bumblebees everywhere, and that weird bright thing in the sky.
Garden's awash with daffodils.

Things with the dog have... on the balance of things, turned out fine.
Except for the bit about five abscesses at once. Which, er... yeah.
I mean, five, at once? No wonder she was so peaky...
(One I could understand, but five?!)


So... that Falcon and Winter Soldier.
I think the biggest surprise so far is that Walker is not being portrayed as 100% of an arse right from the start.
C'mon, other shoe, get with it. Hurry up and drop already.
...
I am finding it funny that after there was mention of how Sharon Carter would be "different" in this, we're now two-thirds through and she hasn't actually made an appearance yet.
Seems like it's more of the same for MCU Sharon - not as important as the advertising would like you to believe.
... well, not "ha-ha" funny.

[beyondthefringe]

My first thought upon seeing John Walker-as-Captain America: "That man has a very punchable face."

But after seeing him in the second episode it was: "He's a smug, smarmy asshole who doesn't deserve the shield, but... I don't hate him quite as much because he seems to be a decent enough guy trying to do an impossible job while living up to a huge legacy."

My expectations: "He'll get his ass kicked, get the Power Broker treatment to compensate, and eventually go off the rails altogether, disgrace himself and get the shield taken away, and by the end of the series he'll be U.S.Agent, punching America's enemies as the 5th best Captain America."

[iamrman]

Comixology is having a big linewide sale on DC titles, so I got some new stuff. Mostly the remainder of the New 52 Constantine and All-Star Western volumes that I haven't read yet.

I am starting to think that I was hasty in boycotting the New 52 the first time around. Most of the New 52 stuff that I have read has actually been good. It probably helped that the New 52 titles that I have read were mostly left unchanged by the reboot.

[mistersandman]

Funny, I dropped DC completely after the New 52 except for some of the titles that seemed more experimental, like China Mieville's Dial H for Hero.

In retrospect, maybe the New 52 would have been more interesting if they took bigger risks with some of the character concepts instead of saying "things are the same, but without the history and the attending emotional investment."

It's an interesting barometer to show how far we've come in the last 10 years that when given the opportunity to do a line-wide reboot, DC kept most of its characters as straight, white men. If anything, the line became less diverse as characters like Cassandra Cain were wiped from continuity. With 5G/Future State, it's safe to say that DC would probably make bigger adjustments to its characters if they did a New 52-style reboot today.

[mastermahan]

Lindsay Ellis was at the center of a ginned-up controversy for the following tweet:

“Also watched Raya and the Last Dragon and I think we need to come up with a name for this genre that is basically Avatar: the Last Airbender reduxes. It’s like half of all YA fantasy published in the last few years anyway”

This sparked claims it was insensitive and racist claim to compare two different properties inspired by Asian culture, and certain parties starting digging up old tweets and pushing the narrative that she's always had bad takes, or that she's in-fact racist. Eventually Ellis deleted her Twitter account, later declaring she was careless about the tweet and that being online was making her increasingly unhappy.

Honestly, the whole thing reminded me of the campaign to get Gunn fired from Guardians 3 - bad actors pretending something is a big deal. Raya and the Last Dragon has been getting ATLA comparisons since the premise was announced, and there are a lot more similarities than just being Asian-inspired.

[zachbeacon]

Last time I tried to defend someone from an online mob here I was dogpiled on but she really does seem to annoy the worst sort of people so it wouldn't surprise me if this was more manufactured outrage.

[zachbeacon]

Oh, dang. It just hit me that today is the 30th of March.

Mario dies tomorrow.

(Can't believe they're pulling the plug in Mario 35. Its the one Battle Royal game I like)

[angelophile]

Irregulars is YA trash in the best ways. Predictable, unoriginal and yet beautiful to look at with a great diverse cast. I kinda loved it. It's unashamedly cheesy. A definite guilty pleasure for me.

Watched the episodes of Invincible available too. They certainly didn't stray far from the comic. Pretty much a faithful adaptation, but whether that's a good thing or bad thing depends on your tastes. Great voice cast though. Steven Yuen, JK Simmons, Seth Rogen, Mark Hamill, Sandra Oh, Kevin Michael Richardson, Jason Mantzoukas... good stuff.

[thezmage]

Donald Faison has been cast as Professor Utonium in the upcoming CW Powerpuff Girls show: https://www.cbr.com/cw-powerpuff-girls-professor-utonium-new-title/

[tinygaylaura]

I kind of really want to watch this because even if it's a train wreck I think it's going to be a glorious Riverdale style "One of them will kill a man in a bear suit and get kidnapped by Moth Man and join a cult" style train wreck

[deh_tommy]

Man, I really want to love Rays and the Last Dragon, but by gosh the way they handle Namaari is just so infuriating if not downright disgusting, especially when they try to pull a whole “both sides” thing with her later. I don’t want to spoil anything, but there's a scene late in the film where she’s all like “you’re just as guilty as I am” and the film tries to act like she’s right and Raya’s wrong for not blindly trusting her when she’s done nothing to earn that trust in any way, continues to squander any potential goodwill she has and never even apologizes for the things she’s done or acknowledge that they were bad at all. That’s like saying “Oh, the kingdom is just as guilty as Maleficent for the curse on Aurora because they didn’t invite Maleficent to her christening” or “Santa was wrong to be cross with Jack for kidnapping him and should have just trusted that he wouldn’t wreck Christmas”.

[thezmage]

Yeah, I posted a link to a video in last week's thread that points out that Namaari was the cause of Raya's trauma and the movie wants her to give Namaari a twelfth chance. It's not a good lesson to learn

[amalthia]

The star wars story was so funny!

[leahandillyana]

To add to my awful week, the editor of the academic magazine I was supposed to publish my paper in emailed me that the topic is too controversial to be published. The topic? Depictions of trauma in BL manga. I'm kinda bitter about it, but I understand where they were coming from, the university is engaged in legal battle with a powerful organisation after it accepted the students' complaint against a very conservative lecturer. But still, I was so proud of that paper.

[icon_uk]

That royally sucks. Could it be published elsewhere instead?

[thezmage]

https://www.cbr.com/warner-bros-cancels-new-gods-aquaman-trench-spinoff/

WB has cancelled both their New Gods and The Trench films. Not overly surprised about either

[werehawk]

I know Wan is good and Aquaman was enjoyable to many (me included) but I don’t how the Trench even got off the ground at WB. And I just can’t get into the New Gods (or Eternals or other godly beings - Dark World anyone?), but hope this means more (lower budget) Suicide Squadesque DC movies. Blue and Gold?