#Michael I. Silberkleit

[paulagnewart]

Sonic the Oz-Hog Act 9/12: Livin' on the Hedge!

Sonic the Hedgehog issue 3 AU Publication Date: 24th September 1993 Price: $2.25

There's something wrong with the world today, and it's not just like a case of deja vu. September 1993 was immensely important for the enduring success of everyone's favourite blue boy over in the Land of the Free, but how did Australia stack up by comparison?

The ongoing adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog were far from many a mind when the late Juan Antonio Samaranch infamously proclaimed "The winner is… Sydderny!". Thousands packed Circular Quay in celebration of securing the 2000 Olympics bid. Pre-dawn fireworks swept over Sydney Opera House for lucky locals, while the rest tuned in early on Channel Nine for overnight coverage, then Channel Seven's afternoon recap. Or at least when they weren't watching the premiere of 'Stay Tooned: The History of Tom and Jerry', a half-hour feature promoting their grand cinematic outing which opened a week prior.

For those with kids or simply being kids at heart, the morning was instead another romp on Agro's Cartoon Connection. Having gnashed his teeth in the late 1970's, everyone's favourite talking bathmat underwent an extensive rework come January 1990, now joined alongside youthful cohost Ann-Maree Biggar. This dynamic duo were by 1993 indomitable, winning the nation with their two and a half hours of animation, antics and a rambunctious live studio audience.

Not that it stopped other networks attempting to muscle in on their success. Launched on the week of Christmas 1992, Channel Ten attempted to fight back the timeslot with 'The Big Breakfast'. Hosted by equally youthful larrikin Tim Bailey, their prime directive focused on quantity over quality, airing upward seven different cartoons a week. For that day, sandwiching the penultimate episode of all-new 'Capitol Critters' were repeats of 'Bionic Six' episode 'Ready, Aim, Fired', and 'Speed Racer' episode 'The Desperate Desert Race: Part 2', the latter ironically stolen from their competitor.

Speaking of fight backs, the conservative branch of Australian politics were in shambles after their centerpiece policy failed to swing voters. At 650 pages, the highly contentious Fightback! manifesto offered among other things higher tax cuts for the wealthy and striking a proverbial axe to low income earners. Riding off the back of "A Recession that Australia Had to Have", the mainstream media months earlier declared the left-leaning Labor party's chance of retaining power an "unwinnable" prospect. But they did, and Prime Minister Paul Keating was on top of the world. Plus leaving his mark on the world, that month exchanging pleasantries with US counterpart Bill Clinton while pushing for Australia to officially sever constitutional ties from the UK.

Yet there was an even larger development which swept Aussies off their feet. More than Meat Loaf ruling an unopposed 8 weeks with his megahit "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)". Higher than Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg's adventure some 65 million years in the making which sent Harrison Ford tumbling off the proverbial box office dam. Enticing thousands more than the launch of Australia's first ever Toys R Us at Belconnen, complete with Sonic mascot greeting visitors at the door. And yes, arguably even more than The Dinky-Di's potential animated film and guaranteed tax write-off Mephisto's Web. All those and more paled in comparison to the rise of the Internet.

Once the experimental plaything of Melbourne university students back in June 1989, technology had become more widespread and affordable for the common layman. Internet Service Providers sprung up, ready to compete in the inevitable web wars while fans across the land stretched their fingers, ready to type away to complete strangers about all the important information of life, like commenting and speculating over whether or not a storehouse in Toronto housed a horde of missing Doctor Who episodes.

As for the Blue Blur, it's hard to gauge a consensus on this and numerous other early issues as the organized Archie Sonic fandom was by that point nonexistent. Granted the comic sold thousands of copies across multiple nations, but it would take more time for fans to escape the confines of playgrounds and mingle over his monthly adventures online. As far as then-Hedgehog enthusiasts were concerned, Archie Sonic was but a supplement for his new cartoons. And it's through the likes of early fan pioneers like Ron D. Bauerle, David DeSimone, Serinthia Kelberry, Lindsay Cibos and Dan Drazen the success (or lack thereof) of Sonic's formative years are measured.

"If you read the comic book put out by Archie Comics, the characters featured there also come out in the series." One early reviewer commented. "They have Princess Sally, Bunny Rabbot, Antoine, Tails and of course Sonic. Being an animation fan and having seen DIC's earlier derivative works(there are too many to name), I expected it to be a hodge-podge of scenes/situations lifted directly from the video games(As DIC did in "Captain N", a lame lift from Nintendo). Actually, this show introduces some new, interesting characters, allowing for more original stories. Instead of ripping off the game, this show expands on it. The voice characterization is good,too(cast includes voice veterans Jim Cummings and Charlie Adler). So if you're a Furry, a gamer, or just can't get a chance to see ANIMANIACS, give this one a try."

"I think it's one of the better NEW Saturday morning 'toons, and probably the best thing I've seen from DIC in years." More swiftly agreed. "Anyone who's seen the weekday versions of Sonic would probably agree with me that the weekday episodes have nothing on the Sat AM ones.", or how "I've seen the daily Sonic show (TAOFSTH)… and I can safely say it's poorly animated cartoon swill.". Yet a few treated it with trepidation. "While not great, it's better than the Bonkers dreck. I had decided to skip it, but saw the ABC preview last night and there were some cute-looking furries in it.".

But as the weeks progressed, a divide slowly formed between cartoon and comic counterparts. "It is true that the television show derives from the Archie Comic, but from what I've seen in SEGA VISIONS, the cartoon's artistry and storyline is MUCH better than the comic. Besides, the Furries ARE neat, and the voice characterization is well done". Future long-running debates were born including "The editor of the letter column in Issue #5 of the Sonic comic says she's a squirrel, but I don't believe him - not with a short tail like that. I still favor chipmunk myself.".

It drew new fans like "Sonic's superspeed is interesting (but then, I liked "The Flash"). Jaleel White does an adequate job of voicing him, Kath Souci does the princess, and Christine Cavanaugh (Gosalyn from Darkwing Duck, I believe) does the bunny. Does anybody have a better explanation of the basis of the show? How about the video game? (About which I know nothing.) I'll keep watching for the furries, if nothing else…". Praise was short lived however, and by the conclusion of its first season, "These stories are really going downhill. Where did all the light come from in that underground world? And sorry, but I can't believe in any magic fertilizer water that makes trees grow instantly. I'd rather have seen a continuing story than all of these disjointed lame ones. E.g., are we ever going to find out what happened to Sally's father? Probably not, with only three more to go.".

Sonic the Hedgehog fans. Fawning over the female cast, criticizing plots and bashing the Archie series since 1993.

Time changes, and yet some things never change.

[thecomicsnexus]

The (Upcoming) Forever War

This arc was promised at the end of the Moon Eyes saga, but it never happened, and this is why:

“I had just finished work on ‘The Moon Eyes Saga’ story arc (TMNTA #67-70), wherein Raphael travels to Alaska seeking the love of his life, Ninjara, only to romantically lose her to another. It was heavy stuff for a kid’s book – at least by the standards of the day – and I was once again at odds with the two bigwigs at Archie Comics: editor in chief Victor Gorelick and publisher Michael Silberkleit, both of whom thought we were ‘going too far’ in terms of adult themes. Both men, as well as their distribution guy, Fred Mauser, had been on my ass about this several times before, most heatedly when we put out the first ‘future Turtles’ story arc, wherein Chris and I developed the character of Hitler’s brain (but that’s another story).”

“Victor and Michael wanted to know where the book was going with issue 71, and when I told them we would be revisiting the future (the Greenhouse Earth future, another notion which freaked them out) for a 5-issue story arc featuring the return of the Shredder – a totalitarian Shredder (not the buffoon of the cartoon) – they popped their toupees. And said they wanted me off the book.”

“A few months earlier Mirage began the second volume of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book series, deciding, in an inverted Sisyphian logic, that the greatly added expense of printing in color would boost the sagging sales and increasing losses of the first volume series. This, of course, was new ground, a territory previously ‘owned’ by the TMNT Adventures title, but more so by Archie Comics, who had the exclusive right to print in color for newsstand distribution.”

“Not that Mirage was going newsstand with volume two. But it was entering the direct-sales market with a color title. The big enchiladas at Archie Comics didn’t like this, as they too had their eyes on the direct-sales market since they were going through an across the board decline in newsstand sales as the number of children reading comics plummeted with the increased competition from video games. They were secretly making plans for a more direct-sales oriented TMNTA comic. Plans that did not involve me or anybody else at Mirage.”

It was later revealed that the script, pencils and rough lettering for TMNT Adventures #71 (“The Forever War, part 1”) had been completed, while rough scripting and pencils had been completed for TMNT Adventures #72 (“The Forever War, part 2”) before Victor Gorelick terminated the storyline and Murphy’s and Allan’s employment.

In the letters page of Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #7 (published January, 2005), Steve Murphy suggested that fans get ready, because "The Forever War" would be out by the end of the year.  2005 became 2006 and still no "Forever War".

Then, in the letters page of Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #16 (October, 2005), Murphy changed the projected date to "sometime in 2007".  2007 rolled around and still no "Forever War".

But the fans’ patience were eventually rewarded in 2009, when Mirage officially announced that Murphy and Allan had been signed to complete “The Forever War” in a five-issue miniseries as part of the “25th Anniversary Shell-ibration”.

“The current plan is to release it as a monthly black and white story arc under the original Archie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures title. The first issue would come out in May 2009… it will have many elements of the original storyline, while at the same time cutting the cast down a bit… the scenes depicted on the five covers will not necessarily be occurring in the revamped story line.”

In the end, the culprit responsible for the second demise of “The Forever War” was Peter Laird-himself. His sale of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise to the Viacom Corporation in December of 2009 pulled the rug out from under “The Forever War” project, as the deal did not grant Mirage license to publish any stories not taking place within the Mirage universe (though Laird retained the right to publish up to 18 Mirage TMNT stories a year). In addition to “The Forever War”, other projects such as “The Mirage Universe Sourcebook” were unceremoniously cancelled after solicitations had been made and much of the work had been completed.

But now...

Sure, it says “Approx”, but the fact that we have colored and lettered pages now makes me think this time is for real.

But good luck finding it when it comes out!

Source: TMNT ENTITY

[nerdsworld]

Archie Comics 75th Anniversary

At this year’s Big Apple Con I came across the dealer table for Archie comics, as a fan of the comics when I was growing up,it was awesome to talk with Co-Ceo Nancy Silberkleit.

She took over the iconic comic book company known for Archie,Betty,Veronica,Jughead and Sabrina The Teenage Witch after her husband passed away in 2008.It was once co-founded by her late husband Michael Silerkleit’s father.

But she isn’t without a bit of controversy, back in 2011,six employees filed a $32. million dollar lawsuit against her in a way to push her out. She's one tough lady and is still there, I asked her  what keeps them making interesting storylines with a new era of readers and fans.

”Archie Comics places enormous effort on being relevant and at the same time understanding our various groups of fans. The Archie Comic audience is enormous, our readers start at seven and may go up to eighty and beyond! What appeals to the seven and eight year old may not appeal with our teens or adult fans.Also,it was the are of conversation that spread Archie Comics beyond the United States, that inspires us to weave many other cultures into our storyline. I am proud to say Batton Lash an Archie comic writer, was inspired by my travels to Rwanda.Mr.Lash’s creative pen to the paper was able to highlight Rwanda’s environmental effort with not only information but humor! Our many talented writers like Mr.Lash,place a lot of time into researching, gathering information to craft these marvelous Archie stores. This particular story titled ‘Getting Drastic with Plastic’ will be published in digest Archie Fun House #26 and on your local comic book and bookstore shelves this April.”

Archie Comics celebrated their 75th Anniversary in December 2016.

CW’s Riverdale airs Thursday night at 9 pm ET

L.George

[closetofanxiety]

Show Review: Northeast Wrestling - “Lucha Mania”

It’s been almost a year since I’ve been to a Northeast show! What the heck is wrong with me? What the heck is wrong with US? Let’s take a look.

What: Northeast Wrestling, “Lucha Mania”

When: Friday, April 20 (haha, 4-20, weed, reefer, jazz cigarettes, etc.)

Where: The Police Athletic League building in a section of Waterbury, Conn., than a charitable realtor might describe as “having lots of potential”

Who: I’m bad at estimating crowds, but no fewer than 300. Maybe 400? If not a sellout, it was close. The building was packed.

Show notes: I went with Mark, and before the show we tried to get dinner, but as it was a Friday night and we don’t know Waterbury well, the only thing that was nearby and didn’t have a wait was a TGI Friday’s. This was a major defeat. I haven’t set foot in a Friday’s since, I think, 2004. There’s no need, really. I had a salad. It was fine. The less said about their nachos, the better.

Opening Banter: There’s a new ring announcer since the last time I saw a Northeast show. Where’s, I think his name was, Vince? Vince the Prince? New guy has a weirdly nervous smile, like he’s doing the ring announcer gig because someone is holding his family at gunpoint. He announces the changes to the card: Mandy Leon and FKA Emma are hurt, Ron Simmons had a family emergency. There’s a 10-bell salute to Bruno Sammartino, Paul Jones, and Johnny Valentine. The national anthem plays. FKA Emma comes out to say she’s bummed she can’t wrestle, but sure does like the fans, etc. Casey Katal, a local heel on the rise, comes out to badmouth FKA Emma. FKA Emma is like, surprise! My friend Karen Q is here to wrestle, just in case a local heel on the rise spontaneously interrupted my “sorry I can’t wrestle” promo.

Karen Q vs. Casey Katal

A decent but unspectacular last-minute addition to the card. Karen Q is terrific, but Katal is still very green, and this match featured a lot of awkward pauses as people tried to get in position for spots, clunky exchanges, kicks that visibly missed their mark but were sold like they hit, etc. The crowd was into it, which always helps. Katal won by using the ropes illegally for leverage. 

Rating: Two Sad Nachos.

“Red Lion” Chris Battle vs. “Sexy Beast” Bull Dredd

This match sapped my will to live, so let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about the woman sitting near me in the bleachers who had kind of a pixie-cut hairstyle and was there with a small child I imagine was her son. They were attending with another mom and her similarly aged boy. As I get older, I find myself more and more attracted to women with kids. Maybe it’s because I realized too late I wanted to be a father. Maybe it’s just, praise God, age appropriate attraction. I tend to think after a few laps around the block, people are more realistic about what they want, or perhaps know themselves better. I do, anyway. I have no idea if Pixie Cut Mom is single, but I found myself wishing I knew a way to communicate to her that I am a responsible person who won’t come home drunk or spend the utility bill money on scratch cards. I want to meet women who are into that kind of bland predictability, because that’s my top-dollar best. Should I start bringing printouts of my FICO score just in case? One thing I know is, I’m striking out in this endeavor. The last date I went on, the woman was nice, but not only wasn’t she a mom, she spent the evening talking about a crisis of religious faith she was experiencing, which is pretty intense first date banter. There has not been a second date. I want to just skip all that stuff and appeal directly to someone who’s turned on by a partner who has a low-interest home equity loan and a stable office job. This is a confusing romantic landscape to occupy. My advice is to get married when you can, because the longer you wait, the weirder you become. That’s just a hard truth. You never reach an age where you magically become someone else, you know? At some point you have to realize that “what I want to do with my life” is not a goal, it’s a reality: whatever you’re doing right now is what you are doing with your life. This match sucked, by the way. 

Rating: Dud

“Man Scout” Jake Manning vs. Sam Adonis

Sam Adonis is Corey Graves’ younger brother and working a heel gimmick in Mexico as a Trump supporter. In Waterbury, that would not make you a heel. There are conservative towns, and then there is Waterbury. There used to be kind of a fascist paramilitary group in town called the Defense Survival Force that allegedly infiltrated the police and fire departments. They were mixed up in the famous 1968 raid on the Voluntown Peace Farm, where the “patriots” ended up shooting it out with state troopers.

So, like I said, the Trump thing won’t work here. Adonis is a good heat-drawing heel in the old sense, working the microphone well and insulting the crowd about our lack of physical attractiveness (fair point, except for Pixie Cut Mom) and our putative status as welfare cheats. One older woman was LIVID and kept running up to the railing to point and scream at Adonis, who gave it right back to her. The crowd was thus primed to welcome his opponent, and Jake Manning got a HUGE babyface pop when he came out. The energy kept up pretty much throughout the match, as the crowd roared with approval every time Manning got some offense in, and lustily booed all of Adonis’ eye-gouges, back rakes and similar heel chicken shittery.

Manning is a tremendously underrated wrestler and Adonis is game if not exactly sensational. This was a fun, old-fashioned wrestling match. Adonis won, because Manning is doing a thing where he never wins in Northeast. Supposedly he’s at 0-60. My hope is that somehow they bring in Goldberg for him to break his streak.

Rating: Three Sad Nachos

Rey Fenix vs. Christian Casanova

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Casanova, and he has improved tremendously. He’s dropped the Michael Jackson impersonator gimmick in favor of a less distinctive but more believable cocky heel gimmick. He also worked like a heel, which I appreciated; Casanova is a lithe athlete with a lot of high-flying offense, but the story here was him trying to slow the match down and force Fenix onto the match, depriving the crowd of a sensational but superficial battle of two babyface flyers. Fenix is one of the best in the world right now, though, and he kept breaking through with the kind of jaw-dropping stuff he’s capable of. There were a few botched moves, but honestly that doesn’t really bother me that much; if anything, it enhances the realism. Fenix wins with a spinning Michinoku Driver, which was a hoot.

Rating: Three and a half Sad Nachos

INTERMISSION

I went to get my picture taken with Penta and Rey Fenix. There was a super long line for Penta, but virtually none for FKA Emma. Maybe she was there before the show? Anyway, I used to scorn photo ops, but you know what? I want to live a little. After all, it is my mission to SUPPORT THE BOYS.

King Brian Anthony and the Royal Graysons vs. Adrenaline Rush (Keith Youngblood and “Dangerous” Daniel Evans) and Ron Zombie

Hoo boy. NEW has a King of the Ring-esque tournament every year, and I guess the current king is promotion stalwart Brian Anthony, who was a Cena-esque goody-goody for a long time, then had a stint as a dark and tormented heel, and is now an arrogant, lordly heel. The Royal Graysons are two cruiserweights who were standard issue babyfaces last time I saw them in NEW, which I guess was almost a year ago. Now they are Brian Anthony’s sniveling toadies, coming out dressed in his trademark white and neon green colors.

The color scheme made me think how much more I’d be into this match if Anthony’s gimmick were that he’s the top leprechaun, and the Graysons were his leprechaun attendants. Call them the O’Shamrock Brothers, Shillelagh and Darby. Every match would be a Pot O’ Gold Match, with the goal being to take control of Brian’s gold and force him to grant three title shots instead of three wishes. I would be ridiculously into this. I would wear Brian Anthony “They’re Always After Me Pot o’ Gold!” shirts to work. Although, now that I think of it, in actual Irish folklore, leprechauns are typically said to wear red. Go figure.

Anyway, whatever else can be said about Brian Anthony, the man knows how to be a professional wrestler. He’s a good worker, good on the microphone, and knows how to draw heat from the crowd. It’s pretty much that skill that prevents this match from being a slog. The good guys are popular, particularly Ron Zombie, but they don’t exactly click as a three-man team, and there’s not much to lift this from the doldrums of a perfunctory six-man tag match. The good guys have it wrapped up, but then Casey Katal from the first match runs in to distract Zombie, who’s then superkicked by Hale Collins, a guy Zombie has been feuding with. This is maybe the worst superkick I’ve seen in my life; it missed Zombie by about a foot. But down he went, enabling the Leprechaun Connection to steal the match.

Rating: Two Sad Nachos.

“Big Bacon” Brad Hollister and Josh Briggs vs. “Kingpin” Brian Milonas and Wrecking Ball Legursky w/ Jared Silberkleit

Not a lot to love here. Milonas and Legursky are both big dudes, somewhere in the 350-400 lb. range, so their ability to have a lengthy, intricate match is limited. I thought this was going to be a squash, but they actually dragged it out for a long time, which was a poor choice. Milonas and Legursky are impressive as big dudes who come in and trash little guys, or who battle other big dudes in hoss fights. Hollister and Briggs are both big, but not compared to their opponents. Some positives: Hollister has a lot of potential as a fired-up babyface. Built like the proverbial brick shithouse and with an arsenal of suplays, he could quickly establish himself as a 21st century Taz, or an unproblematic Mike Elgin. I also thought Silberkleit did OK as the shitty heel manager. His narrative is that he used to be the humble timekeeper until he reached the age where he could collect a vast trust fund, which turned him evil. Normally I spurn “rich asshole” gimmicks, because they’re so implausible: I’m a millionaire, so I’m going to do what ALL millionaires do: Make $100 for a wrestling match in a rural town hall! But I’ll say this: Silberkleit wore a suit that actually looked tailored. I appreciate the commitment. The bad guys won when Silberkleit distracted Big Bacon. If you’re counting, that’s three screwjob finishes in just six matches.

Rating: Two Sad Nachos

NEW Championship Match: Travis “Flip” Gordon (c) vs. Penta El Cero Miedo

Well this was just a tremendously fun professional wrestling match. NEW Flip is not the comedy Flip of “Being the Elite”; he’s more like an Arthurian knight, and Penta is a fucking monster from the darkest part of the woods. Penta is no high flyer, but instead of using the traditional heel tactic of trying to ground his exciting opponent with mat-based submissions, his approach is to knock nine bells of shit out of Flip with insanely hard strikes. They did a great job of establishing the dynamism of those strikes by subverting our expectations: they’d go into the setup to a standard spot - Flip doing a reverse handspring off the ropes, with the expectation that he’ll finish with a back elbow or cutter - only to cut it off midway, with a jumping dropkick or superkick from Penta. I’ll say this, too: Lucha Underground did a fabulous job of getting Penta’s inverted armbreaker submission hold over as a match-ender. He never got to apply it in this match, but even the attempt to go for it made the crowd go completely bananas. The match ended with both guys trying to put each other through a table, and as the anticipation built, people started running from one side of the gym to get a closer look; I even saw the previously bored fire marshal jogging over, and the merch guy from Highspots standing on his chair. Flip won not long after hitting a 450 from the top rope to a table outside the ring. Hugely impressive match from both guys, and one of the best matchups I’ve seen in person. 

Rating: Four and a half Sad Nachos