#the format itself had at least been out since the mid 90s

[angelicsentinel]

....i don't know who needs to know this but we had dvd players and also flatscreens in 2006

[blazehedgehog]

Do you think the Sonic franchise would be universally accepted if it were to go into the direction set out by the SatAM cartoon (e.g. roboticization, Robotnik with demonic pitch-black eyes and a robotic arm, Sonic being part of the Freedom Fighter ragtag group) instead of the direction it took from the country of origin (e.g. Eggman being round and wears glasses, having colorful and surreal places)?

Well, let me ask you what you mean by that, because by 1993 Sonic the Hedgehog was a pretty big household name. Kids knew who he was, their parents knew who he was, and just in North America, he had two TV shows and a comic book. He was everywhere. That counts as "universally accepted" right?

And I suppose this is what you mean, right? Sonic was massively popular in the 1990's, when Sega of America changed so much about his identity to suit the region's tastes. And now, Sonic isn't as popular, so are the two data points related?

To me, this just feels like a broader version of "Robotnik was a better name than Eggman, because things were better when they called him Robotnik." And that has always been extremely circumstantial.

To my viewpoint, SatAM was extremely of its time. Cartoons were shifting in a certain direction -- typically the "Saturday Morning Cartoon" was something colorful and funny. There wasn't a lot of serious storytelling going on. It was stuff like Looney Tunes, but also things like G.I. Joe or Transformers, where they were more about action than meaningful plot.

That probably started to change around the time Fox debuted the X-Men cartoon in the 90's. This cartoon took stories from the comic books and (poorly) adapted them in to a Saturday Morning format. It was inscrutable and kids like me found it hard to follow, but my brother, who is 14 years older than me and was probably in his mid-to-late 20's, found it pretty fascinating. It broadened the format a little bit and soon the floodgates broken open.

Spider-man, Batman, Gargoyles, soon Saturday mornings were awash with darker, edgier, more serious cartoons for older kids. Even the Ninja Turtles, who were broken from the Transformers mold of colorful, action-based shows, was reworked to look darker and more serious. And right at the end of that first wave of shows was SatAM. Right place, right time, right vibe.

That... ended. Batman was eventually replaced with Batman & Robin, that was eventually supplanted with Superman Adventures, then the two shows were combined in to Batman & Superman Adventures, and every time it got retooled, the tone got lighter, and lighter, pushing back towards the old action shows of the 80's. Gargoyles went in the opposite direction, retooling itself in to "The Goliath Chronicles," becoming so self-serious it borderlined on a Saturday Morning soap opera. It lasted barely a whole season and most modern continuations of the Gargoyles mythos ignore it entirely. The "Red Sky" Ninja Turtles has more or less been treated the same, with extremely sparse home releases until it eventually landed on streaming a few years ago.

The Sonic comics kept the SatAM cast alive and relevant, yes. But obviously Batman comics stuck around, too. And Spider-man, X-men, and Ninja Turtles. That was the format a lot of these shows were trying to copy to begin with, so it makes sense that SatAM would transition to comics fairly painlessly.

To circle back around to how successful the games are or aren't, it's hard for me to cite this now because I always looked at the TSSZ article for it and now that's gone, but somewhere around 2010 or 2011, the Sonic franchise was actually listed as one of the most profitable entertainment franchises in the world that year, rubbing elbows with the likes of Pokemon and such. This was years after SatAM had fallen out of favor and the comics were starting to hit the skids because their availability was going down (this was a problem in the comics industry as a whole, not just for Sonic).

Meaning that, largely, the success of Sonic at that point was due to the games and 8 year old reruns of Sonic X. And it still landed in this top ten. I'd love to find this article, really I would, but it's impossible to google now thanks to so many other articles praising the Sonic movie for being the highest grossing video game movie of all time, mixed in with articles about how the Sonic fast food chain is dying and what happened to it.

At the very least, Sonic rates to make it on the Wikipedia list of "Highest Grossing Media Franchises." It rates high enough that it beats out Fortnite, Halo, Minecraft, My Little Pony, and Roblox.

Also, to back up a bit, consider: the Sonic movie did really well. And it wasn't Ken Penders' pitch for a SatAM movie, it was something wholly different.

And then consider the outrageous success of Sonic Mania. The most critically acclaimed Sonic game since 1994. Though sales figures aren't super clear, I'd estimate it's also probably the best selling Sonic game in the last decade and a half. There is nary a hint of the Freedom Fighters or "that Robotnik" in that game anywhere.

I love the Freedom Fighters. I love SatAM Robotnik. I'd love for them to come back in an official capacity. I'd love for the Archie comics to officially pick up right where they left off and keep going as if they never missed a beat. It burns me that Archie or Ken Penders or both forever tainted a lot of that stuff so badly that it's become an exclusion zone nobody wants to touch anymore. I've talked at length on this blog about how I think a character like Princess Sally was a perfect foil for Sonic and how they played off of each other extremely well. I want that back. I want Bunnie Rabbot back. I want Antoine back. I want Robotropolis back. And Snively. And Ixis Naugus.

But also, at some point, you have to look at the cold, hard truth: Sonic doesn't need those characters, it doesn't need that universe, and the SatAM version Sonic would not exist at all if it wasn't for the original Japanese Sonic first. SatAM was supplemental material to the main version of the thing people already liked. That's the entire reason something like Sonic Mania could achieve the success it did.

And that's all there really is to it.

[davidmann95]

now that it's over, thoughts on Bendis' Superman as a whole?

pretenderoftheeast said: So, thoughts on Bendis' Superman and Action Comics' tenure altogether and separately now that it's over?

Anonymous said: Best and Worst things about Bendis' Superman run

Anonymous said: Now that it is over, what are your thoughts on Bendis' runs on Superman and Action Comics as a whole?

Anonymous said: Retrospective thoughts on Bendis' Superman as a whole now that it's, I guess, done?

Anonymous said: Hey so since Bendis’ Superman stuff seems to be done, what did you think of the run as a whole?

I decided to hold off a bit on writing on this one, if only so that I could reread the Action Comics side of it since Superman stood out in my memory a lot more. But now I have, and as we’re heading into a bold new era of Superman (and it’s coming in fast - just since I made my Superman in 2021 predictions we’ve gotten Ed Pinsent finally reprinting his legendary bootleg Silver Age Superman, Steve Orlando announcing his Superman analogue book Project Patron, an official shonen Superman redesign for RWBY/Justice League, PKJ’s Super-debut turning out far better than I ever expected, Superman & Lois’s first proper trailer largely taking people pleasantly by surprise, and my learning that there’s a Sylvester Stallone Old Man Superman analogue movie titled Samaritan coming out this summer) we’re ready to take a look back with at least a touch of perspective. I’ll lead with complaints, so everybody who’s been waiting for me to say that Bendis on Superman was Bad, Actually, savor this because it’s as close as you’ll get.

The Bad

* I hate to say it, but rereading that side of the run there’s no two ways about it: the structure of Action Comics as a whole is a mess. It baffled me from day one that it was the more acclaimed of the two books for so long - I guess people are hardwired at this point to think of ‘street’ stuff as where Bendis is supposed to be - because it was immediately clear that Superman had a well-defined story he wanted to tell, while Action was the usual Bendis off-the-cuff improvisation. It’s barely even a story in the same way, and it’s certainly not the ‘Metropolis crime book’ people took it as: it’s 28 issues of Superman and his supporting cast stuffed a pinball machine with the Red Cloud pinging off of each other as we wait to see who falls in the hole at the bottom, and partway through Leviathan and the Legion of Doom and 90s Superboy are tossed into the mix to keep it going a little longer. On an issue-to-issue basis it’s frequently really good, but the core plot of the book is *maybe* six issues stretched out over two and a half years.

* I’ve gone into this some before, but structure-wise Unity Saga also has problems: Phantom Planet rules but either it needed to be cut or the back half needed to be a year all its own in order to accommodate the scale of what it’s attempting. It’s got an interstellar civil war leading into the formation of the United Planets, family drama, Rogol Zaar’s whole deal, and Jon’s coming of age, and I’d say only that last one is really properly served. Even Jon forming the United Planets, while contextually somewhat justified in terms of 1. The situation being so far gone he’s the only one who’d even think in those terms, 2. Things being bad enough that these assorted galactic powers would be willing to try it, and 3. Him having the S on his chest to sell it, isn’t at all built up to within the run itself.

* Rogol Zaar sucks. He’s made up of nothing but interesting ideas - he’s an ersatz warrior ‘superman’ of a bygone age of empires up against the new model, he’s the sins of Krypton as a conservative superpower come home to roost, he’s while not outright said to be definitely Superman’s tragic half-brother and the culmination of everything this run does with Jor-El - but none of them manifest on the page, he’s just a big punchy dude with a dumb design who screams about how you should take him seriously because he’s totally the one who blew up Krypton. Even a killer redesign by Ryan Sook for Legion of Superheroes can’t fix that. There are lots of bad villains with good ideas who are redeemed with time and further effort, but I can’t imagine Zaar getting that TLC to become a fraction of whatever Bendis envisioned him as.

* The second year of Action Comics, after establishing itself in its first as one of the most consistently gorgeous books on the stands, leads with Szymon Kudranski’s weak output and then concludes with John Romita Jr. turning in some career-worst work. The latter is particularly egregious because for that first year Bendis writes a really collected, gentle Superman so him getting pushed into being more aggressive should have an impact, but Romita draws such a craggy rough-looking Superman in the first place that it mutes any sort of shock value.

 * WE NEVER LEARN WHAT’S UP WITH LEONE’S CAR, WHAT THE HELL. You don’t just DROP THAT IN THERE and then NEVER FOLLOW UP.

The Good

* Superman got his real clothes back after 7 truly ridiculous years.

* Bendis fundamentally gets Clark’s voice in a way unlike almost any other writer - even all-around better writers of the character almost never approach how spot-on he is with having Superman speak and act exactly how Superman should.

* Supporting cast front and center! He writes a dynamite Lois, Perry, and Jimmy (even if many of Lois’s more out-there decisions in the run don’t end up retroactively justified the way you’d hope), Ma and Pa are more fun than they’ve been in decades in their brief appearances, he manages to turn having Jor-El in the mix into a positive, and the Daily Planet as a whole has an incredibly distinctive vibe to it like never before that I hope is taken as a baseline going forward.

* The non-Rogol Zaar baddies? All ruled. Invisible Mafia and Red Cloud are both brilliant ideas executed solidly if overextended. Zod as Kryptonian Vegeta, Mongul as a generational perpetual bastard engine primed to be incapable of self-reflection, and Ultraman as “what if Irredeemable but he’d never been a good guy and also he was a Jersey mobster” are the best versions of those characters by numberless light-eons. Lex is on-point in his sparse appearances. Xanadoth as a mystical cosmic monster older than time who still talks like a Bendis character is however unintentionally a hoot. The alt-universe Parasite is a more intimidating Doomsday than Doomsday ever was. And Synmar as an alien culture’s attempt at creating their own Superman and messing up the formula when they make him a soldier can and should be a legitimate major ongoing villain coming out of this run.

* Pretty much all the art other than what I mentioned already. Fabok does a good job bookending The Man of Steel and Ivan Reis does the work of his career anchoring Superman (special props to Reis as well for drawing the first ever non-Steve Rude interesting-looking take on Metropolis), and meanwhile you’ve got Jim Lee, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, Doc Shaner, Steve Rude, Kevin Maguire, Adam Hughes, Patrick Gleason, Yanick Paquette, Ryan Sook, Brandon Peterson, and David Lafuente doing their own parts.

* Closely related to the art, all the little flourishes with the powers. Super-speed having a consistent visual with the background coloring changing, Clark internally putting numbers to the degrees of force behind his punches and what situations which numbers are appropriate for, ‘skidding to a halt’ mid-flight before crashing through a window, the shonen-ass major throwdowns as portrayed by Reis, how his super-hearing is handled as a prevalent element. Lots of clever bits that added flavor to what he does.

* While Unity Saga has problems, the whole of what Bendis does in Superman as a means of forward momentum for Clark and his world is excellent. The sort of three-act structure of: 

** Clark is led to question his place in things over the course of a few adventures

** Involvement in the larger cosmos and the impact it has had through and on his family makes him realize the answer to his questions is that he needs to step up in a bigger way because there’s no benevolent larger universe to welcome Earth with open arms, nor a cosmic precedent for everything turning out for the best without some help

** As a consequence of the lessons learned by this change in the status quo Clark is inspired to make his own personal change in revealing his identity (with Mythological basically being an epilogue showcasing a ‘standard’ standalone Superman adventure while simultaneously highlighting his new status quo and how it fits in as a summing-up of Bendis’s take)

…does a great job of shepherding through ideas that lend a lot of forward momentum to Superman of the kind he hasn’t seen in a long time. Not perfect, but far lesser stories with far lesser ambitions have made huge impacts, so I’d certainly hope at least some of this sticks around even if, say, regardless of any retcons to the main line there are always going to be stories with Clark as a disguise and Jon as a kid. Oh, speaking of whom,

* KISS MY ASS, EVERYTHING WITH JON KENT RULED

Ahem. Probably a less confrontational way of putting that.

Do I think there was more gas in the tank for Jon as a kid? Totally, making him likeable and viable was the one really good thing the Rebirth era accomplished for Superman and I expect we’ll continue seeing more of it in the future one way or another. But whether or not him being aged up was Bendis’s decision, or working with marching orders to set up the eventually-(kinda-)discarded 5G, the coming of age narrative here is fire. He keeps the essential Clark Kent kindness and bit of Lois Lane cheekiness that reminds you he’s still their kid, which is a combination Bendis is basically precision-crafted to write, but his trials by fire give him a background entirely unlike the by-the-numbers “and here’s how Superman’s great kid grew up to be a great superhero too” narrative you’d expect while still arriving at that endpoint. If superheroes live and die by metaphors then Jon in here is what it means to grow up written as large as possible: leaving home for the first time (and seeming to shoot up overnight!), getting into the muck of how the real world works, being beaten down by authority wearing faces you’ve been taught to trust, scrambling to get through with the whole world against you, and in the end getting through by learning to rely on your own strength while keeping your soul intact and your head held high, and even managing to speak some truth to power. It gives him a well-defined life story with room to go back to and explore the intricacies of each leg of for decades to come in a way Superman hasn’t had since the original Crisis - someone someday is going to write a The Life & Times Of The Son Of Superman miniseries and it’s going to be one of the greats - and negates any question that he’s earned his stature as the heir apparent.

* Coming out of this, Superman’s world is fascinating. He’s out but rather than giving up his day-to-day life he’s openly spending part of his life as CLARK KENT: SUPER-REPORTER and part of his job on the cape-and-tights side of things is now KAL-EL: SUPER-SPACE-DIPLOMAT, Lois Lane coruns a foundation helping people whose personal continuities have been fucked over by Crisis shenanigans, Jimmy Olsen owns the Daily Planet but is still doing Jimmy Olsen stuff because that’s how he gets his kicks, and Jon Kent is going to college in the future. I’m not anywhere near naïve enough to think that’s how things are going to be forever, or shortsighted enough to think there’s no value left in the traditional setups, but god I hope these developments stick around for a long, long time to come and potentially become the new ‘normal’ as far as the ongoing shared universe stuff goes, because it all feels like the right and promising next steps to take for the lives of these characters. However it got here, for all the pluses and minuses along the way even if I maintain the former very much outweighed the latter as a reading experience, Bendis has a lot to be proud of if that’s the legacy he leaves on these titles.

* The recap pages at the desks!

[marginalgloss]

I turn 35 tomorrow. How better to celebrate that than with some notes on the handful of video games I have managed to finish over the last ten months. In no particular order:

Judgment (PS4)

Something I think about often is that there aren’t many games which are set in the real world. By this I man the world in which we live today. You can travel through ancient Egypt or take a trip through the stars in the far future, but it’s relatively rare to be shown a glimpse of something familiar. Hence the unexpected popularity of the new release of Microsoft Flight Simulator, which lets you fly over a virtual representation of your front porch, as well as the Grand Canyon, and so on.

I found something like the same appeal in Judgment, a game which took me longer than anything else listed here to finish — seven or eight months, on and off. Like the Yakuza games to which it is a cousin, it’s set in Kamurocho, a fictional district of a real-world Tokyo; unlike other open-world games, it renders a space of perhaps half a square mile in intense detail. I spent a long time in this game wandering around slowly in first-person view, looking at menus and in the windows of shops and restaurants. The attention to detail is unlike everything I have ever seen, from the style of an air conditioning unit to the range of Japanese whiskies on sale in a cosy backstreet bar. And this was a thing of value at a time when the thought of going anywhere else at all, let alone abroad, seemed like it was going to be very difficult for a very long time.

It’s a game of at least three discrete parts. One of them is a fairly cold-blooded police procedural/buddy cop story: you play an ex-lawyer turned private eye investigating a series of grisly murders that, inevitably, link back to your own murky past. In another part you run around the town getting into hilarious martial arts escapades, battering lowlifes with bicycles and street furniture. In another, you can while away your hours playing meticulous mini-games that include darts, baseball, poker, Mahjong and Shogi — and that’s before we even get to the video game arcades.

All these parts are really quite fun, and if you want to focus on one to the exclusion of the others, the game is totally fine with that. The sudden tonal shifts brought about by these crazy and abrupt shifts in format are, I think, essentially unique to video games. But the scope of Judgment is a thing all its own. As a crafted spectacle of escapist fiction it’s comprehensive, and in its own way utterly definitive.  

Mafia: Definitive Edition (PS4)

I was amazed when I found out they were doing a complete remake of Mafia, a game I must have finished at least three or four times in the years after its release back in 2002. Games from this era don’t often receive the same treatment as something like Resident Evil, where players might be distracted by the controls and low-poly graphics of the original. 

A quality remake makes it easier for all kinds of reasons to appreciate what was going on there. (Not least because they have a lot of new games in the same series to sell.) But in the early 00s PC games like this one had started to get really big and ambitious, and had (mostly) fixed issues with controls; so there’s a hell of a lot more stuff going on in Mafia than in most games of that era. It was also a very hard game, with all kinds of eccentricities that most big titles don’t attempt today. Really I have no idea how this remake got made at all. 

But I was so fond of the original I had to play it. The obvious: it looks fantastic, and the orchestral soundtrack is warm and evocative. The story is basic, but for the era it seemed epic, and it’s still an entertaining spectacle. The original game got the balance of cinematic cutscenes, driving and action right the first time, even while Rockstar were still struggling to break out of the pastiche-led GTA III and Vice City. 

They have made it easier. You’re still reliant on a handful of medical boxes in each level for healing, but you get a small amount of regenerating health as well. You no longer have to struggle to keep your AI companions alive. Most of the cars are still heavy and sluggish, but I feel like they’re not quite as slow as they once were. They’ve changed some missions, and made some systems a little more comfortable — with sneaking and combat indicators and so on — but there aren’t any really significant additions.

The end result of all this is that it plays less like an awkward 3D game from 2002, and more like a standard third-person shooter from the PS3/360 era. Next to virtually any other game in a similar genre from today, it feels a bit lacking. There’s no skill tree, no XP, no levelling-up, no crafting, no side-missions, no unusual weapons or equipment, no alternative routes through the game. And often all of that stuff is tedious to the extreme in new titles, but here, you really feel the absence of anything noteworthy in the way of systems. 

My options might have been more limited in 2002 but back then the shooting and driving felt unique and fun enough that I could spend endless hours just romping around in Free Ride mode. Here, it felt flat by comparison; it felt not much different to Mafia III, which I couldn’t finish because of how baggy it felt and how poorly it played, in spite of it having one of the most interesting settings of any game in recent years. But games have come a long way in twenty years.    

Hypnospace Outlaw (Nintendo Switch)

If this game is basically a single joke worked until it almost snaps then it is worked extremely well. 

It seems to set itself up for an obvious riff on the way in which elements of the web which used to be considered obnoxious malware (intrusive popups and so on) have since become commonplace, and sometimes indispensable, parts of the online browsing experience. But it doesn’t really do that, and I think that’s because it’s a game which ends up becoming a little too fascinated by its own lore. 

The extra science fiction patina over everything is that technically this isn’t the internet but a sort of psychic metaverse delivered over via a mid-90s technology involving a direct-to-brain headset link. I don’t know that this adds very much to the game, since the early days of the internet were strange enough without actually threatening to melt the brains of its users. 

(This goes back to what I said about Judgment - I sometimes wonder if it feels easier to make a game within a complete fiction like this, rather than simply placing it in the context of the nascent internet as it really was. Because this way you don’t have to worry too much about authenticity or realism; this way the game can be as outlandish as it needs to be.) 

But, you know. It’s a fun conceit. A clever little world to romp around in for a while. 

Horace (Nintendo Switch)

I don’t know quite where to begin with describing this. One of the oddest, most idiosyncratic games I’ve played in recent years. 

As I understand it this platformer is basically the creation of two people, and took about six years to make. You start out thinking this is going to be a relatively straightforward retro run-and-jump game — and for a while, it is — but then the cutscenes start coming. And they keep coming. You do a lot of watching relative to playing in this game, but it’s forgivable because they are deeply, endearingly odd. 

It’s probably one of the most British games I’ve ever played in terms of the density and quality of its cultural references. And that goes for playing as well as watching; there’s a dream sequence which plays out like Space Harrier and driving sequences that play out like Outrun. There are references to everything from 2001 to the My Dinner with Abed episode of Community. And it never leans into any of it with a ‘remember that?’ knowing nod — it’s all just happening in the background, littered like so much cultural detritus. 

A lot of it feels like something that’s laser-targeted to appeal to a certain kind of gamer in their mid-40s. And, not being quite there myself, a lot of it passed me by. Horace is not especially interested in a mass appeal — it’s not interested in explaining itself, and it doesn’t care if you don’t like the sudden shifts in tone between heartfelt sincerity and straight-faced silliness. But as a work of singular creativity and ambition it’s simply a joyous riot. 

Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4)

I stopped playing this after perhaps twelve or fifteen hours. There is a lot to like about it; it still looks stunning on the PS4 Pro; Aloy is endearing; the world is beautiful to plod around. But other parts of it seem downright quaint. It isn’t really sure whether it should be a RPG or an action game. And I’m surprised I’ve never heard anyone else mention the game’s peculiar dedication to maintaining a shot/reverse shot style throughout dialogue sequences, which is never more than tedious and stagey.

The combat isn’t particularly fun. Once discovered most enemies simply become enraged and blunder towards you, in some way or another; your job is to evade them, ensnare them or otherwise trip them up, then either pummel them into submission or chip away at their armour till they become weak enough to fall. I know enemy AI hasn’t come on in leaps and bounds in recent years but it’s not enough to dress up your enemies as robot dinosaurs and then expect a player to feel impressed when they feel like the simplest kind of enrageable automata. Oh, and then you have to fight human enemies too, which feels like either an admission of failure or an insistence that a game of this scale couldn’t happen without including some level of human murder. 

I don’t have a great deal more to say about it. It’s interesting to me that Death Stranding, which was built on the same Decima engine, kept the frantic and haphazard combat style from Horizon, but went to great lengths to actively discourage players from getting into fights at all. (It also fixed the other big flaw in Horizon — the flat, inflexible traversal system — and turned that into the centrepiece of the game.) 

Disco Elysium (PS4)

In 2019 I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. I’m talking about the actual tabletop roleplaying game, not any kind of video game equivalent. For week after week a group of us from work got together and sort of figured it out, and eventually developed not one but two sprawling campaigns of the never-ending sort. We continued for a while throughout the 2020 lockdown, holding our sessions online via Roll20, but it was never quite the same. After a while, as our life circumstances changed further, it sort of just petered out.

I mention all this because Disco Elysium is quite clearly based around the concept of a computerised tabletop roleplaying game (aka CRPG). My experience of that genre is limited to the likes of Baldurs Gate, the first Pillars of Eternity and the old Fallout games, so I was expecting to have to contend with combat and inventory management. What I wasn’t expecting was to be confronted with the best novel I’ve read this year.

To clarify: I have not read many other novels this year, by my standards. But, declarations of relative quality aside, what I really mean is that this game is, clearly and self-consciously, a literary artefact above all. It is written in the style of one of those monolithic nineteenth century novels that cuts a tranche through a society, a whole world — you could show it to any novelist from at least the past hundred years and they would understand pretty well what is going on. It is also wordy in every sense of that term: there’s a lot of reading to do, and the text is prolix in the extreme. 

You could argue it’s less a game than a very large and fairly sophisticated piece of interactive fiction. The most game-like aspects of it are not especially interesting. It has some of the stats and the dice-rolling from table-top roleplaying games, but this doesn’t sit comfortably with the overtly literary style elsewhere. Health and morale points mostly become meaningless when you can instantly heal at any time and easily stockpile the equivalent of health potions. And late on in the game, when you find yourself frantically changing clothes in order to increase your chances of passing some tricky dice roll, the systems behind the game start to feel somewhat disposable. 

Disco Elysium is, I think, a game that is basically indifferent to its own status as a game. Nothing about it exists to complement its technological limitations, and nor is it especially interested in the type of unique possibilities that are only available in games. You couldn’t experience Quake or Civilisation or the latest FIFA in any other format; but a version of Disco Elysium could have existed on more or less any home computer in about the last thirty years. And, if we were to lose the elegant art and beautiful score, and add an incredibly capable human DM, it could certainly be played out as an old-fashioned tabletop game not a million miles from Dungeons and Dragons.

All of the above is one of the overriding thoughts I have about this game. But it doesn’t come close to explaining what it is that makes Disco Elysium great.

[monkey-network]

Why Green Eggs & Ham IS the Best

Having only been alive for a couple decades, stands to say I’ve quite a lot of media in my day and it also stands to say that I’ve seen quite a bit of media that have blown my expectations. I doubt anyone’s never seen something that was not only enjoyably new to them, but exceeds your investing thoughts beyond just believing the film or show was good or not. In the latest, I can safely say that Green Eggs & Ham has become that such show the more I’ve thought about it. For what it is initially, it’s remarkable in the idea of it being a Dr. Seuss adaptation of the modern era.

compared to what we’ve got before especially

While we’ve had our debates over whether or not the films from 2000 to now were worthwhile revisions of the classic stories, it’s crazy to believe it took longer for there to be a cartoon based on Seuss’s character, at least a stand out one. We’ve had specials based on the books back in the late sixties to mid 90s, but never a full series cartoon until Gerald McBoing Boing in ‘05, which Wikipedia doesn’t count but whatever. Wasn’t until the 2010s where we got a Cat in the Hat series before getting a show based on the Green Eggs & Ham story. I say all this because while GE&H is considered a series, it's pretty clever in how it formats itself.

Green Eggs & Ham is generally a film split into thirteen episodes, it's serialized from beginning to end save a few timeskips to move things along. For the most part, it honestly works as a binge watch show as opposed to most I’ve seen. I bring up pacing to where while it can drag in a couple instances, it never felt like the show was stalling for time. Compared to shows like Nu She-Ra, Voltron, or Star vs. Evil, GE&H made the most of every episode from the action filled moments to the quieter, more contemplative scenes. I say things pick up on episode 5 but that doesn’t make the previous 4 less valuable in setting everything up. It’s not wholly original in its premise, I can never argue that this isn’t just Dr Seuss’s Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, but the execution of everything is what makes this clock tick in an organically unique way. The key was most certainly with the characters.

Green Eggs & Ham works well when most of the character dynamic being the optimist vs the cynic. You recognize Gluntz and Sam for how they brighten the mood compared to McWinkle and Guy who brings the audience down to reality in a scene. It’s functional in the same way Spongebob and Squidward are with the early era of Spongebob; the opposing personalities makes for memorable clashes. It also works like Spongebob since Guy and Sam are two adults in the one situation. Not only provides the adult audience connection to the story but helps resonate with the children more, even when they don’t get everything. 

This is strengthened two-fold when things get serious and we see the vulnerable side of everyone. Guy is very much stubborn and pessimistic towards anything risky, but isn’t above being a caring person and genuine with what he sets out to accomplish. Sam is always risk-taker and sociable towards everyone, but can be inconsiderate and mostly living lies due to never having a truth that’s evaded him since childhood. This plays to the show’s themes of being open with others, minded or otherwise. Every antagonistic force in the show is based around “more than meets the eye”, with the solution being to just take a chance and see what’s on the other side. That’s not to say it’s all faith based, but it’s more about not beating yourself up over what hasn’t been made clear yet. It expands on the original book’s message where Guy finally trying Green Eggs & Ham feels more earned in context after all that he and Sam went through together.

When I get down to it, I was in Guy’s position when it came to this series before it premiered. You can feel pretty burned out after having adaptations that range from arguably good to underwhelming; nothing absolutely terrible but you still had to wrestle with yourself over whether it’s a genuine love for the product. I definitely wanted to give it a chance since I will forever love Dr. Seuss, but me back in 2019 would never have expected this series to get so much right. It’s become a personal series up there with Eizouken, Shrek, GTO, Wall-E, Mob Psycho 100 upon others where I gladly will dig deep to see what makes it better than before, after already being a fantastic series in my eyes.

With all the talk of western animation, this series gives me a bit of hope for the creative world with the fact that... it exists as is. It’s groundbreaking in the passion that went to making this visually and emotionally unique, the bonafide verisimilitude of an adapted work that puts more than expected, producing a complex vision out of one of the most simple children’s books imaginable. That just brightens the idea that in midst of reboots and sequels and slapdash adaptations, originality and creativity perseveres. It’s a timely factor, but I don’t mind. I’m glad this got to exist, that I got to watch it, and that shows as great as this are possible. I got little else to say,

It’s The Best

[randomvarious]

DJ Format & King Aroe - “Lords of Cardboard” Revenge of the B-Boy 1999 Breaks / Hip Hop / Funk / Jazz

It kind of boggles my mind how the turn-of-the-century era of breaks revivalism in the UK never really managed to gain a foothold in the US. I mean, it was basically hip hop taken back to its roots, and with the way hip hop was quickly becoming the dominant genre of popular American music at the time, you’d think that maybe it would’ve been a good idea to present to an American audience an offshoot subgenre that was both new and showed a deep appreciation for hip hop’s beginnings. Maybe the cultural gatekeepers rejected breaks because it was almost entirely instrumental, and Americans, on the whole, seem to prefer stuff with vocals. But then again, the mostly instrumental genre of big beat, which is pretty adjacent to breaks, had a bit of an American moment, too, between the late 90s and early aughts. Most American music consumers, whether they know the names of the artists or not, have definitely heard music by The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, the Chemical Brothers, and The Wiseguys.🤷‍♂️

Either way, the breaks era was really cool. Artists were cutting and sampling different pieces from old funk and jazz records and then splicing the pieces together to make new tracks. One of the genre’s greatest practitioners was, and continues to be, Brighton’s DJ Format, who received positive UK press throughout the 2000s, and both toured with and opened for DJ Shadow and Jurassic 5, the latter for whom he drove their tour bus.

But DJ Format really didn’t gain much prominence or press attention until, like,  2002, even though he’d been around since the early 90s, first as part of a Brit-hop group called Suspekt, and then as a solo breaks artist. His solo debut record, English Lesson EP, would come in 1999 through the Bay Area label, Bomb Hip Hop, which had gained critical acclaim for its compilation series that celebrated the art of turntablism, Return of the DJ. As a follow-up, Bomb chose to then highlight breaks with a compilation called Revenge of the B-Boy, which would feature an exclusive track by DJ Format and a much lesser-known guy named King Aroe, who had been part of another Brit-hop crew from the early-to-mid-90s called First Down. Together, the pair made “Lords of Cardboard,” a title which stirs up idyllic visions of b-boys and b-girls breakdancing in broad daylight on sidewalks and in alleyways in an otherwise dilapidated South Bronx neighborhood.

It’s weird how it took a few years for Format to finally break out in the UK when he was making stuff like this for a US label back in ‘99. “Lords of Cardboard” is a series of dope, bass-and-percussion-heavy, 60s and 70s Afro-funk and jazz breakbeats strung together nicely, and features samples from the likes of Bobby Bryant’s “Earth Dance”, plus Miles Davis’ “Buzzard Song,” which provides the song’s dusty open. I mean, if you’re at a certain UK label in the 90s and you hear something like this, how on earth do you rationalize passing it up? What the fuck are you thinking?? Big beat, acid jazz, rare groove, trip hop, and the like have all proven popular in your country and something like this feeds from that same trough. Really, what’s not to dig here? Seems to me like the music would sell itself. Fatboy Slim and the Chemical Brothers are mixing shit like this into their DJ sets and you throw this on and it’s like a miniature DJ mix already at your feet. I don’t get it. Is it an oversaturated breaks market or something? At least Bomb Hip Hop had enough good sense to show DJ Format some respect. Good lord.

A fantastic breaks tune from the late 90s, featuring some of the earliest work from one of the genre’s greatest artists and his buddy, King Aroe. 

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Irritator challengeri

By José Carlos Cortés 

Etymology: The One That Irritated

First Described By: Martill et al., 1996

Classification: Dinosauromorpha, Dinosauriformes, Dracohors, Dinosauria, Saurischia, Eusaurischia, Theropoda, Neotheropoda, Averostra, Tetanurae, Orionides, Megalosauroidea, Megalosauria, Spinosauridae, Spinosaurinae

Status: Extinct

Time and Place: Between 110 and 108 million years ago, in the Albian of the Early Cretaceous 

Irritator is known from the Romualdo Member of the Santana Formation in Brazil 

Physical Description: Irritator was a Spinosaurid, so the weird crocodile-mimicking theropods that roamed the Cretaceous landscape across the Southern hemisphere (and some of Europe). Irritator, however, is not known from very much material, despite having loads written about it. It was one of the smaller members of the Spinosaur group, only about 7.5 meters long and not weigh more than one tonne - which may actually indicate it could have still had some sort of fluffy integument, though this still seems unlikely based on its ecology. As a Spinosaur, Irritator would have been fairly bulky, with a long and vaguely crocodilian skull. Its skull also featured a long thin crest going from the midline to the eye, where it flattened into a bulge - this was probably some sort of display structure. Little is known of the rest of its skeleton, but it is known to have had a long and well-clawed hand. It probably had some sort of sail on its back, but it probably was a shorter one, and whether or not its legs were a normal size is unknown. 

By Alexander Vieira, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Irritator is on the far right, in green) 

Diet: Irritator would have mainly fed upon fish and other aquatic organisms.

Behavior: Irritator, being a Spinosaur, spent most of its time in the water, swimming about and searching for food. Since it was rather small, it would have been able to fit in smaller streams of water than most of its other relatives. Though, since it probably still had fairly decent legs, it also would have spent a good amount of time on the land, surveying the shore for food and seeking out prey. Its long snout would then be used to grab fish and other animals from the water, using the lightweight instrument to grab food it might not be able to reach otherwise. While swimming, it would be able to use that snout to reach even more food than before, ducking its head underwater or doing the reverse to hide from land sources of prey. Its very powerful neck muscles would have also been extremely helpful in grabbing and holding onto thrashing prey. 

By Fred Wierum, CC BY 3.0 

Irritator was probably warm-blooded, and used its sail more for display than for keeping warm. This display structure may have been able to change color based on blood circulation or environment in order to send different messages to other members of the species. The crest on the center of the snout also probably served similar features, for displaying to one another. It seems likely that Irritator, like most other dinosaurs, took care of its young; but there is no evidence either way to support that hypothesis. 

By PaleoGeekSquared, CC BY 3.0 

Ecosystem: Irritator lived in the Romualdo Environment of Brazil, which was a basin of lakes surrounded by rivers and other wetland environments, filled to the brim with a wide variety of plantlife. Nearby was the burgeoning Atlantic Ocean, making this a Spinosaur’s favorite place of all. Here there were a wide variety of early flowering plants like magnolias, seagrasses, and lilies - all of which were associated heavily with this aquatic environment. There were many types of ray-finned fish, which would have been the primary source of prey for Irritator, as well as lobe-finned fish which would have also been decent sources of food. Sharks seem to have been rare. There were plenty of turtles too, including one of the earliest sea turtles Santanachelys. This was the land of extreme pterosaurs, including Anhanguera, Arirpesaurus, Barbosania, Brasileodactylus, Cearadacytlus, Maaradactylus, Santanadactylus, Tapejara, Thalassodromeus, Tropeognathus, Tupuxuara, and Unwindia. There was also a Notosuchian, Araripesuchus. There were other dinosaurs there too - the compsognathid Mirischia and the Tyrannosauroid Santanaraptor, which would have mainly fed on small animal prey. 

By Scott Reid

Other: Irritator was found as part of the illegal fossil trade, initially mistake for a pterosaur, then a maniraptoran, before being finally identified as a spinosaur. The confusion surrounding this fossil - and the fact that the snout had been artificially elongated by the fossil traders - lead to its name. Its position within the Spinosaurs is well supported, and it seems to have been at least somewhat closely related to Spinosaurus itself, rather than Baryonyx on the other end of the family tree.

~ By Meig Dickson

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[dibblesnibbles]

I have this really bad habit of starting on something and either never continuing it or never getting pass the outlining and coloring phases which ment it was never finishing and upload. So the following couple things are a few examples of my stupid little mistakes of where I completely stop working on it and forgetting about it...sorry if this post is formatted badly...I wrote this on my phone and it too late to go open my computer and fix it there

I started this lil comic in 2017 though sadly only page 1 of this comic was ever completely created. The other page where sketch out but they never got through the outlining and coloring phases which ment they were never posted. The comic itself isn’t being discontinued but it is instead being redone and rewritten as it’s original story was more like “go with the flow” type of story. This was also created during the time when majority of my ocs where either pichu’s or pikachus, though most of my ocs are still a mix of the two now there are more ocs that no longer are Pokemon like creature and are instead part of own created species/creatures.

The next two pictures are of my first comic Cursed Souls which was created in 2015 but was put on haitus and eventually was kinda discontinued(will explain in a bit) in 2017. Though unlike the WOS comic this one had at least 10 pages completed and posted. This comic was meant to be like a explanation to my ocs/fan oc and the world that they live. Though like the WOS story, this story was a “go with the flow” type of story too. Which ment that I made up the story as I finished the next page. Unsurprisingly that was a bad idea as I eventually lost the original plot of the story and lost insterest in it. I kept updating the last page I created with either “next page will be up soon”, “sorry but school has me busy so next page will be delayed”, or my favorite “the comic is currently in haitus but will be back eventually”. Of course all those phrase were mostly lies as I kept forgetting to work on the next page.... The first pic is page 1 and the second one is Page 10.

Remember how I said that CS was “kinda discontinued”? Well as of recently I had decided too continue that old comic but this time the story is being done differently too how it was originally done and now it has a completely different ending. Also art is now somewhat decent compared to how it was way back then. The name even switched to Broken Souls since I thought that it made more sense with how the new story’s plot is now. Though most of the characters are more or less the same there are a few new ones that have been added to the story to make the cast a little more diverse...

The picture below is the cover page to the prologue of the story...this is of course another thing that is different from the original story which had no such thing as a cover.

The final thing to this somewhat long post is not a comic but instead some project(was created in mid 2018, temporary put on hiatus at the end of 2018, and was restarted at the beginning of 2020) that I had been inspired to work on, though I won’t really say what it is as it’s still a secret that no one other than myself knows about it. So yeah I lied you won’t get a picture for this story but instead I can say that the story for this secret project has been completely altered from the original one and now has a completely new ending that is a bit complicated and convoluted with a little bit of a twist to spice things up.

I do want to say that when I made these things, I did it under the intention that no one would really look at them or would not have any interest in my stuff(exactly with how it is here on tumblr and twitter...I already had a bad history of tracing when I first started making...”art”...so I new from the start that I was making this for myself and only myself.

I did have some people watching my account though I was pretty sure that 90% of my watchers were either dead accounts or bots(the other 10% were the few friends that I somehow made)

Though knowing this, maybe that’s why I began to lose interest in making art as it be for no one in general(like it is now). Most of my friends that I made on DA are gone especially after the new update that site went through. Now a days I focus more on my school and video games than my own art, even started to question why I was still going to school...though now I’m to far into school too give up

Must stay neutral ya know and keep a decent grade so that I don’t lose my scholarships(the many few that I somehow have)

Really I completely don’t think I can function even remotely normal in this odd world if you want me to be completely honest. Though that isn’t something that you should know about me. Completely unnecessary information.

Jesus what the actual fuck

[vael]

2019 Annual Review

Each year, I look back at the previous year’s annual review and note that things didn’t go as planned. For some reason I am always surprised, but this time it’s a little painful, too. From 2018′s Annual Review:

“2019 outlook? Sunny! I hope it will be my best year yet.“

Oh, Vael. You built your house, you moved to the promised land. But your year did not go as planned. You are not even close to the zen you craved.

It has been a wild year. This will run long. All I can do is stick to the format and hope my memory and average writing skill will do the year justice. So, as usual, we start with the positive.

What went well this year?

We like our house. We do. The builder was no good, resulting in some warped walls and a lot of headache getting them to finish everything properly, but the layout is very suitable for us. My office is exactly what I needed, our TV room has just the right space for us. We finally have a respectable kitchen. Since I’m living and working in the house 24 hours a day, it’s important to have a comfortable space.

Game development. For the past five years, I’ve put in some serious work. A lot of it was within my game engine, GAM3, and tinydark’s gaming network, The Orbium. While I put in a lot of work, not much came in the way of actual games produced. I finally rallied in 2018 and put out Bean Grower. It was designed to be a supplemental game, not a main driver, so it will not bring in sustainable income. I went on to think that I should open GAM3 up to other developers, license the engine out and collect a share of what they make.

I resolved to refactor GAM3: a word which means to rewrite and modernize many parts of it so that it’s easier to work in, and for it to present better. I would come to realize this desire to share GAM3 was due to a lack of confidence in myself to produce something great, and financially sustainable. Around the time I was realizing that multiplayer was the answer, I discovered Marosia.

Then we moved, I took on contract work, and things generally slowed for me for a few months, eking out what development I could. I played Marosia throughout and in August, it died. I wrote a teardown for it. The stars had aligned: though I had a lot of prelim work to be done, I would make a successor to Marosia. I managed to hype a few people in the community with a demo of GAM3 and I spent the next few months coding a chat prototype and generally organizing myself, and finally mid-November began the refactoring. It would end there, but just this morning (seriously) we learned Marosia was coming back. I had a momentary freakout but it’s ultimately a good thing for my own game.

I haven’t been more excited for a project in a long time. I never thought I’d be so excited to create a standard fantasy world, but it’s a ton of fun, with intricacies I never considered. The game’s design lends itself to a sustainable monetization model: I’m thinking $3/mo for quality-of-life upgrades, with a discount for buying in bulk. I would have paid double for Marosia, so I think this is fair. (6 months of die2nite is currently priced at $69, 6 months of Hattrick is $90!) And most important of all, I can do it ethically, with a game that truly means something to people.

Web development. I’ve learned quite a bit this year! I am so grateful for svelte. I liked but never loved React.js. It always felt ponderous to me. I have no doubt The Orbium’s refactoring would have taken me half the time it did if I were learning svelte vs. React, simply because React is so much more convoluted than svelte, and all in the name of uglier syntax. Svelte seamlessly integrates style and functionality into UI components, which means that if I’m working with a button that clicks to open a modal, everything I need for that button is in that one file.

Due to my contract work (with Harley Davidson, I can reveal) I also got some experience with Symfony and other modern development practices in PHP. PHP doesn’t really excite me these days, loathing having to produce views with it, but it is at least comfy.

My job. “Yeah, yeah.” I got a raise, most of which was contributed to getting Eve and my son onto my badass healthcare plan. We’re developing like it’s 2012, which is frustrating and makes even simple tasks take forever, but I can’t complain about the pay nor the stability of the company and my position there. I also work mostly remotely.

What didn’t go so well?

2019 was dominated by the bad. Eve’s not putting out an Annual Review, but our pain is shared.

The move. 11 months after the contract was signed, our builder was finally ready to let us move in. The house was not finished, just livable. So we rushed out of Rhode Island. We packed my car with everything we could fit, even removing the spare tire, but we got almost all of it. Me, Eve, our son, and our two cats.

At around 7:30 PM, we were driving on a dark highway when we were struck by a muffler that had fallen out from the truck in front of us. It destroyed the front-end, spilling radiator fluid onto the road. I had no idea what was going on, but it so happened that a mechanic had broken down right near us and was able to help. The engine barely carried us to the nearest motel, and I was in shock. I carried all our stuff to our second-floor room, it was even lightly raining. And I was defeated. Eve reports she had never seen me so bad. I had no idea how long we’d be in this ghetto-ass motel, what it would cost us during this time of great financial need, and mostly: I was just miserable. We could have died. If it had hit one of our tires, we could have spun out at 70+ MPH. All I wanted to do was get to our house the next day, and here we were.

I won’t detail the rest here, but I do want to thank my friends for their support and appreciate the good fortune that we got through this time.

We got to the house at 11PM on a Sunday; I still appreciate our builder taking the time to show us around so late. And... it was not at all what we were expecting. We had no driveway, and it had rained. We were tracking in some mud but that didn’t even matter because the entire house had to be cleaned. There was dirt all over the floors, they’d forgotten I didn’t want a chandelier over the dining room table, and the feeling was that we’d gone through Hell (and austure financial practices) to get here and this was it. So much wasn’t done. We knew that, but we didn’t think we’d be sweeping and wetting the floor with paper towel just to have a place to put our stuff. Shoutout to my friend Cody for setting us up with a supply drop.

We spent a lot of time buying furniture, aided by our rental SUV, all the while worrying about our newly purchased things sitting around the house without our protection as workers came in and out. I had to go back to Virginia to pick up the car and through exhaustion, caffeine, stupidity, and anxiety, managed to go 88 MPH and get myself a ticket: a misdemeanor, even. I spent the entire day picking up that damn car (5 hours up and down) and returned home in the worse state I’d ever felt. I was emotionally, mentally, and physically depleted.

But there was no stopping for me: I took on contract work and I had to get it done just to stay afloat. And then we got a fucking dog.

The dog. At some point in 2018 we determined that our son could use a companion and that a dog really completes the family. Leading up to the move, we put a down payment on a rough collie: the “Lassie” breed. They usually run around $800 and we got her for $500. I was a fan of the breed and Eve had done research that proves it’s a great breed. (it is) Even after the accident, we thought we should pay the rest for her and bring some joy into our life.

We named her Esme, and getting a dog was definitely one of the worst macro decisions I’ve made for the family yet. I couldn’t last more than a month with her. It was my decision to get rid of her, which made my wife and son sad but we were getting so little out of the experience. The cats beat her up, she was afraid of everything, and all she wanted to do was run around but we kept her cooped up in the house because we had no fence. I hated that there was still a dog smell, and I hated that it farted during Game of Thrones. It was over when we went grocery shopping and came back to a poop-filled crate, which the circumstances of the night dictated I must clean.

Young Living. Eve was supposed to sell essential oils for some side money. We knew it wasn’t going to be big money, unless she got lucky or turned out to be a natural-born saleswoman, but it was something to do and we believe in the products. I really trust in Young Living and I personally have seen the benefits of their oils and products.

So she went to the YL convention in Utah to learn to sell and, hey, have some fun. She returned feeling even less confident: they’d changed some numbers, and the truth that we always knew was that the market’s highly saturated. There are memes trivializing the effects of oils and there’s no denying the company’s an MLM. A lot of the big earners made their sales early on. Coinciding with the bad feels of Autumn, we decided to put the oil dream aside and focus on mental and physical health.

Eve mental/physical health. The muffler changed a lot for us. It morphed what should have been a very happy time in our lives into a very stressful one. Eve felt fatigued and broken down, and I wasn’t much better off. One day before her planned back-to-action, pick ourselves up and get ready to enjoy Summer, she sprained and tore a ligament in her ankle while coming down the stairs. We hoped it was just a sprain and did everything we could to avoid going to the doctor, but a week later she hadn’t gotten better and so began the PT and bullshit regimen. Our plans of hiking the blue ridge mountains were crushed.

But she recovered, and I shit you not, the very day before she planned to return to action, it was Father’s Day. She was making me my special breakfast and was using a hand-blender to blend pumpkin french toast mix when she went to clean some gunk out of the blender with her finger. It was a split-second decision to help make breakfast faster. Her finger twitched, caught the irresponsibly sensitive power button and tore her finger up. Immediately took her to Urgent Care and then the Emergency Room. $3,000 and some luck later, she kept her finger, but has permanently lost some feeling in it.

That was a bad time for us. I was overworked, she was miserable, and yet she still managed to get to Utah to learn how to sell. To salvage our year. In Autumn, all the anxiety, stress, and the damage from her upbringing finally culminated and she broke. 

Her physical health tanked in tandem with her mental. She suffered frequent menstrual issues and her EDS (a joint disorder) flaring up. It is hard to detail all the pain and frustration, and it really is beyond the scope of what needs to be said. My wife is depressed, prone to feeling overwhelmed, and I’m happy to say that we are getting her professional help soon.

What’s remarkable is that I can’t recall a period of time that she didn’t try her best to recover. Every month, most weeks, she would constantly express that the next day or month was her time. She’s done it for this month and 2020 as well. And I don’t think she’s lazy or unmotivated. She is just defeated and I am a poor comforter. Honestly, I am just shit at helping people if the solution isn’t “well just force yourself to do the thing.” That’s how I get through my problems and it doesn’t work for everyone, not even always myself. Still she is strong. I think writing this out has helped me remember that.

Relationship with my son. I had hoped my increased efficiency and happiness would improve our relationship. I planned for more structure: things like “once we’re upstairs for bedtime rituals, no going back down.” Each night I make a point to spend a minimum of 30 focused minutes with him. But I have only succeeded in making our relationship worse. I don’t think he needs professional help, but there is something within him, from when he was three years old, that just prevents him from being a hard worker. Respect is important to me and I don’t respect him. He is a frustrated child, often not understanding the world, often forgetting things he was supposed to do. I’m not doing a good job of helping.

I think I could have done better, but there were simply too many fronts to fight.

Mental performance. I haven’t gotten any better from last year. I am still not as sharp as 2017-Vael. It is a matter of stress and lifestyle.

What did I learn?

How to be a homeowner! Generally how to manage a home. I got my tools, all cute with my little leaf blower.

SLOWWWW DOWWWWN. The outside of the house needs some work. We need to extend our driveway, clear an acre, and put up a fence. I could take a loan out to do this and be fine, but I could also just slow down. Take a deep breath. Enjoy what we have for the Summer. It sucks I won’t be able to use that acre for farming, but I think I have a good place to plant a single apple tree this year. And hey, less mowing.

A shit ton of web development.

Probably became more cynical. But I think The Good Place has helped remind me to be a good person.

To just accept Eve needs help. And that I really suck at helping her.

Future Outlook

All that bad stuff that happened? Pfft. Shitty year. 2020′s here, it’s a brand new decade. I’ve got a cool game I want to make, we’re gonna get Eve some help, and...

Get pregnant! Yeah! Right now we definitely aren’t ready for kids. We need to use our new health insurance to make a bunch of appointments, recover  financially, mentally, physically. But we very badly want more children. I feel it all the time. I have begun to suspect that genetics do matter, and I wonder if Abel’s laziness mirrors his biological father’s laziness. My dad loved to work and I do too. It might be possible to pass these traits on.

Better office. I need to get some furniture and improve my work environment.

Vacation! We desperately need a vacation. We’re going to Disney this year, either May or June.

Zen Vael. I will attempt to be “the person I want to be” as detailed last year. My soft goal for this is March 15th, as I set last year. I will undoubtedly fail that date. There is no way I’m wrangling my sleep and attitude in the next two months, but surely by the end of the year?

Thanks for reading.

Vael

[eurosong]

2018 vs 2019: Semi-final 1

Hey there, folks! Every year after the national final season is over, one of the first things I write about Eurovision is a comparison of the new year’s songs with those of the previous year. Often it gets folk unfollowing the blog even though it’s almost entirely posts about ESC statistics and only a relatively small amount on rating the songs here. These are just my thoughts and no offence intended to anyone who thinks otherwise. Without further ado, click below to take a look at my thoughts on semi-final one!

◯ Australia – 2019 – Last year, Oz sent “We got love” (or “We got l’œuf” as I renamed it), which was a dizzying collection of clichés, got a mediocre placement and might well have been the impetus for them finally biting the bullet and getting the punters involved in the thitherto long mooted national final. This decision might not benefit their chances of keeping up their qualification record in the long run – but it means, for once, that Australia can move outside a narrow box musically and send things that would never be picked by internal selectors. “Zero gravity” was a less astute choice than “2000 & Whatever” would have been, I feel – it sounds to be like something that people think is so Eurovision who haven’t seen it in some time. Nonetheless, homegirl has pipes, the tune is quite catchy and it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than last year’s song.

◯ Belarus – 2018 – whilst I’ll be talking about 2018 vs 2019, I have to take a quick detour almost right away to 2017. It was the first time that Belarus managed to sustain my interest and get into my personal top 10 since their début, and they did so by going authentic and finally showing some love for their national language on the ESC stage. One year later, and I certainly wasn’t enthused by a carpetbagging victory of a non-local singing a rather ordinary song in English or some approximation thereof.

And yet, “Forever” and its earnest performer grew on me, especially the strange dissonance between the hopeful lyrics and the very melancholy music. After a similar number of repeated listens, “Like it” has not sparked even the briefest flame. Musically, this starts off with an inoffensive if very 2005 Spanish guitar riff, arrives at a decent-ish bridge and then throws itself off it head first into an absolutely dreadful thumping, repetitive chorus which is reprised way too much in the rest of the song. Lyrically, they put about as much effort into the words as they did into the “screensaver with default font” they were using as a background as Zena performed. She repeats “yes, you’re gunna like it” 40 times in the space of 3 minutes – one every 4.5 seconds. Maybe she’s trying to psychologically condition us, but no, Zena, I ent gunna like it at all. In a delicious bit of irony, it’s also at time of writing the least “liked” ESC ’19 song on Youtube. Strong preference to 2018.

◯ Belgium – 2019 – It can be difficult for a country to come back after a peak moment for them with something equally good that also manages to win over the fans and juries. We’ve seen it in Latvia after “Love injected”, in Estonia after “Goodbye to yesterday” and I think we’re seeing it once again with Belgium after “City lights”. Neither this year’s song nor last’s comes anywhere near the anthemic, emotional power of Blanche’s song. Both are nice enough, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Eliot struggled much as Sennek did last year. I give it a slight preference, but both songs are really let down, I feel, by choruses that don’t pay off the drama built in the verses.

◯ Cyprus – Neither – I try to limit myself to as few “neither” choices as possible in these games because the fun is in having to choose, sometimes, between two difficult options. Nonetheless, I abhorred “Fuego” in every conceivable way and this aptly-named “replay” offers little different to those who weren’t fans of it. If I had to pick, I’d go with 2018, because at least it doesn’t have the sadness of attempting to catch lightning twice in the same jar attached to it.

◯ Czechia – 2019 – Two years, two rather uncomfortable entries from the Czechs in a row. Last year, we had a predatory “Blurred lines” light, while this year, whilst less lyrically degrading, still has weird lines about eavesdropping on people having sex through the walls(?)… but it’s enough to secure a slight preference.

◯ Estonia – 2018 – It seems like such a long time has passed since the days when I consistently found Eesti Beesti, since those days when Eesti Laul seemed experimental and had a decent number of songs in their native language. I’m no fan of popera, but at least Elina was a local talent. It’s bewildering when a country with so many great artists can’t find someone with any real association with it to sing for them. Though both are ultimately derivative, I prefer La forza to what is essentially an aviici b-side.

◯ Finland– 2018 – I have a pet peeve for national finals where you are presented with a single choice of artist. Unless said artist is very versatile (say, Frances Ruffelle, who took on dark pop, ballads and gospel-tinged anthems in her solo national final back in 1994), you are restricted to a narrow set of genres. If you don’t like that artist or their style, then you’re shit out of luck. That’s been the case for the last few years with Saara Aalto and now Darude. I didn’t really like ány of either’s songs and miss the days of a diverse choice in UMK. I pick Saara because her throwback was slightly more tolerable.

◯ Georgia– 2018 – Fair play to Georgia, who always dance to the beat of their very own peculiar drummer. You’d think that the shift to the X Factor format to pick their representative, combined with the cold reception for their “ethno-jazz” last year, would have led to them playing it safe to try to avoid three DNQs in a row. Instead they’ve gone for something downbeat, angry and almost oppressive in its ambiance, i.e. something even less accessible to the general viewer than last year. This feels like the rock song equivalent to a war crimes tribunal. I preferred last year’s effort, which was rather more uplifting, and which I felt was unfairly underrated for a genuinely well-composed piece of music steeped in tradition.

◯ Greece – 2019 – A number of people around me were raving for Oneiro mou last year. I wasn’t one of them and suspected it would fail to qualify from the get-go. Instead of ��Greece returning to form”, it felt like them attempting to do so but ending up with a nationalistic pastiche instead. This year, they’ve taken their usual mould and smashed it with a hammer, going in a very different direction with a delightfully husky-voiced singer and a musically anthemic piece that manages to compensate, for me, the song’s lyrical shortcomings. I enjoy it a fair bit more.

◯ Hungary – 2018 – This is one of the hardest ones of this semi final to choose, as “Viszlát nyar” and “Az én apam” are chalk and cheese, but both highly qualitative and with meaningful lyrics. Joci’s other ESC song, Origo, beat Viszlát nyar for me, but his 2019 effort doesn’t have quite the same visceral punch to it, so I think I’m going to have to give the edge to AWS this time around.

◯ Iceland – 2019 – Another country giving us night and day, but this time, I like neither of the two choices. Last year certainly put the “cheese” in the old “chalk and cheese” saying, an unbelievably overwrought and soppy Christmas charity-esque tune that somehow ended up at ESC. This year, it’s something rather acerbic, dingy, grating and ultimately gimmicky. In these times, “hate will prevail” is the last message we need. I will take it over Ari any day though, as that was just squirmworthy.

◯ Montenegro  – 2018 – It seemed that, last year, Montenegro was back to doing what it has always done best – a haunting, beautiful Balkan ballad after a few bizarre years of experiments gone wrong. Unfortunately, Inje got slept on despite its quality and couldn’t bring about an end to CG’s DNQ streak. There were many candidates in this year’s Montevizija that could have gone one better and done just that – but instead, bewilderingly, we got this unspeakable jumble which sounds like it was a rejected b-side for a mediocre mid-90s boy band, but with the addition of Random Casio Noises® in the background. Comparing Inje to it is likening fine wine to a bottle of Panda Cola that has been left with the cap off in the sun for 2 weeks.

◯ Poland – 2019 – Last year, Poland sent a middle-aged man in a hat doing a cringey snake dance whilst a young, inexplicably Swedish guy sort of sang and the whole thing sounded like the soundtrack for a Coke advert gone wrong. This year, they’ve got some women swaying like maniacs in a forest where they probably buried their patriarch. Not much of a step up in theory, but a big step up nonetheless…

◯ Portugal– 2019 – Portugal is a country that could have peaked with their first win, or fallen into a niche in a sad attempt (*cough* Cyprus *cough*) to recapture that glory. Instead, they are challenging all the tropes and have a national final with some serious diversity. I loved “O jardim” and it deserved way better, but this year’s song, “Telemóveis”, exceeds even that. It’s a haunting but catchy as hell rumination on mortality, technology and saudade with a musical backdrop whose influences transcend continents. If it’s not in the running to win the whole thing, I will be disappointed.

◯ San Marino – 2018 – I cannot get my head around the enthusiasm for “Say na na na”, which seems to have been contracted not only by postmodern pisstakers but by many folk who genuinely like it. It makes me cringe 10x more than Jenny B’s not quite sick rap skills last year, and that’s saying something. Plus, they had robots.

◯ Serbia – 2019 – They seemed like really nice people, but I found last year’s Serbian entry itself to be a bit of a minestrone into which a dozen elements of other songs were chucked in, and thus was lacking a bit in coherence. “Kruna”, on the other hand, is perfectly-formed, poignant, beautifully orchestrated and one of the best Balkan ballads in the past few years.

◯ Slovenia – 2018 – Fair play to Slovenia for picking themselves up and dusting themselves off after a few rough years. Hvala ne was backed by almost no one to qualify but I had faith in it early on and Lea benefited from being able to make a real connection with the crowds. Sebi is a very different beast entirely. Whilst Hvala ne had a defiance and a frenetic energy, Sebi is contemplative and melancholy. Both have great lyrics, too. I am going with Slovenia at the minute as it’s stood the test of time, but really the better of the two songs is really a question of mood.

And the automatic qualifiers of this semi-final:

◯ France – 2018 – It’s a battle between two songs written by the same writers, and since I loved their 2018 work, their follow-up should have a chance of making this a closely-run thing. Shóúld. Instead, they went from writing an understated song about humanity to writing an overbearingly pompous and self-important song about ego. This is the worst French song to me since 1988.

◯ Israel – 2018 – I wonder if Israel’s broadcasters remember how their predecessor, the IBU, won on home soil in 1979. I have the feeling they might well do, and as a result ensured it wouldn’t happen again with this song. There are elements of the song I really like, but it’s let down for me by a snivelly, exaggerated voice and a rather self-indulgent chorus. I was no great fan of “Toy”, but can listen to it with more pleasure than this.

◯ Spain – 2018 – I remember when “Tu canción" came out and I was completely in love with it. The unfortunate thing about songs sung by starry-eyed young loves is that their relationships often end up star-crossed. Now, Almaia is no more, and the song has a hugely bitter aftertaste. Nonetheless, I prefer it to La venda, which is a rather empty song lyrically but which I still found the best of a bad lot in the Spanish national final.

Coming up in the next instalment, my thoughts on SF2’s songs and how they shape up to those from last year!

[squillynerdsout]

Spider-Man: Life Story’s first two issues (SPOILERS)

I want to talk more about #2 since it just came out and I have a lot more to say about it, but to fully understand my problems with the new one, I need to talk a little about #1 first.

Issue #1: The ‘60s

This was a very promising start for a new “what if” type of story, essentially asking the question “What if Peter Parker had aged normally since that first story nearly 60 years ago?” The first issue wasn’t too thrilling, but I knew this would be kind of story where the concept becomes more realized as it goes on. The first issue takes place throughout the late 1960′s, so we get a pretty standard college aged Spider-Man story where he fights the Green Goblin, and a subplot about the Vietnam War. The Vietnam aspect was pretty interesting, especially with Captain America, who could have easily been a brainless government drone (think Superman in The Dark Knight Returns) trying to convince Peter to join the war effort, but he actually has a thought-provoking conversation with Peter about whether they have a responsibility to fight in the war because of their powers. While Peter ultimately decides to stay out of it, Cap reluctantly joins, and we see in the final page that he’s gone rogue, leaving the story on a cliffhanger, as it doesn’t really explain what he’s done to make him seem like a traitor to the Americans.

Issue #2: The ‘70s

The second part jumps forward into the mid 1970′s, and opens with Peter guilt tripping himself over the death of Flash Thompson (who was shipped off to ‘Nam toward the end of the last issue) because he regrets not joining the war with him, and he thinks he could have prevented Flash’s death had he been there. A little later, he has a very similar moral debate to the one from the first issue with Reed Richards about the obligation of superheroes to enlist, but it’s not quite as interesting and just covers a lot of the same ground without being as heartfelt as Steve was. Speaking of Steve, that cliffhanger had me excited to see what happened next, only to be shown nothing about what he’s been up to in Vietnam. We get a throwaway line from Reed about Cap saving people on both sides, but I was really hoping to see something from his perspective in the war. I know it’s a Spider-Man story, but the first issue ends with us seeing Cap in Vietnam, completely separated from Peter’s POV.

But then, things get messy. First of all, and this is a pretty small complaint, I get giving Norman and Harry Osborn the waves in the first issue because it was how they were drawn then. But it just looks stupid and I wish they’d changed it for this one. So basically, wave check Norman tells wave check Harry about the Green Goblin, then tells him he has “one more secret”, but he must have told him two secrets, because by the introduction of Black Goblin, Harry knows Peter is Spider-Man (MJ was revealed to know earlier, but we don’t really see anything indicating that she told him) and that Doctor Warren has been working on... 

WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THIS?????? They literally Ben Reilly’d Gwen Stacy, making the one Peter has been living with a clone for an unknown amount of time while Dr. Warren presumably gets weird with the original (oh and original Gwen suddenly dies in a big explosion before we know she’s not the clone, which really weakens the moment). I guess it’s meant as a shocking reveal, but it’s just a confusing decision that appears to be made as an homage to the most infamous Spider-Man story ever told. I’m sure it was just done to get Gwen out of the way so Peter and MJ can get together, but it was just a weird mixture of The Death of Gwen Stacy and The Clone Saga in a way that doesn’t feel organic at all. Also, MJ and Peter are really spiteful toward each other in an earlier scene, so it’s weird to see them so quickly make amends right at the end.

The Problem With Life Story

It needs to be bigger than a 6 issue miniseries. I’m not asking it to go full Clone Saga and expand what was initially a pretty short story over multiple years, but I think having two issues for each decade (or at least a larger page count) would really do it justice. With the current format, it’s really limiting itself by trying to tell a decade of Peter’s life in 30 pages. It leads to a lot of off-page character developments, relationships, and even deaths that make me go “wait, what?” and pull me out of the story.

Besides that, Spider-Man has aged to this point (his 30s) in regular continuity. This series might have to reach the ‘90s (at least) before Spidey’s aging can really be used to provide an interesting new angle to the character. Telling a “What if he got old” story doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary if he doesn’t get old for at least half of it. That’s why Batman Beyond doesn’t spend the first half of the show telling you how Bruce changed with age across his entire lifetime (I’m not counting Batman: The Animated Series or any other part of the DCAU story because it wasn’t planned from the start to be a setup for Terry McGinnis to become the next Batman, plus there’s still a decades long time gap between the last episode of Justice League Unlimited and Batman Beyond’s first episode). They leap forward in time to Bruce’s later years, and while they have a ton of off screen character changes too, they work there because the story isn’t dedicated to a slow burning story about the entire lifespan of Bruce Wayne.  We’ve been seeing the younger years of most superheroes all our lives, that’s what makes those “Old Man” stories intriguing.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man: Life Story also gives plenty of off-screen character development like Batman Beyond, but it doesn’t work because this series is supposed to be showing us what happens to everyone and how, not just “they already did x in while we told a different story and that led them to doing y now, which greatly affects our story”. It feels less like the story of Peter’s life and more like a highlight reel. It’s neat, but it lacks the context and buildup to make big events feel important.

I think I’ll keep picking up this series just for the hope of it getting better, but I can’t recommend it in its current state. Maybe once the trade paperback releases and you can actually read the whole thing together it’ll feel less annoying than waiting 3 months for the premise to actually go anywhere.

[pass-the-bechdel]

Teen Wolf season six (part 1) full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

90% (nine of ten).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

42.52%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Six, just over half.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

None.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Seventeen. Nine who appear in more than one episode, six who appear in at least half the episodes, and two who appear in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty. Thirteen who appear in more than one episode, nine who appear in at least half the episodes, and one who appears in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Standard for this show, i.e. decidedly higher quality than most of what’s on tv, with dynamic variety in powerful female characters, emotionally mature and expressive male characters, and a loving, up-front embrace of queer sexuality. Nothing stands out as especially wonderful about it all this season, but it’s an average mark against which other shows regularly pale (average rating of 3).

General Season Quality:

Fantastic! Easily their most intellectually heady concept thus far in the series, and they do some wonderful crazy things with it. 

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Their best male:female ratio yet!  The majority of episodes at/around gender balanced, zero of them wildly male-dominated! Almost a complete Bechdel pass, which isn’t much of a thing to crow about, but at least they tended to pass significantly with the passes they had, rather than a roster of single-line-single-pass episodes. And they didn’t score a raised content rating out of the bunch, but content ratings are variable based on series standards, to an extent: if the representation in this season were mirrored in, say, a Stargate season, I’d be gushing about what a fantastic turn of events that was. I have sometimes wondered if I was too generous with Teen Wolf’s scores in the past, but compared to pretty much everything else I’ve reviewed? Nah, it’s deservedly up the top of the heap. It has set a lovely high standard for itself, and failing to outstrip that standard still leaves it above and beyond most every other standard around, so. It’s a very good problem to have. It’s the right kind of problem.

That happy ratio is owed in part to the challenge which informed the entire season: how to keep the show alive without Dylan O’Brien as a regular? This isn’t the first show I’ve reviewed that has juggled the loss or limited availability of a primary actor, but it is easily the one that has done so with the greatest success. The X Files strangled itself in its original run by pretending that Mulder was still the centre of its universe even in his absence, refusing to commit to plot advancement with its new characters and format. The Librarians has made explaining away Flynn’s latest departure into the tool that shapes each season’s arc, and it’s wearing very thin (and has at this point possibly contributed to the show’s cancellation). Stargate SG1 made more structurally sound decisions with the dilemma that initially worked, but they turned into awkward as Hell character moves later down the track (and I will be SALTY FOREVERRR!!!). Teen Wolf wisely did not introduce a new replacement character to misuse and be uncomfortable with and ditch as soon as possible, and while it does make Stiles’ absence a centrepiece and driving force of the season, it does so without allowing that to choke off personal narratives or other plot threads for the characters who remain. The characters all continue to function, and we see the empty space that Stiles has left in their lives and how that affects them, but there’s no implication that they or the show cannot function without him, and that’s a compliment to Stiles, not an insult. It’s not that he’s the glue that holds the whole thing together, but he is irreplaceable, in the cast and in the lives of his friends, and this season is a celebration of him at the same time as being a soft introduction to the way that the show can keep moving forward without him in the future. The question everyone would have been asking before this season was ‘can Teen Wolf still work successfully without its secondary character, fan-favourite, and arguably best actor?’, and obviously I think they answered that with a resounding but respectful ‘YES’.

The absence of Stiles also allows a decisively larger space for the rest of the characters to move in, since he was never a character to be shuttled off and underused of a season - to the extent that he has been the centrepiece of another past season already. I do wish that Lydia stepping up to fill that space was less anchored around her blossoming romance with Stiles, and not only because - as established in the individual episode posts - I feel like they tried too hard and overplayed the OTP card, and I didn’t really buy that the bond was as profound as they wanted us to believe. Regardless of where you stand on the relationship itself, the reality was that Lydia had an awful lot of screen time that was not about her, and obviously this blog is not here for female characters having their personal stories co-opted by dudes. Arguably, the same fate would have befallen any character who was used as the primary conduit for the Stiles side of the storyline, but I’d argue back that if it had been Scott, as the lead character on the show he would be able to balance that weight (plus his established long-term relationship with Stiles would make it easier since it’s already part of the backbone of the series, whereas the official blossoming of a relationship with Lydia and Stiles is a new development being added on top of all the pre-existing emotions at play). The Sheriff, likewise, could take the weight of Stiles’ absentee narrative without having his character drowned out by it, because Stiles is his son and he has always played a supporting role for Stiles, for that obvious reason. The loss of Stiles is successfully used as a lens through which to further explore the Sheriff as an individual here, and it’s one of the best parts of the story. Lydia, on the other hand, as her own character who does not exist within the narrative because of her relationship with anyone else, was swamped by the Stiles arc and allowed no real exploration of her own; the closest she got to her own stuff was the prospect of being the sole survivor of Beacon Hills, and that was a nonstarter. As such, while I mostly applaud the way Stiles’ absence was handled, I cannot ultimately condone what it did to Lydia, and I can’t help but wonder how that dominance of her arc could have been softened and improved by removing the forced romantic angle. I’m reminded of how they fumbled the introduction of Malia around getting her with Stiles, and the awkward attempt to set Stiles up with Cora Hale before that, and the messy Stiles/Erica dynamic before that. I think this show just didn’t know how to give Stiles a love interest in an organic story manner, and the unfortunate side effect each time has been the detriment of the female characters who are assigned to him, which makes Stiles’ love life one of the least lovely representational aspects of this entire series. Eek.

The good news is, my gripe with the way they handled Lydia is my only serious beef with an otherwise stellar season; it had other imperfections, certainly, and I wouldn’t call it their best, though it had moments when it looked that way. I coulda done without Theo, to be honest, and I’m not sure he added anything necessary to the season. Malia was kinda under-played, though I don’t mind too much because she was still a strong presence, her personal plot stuff was subtle and that’s not a bad thing. Hayden was more underplayed, and that’s less ok because she’s newer and not as clear a character as Malia, plus I feel like Theo in the last couple of episodes could have been traded out for Hayden and it wouldn’t mess up anything (valuable story time taken up by Theo scenes in general is something worth frowning about). They didn’t really explain why Douglas could control Parrish, which left our poor Dreamboat as a pawn for most of the season for no apparent reason beyond it being narratively convenient. Also they had some weirdly-spent time in the late-mid episodes of the season (starting from the same episode Theo returned...) that could have been better paced and structured to make the finale even stronger. I could sit here and complain and nitpick, but these are ultimately fairly minor quibbles (many of which can be narrowed down to one central culprit: Theo) that prevent this from being a series-best season in my eyes, though it’s still up there as a top contender and when the season was on point, it looked unstoppable. They still successfully turned in some excellent television despite the loss of one of the show’s best assets, and they still told a story about metaphysical existence that was coherent and consistent and never talked down to its audience, and that’s really something to be happy about. They still gave us a Nazi Alpha werewolf in a subplot that was as outrageous as it was restrained, plus they made good use of Corey, whose presence I was not sure would work out in the long run for the show. I will always be available to rail against unnecessary romances and unnecessary Theos, but that doesn’t change the fact that this show remains a delight and a blessing, not only in terms of the positive representation it offers this blog but also for the wild, bombastic, unashamed imagination it offers us all.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

OK, I'LL TELL YOU YOU ABOUT EQUITY

Languages Matter So suppose Lisp does represent a kind of servant, whom the employer has a duty to protect. If you're a wizard at fundraising, but I have to choose? They would seem to her not merely frightening, but disgusting.1 Great cities attract ambitious people. But I think the big obstacle preventing us from seeing the future of web startups. Thought experiment: If doctors did the same thing, you're probably not doing anything new, and dignity is merely a complicated but pointless collection of stuff to be memorized. Other times nothing seems interesting. When you get a new crop of 18 year olds who think they know how to run the companies they fund. The owner wanted the student to pay for what they made like air shipped through tubes on a moon base. In Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work. What programmers in a hundred years. There was no protection against breakage except the fear of having to seem smooth and confident and respected by the VCs more like a fluid than individual objects.2

You see this less with Windows, because hackers would already be doing it.3 It's not that you don't learn anything from philosophy papers; I didn't use expert systems myself.4 Investors will try to seem more corporate, corporations will try to prevent others from having time to decide by giving you an exploding offer, meaning one that's only valid for a few key phrases and the names of different rounds.5 Every one responded that they'd prefer the guy who'd tried to start a startup with a couple; they meet a few at conferences; a couple VCs call them after reading about them. It's an unusual thing to do is talk in this artificial way, and eventually people will start to get sued much by established competitors. But people are not those who have it are not readily hireable. But vice versa as well.6 Prestige is the opinion of other investors to make them take off. He had equity.7 But the Collison brothers weren't going to wait. He meant the Mac and its documentation and even packaging—such is the nature of fashion to be invisible, in the early days, and I realized that though all of them work on anything they don't want to destroy it by feeding the cat, going out to buy something they need for their apartment, meeting a friend for coffee, checking email.

A startup with a friend. It's hard to tell what's expensive. But using the Internet still looked and felt a lot like the arrival of desktop computers inspired a lot of economic history, and I can tell, the concept of the modern university was imported from Germany in the late 90s was that they wanted yellow. Most people should still be climbing with data sets that small.8 If you can't already do it, you should ask what else they've signed.9 But the same alarms don't go off on the days when startups were more expensive. Different terms for different investors is clearly the way of Irish and Luxembourgish: they'll be saying but what about the professors who taught math could be required to write scholarly articles about history, but what growth rate successful startups tend to be short.10 But Clark did, and it would be more interested in an essay. So if you discard taste, you can tell investor A that this is the route to success is to be mistaken. Sheep act the way they treat the music they sell through iTunes.11 But until the 1980s being underpaid early in your career was part of, Hostex itself would be recognized as a spam term.12

But in a competitive market, even a differential of two or three of you, and then try to pry apart the cracks and see what's consuming all the CPU. And companies offering Web-based software. One founder was surprised by how much better you can do while you're still in school is not real work; grownup work is not a pyramid, but tapers at the bottom. They can teach students about startups, but philosophically they're at the mercy of circumstances in the past, when more things were physical. VCs feel about it. Great hackers tend to be unhappy in middle school and high school. Everyone in the school knew exactly how popular everyone else was, including us. Getting money is almost a negligible factor. Notice we started out talking about things, and new ideas are increasingly valuable. The page was of course an ad for a porn site.

Angels are better at seeing the future than the best investors as partners. One implication of this theory is that parties shouldn't be too quick to reject candidates with skeletons in their closets.13 Consciously or not, we started out doing ___. We funded Viaweb entirely with angel money.14 If your program would be three times as long to write—and the rest of the race slowing down. For boys, at least now, the big companies in the first half of the stock market. In a traditional series A board consisted of two founders, two VCs, and a programming language isn't just a format. You should therefore never approach such investors first. But that's not all talks are good for. One of the things you sell.15

Most companies in a position to grow rapidly and will cost more to acquire later, or not, investors do it if you can. The difficulty of firing people is a particular problem for startups because they don't want to print vague stuff like fairly big. And when you look at how taboos are created. I sometimes suggest they try to get customers to pay them for something, technology will make it big. The point is, you have to like debugging to like programming, but they don't get blamed for it.16 Html. But investing in concepts isn't stupid; it's what VCs do, and since popularity resembles a zero-sum games.

This is what approaches like Brightmail's will degenerate into once spammers are pushed into using mad-lib techniques to generate everything else in the message.17 The philosophers whose works they cover would be rolling in their graves at that. Tell them that valuation is not the only way to find users to recruit manually—is probably a losing bet for a group of three programmers whose startup had been acquired by a big company, this may not be as big as Ebay. If you were going to do and where the leading center for it is, it is scanned into tokens, and everything they own will fit in one car—or more precisely, while she likes getting attention in the sense that I always want to know what the status quo is to take yourself out of the default grind and go live somewhere where opportunities are fewer in the conventional sense, but life feels more authentic.18 In that respect it's a black hole. One reason, obviously, is to work for a company they have qualms about. My usual trick is to ignore what your body is telling you.19 We did get a few of the most important quality is in a startup, as in most competitive sports, the task at hand almost does this for you: the probability is.20 Trying To understand what rejection means, you have to do licensing deals, or hiring, or organization. 83,000 people worked there.

Notes

I'm not saying that the missing 11% were probably also intelligence.

The reason we quote statistics about the Airbnbs during YC. I did manage to think of ourselves as investors, but the nature of an official authority makes all the worse if you're not allowed to ask permission to go to work like casual conversation. But the most important section.

IBM 704 CPU was about bands. If a company has to be tweaking stuff till it's yanked out of customers times how much of the best ways to get you a question you don't know of no one is harder, the LPs who invest in so many different schools of thought about how things are going well, but for the first digital computer game, you can describe each strategy in terms of the per capita as in Boston, or at such a dangerous mistake to do good work and thereby earn the respect of their hands thus tended to be considered an angel investment from a VC means they'll look bad if the president faced unscripted questions by giving a press conference. According to Zagat's there are few who can say they're not.

01.

But that is exactly my point. A professor at a public company not to grow as big.

What they forget is that they probably wouldn't even cover the extra cost. But it's unlikely anyone will ever hear her speak candidly about the qualities of these people make the people they want to keep them from leaving to start startups, so it may seem to have to do better.

If you want to start some vaguely benevolent business. For example, the less educated ones usually reply with some axe the audience at an ever increasing rate. The other reason it might help to be sharply differentiated. Or worse still, has one booked for them.

People tell the craziest lies about me.

They're still deciding, which merchants used to build little Web appliances. They live in a way to answer, and one VC. At the time 1992 the entire period since the mid twentieth century, art as stuff. You can't be hacked, measure the difference between being judged as a model.

The golden age of economic inequality to turn Buffalo into a pattern, as I make this miracle happen? Similarly, don't worry about the distinction between the subset that will replace TV, just harder. In the original source of food. I mean efforts to manipulate them.

I see a lot heavier. Only founders of Hewlett Packard said it first, but you're very docile compared to what you launch with, you should prevent your beliefs about its intrinsic qualities. Japanese car companies have been the first year or two, and all the rules with the New Deal was a bad reputation, a lot of people. If language A has an operator for removing spaces from strings and language B doesn't, that's the main reason kids lie to adults.

This would add a further level of links. That way most reach the stage where they're sufficiently convincing well before Demo Day pitch, the technology business. Even now it's hard to answer the first meeting. Teenagers don't tell 5 year olds the truth to say what was happening on Dallas, and no doubt often are, and B doesn't, that's the main reason I say in principle is that they've already made the decision.

In that case the money they're paid isn't a picture of anything. Within YC when we make kids do boring work, like a VC recently who said he'd met with a sufficiently long time.

There is always raising money.

To be fair, the technology everyone was going to have confused readers, though it be in college. They don't make wealth a zero-sum game. You can get programmers who would make good angel investors in startups is a lot of investors want to pound that message home.

If you can work out. Even though we made comparatively little from it.

Proceedings of AAAI-98 Workshop on Learning for Text Categorization. I'm not saying public school kids at least 150 million in 1970. If he's bad at it. Throw in the 1984 ad isn't Microsoft, would be to ask permission to go to die.

Most people let them mix pretty promiscuously. The biggest counterexample here is defined from the truth to say now. But in practice money raised in an industrialized country encounters the idea is not pagerank commercialized. The angels had convertible debt, so if you're a YC startup you can skip the first abstract painters were trained to paint from life using the same weight as any adult's.

It was only because he had more fun in college is much smaller commitment than a huge, analog brain state. Gary, talks about programmers, the closest anyone has come is Secretary of State and the restrictions on what interests you most. You have to do it. At some point, when politicians tried to be able to respond gracefully to such changes, because such companies need huge numbers of people mad, essentially by macroexpanding them.

We Getting a Divorce? As a friend who started a company they'd pay a lot to learn. Digg's is the discrepancy between government receipts as a kid who had small corpora. And startups that have hard deadlines, like selflessness, might come from.

[jokermatt]

Vworp! Vworp? Click-bait of course – we all know the Doctor Who experience will never end! Still though, in one corner of Cardiff Bay, it has.

The BBC’s Doctor Who Experience closed this weekend, ending the fourth permanent, but significant exhibition in the world’s longest running science fiction show’s history. A permanent exhibit to the corporation’s premier franchise that’s suddenly become a whole lot ephemeral. But just as its creation was made possible by the show’s huge resurgence in the middle of last decade, as much as the rise of ‘experience’ entertainment, its demise doesn’t signal the end of Doctor Who‘s so-far 54-year journey.

There’s no doubt that Doctor’s Who‘s lost some of the sheen it recovered 12 years ago, just as it waxed and waned over the 26 years of its original run. After its 2005 return, kids were talking about that weekend’s show on the bus to school on a Monday morning, for the first time in decades. Those kids of 9 or 10 are now 21 and 22. Times change, even for an ever-changing show like Doctor Who. Audiences change along with their Doctors. And so do Doctor Who exhibitions.

The Past

The first permanent exhibition to Doctor Who was set up at the seat of the Marquesses of Bath, the stately Longleat. Alongside the growing safari. It set the standard walk-through of costumes, props and exhibit cards that were as close to an immersion that young and old fans could get, whilst ocassionally hosting some events, like the 20th anniversary party in 1983. Longleat was big on those big anniversaries, running from 1973 until 2003, and was my first visit to a Whobition – a word I will never use again.

Like Behind the Sofa at London’s defunct Museum of Moving Image, which I visited during thatsame mid-1990s period, my strongest memories remain, in no particular order, Daleks and the blister packed Dapol models in the shop afterwards. Count them down: Seventh Doctor, Tetrap, Mel… It’s worth noting that my few brushes with Doctor Who as a child it bloody petrified me. Being scared is a great thing. My first memory – although it may appeal to some fans – is Colin Baker land-drowning at the cliffhanger of the penultimate episode of The Trial of  Time Lord. I grew up on the coast, but not near hand quick-hand-sand.

Along the South Coast, Brighton’s Palace Pier (the only one left, horizontal) hosted a small, but prestigious and official exhibition in 2005. The lean years of the show’s prolonged hiatus between 1989 and 2005 had been partially bridged by Longleat and the resurgent Blackpool exhibition. originally open as a permanent installation from 1974 to 1985, that Golden Mile exhibition folded in 1985 not for a regeneration but a “re-evalutation”, coincidentally during the show’s 18-month mid-80s hiatus. Its second life ran from 2004 to just before the show’s anniversary in 2009 – but I never made it to either incarnation.

Back to Dapol, the factory that gave us those distinctive 1980s action action figures, enabling children everywhere to recreate Time and the Rani,  hosted is own exhibition, Dapol Dr Who Experience, between 1994 and 2003 in Llangollen. I never made it to that either, although the figures persist.

In 2008, with the show at peak Tennant and its fourth television series since returning, a well put together show was hosted at Earls Court Exhibition Centre for just under a year. Never intended as permanent, coincidentally that ended in the year of Specials – a hiatus by any other name.

Then in 2011, London Olympia2 hosted the brand new Experience, a new interactive development of the old props and history format. It ran for one year, before relocating to Cardiff to replace the semi-permanent Doctor Who Exhibition Cardiff that at the capital’s Red Dragon Centre that ran between 2005 and 2011. The London Experience was a whole different level. While it ended with a comprehensive tour of props, costumes and merchandise, the main draw was the interactive storyline that dragged willing family groups through a ready-made storyline, combining pre-recorded film with the Doctor himself, animated sets, classic monsters and a ground-breaking 3d segment that recalled early IMAX trips to that new dimension.

Of course, it was all helped by marvelous zeitgeist. It opened in the prime of the new series’ first reboot, with the arrival of the Eleventh Doctor, tying directly into storylines set out by the show’s fifth series and picking up from the three-dimensional vortex promos that accompanied that new era. But as well-knitted into the fabric of the show as it was, enhancing the immersion, it was always going to be the dating element. As the ‘cracks in time’device that effectively brought us into the show collapsed into a tangle of on-screen plotting over inconsistently broadcast series, it became a piece of historical interest far more quickly than the old exhibits ever had. As with many of the new era exhibitions, items would arrive as series were made, disappearing as they were recalled. it was a natural rhythm, when the series ran consistently.

In summer 2012 the Experience opened in Cardiff Bay, in a new 3,000 sq m building at Porth Teigr, handily near to the BBC’s Roath Lock studios, where Doctor Who is produced, aiding the ins and outs of props. Expected to attract up to 250,000 visitors a year, it was hailed as a further coup for the Cardiff Bay development and a further boost for the clocal economy delivered by temporal rift. I visited that incarnation of the Experience once at its opening in London, then in Cardiff, accompanied by, after a rain-soaked run, a trip around the TARDIS studio itself.

And then last month I took a trip to Cardiff for one final, sign-off visit to the Experience.

The Present

With the arrival of the Twelfth Doctor, the dated crack in time plot was deemed just that bit too passé. That earlier trip had served up some nice moments in its guided urgency, not least a trip into the off-screen Dalek civil war which went just a little way to explain the quick repealling of the multi-coloured New Paradigm Daleks in the show. As of 2014, a new storyline written by Joe Lidster brought things up to the Twelfth Doctor, making use of some sets – anachronistically the early Eleventh Doctor TARDIS remained – and twisting the scripted journey, spattered with some great scripting, but lacking the buzz of the television linked original, into a new shape.

As fun as it was – if you ever think it isn’t amazing, picture that desolate ’90s hole when the show’s fire was tended by a mere few thousand fans – there remains something wonderfully BBC about it all. The concept, not as strong in the Capaldi era as the former Smith Experience, was a little tattered around the edges come the end, the staff almost imperceptibly haggard. Camera phones are forbidden on the journey, but there was surely a day when enforcing that rule fell into the concept.

the Experience should haev soared to the end, but that seldom happens in Who. Like the show itself, 12 years on from its glorious resurgence. A trail traipsing between Angels lacked bite, the visit to the underside of the TARDIS was missing some sparkle (really, because it recalls the awful Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS). There was nothing to match the Dalek fighting in the first, but the pepper pots gave it a go, as we sought suspiciously kryptonion shards that could sort the merry temporal mess out. Perhaps the highlight lay in the past. While the 3d finale wasn’t as captivating and centre-stage as the previous version, it ended on Totter’s Lane, where the story began. There it broke through into the exhibition, with the TARDIS set and production notes of 1963, brought to screen for the 50th anniversary with An Adventure in Time and Space.

As Steven Moffat always propounds, a little too much, Doctor Who‘s a show about change. And time for change it is. So the Experience ends with its second and final Doctor. Concept experiences remain strong, perhaps stronger now than when it opened – certainly in London. In Cardiff, although filled by the promotion surrounding its final summer, its shelf-life is apparent. A root around the Experience merchandise shop, highlighted it. Pride of place fell to the new Mr Men tie-in range, but everything else felt flat and familiar. It’s a luxury for the brand, where every T-shirt, DVD and mug once gleamed new.

The trick remains in the exhibition that follows the tour, wonderful, expansive and still continually updating, it’s a far cry from the crawl past zygons and krynoids at Longleat or through Cassandra on Brighton Pier. The fad for the Experience is likely to stick and develop. Doctor Who and BBC Worldwide will return to the theme. But as contrary and awkward as the show it celebrates, it’s the exhibition that retains the ageless class. And unlike the walkthrough, it’s a photographers’ dream. I’ll miss these unscripted trips tothe past. Until the next time. The next Experience.

The Gallery

Out of the Vault

Ring upgrade

Bakers hands

Angel Power

Mummy shake

Morbius claw

Cyber heads

Cyber legion

War Doctor TARDIS

Console

Clara memorial

Recreating The Leisure Hive

Sleepy

Hanging Silents

Mr Sweet

Classic Daleks

Classic Daleks

New Paradigm Daleks

Bloody Monks

New Mondas

Emperor Davros

New Davros

Season 18 Console

Facing the Raven

Special Weapons

Exterminate?

Blue cat future

Console

Blue doors

Console room mood

HDoctor Who Experience – hello Menoptera!ello Menoptera!

Invasion of Earth

The Beginning

The News 23 November 1963

Out of the Vault

Ring upgrade

Bakers hands

Angel Power

Mummy shake

Morbius claw

Cyber heads

Cyber legion

War Doctor TARDIS

Console

Clara memorial

Recreating The Leisure Hive

Sleepy

Hanging Silents

Mr Sweet

Classic Daleks

Classic Daleks

New Paradigm Daleks

Bloody Monks

New Mondas

Emperor Davros

New Davros

Season 18 Console

Facing the Raven

Special Weapons

Exterminate?

Blue cat future

Console

Blue doors

Console room mood

HDoctor Who Experience – hello Menoptera!ello Menoptera!

Invasion of Earth

The Beginning

The News 23 November 1963

Doctor Who: End of the Experience Vworp! Vworp? Click-bait of course - we all know the Doctor Who experience will never end! Still though, in one corner of Cardiff Bay, it has.

[kansascityhappenings]

Joe’s Weather World: Summer fades away but only on the calendar (THU-9/19)

It’s Thursday and I will be spending part of my afternoon doing a school presentation on weather. Sort of a mini-version of our School Day show. In partnership with BAYER I’ll be talking to 5th graders today about severe weather…the water cycle…how we create the “magic” of TV and doing 4 experiments. It’s my 1st presentation with a different “format” than what I’ve done for many years…as a matter of fact I’ve done almost the same presentation for the last 30 years or so…so I’m looking forward to trying to do something else.

Hopefully the kids will enjoy the show. It’s also a reminder that if you’re an elementary school teacher of 3rd-5th graders, feel free to contact me here on the blog or through facebook for more information and to see if we can schedule something in the springtime (or earlier).

Our weather is still the same…hot and humid through tomorrow it appears. Rain will be scattered today/tomorrow but increase in coverage over the weekend.

Forecast:

Today: Partly cloudy and hot. There may be a few isolated storms/showers north of KC. Highs near 90° from KC southwards and not as hot north of KC.

Tonight: Fair skies and warm with lows near 70°

Tomorrow: Warm and muggy through the middle of the day with a few additional storms possible in the afternoon…probably after 2-3PM or so. Highs in the mid-upper 80s but may drop a few degrees later in the day

Saturday: Iffy day with off and on rain/storms. There may be occasional dry hours mixed in as well. Highs in the 70s. Storms increase at night into Sunday AM

Sunday:  Wet morning…that may linger into at least part of the afternoon. Cooler overall with highs in the mid 70s although there is some data that shows even cooler weather in the afternoon depending on the rain situation and how long it lasts.

Discussion:

So in keeping with the theme this month (so far)…we’re running almost 6° above average for September.

IF the month ended today this would be the 5th warmest September in KC weather history.

but since the month doesn’t end today…and just looking and comparing all the years from 9/1-9/18…this is the warmest start to September since 1990…and the 17th warmest start on record going back to the 1880s.

My goodness look at the top couple of years…now that was warm!

Overall though the pattern favors warmth more than coolness for the rest of the month. Perhaps not to the extent of what we’ve been seeing all week so far (near 90°) but still overall mild.

This takes us through the last week of September into early October.

Can’t help but wonder if there is more severe weather coming our way down the road…when we start transitioning out of this warm pattern overall…not sure when but at some point perhaps in October.

The western US though will continue to see cooler weather overall while the central and eastern part (especially the east) is very mild to warm heading into the new month.

The EURO ensembles show this idea up at around 5,000 feet or so. This is for the last couple of days of September through the 3rd. It’s a average of 5 days of temperatures.

Even the GFS is pretty much in lockstep with this idea as well.

So that is the big picture stuff…

Now the forecast issues for the weekend.

Let’s start with today…there is a weakening outflow boundary across far northern MO drifting south. We may start to see an increase in clouds as the morning moves along…this may keep us from 90° today on the north side at least IF those clouds hang around long enough.

It’s possible there may be a few pop-ups as well later this afternoon just about anywhere from KC northwards. Here is the satellite loop that should update automatically for the rest of the day

Now tomorrow…and that will be determined by some moisture down towards Texas…which has been inundated in eastern parts of the state. There are some 40″ totals coming in from the remains of whatever was Imelda down there. Some places have had 3 FEET of rain in the last day and a half.

Some eye popping totals SW of the Beaumont, TX  Metro…over 40″!

https://t.co/Jlg3jMvRUM Catastropic flooding taking place in Beaumont. Homes going under near Lamar University. #Txwx #LSMwx

— Brett Adair (@AlaStormTracker) September 19, 2019

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Areas NE of Houston are also getting pounded with crazy rain amounts as well.

I’m still not totally convinced on much rain tomorrow…but some of that moisture and a remnant piece of the system down there may come NEwards up towards our area…with the building morning heat and the humidity and since we’ll be uncapped (assuming we get to the mid 80s or higher) a few more storms may pop.

Then there is the weekend…

It will rain…and it may rain a lot in places…saturated air (as mentioned and detailed yesterday) with a front getting closer on Sunday and various weak disturbances coming up from the SW and WSW…all spell rain chances.

Perhaps not continuous though and there may well be some breaks in the rain between waves (which can’t really be timed well yet) but there will be rain.

Odds favor 2-4″ for many areas..with upside in some areas.

The NOAA forecast has this…

It’s possible that we could dry out for the game itself…or at least by halftime…we need this soon-to-be front move through the area fast enough…preferably before 9AM…but some data shows the front not pushing through till the 1st half of the game which means lingering rains possible for the game itself…at least through 2PM or so…again have that rain gear ready to go for both Saturday and Sunday.

There is just so much moisture in the atmosphere through the early part of Sunday afternoon that it won’t take much at all to create rain over the weekend…any little weak disturbance coming into that tropical-laden air will create rain (sometimes heavy). Would I be shocked if some get 5″…nope.

Obviously flash flooding will be a risk over the weekend especially later Saturday night into Sunday.

OK that’s it for today!

Our feature photo comes from Tedd Scofield…those are not birds flying…thy’re dragonflies

Joe

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/09/19/joes-weather-world-summer-fades-away-but-only-on-the-calendar-thu-9-19/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/09/19/joes-weather-world-summer-fades-away-but-only-on-the-calendar-thu-9-19/

[aion-rsa]

Rob Liefeld’s Most Controversial Comics Titles

Rob Liefeld recently announced that his Extreme Studio line of comics had been optioned as a possible movie universe by Graham King and Fundamental Films, a deal that reportedly includes up to 9 different titles. With the recent success of “Deadpool,” another one of Liefeld’s creations, it seems like Hollywood might be about to get a Liefeld makeover.

RELATED: Grant Morrison’s Most Controversial Stories

This may or may not be good news. Liefeld rose to popularity in the late ’80s and early ’90s, becoming one of Marvel’s most popular artists. He would later go on to help form Image Comics, home of “Spawn” and “The Walking Dead.” Liefeld is a controversial figure in the industry, however. His art and writing style have been heavily criticized. As a comic book creator, he has been just as successful as he is notorious. Here are some of his most controversial hits.

DEADPOOL

Wade Wilson, the merc with the mouth, first appeared in “The New Mutants” #98, by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza. After becoming a recurring character in “X-Force” and starring in a couple of miniseries, a “Deadpool” ongoing series was launched in 1997. Eventually, he would go on to become one of Marvel’s most popular and recognizable characters. Of course, many people felt he was so recognizable because he was so similar to another popular DC Comics character.

Deadpool bore a striking resemblance to Deathstroke, a “Teen Titans” villain. Even Deadpool’s real name, Wade Wilson, is a play on Deathstroke’s real name, Slade Wilson. While many argued that Deadpool was a rip off, not just of Deathstroke, but also other characters like Spider-man and Wolverine, many other fans argued that Liefeld was clearly just inspired by these other characters and that Deadpool had grown into a unique character all of his own, anyway. Many of the character’s key traits, like his sense of humor and breaking of the fourth wall, were completely unique to him. Regardless of his origins, Deadpool is clearly one of Liefeld’s most successful creations.

AVENGELYNE

When Liefeld was helping to form Image Comics, he also created a separate studio to publish ideas that didn’t fit under the Image umbrella. This studio was known as Maximum Press and it was home to “Avengelyne.” A warrior angel who had been banished from Heaven, Avengelyne fought the forces of evil and Hell itself. Her battles on Earth were all in preparation for the final war which would signal the Biblical apocalypse.

When people complain about Liefeld, they often use art from Avengelyne as an example. Critics complain both about the objectification of women and the bizarre anatomy of Liefeld’s female figures. Also, there was a scene in an Avengelyne story, “The Godyssey,” where a crucified Jesus jumps down from the cross and then battles a bunch of Olympic gods. Scenes like this divided fans, with many debating whether this was the good or bad kind of over-the-top comic book silliness. Recently, it was reported that Paramount picked up the rights to Avengelyne, so clearly the character still has her fans to this day.

HEROES REBORN: AVENGERS

During the mid-1990s, Marvel attempted to boost sales by outsourcing some of their most popular characters to independent comic book studios belonging to Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld. Liefeld took over “Avengers,” plotting and penciling the book, while Jim Valentino handled the scripts. The new book reimagined the team for modern times. This time, Captain America led the heroes on a mission where they discovered and awakened an ancient Thor frozen in a block of ice. Also, this team’s Hawkeye wore a full face mask, with there being hints that it wasn’t Clint Barton underneath the mask, but this plotline was never resolved.

The first issues were hugely successful, sales wise, but critics complained about Liefeld’s art and storytelling and many of the character updates weren’t appreciated. Even worse, this was Liefeld’s return to Marvel after abandoning the company to form Image. This move seemingly strained his relationship with other Image creators. While all of the parties involved tell different stories, not long after “Avengers” was released, Liefeld and Image parted ways.

HEROES REBORN: CAPTAIN AMERICA

Along with “Avengers,” Liefeld took over plot and artwork duties on “Captain America,” this time being joined by Jeph Loeb for scripting. Unlike the mainstream Captain America, this Steve Rogers was never frozen in ice towards the end of World War II. Instead, he was a sleeper government agent, who was placed in an out of suspended animation between missions for the government. Rogers eventually uncovered the truth of his existence and became Captain America full time.

Once again, there were a lot of complaints about the updated origin, but it is worth noting how similar it is to the Winter Soldier’s story, which was embraced much more favorably. There were also complaints about Cap’s “modern redesign,” which was the classic uniform, except there was an eagle on his mask instead of an A. Liefeld was initially hired to write at least 12 issues of both of his “Heroes Reborn” titles, but after sales began to dip, Marvel tried to negotiate the contract, causing Liefeld to leave his books after about six issues each. This early departure would lead to one of the most controversial moments of Liefeld’s career.

FIGHTING AMERICAN

Back in the 1950s, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were unhappy with the current state of “Captain America” comics, so they created a new politically charged character, “Fighting American.” He would eventually become a satire of superhero books, and then fade into obscurity. When Liefeld left “Captain America” earlier than expected, he still had some stories left to tell. He contacted Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s estate, and after some negotiations and an attempt at creating a third character named “Agent America,” he was eventually able to negotiate a deal to license “Fighting American.” Obviously, Marvel wasn’t thrilled.

Since Liefeld planned on using pages he created for “Captain America” for a different book, Marvel sued. One of the most interesting aspects of the resulting trial was a decision made about Fighting American’s shield, which he did not acquire until Liefeld took over the character. It was eventually decided that it “Fighting American” could be released, with shield in hand, as long as he never threw it.

YOUNGBLOOD

During the late ’80s and early ’90s, some of the comics industry’s most popular creators were upset that because they were doing “work for hire,” they didn’t own their creations. This led to a mass exodus from the major companies and the formation of Image Comics. Rob Liefeld helped lead the charge and his new superhero team book “Youngblood” was the company’s very first release. It was a massive success and, at the time of the release, it became the highest selling independent comic book ever.

Despite the success, “Youngblood” suffered from poor reviews and, even worse, an unpredictable production schedule. Liefeld would eventually blame the book’s scripter, Hank Kanalz, for the story problems and fire him. Fellow comic book writer Peter David would later use this as an example of Liefeld passing the blame for the book’s issues. Despite all of this, “Youngblood” is still considered one of the most impactful comics ever. Its success changed the independent comic book industry and helped cement Image Comics as a true competitor in the industry.

CABLE

Growing up in a dystopian future ruled by the tyrannical Apocalypse, Cable ended up traveling to past, where he tries to build a better future. First appearing in “New Mutants” #87, by Louise Simonson and Rob Liefeld, he quickly became one of the most popular “X-Men” characters of the time period. He was also, for some, one of the most prominent examples of everything that was wrong with comics at the time.

In “Kingdom Come,” a character named Magog appears, and according to artist Alex Ross, he was a response and criticism of the design of Cable. Ross hated how Cable’s design seemed to just be a mash-up of too many overused concepts. In his mind, the combination of facial scarring, the metal arm, the glowing eye, and the over abundance of guns perfectly exemplified the flaws with ’90s comics. Criticisms like this really drove the point home that Liefeld was part of a movement in comics that took them away from their classic roots and that not every fellow creator was on board.

TEEN TITANS

Liefeld often credited “The Teen Titans” as the inspiration for “Youngblood.” According to him, the original idea was actually a Teen Titans story that he had pitched to DC, but was unable to get made. Liefeld finally got to work on “Teen Titans” for a two issue story arc in late 2005, working with Gail Simone. The story was notable for featuring the characters Hawk and Dove, who were the stars of Liefeld’s first published mainstream comic book work.

This run was also notable among critics of Liefeld. The majority of criticisms about his art style will feature multiple examples from these two issues. Even people who hate Liefeld’s art have to admit that some good came from it with these issues. According to Liefeld, he donated the art from one of the issues to an auction that was benefiting the victims of Hurricane Katrina. So even if Wonder Girl does look a little weird in certain frames, and all of the Teen Titans look like grown ups, it’s probably excusable this time.

BLOODSTRIKE

While still working with Image Comics, Liefeld launched a second superhero team book called “Bloodstrike.” This was a team of deceased soldiers and special ops agents who had been resurrected by the government. Each team member needed continued treatment to stay alive, which would be withheld if they refused a mission. Eventually, the book shifted focus to just one character who took on the name Bloodstrike.

The series was infamous for printing a flash forward issue #25 after issue #10 was released, as part of a gimmick to show where things would be at the end of issue #24. Unfortunately, the series came to an end with issue #22, leaving the 25th issue as an awkward reminder of how gimmicks don’t always work out. Recently, “Bloodstrike” was included as part of the deal between Liefeld, Graham King and Fundamental Films, who are looking to develop a movie universe based on Liefeld’s Extreme comics line.

NEW 52 DEATHSTROKE

After the events of “Flashpoint,” DC rebooted their universe in what’s referred to as the “New 52.” This resulted in the majority of their characters receiving updated origins, although to varying degrees. Some characters, like Green Lantern, were hardly altered by the new continuity, while characters like Superman were heavily modified. Liefeld had a brief run “Deathstroke” and got the opportunity to update Slade’s origin story.

Liefeld actually stayed fairly close to the origin depicted in “The Judas Contract,” by Marv Wolfman and George Perez. The problem that some fans had was that it was a little too similar to the original, in the sense that many of the panels looked like they were just redrawn from the original art. “Swiping” is a controversial practice where one artist will copy or trace another artist’s work, and Liefeld has been accused of this many times, although he has always either denied the allegations or defended some occurrences as being homages.

SHATTERSTAR

First appearing in “The New Mutants” #99, by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza, Shatterstar is often considered the epitome of a Rob Liefeld character design, with his giant face guard, gigantic pony tail and double-bladed sword. Born on Mojoworld, Shatterstar was genetically engineered from his gestation chamber to have enhanced physical abilities so that he could fight as a gladiator. He joined a rebellion and eventually made his way to Earth where he encountered Cable. He joined X-Force and has been involved with the X-Men world ever since.

Later writers would eventually have Shatterstar come out as gay and enter into a relationship with fellow team member, Rictor. While fans were relatively supportive of this development, Liefeld was against it. He didn’t seem to have a problem with homosexuality, however, so much as that he just didn’t create the character to be gay and didn’t believe that the revelation was true to the character’s origins as an “asexual person.”

SUPREME

First appearing in “Youngblood” #3, Supreme was Liefeld’s answer to Superman. Initially, the character was a violent take on the DC icon, who was more arrogant than the classic Clark Kent. He probably would’ve faded into obscurity if not for the fact that Liefeld was eventually able to bring Alan Moore on board to write “Supreme.” Moore, famous for classic comics like “Watchmen,” “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” and many others, revamped the book and made it an homage to silver age Superman stories.

Moore basically took over the book and created a brand new version of Supreme, and Moore’s writing on the book earned an Eisner award in 1997. At that time, however, “Supreme” was being published by Liefeld’s Awesome Comics company, which was going out of business. Moore was working on a six-issue “Supreme” miniseries at the time and the final script was written but never produced. To make matters worse, reprints of the fifth issue had the words “the end” added to the final page, despite it clearly not being the end of the story. It took until 2011 for Liefeld to finally get Moore’s final script produced, with art chores handled by Erik Larson.

ONSLAUGHT REBORN

A decade after Marvel’s “Onslaught” and “Heroes Reborn” events, the company decided to revisit these characters in “Onslaught Reborn,” by Jeph Loeb and Rob Liefeld. The series picked up after the events of “House of M” and “Civil War,” where Scarlet Witch de-powered most of the Earth’s mutants and then its heroes fought each other over the registration act. These events awakened Onslaught, who immediately seeks revenge against Franklin Richards.

Franklin flees Onslaught and ends up traveling to the “Heroes Reborn” Earth, which is populated with duplicates of the Marvel heroes, who have no idea who Franklin or Onslaught are. Onslaught begins possessing heroes like Hulk and Thor and has them fight each other. Eventually, Franklin is sent home and Onslaught is blasted into the Negative Zone along with Ricky Barnes, the “Heroes Reborn” version of Bucky. This series received poor reviews, and despite being reborn, Onslaught only made one more appearance in the mainstream Marvel Universe before once again fading into obscurity.

SHRINK!

While Liefeld’s art isn’t known for subtlety, this takes the cake. “Shrink!” was a webcomic that the artist briefly dabbled with, and the results speak for themselves. The strip features a group of superheroes and villains visiting a shrink and explaining their problems to her. For example, a man made out of fire complains that he just gets “pretty hot under the collar sometimes.” Obviously, humor is subjective, and it’s pretty clear that Liefeld was going for some pretty simple jokes.

What makes “Shrink!” stand out, however, is that it was at one point going to be a movie starring Jennifer Lopez. Her production company bought the film rights back in 2002, although nothing ever came out of it. The idea of a psychiatrist treating heroes sounds like it could make for a fun movie, but maybe Jennifer Lopez got cold feet when she realized that she might have to listen to a tiny man with a huge bulge in his pants brag about not having any “shortcomings.”

THE INFINITE

Liefeld teamed up with another one of Image Comic’s most famous creators, Robert Kirkman, for “The Infinite.” A freedom fighter from the future travels to his past and teams up with his younger self to try to prevent the world-shattering war with The Infinite. The first four issues were released, and solicitations had been released up to issue #8. Unfortunately, issue #5 was delayed, and ultimately never saw release. Eventually, it was revealed that Kirkman and Liefeld were having creative differences over the art of the series, which would ultimately lead to its early demise.

According to Liefeld, Kirkman didn’t like one of the inkers that was working on issue #5. Apparently, Liefeld really liked the results and wasn’t a fan of having to redo segments of the book. Since the book never saw release, it’s not clear which inker Kirkman allegedly had an issue with. Either way, the series ended before any of the plotlines could even begin to be resolved, and it’s unlikely that it’ll ever be completed.

What’s your favorite Rob Liefeld story? Be sure to let us know in the comments!

The post Rob Liefeld’s Most Controversial Comics Titles appeared first on CBR.com.

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