The story and solution to the dilemma here was interesting, but what I REALLY liked about this comic was the art. It was bright, lively, and filled with detailing that really made it pop.
I immediately got the next two to read.
Author: Jean Cabot
Babysitter’s Little Sister: Karen’s Witch
Graphic novels of a formative book series of my childhood can go two ways, really. Horrifying realizations that the past wasn’t perfect, or fun takes on old nostalgia.
Anyway, this was fun. The art was fun. The story was well translated to the new medium.
I made the mistake of reading the reviews and I realized that maybe not everyone was identifying with Karen as a former Very Busy Child. But that is on them. Karen got up to shit I know I would have and I always found that very appealing.
This was one of three books (Mammal Takeover and One Pound Gospel were the others) that I read while on a tech support call for 5 and a half hours and I credit it with the ability to carry on. I got partway into a Nero Wolfe but that’s when the guy decided to surrender.
Mammal Takeover: Earth Before Us by Abby Howard
Oh ho ho ho. I love this series. I love Abby Howard’s art. I love how much I learn. I love how it reminded me tenrecs exist. I LOVE tenrecs.
I need to reread the first two, just because I like these so much.
I’ve got some of her horror comics from a recent Kickstarter and I’m revving myself up to read them. I love horror, I love Abby Howard’s writing, what’s to lose? My ability to sleep.
One Pound Gospel vol 1
This book by Rumiko Takahashi is very funny (not just for the part where a nun breaks a bottle of alcohol and threatens to shank people) and the art is excellent and I cannot read any further into the series or I will get an eating disorder, thank you.
Goosebumps: Go Eat Worms
Someone described this as a ‘thriller’ and it definitely fit that description (with the addition of ‘for kids’) which made the fact there was a monster for about five hot minutes feel like an early draft got grafted on.
But what’s REALLY important is that the monster serves an excellent post-script that made me laugh and so I don’t care. Viva the somewhat plot agnostic monster!
Just a fuckload of comics, goddamn
New Teen Titans Volume 2:
Sometimes this is completely overwrought and sometimes this is an absolute banger and anyway I’m glad I started reading these comics from jusssst before the world came into existence with me. Koriandr is a delight. Raven requesting that people not be murdered to save her because it makes a mockery of her life was a nice touch. Donna basically got mind raped and the comic really shows how shook up she was instead of glossing over it like Jim Shooter did to poor Ms. Marvel. Cyborg’s stress is very understandable and I continue to love his very empowered costume. It was nice seeing depth to Beast Boy too. I like that little green guy, although I wish I could be assured he was an actual adult with all those adult women he’s going after. Dick and Wally are there I guess.
Wonder Woman vol 1 issue 222:
Wonder Woman fucking kills Walt Disney. (Wade Dazzle).
I think I found the real reason Disney never captured DC at swordpoint.
Wonder Woman vol 1 issue 223:
Hippolyta is appropriately enraged at the idea that the Justice League (MEN and Black Canary) would make Wonder Woman do tasks to prove she had her skills still after her year of amnesia. Even if it was WW’s idea. Even if Hippolyta was the one who erased her memories. Shut up, she does what she wants.
Steve Trevor was dead but he’s okay now. This is how I found out he was dead.
Batman: Gotham Adventures 14
Harley Quinn pulls a classic author technique by manufacturing controversy to increase sales of her poorly selling romance novel, which contains versions of herself and Batman. Batman has chosen not to read this. The sidekicks have, immediately. And so did Joker.
Oh and the controversy was her blowing up buildings and shit. But I like to think that if it happened today, she’d just get into twitter fights like most authors.
Batman: Gotham Adventures 20
Healthy cereal will be the death of us. Liked this one a lot. Had good detective work.
Batman: Gotham Adventures 21
Blind man has more faith in Batman than I do, but it pays off. The end.
Transformers: Windblade #5
I really liked the City Speaker concept. And I like Blurr. And I like Moonracer. And trying to find what was the issue I reread while I was trying to clear out all my in-progress comics that were not actually in progress revealed to me I own a great deal more Transformers comics than I thought I did.
Mera: Tidebreaker
I thought this was gonna be great. The promised plot was Mera trying to find a good time to murder Arthur. Unfortunately it was mostly dull, forgot to continue plot points to the point where they felt like asspulls at the end, and the art had negative energy (even if it was pretty). Oh well. Next time.
Squirrel Girl: 2 Fuzzy 2 Furious
The second Squirrel Girl novel by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale was as delightful as the first, mostly because it advances Doreen’s character to where she starts to learn how to talk down crime and communicate with others and I swear it’s funnier than that sounds.
Alpha Chive is the best name for a squirrel, too.
I’m disappointed only in that because of the nature of the medium and the fact the North/Henderson/Charm run of Squirrel Girl is complete, Ana Sofia will probably never be in the comics.
Father Brown: The Crimson Feather
This show was on thin ice when they pulled ‘actually she was craaaaazy all along and didn’t know it’ with the episode based on the Nutshell Murders lady right before.
Anyway, it goes like this: They set up a mystery and then went ‘oh fuck it, it was a delusional lesbian trope what did it. No actual hints given except a sore hand’
The end!
F- for forgetting how to write a mystery.
Good Omens: The Book
My friend is deeply into Good Omens and I actually like it, I just have commitment issues. For her birthday I watched Episode 2.
This is a very funny show. I really like Anathema and everyone else. I like her growing alarm at the witch burning only to find out they’re actually just going to have a tire swing because they’re not bad kids, really.
Poor goddamn Crowley and the inevitable transformation of his car cds. I may enjoy Queen, but it’s a by choice thing.
Cartoon dump
3below:
Dogfight Days of Summer
With General Morando’s invasion of Earth imminent, Krel tries to stop the fleet’s advance with unwitting help from the kids of Arcadia.
In which a Flappy Bird knockoff saves an empire. Although I’m starting to wonder if it’s an empire worth saving, between Varvatos’ backstory and the events in Ill Gotten Gains.
Mother’s Day
Mother, the AI controlling the royals’ ship, reflects on keeping the peace between her quarreling family. Morando discovers a secret hidden on Earth.
Hey wait it turns out that those people they keep swearing for aren’t just flavour. Cool cool cool.
Ill Gotten Gains
Colonel Kubritz stages a phony quarantine of Arcadia High School in a ploy to capture the royals — and their advanced weapons technology.
Kubritz has my favourite voice actor in the whole series, and I like most of ’em pretty good.
Ducktales:
The Secret(s) of Castle McDuck!
On a family trip to Scrooge’s ancestral castle, Dewey tries to hide the truth about his mom as his brothers search for family secrets.
“Brace yourselves. We’re going to have a pleasant family dinner.”
I really like the Ducktales reboot. It’s funny. SomewhatEvilScrooge is my jam. I still cannot tell you which nephew is which even though they now have personalities though. My sister gave me a cheat sheet I’m going to make a post-it note of and put on the monitor. It’s ‘the evil one, the neurotic one, the blue one, and webby’ in my head so far.
Stuff about their mom though. It always kind of bugged me in the old series their parents were total no shows and all I knew about them from the comics is they’d been sent to live with Donald after hospitalizing their father.
Of course, Spider-Man finally addressed the issue of his parents and it turned into a Russian/WW2 spy drama, so sometimes that’s a mixed blessing. No wonder no one liked Peter at school.
Silver Surfer:
Learning Curve: Part 2
The Surfer must decide if obtaining all the knowledge in the universe is worth giving up his humanity and freedom.
Spoiler: It’s not. Although does he actually have humanity? Wouldn’t he have Zenn-Laity? He’s a funny little blob, anyway.
Nebula’s voice actress acted the HELL out of her ‘I am a tough lady’ role.
Innervisions
The planet of Harmony has its inhabitants in a dream state, unaware of reality. The Surfer must awake them before their planet is wiped out by Thanos.
So! Two things. For some reason the Korbinites are called ‘Whynnm’ in this episode and because for some reason my subtitles weren’t oh, I spent a bit of time wondering why Silver Surfer kept talking about having to warn the ‘women’ but then walked right past a female of the species.
Anyway, Thanos has his proper role in this cartoon: Sad statue dweeb.
Spider-Man (90s):
Six Forgotten Warriors Chapter 3: Secrets of the Six
The Six Forgotten Warriors are said to have 6 secret keys to unlock a dangerous weapon that could destroy the world.
Peter’s parents are Russian traitors! This is why no one likes you, Peter!
Six Forgotten Warriors Chapter 4: The Six Fight Again
Five of the Forgotten Six reunite and team up with Spider-Man to stop the Kingpin from activating the Dooms Day Weapon. But during the process of activating it, Captain America and Red Skull are returned.
Ugh fine they weren’t traitors. Also I enjoyed how often this cartoon eschewed the traditional origins of characters for Spider-Man.
Six Forgotten Warriors Chapter 5: The Price of Heroism
Red Skull uses the Dooms Day Device to transport power into his son and transforms him into Electro. As Electro begins to absorb more power, he becomes even too powerful for his father to handle.
That said, I question making Electro Red Skull’s bouncing baby boy. In the ~comics, he’s a electric pole worker (we call them something else where I come from, I don’t know the American name) who got struck with lightning to get his powers. Same origin as my grandpa’s powers, but the Americans wonder why we call him Hydro-Man. Especially considering the next episode.
The Return of Hydro-Man: Part 1
While on their honeymoon, Peter and Mary Jane are interrupted by Morrie Bench. Still obsessed with making Mary Jane his other half, Morrie kidnaps her.
Mary Jane gets arrested for fashion crimes. Or stealing a boat. One of those.
Features a frantic drive of a shitty van from Niagara Falls to New York. I have no idea how far that is and google maps is all effed up from the plague so I’m not gonna bother checking the driving time. It’s even funnier if he was afraid the van was going to die out after an hour’s drive.
“Thank god, tall buildings!” is a classic Spider-Man line though.
Rob Paulsen is the voice of Hydro-Man and when I was a little kid, he was absolutely my favourite voice actor ever. So that was nice.
Transformers (G1):
Megatron’s Master Plan: Part 1
The Decepticons convince the humans that the Autobots are the true enemies, with the help of a greedy candidate for mayor, named Sean Burger.
‘I could be mayor of this city or I could join with evil robots to rule the world’ is a pretty believable villain origin story, honestly.
Meanwhile the Transformers are going to be flung into the sun because they were like ‘welp, humans said we gotta go’
And I think Spike’s dead. I haven’t watched the next episode yet.
Gummi Bears:
Water Way to Go/Close Encounters of the Gummi Kind
“Water Way to Go”: Gusto encounters a mermaid named Aquarianne and wants her to pose for him but Sunni, jealous that he won’t paint her, lies that he plans to capture her. When she leaves, Duke Igthorn captures her so her sea-monster pet will follow her and attack Dunwyn. “Close Encounters of the Gummi Kind”: Gusto’s rolling sculpture of Gruffi to lead away ogres instead attracts not only Igthorn and his ogres but a group of humans who want to see the Gummis for a variety of purposes.
It’s Rob Paulsen again! With my favourite character type, ‘somewhat cooler loner character who only shows up intermittently!’. I loved Gusto. I do think Sunni was suffering a little from the only other boy bear being Cubbi. Are they siblings? I don’t know. Who is/are/was Sunni’s parents???
June Foray, with her signature raspy voice, is Grammi Gummi and *also* a small child in this episode which was frankly excellent.
I never quite understood the connection between this cartoon and delicious treats, but I enjoyed it as an adventure cartoon. Since it was usually split into two parts, even though I would miss half of it running home from school, I usually at least got to see the second episode.