April 20, 2026

Chapter By Chapter> How To Completely Lose Your Mind chapter 5

Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.

In our last chapter, the stress has been getting to Elisabeth. It doesn’t seem to be bothering Eric, though. We’ve sped through the tour, and done New England and the southeast part of the country. We’re heading to Virginia to catch the next part of their journey.

They’re certainly dedicated to the tour. Sleeping at a friend of a friend’s giving their all at events with small crowds and even short time on stage because they didn’t know they were part of an open mic night. There’s also the fourth wall break advice segments on how to prepare for the tour and act during events. I’m not going on tour anytime ever but for someone who is this is good advice from someone who went and did it. Lucky for those of me not touring anytime ever (the grammar’s on purpose), the segments are still interesting enough to read for a bit of trivia thanks to the presentation.

So how will…well, did Pocket Vinyl handle the next leg of the journey? Let’s check in with them and see.

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Posted by on April 20, 2026 in Chapter By Chapter, Comic Spotlight, How To Completely Lose Your Mind and tagged , , , , , .

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April 20, 2026

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Giant Sized Freex #1

The real problem with a shared universe is when I’m forced to read stuff I stopped reading for a reason.

Giant Size Freex #1

Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (July, 1994)

WRITER: Gerald Jones

EDITOR: Hank Kanalz

“Destiny Trail” part 1

PENCILER: Scott Kolins

INKER: Jon Holdredge

COLORING: Mickey Rose & Violent Hues

LETTERER: Susan Dorne

“Quite Contrary”

PENCILER: Jeff Parker

INKERS: John Lowe, Larry Welch, & Scott Reed

COLORING: Violent Hues (first time I haven’t seen a separate named “color designer”, while these studios are usually listed as “interior color”)

LETTERER: Dave Lanphear

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Phil Crain

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Posted by on April 20, 2026 in Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , , .

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April 20, 2026

BW’s Daily Video> Sesame Street, Miami

Catch more from Turboblacktion on YouTube

 

Posted by on April 20, 2026 in Television Spotlight and tagged , , , .

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April 19, 2026

Jake & Leon #681> Overvoiced

He has a wife and three little microchips to feed.

No, it’s not who you think it is, though I did indeed use him as inspiration for the model. Does show the downside of “you must look like the character to VOICE the character who will never look like you even if you’re the same race/gender/whatever”.

Over at The Clutter Reports this week, I had to use another old Scanning My Collection article, my first article, actually, as looked at the Dreamwave G.I. Joe & Transformers crossover.

Comic reviews return this week. I know what to do for Wednesday and Thursday, while Monday continues the Ultraverse, Tuesdays the pre-DC Quality characters, and Friday our specific Golden Age (although right now Tuesdays would still be Golden Age…for now). Plus we have the Chapter By Chapter review of How To Completely Lose Your Mind and with no more CBS Transformers we have four open slots for talking about stuff. I only managed to get four buffer articles but it’s better than none. Hopefully I won’t run out until I can build a stronger buffer, but that depends on what happens the next few days in the storytelling world.

Have a great week, everyone!

Posted by on April 19, 2026 in Animation Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , , .

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April 18, 2026

Saturday Night Showcase> Superman: The Animated Supergirl

Today is Superman Day, where we celebrate Action Comics #1, the first appearance of Clark “Superman” Kent and Lois Lane. (Everyone else we knew came later.) So this being Saturday Night Showcase I wanted to do something special for the occasion, seeing as this is my favorite superhero we’re talking about.

I’m kind of limited by what I can show from official channels since that means YouTube. What isn’t behind a paywall is either Batman or Justice League related, or a series of clips from various Superman productions over the years. The best I thought I could do was a movie I want to see, Superman/Shazam. the two adaptations of Death Of Superman, only one of which has the return and either way seems tasteless for celebrating Superman, and Brainiac Attacks…and hell no to that!

Then I stumbled upon something perfect given the upcoming Supergirl movie. DC Kids has put up both episodes of Superman: The Animated Series featuring her first animated appearance and an origin that works better than what I’m seeing from the totally-not-James-Gunn-driven movie coming out. It’s a better trauma for Kara, features Darkseid and the Female Furies (and Ed Asner playing Granny Goodness and surprisingly working), and it actually is a story I can recommend. “Little Girl Lost”, the last episodes of season two, finds Superman coming across a Kara from Krypton’s sister planet and bringing her to a new home on Earth. She wants to be useful but she’s still too new to Earth and her powers. (I guess puberty is a factor as to when Kryptonians start powering up in sunlight.) Meanwhile, Jimmy Olsen is also trying to prove himself as a reporter. When the two work together for the first time since the 80s movie, can they help Superman stop Darkseid from getting his revenge on Earth? Enjoy, and happy Superman Day!

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Posted by on April 18, 2026 in Animation Spotlight, DC Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged , , , , , , , , , , .

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April 18, 2026

BW’s Saturday Article Link> Characters Supporting More Than The Wall

 

 

There’s this idea that supporting cast members aren’t important. Sometimes your favorite character can be supporting cast. Some of my favorites are. However, unless your character is the most important person ever, there are writers who can’t get a grasp on them. Poor Jimmy Olsen, despite having had his own comic series and adventures, falls into that category quite often. When it comes to the Salkind group of Super movies, Supergirl made more use of him than all four Superman movies put together, and he was still just there to keep Lana company. The activist community is worse since unless your (insert group you’re poorly championing here) is the mainest character it’s not considered “proper representation”. There’s a reason award shows have a “Best Supporting Actor/Actress/Character” award.

The biggest problem comes when writers don’t seem to know what to do with a supporting character, making them just as “there” as Jimmy Olsen so often is. A good supporting cast offers to support to at least one aspect of the main character (or characters) life as well as helping push the story without overshadowing your lead(s). As I go through my backlog I found Cedar Sanderson writing a guide for writers in how to use a supporting character in this article from Mad Genius Club.

Posted by on April 18, 2026 in Book Spotlight, Comic Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, radio/audio drama, Television Spotlight, Video Game Spotlight and tagged , .

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April 17, 2026

CBS Transformers FINALE> Could It Have Worked?

Concurrent with the writing and production of George Arthur Bloom’s syndicated miniseries, Marvel Productions commissioned Jeffrey Scott to hurriedly write a development bible and pilot script, looking to pitch a Transformers main series to CBS network for Saturday morning broadcast.  Hasbro, Griffin-Bacal, Marvel Productions and CBS executives were all involved in shaping the ultimately unsuccessful pitch.  Reference materials provided to Scott included copies of the Toyfair 1984 catalogue pages, Hasbro product list and Bob Budiansky character profiles, storyboards for the animated commercial promoting Marvel Comics issue 1 and the script for Act I of More Than Meets The Eye, Part 1

That’s from The Sunbow Marvel Archive, where I got the documents I’ve been using for this series. You can also watch Chris McFeely’s video compiling the events we know currently. I’ve just finished a deep dive of all of this information. Now we get to take a trip into an alternate reality, one where this is what we got instead of a proper first season in syndication. I may end up repeating things I said when discussing the first draft while discussing the second and the concept as a whole.

For reasons we’re not aware of, either CBS or Hasbro or both passed on this. Marvel Productions, getting a new head that worked better with the comic side of Marvel, went back to the concepts and style of “More Than Meets The Eye”. Everyone was aware of the Autobots but for whatever reason the Autobots didn’t return to Cybertron. Instead, they stayed around to learn the Decepticons weren’t destroyed and the battle continued, despite the story ending with everyone getting ready to return to the Autobots’ home planet. In the show itself the Autobots couldn’t do so easily while the Decepticons had a “space bridge” they could use almost whenever they wanted. No energy beings until sparks were created in Beast Wars and refined in later continuities. No merging with Earth vehicles. No Decepticons taking over the Earth for more than a couple episodes. What kids saw in the miniseries was there when the show returned to syndication.

So could either of the CBS shows have been any good? More importantly, could they have created the legacy for the toyline that the syndicated series gave us? There would definitely be some changes, but would they be cultural icons?

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Posted by on April 17, 2026 in Animation Spotlight, CBS Transformers, Television Spotlight and tagged , , , , , , , , .

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