BW’s Saturday Article Link> One Piece Vs Hollywood

Unlike so many of Hollywood’s failed attempts at remaking anime in a live-action format for Western audiences, Netflix’s One Piece has actually gotten fans attention. Maybe it’s because the creator saw what they did to Cowboy BebopDeath Note, and a bunch of other attempts. Even in movies, Alita: Battle Angel is the only one to get things right. Geeks & Gamers contributor Marvin Montanaro thinks he has the reason: because Monkey D. Luffy is that hero that Hollywood keeps trying to write out. In a world filled with flawed heroes, anti-heroes, and just straight up villain protagonists, Monkey is a simple hero who fights the wrongs of his world and tries to make lives better for good people while punishing evil. Remember those days?

Of course it helps that they found a way to embrace the bizarre world of the manga in live-action form without screwing up either…and have no @$%$ clue what a “pirate” actually is.

CBS Transformers> The Second Draft part 9: Potential Episodes part 2

We’re almost to the end of this document and this discussion. This document ends today but there’s one more tied to the second draft that we’ll go over before my final thoughts…so long as we don’t have any more distractions, we’ll be done in the next few weeks.

Last time, we started looking at sample episodes for this second attempt at bringing the Transformers to CBS Saturday mornings. This time we have the rest of the list and the last few parts of the draft before looking at a full episode script. We did the first eight, but now we’re on nine of thirteen. At the time thirteen weeks of episodes made a full season for kids TV. I think it was longer for the family and grown-up shows. Nowadays you’re luck to reach even close to that number at any age group to call it a season. We did see that a few of those episodes could potentially have been recycled for the show we got while others would be a stretch to say that.

We’ll also be seeing the final bits of information for this series. As a reminder, the whole document was done as a series of files printed from a computer back in the 1980s, breaking the in-universe conceit to discuss these episodes and the show’s format. Kind of necessary. So what would these episodes have looked like as a first season of a Saturday morning take on Transformers?

Continue reading

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Keen Detective Funnies #18

Good thing Fredrick Wertham missed this cover. He’d have a heart attack.

Keen Detective Funnies #18

Centaur Publishing (March, 1940)

I don’t get the numbering system, partly because these last two issues are missing the indicia page. Already the Golden Age did weird things with numbers thanks to stupid mailing rules and trying to game the system. Last time Comic Book Plus called it volume three but the cover said #17, and now this issue is #18. Also, last issue was kind of letdown, a trend I hope gets broken this issue.

[Read along with me here]

Continue reading

BW’s Daily Video> 10(ish) Forgotten 80s Sci-Fi Cartoons

Catch more from GenX Nostalgia Network on YouTube

Slight corrections: Street Frogs and Karate Kat weren’t science fiction. Both were part of the weekday syndicated anthology The Comic Strip. (CBS Storybreak was CBS’s answer to ABC’s Weekend Special, adapting kids books.) They may have been anthropomorphic characters, but neither was in a sci-fi world ala SWAT Kats: The Radical SquadronStreet Frogs was otherwise in a contemporary setting while Karate Kat was something out of classic detective stories, only a detective agency fought the mob instead of the police. (Don’t even remember seeing cops.) Karate Kat and TigerSharks were the only ones I liked. Street Frogs and the unmentioned Camp Mini-Mon didn’t interest me. He should have gone with TigerSharks, the lone action show in the anthology that took cues from the similarly named ThunderCats and Silverhawks. (Rankin Bass was in a bit of a rut, methinks.)  Samurai Pizza Cats was a redubbed anime, like Thunderbirds 2086.

Space Ace was also part of an anthology, CBS’s Saturday Supercade. Each episode featured a number of different video games adapted into cartoons as shorts. I thought it lasted two seasons, but I question some of his research. Biker Mice From Mars wasn’t even an 80s cartoon. It started in 1994, with ExoSquad coming a year earlier and Samurai Pizza Cats started 1990, which meant it at least aired in Japan in the 1980s. If he wanted dark, he should have gone with Spiral Zone. Funny he asked about Biker Mice versus Sectaurs, because now they’re in the same universe with Robo Force thanks to Nacelle. Also tossed in Wild West COW Boys of Moo Mesa somehow.

The only one on the list I never saw was Once Upon A Time: Space while you can see Sectaurs, Thunderbirds 2086, and a look at the intro for Starcom here at the Spotlight.

Tomorrow Man & The Return Of Jon Kent?

Before I start, I need to check something…

Yep, I’m still blocked. Not that it matters since he’s one of those creators who ran off to Bluesky the moment free speech included his political opposites. I don’t even know why he blocked me, unless it has something to do with someone I follow. I know he blocks everybody who follow Douglas Ernst. It’s okay, I returned the favor because of his reputation of payback. So unless he follows the site directly…

I guess older Jon needed a GPS to his home dimension.

…how did he steal one of my only somewhat joking ideas? Okay, I may not be the only one suggesting this compromise because that’s the only thing that makes sense. Option 3 is that we both thought alike and I’m not sure either of us like that option. I’m going with option 2. It is true, however. Young Jon Kent is back and older Jon is still here. Don’t believe me? Then you aren’t following current comics, either. I found out thanks to the following Shorts video (hence the aspect ratio for phones when her regular videos are the normal rotation) by Sasha Woods of Casually Comics. In Superman Unlimited #11, Young Jon is back without deaging old Jon. I have to talk about this.

Continue reading

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Michael Turner’s Fathom: Cannon Hawke–Beginnings #1

“Always when I forget my umbrella….”

Michael Turner’s Fathom: Cannon Hawke: Beginnings #1

Aspen Comics (digital copy–April, 2011)

WRITER: Olivia Chadha

ARTIST: Koi Turnbull

COLORISTS: Peter Steigerwald & Christina Strain

COVER A ART: Michael Turner (credited on cover)

LETTERING: Dreamer Design

EDITORS: Frank Mastromauro & Vince Hernandez

Continue reading

BW’s Daily Video> Starfleet Academy’s Identity Crisis

Note: Swearing British host yells a bit.

Catch more from HeelvsBabyface on YouTube

Just stick to the 1990s comic from Paramount Comics and Marvel. That’s what Starfleet Academy should look like.