Yeah, I’m going back to the shipping dates. It’s easier for me that way.
Sometimes I'm not going to have a good joke from the pull. This time, I just really wanted to use this one instead.
Click the comic for more behind-the-scenes of this week’s comic. I want to have a separate page just collecting Jake & Leon comics. I might even end up making ones outside the review. I will say I really need to find a font that works at the size I want to post these at, but still looks like comic strip text.
In other gaming news, Steam was offering the first Mass Effect game for $10 as a weekend promotion. Although I usually prefer to have the disk in my hand over downloading, I’ve been wanting to play this game for a long time so I couldn’t pass up the chance. Let’s just say your lucky to have a review this week. 
In Pull List news, Doctor Who Classics didn’t ship this week. Not that it’s eligible for Best Scene since it’s a reprint, but that means only three reviews this week. Spoiler-blocked versions of the reviews will be up at ComiXology…if I can stop playing Mass Effect that long. I was just going to mess with it a bit, but now I’m stuck with a character named “German Shepard” until I see how my story turns out. Well played, BioWare. Well played indeed.
Sometimes your just not really in a posting mood. Luckily, I have something short and sweet (with the occasional curse word) to save my butt. Machinima.com’s YouTube page includes the web series Freeman’s Mind. Based on the Half-Life game series and using the original game, creator Ross Scott gives us a runthrough of the game (which I would love to play someday), with a look within the mind of Gordon Freeman, the otherwise silent character you play in the game. It’s rather amusing.
I chose the second episode as it had the least amount of cursing, and still gives you an idea that Gordon…actually he’s kind of a jerk, isn’t he? It only gets worse when the aliens show up and he’s trying to get free. If you like the game and can handle the swearing and references, it’s a fun series.
Freeman’s Mind is a “machinima” (a video that uses video game footage, or hacking the game and manipulating the characters), a unique way of making a movie or series. The Half-Life game itself is known as much for the “mods” (fan-produced games using a favored game as a search engine–technically illegal, but Half-Life was one of those games where the company that created it, Valve Software, not only encouraged it but helped modders along with a kit and making their search engine open source, so it’s perfectly fine) that came from it as it is for the beloved video game itself. Freeman’s Mind is really just a play through of the first game, with Gordon’s “voice” over it, giving us an idea what Gordon is thinking (or a parody of same) as he goes through the experiences when the Black Mesa research group accidentally opens a gateway to another world, and the underground complex is flooded with invaders. Scott’s take is rather humorous, and I recommend it to video game and Half-Life fans.
click for full image
I’m neutral towards your art choice this week. It makes my eye look strange and I seem to have a name badge. All know the greatest of Decepticon leaders.
Are you getting an ego?
Silence. Tell me where you acquired this artwork?
I went to the alt.toys.transformers newsgroup asked for a few submissions. This one came from “Ironheart”, or “Kevin”. He didn’t tell me how he wanted to be credited.
May I access more of his work?
Sadly, no. I snagged this just before Geocities shut down. (Not that they ever really had a large group of supporters with the way they embedded ads on their site.) So unless he opens a new site or posts it elsewhere, this is the only spot to see this. I feel all exclusive and stuff.
Yes, well, let us get to this week’s entry. I’m curious to hear more about this “Capoeira“.
Capoeira is a fighting style that incorporates dance moves and music. It’s gained popularity over the past few years, and tonight we see Dick Grayson studying it on his way to become Nightwing. At least, that’s how it came down in the animated series. This story started out as a comic gap between the Fox and WB version of Batman: The Animated Series, but parts of this miniseries were not only adapted but expanded on in the cartoon itself, giving a bit of closure to one of the plot threads.
Then let Spacebooger continue to face my wr…I mean, have his entry.
Round 9 of 12
Yeah, so obviously the V review is going to end up on Monday. As a bonus, I apparently have another angle besides “remake” to look at with ABC’s take that I hope doesn’t ruin any enjoyment I get out of this. So to make it up to people, here’s the Internet’s favorite Little Stuffed Bull taking a trip along a Pet Shop Boys song everybody should hear at least once in their lives.
For more Bully action, please check out his blog, Comics Oughta Be Fun. A truer blog title there may never be.
Just a quick programming note: I was too tired to watch the first episode of the V remake yesterday, but I should have a review up Thursday at the earliest, Monday at the latest. (Unless I find I really like it, then it will be up Saturday if I can find it embeddable on Hulu or something. I don’t think you can embed from ABC’s site.) Now back to business.
In the last SMC we took a look at the unrequested, but still rather good, Battle of the Planets/Thundercats crossover comic. I discussed how Top Cow did an excellent job with the series as a whole, and this crossover in particular. I really can’t say the same in either case for Wildstorm and Thundercats. Sometime after Wildstorm parted ways with Image, had a brief fling with Marvel before settling down with DC, they appropriated the license to Rankin/Bass’s hottest non-stop-motion-Christmas-special property. However, the results were less than spectacular.
The first miniseries, simply Thundercats was mostly a reintroduction to the characters, so if it comes off a little “fanboyish”, I can let it slide. Thundercats: The Return, however put the characters in a rather violent situation. Mumm-Ra traps Lion-O in the Book of Omens for X number of years, and when he finally gets out he learns that the three Thundercats introduced later in the series were killed, Panthro was working in a slave pit, Tigra was being forced to work for the Mutants, who by the way were keeping Cheetara in the dungeon for when they felt the urge to rape someone (I wish I was kidding), Wilykat was working for Mumm-Ra who was keeping the (thankfully) grown-up Wilykit as his concubine (I wish THEY were kidding), and Snarf had pretty much gone bananas. The next two went downhill from there, because at least The Return felt like a Thundercats episode, albeit a rather sick one.
Dogs of War was a dark, violent story (yes, worse than the last one) that is “Linkara ought to review this nightmare” bad, and Hammerhand’s Revenge had some good ideas that were poorly executed, and out of all of them treated Snarf the worst as a character. The Heroes & Villains/Villains & Heroes specials were hit and miss anthologies, and the Superman crossover (DC and Wildstorm’s wedding present to each other) was kind of blah. I didn’t even bother to pick up Enemy’s Pride, the thankfully last of the Wildstorm stories. (If you want good Thundercats comics, hunt down the old Star Comics, Marvel’s kiddie/licensing imprint. Marvel themselves couldn’t handle a decent licensed comic not involving Transformers, but the Star and Paramount imprints were pretty good at it.) So I guess you see where I’m going with this crossover.
click to see the cover, just like my weekly reviews
Thundercats/Battle of the Planets: Portal of Doom
July 2003 (Wildstorm/Top Cow)
STORY/ART: Kaare Andrews
ADDITIONAL ART/COLOR: Jamie Nouguchi, Andrew Hou, & Kevin Yan
LETTERER: Wes Abbott
COVER “A” (shown): J. Scott Campbell (with Avalon Studios)
COVER “B”: Alex Ross
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Kristy Quinn
EDITOR: Scott Dunbier
A note about the covers: if you put both the Alex Ross covers together from the two crossovers, you get one picture. However, I keep them separate in my collection, since the first one is in continuity with the regular Battle of the Planets comics Top Cow produced, and I felt the urge to use the cover native to the company. (Have I mentioned enough how much I hate this whole “variant cover” nonsense?) Even if it is rather ugly in comparison. I mean, look at it. Do Mark and Lion-O look evil or what?
Switch Runners, a comic I’ve reviewed online as part of the Sugary Serials website, will soon be released in print. (Well, print again. It was already printed in the offline anthology version of Sugary Serials.) Mark Rudolph and Jerzy Drozd are releasing the comic on it’s own (with a few extra) through their own printing title, Tiny Astronaut. (Why they didn’t go with “Art & Story”, after their podcast, I guess is their business. Insert parody of “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” here.) It’s currently available for pre-order, and I can easily recommend it. (I’m also hoping I can swing the funds to get it myself.) Or at least check out the online version.
One thing I mentioned in my review was that the online version didn’t have an intro to clue us in to the story. Well, that’s been changed.
After crash landing on an alien world, a group of explorers discover an amazing energy source granting their machines the ability to switch from high-speed reconnaissance mode to fantastic battle modes! But the brutal Tritannus and his interplanetary band of outlaws will stop at nothing to claim the Ovidian Energy for themselves! It’s a fight to the finish with the fate of the galaxy as the ultimate prize! These are the adventures of–(presumably this goes back to the front cover for “Switch Runners”.)
Funny, that sounds rather familiar. Oh yeah…
Crash landing on an alien planet, a group of humans find an amazing energy that allows their vehicles to turn into mighty battle machine. But the evil Tritanius seeks the Ovidian power for himself. All that stands between his army and galactic conquest are…the Switch Runners!
I’m still not expecting a check*, but the fact that I somewhat matched Jerzy’s version (I have no evidence he’s read either this review or the Silver one, and I was thinking blurb at the top of the page, so mine was shorter) makes me feel like I’m creative. There may be hope for me yet in the comic-writing game.
(*They are, however, more than welcome to send me a free copy or some art advice. 
Yeah, I’m not holding my breath for that, either. They’re kind of busy. And poor. Why do I want to make comics again?)
I’m not sure how official ”That Dude in the Shades” ’s “Internet Hall of Fame” is, since I haven’t heard of him. Then again, I don’t get out much. However, I have heard of the Game Overthinker, who happens to be a BW fav. I’ve posted a couple of his videos right here at the BW Media Spotlight. And Moviebob has just been inducted into “That Dude” ’s Hall of Fame.
So congratulations. Between getting on both ScrewAttack and The Escapist and now this, he has to be as popular as the Angry Video Game Nerd or another bespectacled male.
