#Jam Distributors

[cloudscapecomics]

The TradeWaiters 112: Gutter-Takes: On Distribution

We’re doing something different for this episode. In between our regular panels on great graphic novels lies the gutter (get it?). And in the gutter this week, Diamond Distributors, who once held a monopoly on delivering comic books to readers, just filed for bankruptcy. What does this mean for comics? What even is “distribution?” Jeff, Jam, and JD are here to let you know, in our first mini…

[resellerjamtangan]

[celiaboren]

https://www.fmcgtradecenter.fr/

FMCG Trade Center is a type of wholesale marketplace where retailers can purchase a wide variety of fast-moving consumer goods at competitive prices. Our extensive product range, which includes everyday essentials such as food and beverages, personal care items, and household products, is designed to offer exceptional value and convenience for busy lifestyles.

[strongestbanner]

What If:

Logan and Victor decide to forgive each other, escape together and live in a small cabin located in Argentine Patagonia (probably in the Río Negro province, towards the mountains of the west) 🏡❤️‍🩹🇦🇷

They both accepted that they are two sides of a same coin, and they'll always be there for each other, no matter the circumstances <3

(If you wanna cry at the end, keep reading)

Logan gets addicted to drink mate and can't live without his thermo (he choose Lumilagro when he just arrived bc he didn't have enough money for a Stanley thermo, but he doesn't give a f*ck). His favorite yerba mate is Rosamonte: the most bitter yerba mate for his taste 👌🏻

Vic shows off Logan the words he already knew in Spanish after so many missions. Now he learned to say to Logan: "enano boludo" (fool runt) just for piss him off.

Victor has become very punctual at merienda time, he always waits for Logan with sweet facturas (like biscuits, croissants) (sometimes Logan is sick of eating sweet, so he asks Vic to bring salty facturas too). Also, Victor LOVES membrillo's facturas (quince jam) (his beard always ends up dirty as if he had blood on it, never forgetting his animal instincts).

Of course, Logan got a job at a sawmill, he has too much experience with wood hehehe. And Victor worked for a time in a food distributor for a bakery, but he got fired bc he was caught stealing some cookies with membrillo. So, now he stays at home doing housework (surprisingly, he's very clean and hates finding cobwebs on the ceiling).

Logan secretly listen to Tango music, somehow he feels internally moved and sometimes cries too!! He also bought some Carlos Gardel vinyls to send for Laura's birthday <3

They both bought earplugs to use once a month bc they discovered that they have a lobizón neighbor 2 km away (the argentine werewolf 🐺).

At first they slept in different rooms, until Victor decided to have a sleepover after watching a chick flick movies marathon with Logan over a weekend (yes, they have Netflix). How did he convince him? He used his secret weapon: kitten eyes ✨ This is how slowly Victor's old room was transformed into a leisure room. Now they have a shelf full of classic literature books (and Spanish literature too bc Vic is so interested in it and he wants to still learning). Some CDs and vinyls of Logan bc he also likes argentinian national rock (He seems to like "Los Piojos", "Intoxicados", and "Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota" 😂).

This is for the argentine fans: LOGAN SUPPORTS BOCA JUNIORS CLUB 💙💛💙 He's not a very huge fan for football games, but he stays focused watching them. While Vic usually falls asleep at half time on the sofa with him.

Victor convinced Logan that he would control his bloodlust, so their household is never short of a good supply of meat. Unfortunately, this is a vile lie. When Logan is away, Victor takes advantage of those free hours to hunt and devour little animals like hares or deer. He knows his schedules and how much time he has to clean up his tracks. Who knows how long he can sustain the lie 🫣

In my mind their first kiss was PURRFECT. The coldest month is July (it's winter there), so, after a week of overcast skies, one night Logan went outside the cabin to smoke a joint. He observed the number of visible stars until he realized that Victor was stalking him with a cup of tea in his hand. They both sat on the front steps and IT JUST HAPPENED. Logan tried to deny what happened, FOR SEVERAL DAYS. But Vic managed to take away his embarrassment and make him enjoy it many times more bc he ✨obviously✨ kissed him first.

It hadn't been a year yet and Logan had invited the X-Men to his whereabouts to celebrate his birthday in October. Logically, Victor didn't like this idea at all, so he decided to flee to the forest. Logan had so many feelings fluttering in his chest, but he knew better than to waste such a beautiful and special day. He looked for Victor and found him cooling off in a river. He was so upset and a little jealous, but Logan convinced him because they would make barbecue. It was a VERY uncomfortable moment for Victor, he was not sorry for what he did, but Logan took care of making him feel part of his family <3

Ofc, I wrote all this with my tears.

I don't consider myself a good writer and my English is very poor, but if anyone wants to make a fanfic or fanart of this TAG ME PLS 😭💖

[zarathelonewolf]

Guys, I know it's old news but...

Last year, in October 2024 basically, there was an anniversary for the Rurouni Kenshin Manga.

Y'know. The one whose author, Nobuhiro Watsuki, had so much child porn he was hypothesized to be an actual distributor by Japanies investigators. And who got off basically scott free only to go back to writing Manga.

Aside from the fact that I knew about him before 2024, because I had explicitly looked (I remember this pretty well) during the pandemic if there were any mangaka I should avoid because they openly held particularly conservative views or because they had committed some grievous crime, and I had found out about Watsuki. So, as a response, I isolated myself completely from even mentions of his work and have quickly turned the other way whenever I saw it. I tuned it out completely.

This basically helped in me staying ignorant about what transpired on October 2024.

I had no idea! I do not think I should support Gege Akutami or Kohei Horikoshi after this... What the hell? Why the heck would they do this?

My esteem for Arakawa (FMA), Kubo (Bleach), Ohkubo (Soul Eater and Fire Force) and Gotouge (KNY) is skyrocketing rn. It seems to me like Kubo has not participated in a mural made some time ago (to welcome Watsuki back into the industry), either. Damn I am lucky not all of my favs are on this list!

It's not like this is a situation in which Death of The Author should justify actively publicizing a certain artwork made by a shitty person! This author is alive, and still writing! This asshole is still around and thriving! They should not be giving him publicity!

And before anyone comes and tells me "that's just how Japanese society is about child porn and older figures in the Manga industry, sweetie!", yes, I know they are shitty when it comes to it. But that does not make me any less angry.

Does anyone else know about this? Have you guys heard, has there been discussion here and I did not notice?

What should I do? I am feeling split on whether or not I should continue reading the Manga or not...

Is there any reason the authors I mentioned who participated could have been forced by the contract made with Shueisha?

This is a photo of the authors who participated in case you are interested:

Also HunterXHunter author? What, why? Promised Never land too, why did authors who made such Manga, who I recall having some important moral lessons, end up on this list? Then again Rurouni Kenshin is also considered a pretty idealistic tale, even though it's author is a POS. What the hell dude.

I expected Oda because he has supported Watsuki in the past.

Although Chainsaw Man is not my jam, glad to see that the author did not participate.

I don't know what to think. I guess I'll stop talking publicly about the Manga whose authors participated in that event, and focus on other ones.

Like Gachiakuta. I really have to start picking back up the chapter analysis for it, and might even start doing something with Bleach.

Any fan is free to add their point of view to this, and I am not doing this to start a witch hunt towards those who enjoy the Manga these people wrote (more than I am gonna after knowing this, anyway). I need other people's opinions before making this choice because I overthink a lot and rn I am overthinking something along the lines of: what if I am overreacting tho?

EDIT: I think I shall simply choose to put my interest on these Manga and Anime on hold. But I won't necessarily consider the mangaka who went to this anniversary child abuse apologists.

I am starting to think this situation could have been owed to different factors. It is not unheard of, for mangaka, to be pressured greatly by publishers. And maybe, in these situations, like for anniversaries, it could have been the case, especially due to the fame of the Manga in question.

I still hold on higher esteem the mangaka who actually did not go to the anniversary of Rurouni Kenshin. But I am choosing not to automatically accuse all of those who DID go of actively adoring a figure such as Watsuki.

Why? Because... Perhaps we do not have enough info. Let me explain.

I am not giving these mangaka the benefit of the doubt because I love them particularly, most of them I do not even know, and even though I used to be a huge My Hero Academia fan, it's just... not a hyper fixation for me anymore. Same goes for JJK, it was a rather brief fixation might I add. I am doing this because if I know anything, it's that most of the time mangaka are very private, and very rarely are their political and personal stances on things clear cut. Some explicitly demonstrate themselves to be progressive and others remain in a grey area, probably due to the Japanese cultural idea that "you shouldn't bother people/start drama", "you shouldn't stand out like a sore thumb", which may have been the sentiment behind the publishers who most probably pressured most of these authors to participate, and behind those who accepted.

Oda is probably one of the few exceptions, because he has ALWAYS supported Watsuki. Maybe he is one of those that always wanted to participate to the anniversary from the beginning.

I am still feeling moody, but as always, resignment is quickly making its way into me. Until Japanese society becomes more progressive, I guess I shall have to keep doubting whether or not all mangaka are genuine about what they write: I will always try to consider, from now on, the fact that publishers and the Manga industry in general is very toxic, and that may not change for the longest time yet. So what I read and the things I see these mangaka doing may always be commercially related.

Fans are still welcome to reblog and write answers to this post. I am still looking for differing opinions on this, even from fans of the work of Mangaka in the list. That is why I have added tags for some of these Manga now that I have edited the post.

Please talk to me if you want to. I do not bite, especially not now that my anger has turned into sadness. I would enjoy to have a talk about this with someone who shares doubts with me, but also people who straight up know what they want to do and how to approach this.

[damiankirby99]

This post is made to support Ketchup Entertainment, as they finally brought The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie to the big screen last March, as well as finally buying distribution rights to Coyote vs ACME recently.

I wanna say, congratulations to those who saw potential in 2D animation, as well as Looney Tunes in general, since Warner Bros. isn't doing a great job with it. I will be looking forward to seeing The Day The Earth Blew Up once it comes out on home media, as well as Coyote vs ACME too. We're happy we finally get these movies since Looney Tunes has been our childhoods when we watched those cartoons on television, as well as the movies they had done (except Space Jam 2), and I hoped that WB would release these movies. But as we lost hope on those movies, Ketchup finally saved the day and got their hands on these movies, and now they can finally see the light of day (let's hope Scoob: Holiday Haunt is next as well).

It's a shame that WB is trying to get rid of Looney Tunes, because that's what helped made WB in addition to their films, and it is all because of Zaslav. Now that these two films are under the healm of Ketchup Entertainment, I'm proud that they saved these films from being lost and I suggest anyone of you to support the distributor by watching The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie in theaters and Coyote vs ACME next year. Let's hope the latter gets more promotional material and tie-in products though.

[tradewaiters]

We’re doing something different for this episode. In between our regular panels on great graphic novels lies the gutter (get it?). And in the gutter this week, Diamond Distributors, who once held a monopoly on delivering comic books to readers, just filed for bankruptcy. What does this mean for comics? What even is “distribution?” Jeff, Jam, and JD are here to let you know, in our first mini episode on topics behind the scenes in comics.

Also mentioned in this episode: What No One Wants to Admit About Comic Book Sales (BONE Video Essay) by Matttt

Music by Sleuth

You can find us at: J Dalton Jam Jeff Ellis

Our next episode will be on Our Dreams at Dusk by Yuhki Kamatani.

You can also follow the TradeWaiters on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and Ko-Fi.

[myemuisemo]

On the 7th day, the croissant was filled with dulce de leche

My fascination with c-store pastries originally started with the 7Days croissant, back when the company produced only chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. Way back when I lived in Phoenix in the 2010s, Big Lots (RIP) used to carry big bags of this style of croissant, which I'd buy when I was feeling cranky and lazy. They were not on a par with croissants I've had in France, or even from a good local bakery, but they were quite good in relation to the ease of ripping open a bag and eating one.

This is the elusive "strawberry pb&j" flavor. I'd made a point of going to the bigger, brighter AM/PM to check out its food program, only to discover that it's generally worse than the little AM/PM I usually go to. It's not until I started paying close attention that I realized AM/PM had either hopped off or never gotten on the roller-grill taquito trend. Their grab-the-hot-food section is reminiscent of an airport bar in the 1980s. This is not a good thing.

They did, however, have the best selection of 7Days croissants I've found so far. 7Days went hard for flavor expansion after parent Chipita was bought by Mondelez in 2021, so while it's now part of one more corporate monolith, the pay-off is that there are dulce-de-leche croissants. That's capitalism for you.

The strawberry PB&J croissant was nicely filled and really quite decent for what it is. It's a soft croissant, more like a dinner roll, with a sugary peanut butter filling and some strawberry jam. I now need to find the even-more-elusive PB & chocolate flavor.

7Days makes croissants and mini-croissants, a pair of "cake bars" that look like a Victoria sponge as reimagined by a snack-food maker, and (oddly) bagel chips.

Being owned by Mondelez raises the question of whether 7Days croissants will participate in trendy flavor waves. This year, every sweet snack seems to have an Oreo tie-in, but it looks like a Cookies & Creme croissant was already tried two years ago. OH!!!

They have different flavors in different countries. I found the distributor site for the UK, and look at all the awesome flavors we are deprived of in the U.S. Cocoa and coconut! Vanilla and orange! Vanilla and sour cherry! Hazelnut! Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia gets a chocolate-vanilla-caramel croissant. *sigh"

[sl-newsie]

Behind Masks (Dr. Jonathon Crane x OC) Ch. 14: Girls' Night

Lawrence Thompson. The man who sealed my fate. The lawyer I trusted with my freedom. The slimy prick who let me be locked up. And he’s standing twenty feet away.

My position from a nearby fire escape provides a prime lookout point. My target appears to be walking this way with his date for the evening, one who looks like she’d rather be anywhere else than with him. She’s trying to walk away but Thompson won’t have it. 

“N-No! Leave me alone!”

“Now now, what’s wrong? I thought you liked rich men, Tiffany.”

Time to pounce.

I swing from the bars and land on all fours in the dark alley, just in time to see the pair walk in front of me.

“Let her go,” I order sharply, making my presence known.

Thompson does a double-take. I look like any other street mugger in my dark clothing. He looks as if he’s never been robbed before.

“Says who? A shadow?” he mocks.

I nod my head at the poor girl next to him. “Run.” She does as I ask, not thinking twice before bolting down the sidewalk and leaving Thompson to me. I pull out a dagger and approach him the way a cat does its prey. “I’ve waited a while for this.”

He scoffs, trying to push the threat aside. “What did I do?”

I lurch forward to grab his jacket and pin him against a dumpster. “It’s all that you’ve done and what you haven’t done. You’re supposed to be a distributor of justice. Instead you take bribes from Falcone and prey on defenseless women.” I hold the cold blade up to his cheek. “That stops now.”

His precious confidence flips off in the blink of an eye. “D-Don’t kill me! Please! I’ll do anything!” he blubbers. “What do you want?”

My glare burns through him. “I want my life back,” I growl.

In one swift motion I reach for dead Baxton’s pistol, jamming the barrel to Thompson’s temple. Another death at my grasp. Quit stalling, you’ve killed before. What’s one more? He deserves this! Pull the trigger, Prentiss! Pull the freaking trigger-!

Snap!

Thompson jumps when a whip cracks against his back. “Ow!”

Who’s joined the party now? Another woman dressed in black… with cat ears? Why not? Her jumpsuit looks similar to mine except there’s small white stitches woven through it. The other accessory is a simple black mask with flaps at the top resembling cat ears. The woman’s eyes dart between Thomason and me with sparking curiosity.

“Meow.” She skips forward and pushes me out of the way, wrapping my victim up with her whip. “Stop playing with your food. Here, allow me-”

She snatches my pistol and aims it at Thompson.

Bam!

He crumbles to the pavement like a sack of potatoes.

My face falls. “I could have-”

“You’re clearly new to this,” the woman drones, unimpressed. “If you’re going to kill someone, do it quickly. And simple if possible. Less to clean up.” She jerks her head to the fresh corpse. “He’s a piece of work. What did Lawrence Thompson do to you?”

I kick a stone down the sidewalk. She just schooled me in murder. How did I let this happen?

“Had me locked up. All because I wanted to tell the truth.”

“The only place the truth will get you in Gotham is under the boardwalk.” She leans down and looks up at my face. “You got a name?”

Hm. She seems on the side of the law I’m on… I think. Can I trust her to not turn me in?

“Calico Prentiss.”

Her face perks with interest. “Calico? As in the cat?”

“Yes. My parents thought it was pretty. What’s your name?”

She offers a hand and we shake. “Selina Kyle.”

I nod. “Another name for another woman in a mask.” She’s the Catwoman that Crane told me about.

“That leads me to my question. What are you doing out here? The Prentiss family isn’t broke. Surely a rich girl like you doesn’t need to be sulking through the streets for scraps.”

There is no reason to tell her everything. For all I know she might be just as scheming as Dr. Crane. Keep it simple, Prentiss.

“Money won’t help me. I’m scoping out the area.”

She doesn’t ask why. Selina just looks me up and down trying to get a read on me.

“What if I helped teach you a few things? I like strays like you.”

My eyes flash. I know I’m new to this but I don’t need to be lectured like a child. A stray. At least Crane let me figure things out on my own.

“I don’t need anyone. If I screw up it’s on me.”

Selina clicks her tongue. “Wow. You are quite the wild card. Reminds me of myself.” She gestures to my hair. “Rule number one, keep your hair pulled away. A ponytail is available for your attacker to pull you down. My suggestion? Get a ski mask.”

Is she kidding? “Your mask hardly covers your face. I’d rather have something more effective.”

Selina cocks her head and toys with something in her pocket. A closer look reveals it’s a jeweled bracelet.

“I’ll go out on a limb and assume those diamonds don’t belong to you.”

Selina shrugs. “Girl’s gotta eat.”

I take that as a cue to leave. I’m here for justice, not thievery. I got what I came for anyway- one way or another. Thompson is dead. Maybe I can actually do the killing next time-

“Ding dong! Mind if I join you?” a cheery voice rings out.

A familiar girl in a red and white clown costume cartwheels past me, leaping onto a parked car. Her.

“You?!” I gawk and pull out my gun. “You’re with the Joker!”

She giggles and strokes her jester hat. “Yeah, that’s my puddin.” Her New York accent is immediately noticeable. “We’re kinda in a rough patch. He loves me, he loves me not, I get locked up in Arkham. It’s all over the map. Harley Quinn, pleased to meet ya!”

“How can you put up with that clown?” a voice behind us asks.

I give a friendly wave. “Hi, Ivy.”

The poisonous botanist herself steps out from behind the shadows, wearing a dark green leotard. Who’s been following me?

“Ah, hello!” the clown girl waves. “Nice to see ya, Red! Join the club!”

Ivy tilts her head. “And what club is that?”

I hold up my gun and step away. “This is not a club. I’m a one-woman act.”

“I agree,” Selina inputs from her perch on the fire escape. “This cat walks by herself. Let’s go, Calico.”

She hops down and pulls me away from the two women. We’re both thinking the same thing: we don’t need unwanted attention.

“Aw, we’re not so bad!” Quinn whines. “C’mon, stay! We’ll go out for drinks!”

“Oh, yes,” I quip and keep walking. “Four of Gotham’s most-wanted walking into a bar. Sounds like a setup for a joke.”

“No joke! Let’s go out! Please? Mista J’s too busy with Batman. I’ve got noth’n else to do.” She taps on Selina’s shoulder. “C’mon, kitty. What’s the harm?”

Selina halts in her tracks, pondering over the offer. “Calico?”

This is what they call a social gathering. I used to partake in them myself during college. Nothing too out of control, just a few drinks and some chatting. That was when I was so naïve about the ways of the world. When I was… sane. Does something that normal apply to people like us?

I hold up a finger and face the group. “One drink. Period. No more after,” I warn, stopping to point at Quinn. “And no funny business. Understand?”

She grins like a maniac. “Loud and clear! Let’s get cracking!”

Selina takes the lead. One that has us end up on the… less patrolled side of Gotham. She points us to a bar and my first thought is: run. If anxiety and anger married and ran a bar together, this would be it. Harley is oblivious to the sketchy characters giving us the evil eye but Ivy isn’t. She plays her part of looking like the pretty poison she is and ignores them. But this doesn’t sit well for a buff bearded guy. Seriously this guy has so many tattoos you would think he’s a child’s doodle pad. He snarls at Selina and tries to reach over- right as Catwoman lashes out and scratches lines of blood down his tattooed arm.

“Never corner a cat, darling. You’ll get the claws.”

He backs off, as well as the rest of the onlookers, and we head to a booth in the back corner.

“This place is definitely on the dodgy side,” I mutter.

Selena sits next to me and begins scanning the menu. “Don’t sweat it, I know the owner. Rico and I go way back.”

“On what terms?” Ivy asks.

“A respectable understanding. This is a clear zone for both of us. I don’t steal and he doesn’t turn me in.”

“Does Batman know about here?”

Catwoman shrugs. “He’s never shown his face before. But I’d stay cautious.”

A skittery-looking waiter takes our order and scatters to the kitchen. Alcohol is the only product I trust in this unsanitary place, so a simple mixed drink will suffice- Uh-oh.

Something catches my eye. A small TV in the ceiling corner shows Summer Gleeson standing in front of the roads leading out of the city.

I point and the others follow my gaze. “Look. On the TV.”

“It is confirmed. Gotham City is now on lockdown due to the Joker’s bomb threat. Citizens are required to remain off the bridges and stay indoors.”

I wish Dr. Crane was here. He’d have so much input about the Joker’s psychosis- What is wrong with me? I do not need him back in my life!

“Care to explain, Harley?” Ivy grunts and sips her cocktail.

The clown girl grins proudly. “He’s a genius!”

Selina groans. “Psycho. Now we’re stuck.”

I sip my own drink, considering the situation. “I had no intention of leaving. I’ve still got work to do. Although Joker might do the dirty work for me if this keeps up.”

“Seems to me like you’re putting way too much effort into stalking,” Selina quips.

I sigh deeply and rub my temples. “Well then how would you acquire information?”

Something in the atmosphere changes. The girls exchange looks, as if trying to decide how to lay out a heavy truth on an unsuspecting child. 

“I don’t think you’d like what we do,” Ivy says slowly.

This is ridiculous. “Guys, I’m not five. What-?”

“You sleep with them,” Selina cuts me off. “Men are so much easier to manipulate when you sleep with them.”

Static. My jaw drops and my train of thought crashes off the rails. Did I hear that right?

Harley giggles. “Told you.”

My pulse spikes, my eyes darting to look at all of them. “I am not going to belittle myself by sleeping with those sleazy bastards! I still have my dignity- they haven’t taken that yet!”

The botanist smirks. “Yeah, you’d rather be sleeping elsewhere…”

My eyes narrow. “And what’s that supposed to mean, Ivy?”

She rolls her eyes and takes another drink. “Callie, you’ve fallen head over heels for that creep!”

Harley makes a pouting face and gets in between us. “Aw, leave her alone, Red. Her and Crane are perfect for each other!”

Crane. Am I that easy to read? Sure, I like to know how he’s doing. As a concerned colleague. Surely that’s as far as my intentions stretch. How can they suggest such a thing?

“He’s a twisted louse!” Ivy bites back. “How can you even stand to look at him?”

My brow furrows in both offense and frustration. “You’re both wrong. He’s not a louse and I do not love him. Our relationship is professionally scientific and platonic.”

Retreat. This is getting too personal to be just a girl’s night- If those even exist. I need to get out-

“Aw, Red. It’s love! She ain’t brainwashed.”

Ivy scoffs at Harley’s argument. “Says the once-sane psychiatrist who’s in love with Gotham’s most dangerous psychopath.”

The clown girl tilts her head at me. “You don’t talk much, do ya hon?”

I slowly look up to meet her gaze. “Small talk and commentary are just empty words. People don’t care. Though then again people usually don’t care when I have something intellectual to say either.”

“Maybe that’s why Crane likes you.”

Now it’s my turn to scoff. “He doesn’t like anyone. He likes having people to use as guinea pigs. I was merely a mistake. I wasn’t even supposed to be in Arkham, and here I am now. Talk about getting high on risk.”

“Oh really?” Selina inquires.

I nod, remembering my textbook. “For some people, they ‘get high’ off of adrenaline when they take risks in their life. They might understand their mortality but are willing to ignore it. Others take risks because they don’t want to live an uneventful life, so they take part in activities such as skydiving, snorkeling, and other death-defying activities. For me I guess it’s getting back at the people who put me here.” I take a sip, letting my words sink in. “But certain people might just want smaller risks because they fear their mortality more. It all depends on a person’s own view of their mortality and what they want to accomplish in life.”

Selina’s playing with her straw and Ivy looks zoned out, but Harley is anything but bored at my small lecture.

“Wow! That sounds like Johnny boy. But instead of being obsessed with fear you like death or something. I still think you’d make a cute couple.”

There it is again. Tonight’s outing is starting to get on my nerves.

My fist clenches around my glass. “If you could please abstain from playing insane matchmaker, I’d like to go home now before I completely lose what’s left of my marbles. Crane’s played around and used me enough, I do not need any more interruptions.”

Apparently the words ‘played around’ and ‘used’ seem to catch their interest. Harley and Ivy exchange looks, while Selina simply gives me an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

“Well, it’s been fun. But I’ve gotta get home to feed my cat.”

She stands up and struts out of the bar, with half the men staring, leaving me to my own awkward exit.

“I’m heading home too. My target for tonight was eliminated thanks to Catwoman but as I said I’ve got more work to do. As well as wait for this whole bomb threat to blow over, figuratively or literally.”

Harley bites her lip and Ivy seems to be cooking something up. “I think we’ll stay a while longer. Go get some sleep, Callie.”

Sleep. Something that’s been avoiding me these past few nights. It sounds pretty good right now. Anything’s better than trying to argue against my feelings for- ugh. Him.

“Goodnight everyone.” I down what’s left of my drink and make my way out of the crowded bar.  

Maybe now that Thompson is finished I can finally let go… But there are just a few more loose ends to deal with.

[noideamyguy]

Das Damen were one of the more metallic acts in the legendary SST stable, melding '60s psychedelia and heavy acid rock with the noisy, punk-derived alternative rock typical of the label. Instead of delving into screaming white noise along the lines of labelmates Dinosaur Jr., Das Damen preferred warm, trippy, high-volume distortion. Their early material was given over to improvisational jamming, but as they developed their songwriting, they threw in more complex rhythms and time signature shifts. Taking their name from the German term for "ladies," Das Damen were formed in New York in 1984 by vocalist/guitarist Jim Walters, guitarist Alex Totino, bassist Phil Leopold Von Trapp, and drummer Lyle Hysen. The group released its six-song, self-titled debut EP in 1986 on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label; it was quickly picked up by SST, which was also Sonic Youth's label at the time.

Das Damen's first full-length for SST was 1987's Jupiter Eye, a highly improvisational record that nodded to the spaced-out acid jams of the late '60s and early '70s. The follow-up, 1988's Triskaidekaphobe, was a more structured and melodic hard rock album, but its follow-up, the Marshmellow Conspiracy EP, achieved far more notoriety. One of the four tracks, "Song for Michael Jackson to $ell," was actually a straight-up cover of the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour," credited to the members of Das Damen to protest having to pay Jackson royalties (Jackson had just outbid Paul McCartney for the rights to the Beatles' entire catalog). Jackson's lawyers got wind of the stunt and ordered all copies of the EP (pressed on pink vinyl) removed from distributors' warehouses and destroyed. SST later reissued the EP in a three-song form, but the controversy helped spell the end of Das Damen's career with SST.

The band moved on to the Minneapolis-based Twin/Tone label and released Mousetrap in 1989. Although it boasted more polished production, it failed to make any inroads at college radio. Das Damen recorded one further album, the 1990 live set Entertaining Friends, which was performed at CBGB's and released on the German label City Slang. In 1991, they moved to Sub Pop for a one-off single, "High Anxiety," but subsequently disbanded.

[anpansidequest]

a pretty long post about the anpanman - i mean "anpanbreadman" dub pitch pilot

so... i posted twice about "what if 4kids dubed anpanman?"

but peep this:

yes! this is an english dub pitch from the early 2000s that was probably shown to distributors to atempt to localise anpanman for english speeking audiençes! and ofc since this is a 2000s english dub pitch ofc there where name changes! let's go over them!

so to start of the most obvious one: anpanman is anpanmbreadman! wich is strange since...PAN MEANS BREAD! HES BREAD BREAD MAN NOW!

so...uncle jam and cheese get to keep their names...good for them!

baikinman is predictably "bacteriaman" and dokin chan is even more predictably simply "dokin"

im not shure about butako's name...idk if the narrator said "butterko" or "butter girl"

BUT

the narraitor refers to her as jam's daugther wich she isnt, they arent blood related at all.

currypanman is once again predictably "currybreadman" and shokupanman is "loafbreadman" and idk why but its funny to be

also i noticed they used footage not only from anime episodes but also from some of the early movies! i think they had plans to dub them as well

idk if there was any dub spawned from this but probably not (i wonder how this wil age)

anyways if you read eveything tsm bai baikin!

[resellerjamtangan]

[talenlee]

Game Pile: Ouendan (Video)

Watch this video on YouTube

Thumbnail and script below the fold!

February is Smooch Month, a month dedicated to considering media that falls under the heading of smoochy. Things that are about relationships, forming relationships, building or deepening relationships, and things where a romantic relationship is important. This presents challenges because it might not surprise you, but in videogames, despite their breadth of content, haven’t done as much with this element of human interaction as you might think. Oh, there are a lot of games about romance, and a lot of them handle it in a linear or systemic way I dislike a lot. For all sorts of common cultural reasons you might be familiar with, romance in videogames tends to be about an agent pursuing an object and getting it. Super Mario Bros and onwards. Or Donkey Kong if you want.

None of this is to say that ‘all games that try to be about romance are bad,’ but there are a lot of games that are more or less replicating the same basic idea, existing in a binary between a language maze or an entirely unrelated linear story. What’s more, often romances aren’t depicted as if they express a relationship as an interested interaction between two parties who both want something. And this is pretty strange when you consider how much art has been made on this idea and how many forms that art has taken.

Like pop music.

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan is a game whose name you don’t have to shout but come on, you should want to, you should be shouting in your heart, that is the original progenitor of a game you might have heard of called Elite Beat Agents. It’s a rhythm game on the NDS and 3DS, so the unique interface of the console presented designers with new(ish) opportunities to make a type of rhythm game. You tap the screen in time and place to correspond with the flow and movement of the music, and that’s kind of it.

(In a lot of ways, Ouendan as a game is a thing that benefits immensely from the material realities of what the DS is.)

If you know what a rhythm game is, you probably can work out how to play Ouendan in just a few minutes, even across the language barrier for non-Japanese speakers. In fact, it was that accessibility in part that led to the game being picked up in the west, and enjoyed so much we got a American localised version of the same game, Elite Beat Agents. This was in fact so much of a thing that at the end of the credits for Ouendan 2, there’s a thank you note in English. That approachability is only part of the reason why you can play Ouendan without literacy, though; another element is that the NDS doesn’t have region locking, so you can just buy a Japanese copy, jam it in your Belgian NDS (I assume you have one of those) and it’s going to work, rather than requiring you to pay distributors in your country. This meant that this game, in all the ways it’s very Japanese is available for you to experience without changing anything about what it is, its cultural framework, and its visions of what it wants to say in a story told through its particular framing device.

Because that framing device, to a common western audience member like me, seems at first impression to be bananas. In Ouendan, you are finding people who need help, then helping them. What kind of people? Well, you might help a kid with their university entrance exams. You might inspire a noodle shop cook to get over his problems with a stray cat. You might bring back the dead for one last dance. You might help a kid avoid wetting the bed in his sleep, or fight a virus or help Cleopatra build the pyramids. The first game culminates in the Ouendan saving the world from an asteroid strike through the power of rock and roll.

What’s important about this, though, is that in each of these stories, you aren’t playing the people who the story is about. You’re playing cheerleaders.

And you may be visualising something from your own perspective, and yes, you can unlock those, those are an option, but in Ouendan, you are not playing a western style cheerleader squat. You’re playing an Ouendan troupe: Which is to say, heavily masculine, disciplined cheer leaders who do ferocious poses, stomps, claps, whistles and shouts. This is a proud, established style of cheerleading in Japan. Manly cheerleading. In Ouendan, you play Ouendan who are more specifically, school toughs wearing gakuran and with all the signifiers of delinquents.

These roaming bands of goons find people who need help, burst into the scene in sometimes wildly inappropriate ways, and cheer them on to do their best. You are not competing for the exams; you want the person who is competing for the exams to know they can do their best. You are not capturing the bank robber, you are encouraging the horse to capture the bank robber because you believe in them.

It’s a great game.

It comes to my mind so often when I think about trying to find games for Smooch Month. Games about relationships, about expressing the forming and maintaining of a relationship in some way that doesn’t end when the characters express interest in them? They’re pretty rare. I could find more games about rescuing a dog than I could find about working with a partner!

(Don’t mention It Takes Two to me.)

That’s why I came back to this classic rhythm game, OSU! TATAKAE! OUENDAN!

There are some love stories in Ouendan. There’s a classic one where an Office Lady wants to date the Office Hunk (did you know sometimes those can be boys?) and the culmination of their story is her getting his attention in a literal Cinderella ref, backed by the probably somewhat culturally insensitive Koi no Dansu Saito. There’s also the story in Over the Distance, which is about a ghost coming back from heaven to apologise to his wife for the fight they had just before he died. It’s nice that there’s this bookending between these two types of relationship stages – a beginning and, sadly, an end.

It’s not the one that makes me think of Ouendan! in smooch month though. Melody, one of the early levels, is set in a Matsuri festival, where the person we’re helping wants to Win At Doing The Festival race, because that will get him respect and get the permission of a girl’s crappy dad to marry her. So far so Mario, woman as prize, right?

Now I pulled deep to find this game because I think this successfully breaks a lot of my problems with videogame romances. First, you don’t control the agents in the romance; you’re not the boy or the girl, and your relationship to the other has nothing to do with how well you play the game. These two characters are into each other, and their reactions to how well you play is how well you get them towards a goal they both want (where they want to get married). You want to do well, because you want them to have their chance to get married (and you get a rewarding tish sound). They are dating. They are in love, and they are being obstructed by her dad in this one instance. The girl isn’t the reward and the guy isn’t your character – she’s one of the participants. Your victory is not Him Getting Something, it’s Them getting what they want, because they set up a game event.

It’s a sweet story, it’s about something nice, and in amongst all these games I’ve been digging through to find just a romance that didn’t make me clutch my insides. Like you can read the dad as doing a thing that implies ownership of his daughter’s options for marriage, but even then he gets involved after the boy racer says that he’ll propose when he wins. In that case, it almost looks like the father is in on the game, because he wants the Matsuri competition to be a competition.

What’s more, everyone thinks he’s being a dick — strangers get involved and join in and help our protagonists. He goes from carrying the Matsuri on his own, and then, inspired by that, school kids and old folks and tourists all join in on the race. If you succeed, then the father in law is super happy because he sees it as a good omen for their marriage! It’s not ‘you shall not marry my daughter,’ it’s ‘well, do a proper Matsuri race then.’ At the very end, he’s not grumbling that this man stole his daughter from him; he’s joyfully attending their wedding.

And you know what happens when you fail?

They don’t get married and you failed. That’s it. She doesn’t leave him. The relationship is not contingent on the Matsuri race, just the father blessing them here. They were in a relationship beforehand, and there’s no reason that ends. The story doesn’t need to make this event the contingent requirement for the romance.

And that’s nice!

It can be a big story moment for these two, where you get to show up and encourage them to their best. It’s not told as if this is the make-or-break, it’s not told as if this

Incidentally, I did consider doing this with Elite Beat Agents instead, because, you know, it’s slightly more available and didn’t get a sequel. Thing is, it’s uh, it’s not got a story like this one in it. The closest we get to this song is Queen’s I Was Born To Love You, which shows us Leonardo Da Vinci harrassing Mona Lisa until she agrees to pose for him as a model, which is so much worse as a story.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Projections have THE GARFIELD MOVIE opening somewhere in the $20-30m range for the three-day, and somewhere over $30m for the 4-day.

In other words, it's opening like a typical post-COVID breakout animated movie. Unless you were the Mario movie, MINIONS 2, or few other films, you stayed below $30-35m for the three-day opening. For context:

$146m - THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE

$120m - SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE

$107m - MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU

$57m - KUNG FU PANDA 4

$50m - LIGHTYEAR

The five half-hundred openers. And then... Other big studio Western animated movie (and in some cases, hybrid)... Squarely below $35m:

$33m - IF

$31m - SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY

$30m - TROLLS BAND TOGETHER

$29m - ELEMENTAL

$28m - MUTANT MAYHEM

$27m - ENCANTO

$23m - THE BAD GUYS

$23m - DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS

$22m - PAW PATROL: THE MIGHTY MOVIE

$22m - SING 2

$19m - WISH

$17m - THE ADDAMS FAMILY 2

$16m - THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS

$14m - TOM & JERRY

$13m - PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE

$12m - MIGRATION

$12m - PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH

$12m - STRANGE WORLD

So, yeah, THE GARFIELD MOVIE is performing as usual. It curiously has a B+ CinemaScore, when usually, an animated picture - no matter the reviews - gets an A- minimum. I still expect it to leg up until INSIDE OUT 2 is released, and make back its fair $60m budget.

Director Mark Dindal deserves a big hit after three movies that didn't quite cut it at the box office. CATS DON'T DANCE was dumped by Warner Bros. and made soooo little in 1997, THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE was similarly dumped by Disney but had the fortune of garnering excellent legs that might not have covered its budget, but it showed that Disney had a sleeper hit on their hands... and then there were the subsequent great video sales that probably un-flopped it a year later. CHICKEN LITTLE barely made the grade. Dindal hadn't directed since, the closest he got was with DreamWorks' unmade ME AND MY SHADOW. Dindal would be replaced by Alessandro Carloni on that film, and then DreamWorks nerfed it altogether. (Though they did briefly revive it as SHADOWS, courting Edgar Wright to direct at one point!)

So, yeah, I'm rooting for Garfield! For Dindal! I'll be seeing the movie in about a week or so.

As for the other side of this weekend's box office coin... FURIOSA:

I want to point out... A lot of people are seemingly confused as to why FURIOSA isn't breaking out... Thus making for a pretty small Memorial Day box office long-weekend...

When were the MAD MAX movies ever these massive blockbusters here in America?

The first film was barely released theatrically in North America, lost in the midst of its domestic distributor - American International Pictures - being acquired. The film's breakout success in its home country, Australia, was really what lead to sequels. MAD MAX 2, released as THE ROAD WARRIOR stateside, did fairly well but wasn't among 1982's biggest movies. MAD MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME, thought to be the most Hollywoodized of the movies, also did okay enough. Again, nowhere near the edge of the Top 10. I reckon for most people my age, FURY ROAD was their first MAD MAX movie. It certainly was mine, and then I went and blind-bought the other three movies thereafter.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD opened with a fair $45m back in 2015, and went on to gross $380m worldwide against a $150-180m budget. Barely 2 1/2x that price tag if it was $150m, so I guess it just made it. Enough for more movies to be made at least, as Tom Hardy was signed on to reprise his role as Max Rockatansky for at least a few more films. A fifth movie proper is in development, apparently... But, yeah... $380m. Good gross, but not... Let's see, STAR WARS or MCU-sized. Not DUNE: PART TWO nor RISE/DAWN/WAR OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, for fellow sci-fi comparisons...

And nor did it need to be... There's more a gnarly, punk-like edge to these movies anyways.

Which is why I did not expect FURIOSA to make that much more than FURY ROAD, especially since it's about a younger Furiosa and it's a prequel. Having not seen the movie due to circumstances (I'm gonna aim for it this coming Friday), I've also heard that it's way different from FURY ROAD, which was more or less a two-hour car chase that barely lets up. This apparently, at 2 1/2 hours long, is more in line with the classic MAD MAX movies. There's some vehicular action that really delivers, but the bulk of it is a lot of atmosphere and long stretches that really souses us into the wasteland world of the series.

One of my pals actually compared it to director George Miller's previous film, THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING... And... Uh, if it's really anything like that film, it's going to be interesting to see how it holds up in the coming weeks. THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING is a curious film that I didn't particularly enjoy much, but it's very cool that a $60m movie that appears to be Miller - in his 70s - pondering and reflecting on the art of storytelling and the big mosaic of it all even exists. Now to see that applied to a massive budget action movie in an iconic sci-fi franchise? Even cooler. That's what you call taking a BIG SWING. If MAD MAX 5 happening hinges on this movie's success, I really hope it defies the odds.

So THE GARFIELD MOVIE doesn't have a massive bar to clear, and it's already over $50m worldwide thanks to opening in a few territories beforehand. Should make back the budget easily. Only needs to clear $150m to do that. Legs would really have to be bad in order for it to not do so. FURIOSA is the one I'm concerned about, as that cost $168m to make. If that closes the door on future Wasteland movies, then that will suck big time. Fingers crossed for both.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

From my dashboard we have:

New bonus track and lyric (?) teaser ready to crush our souls and sending soooooooo many thoughts spinning

Taylor and Sabrina singing together and TAYLOR HARMONIZING!!!!! (I love when she does that)

Karma is the guy on the Chiefs 4eva

The guy on the Chiefs has actually been anointed by the CEO of Taylor Nation #1 Fan Club himself as Regional Guitar Pick Distributor (Oceania)

All of my enemies started out friends who then circled back around to friends again in my VIP tent jamming with my boyfriend to the song I wrote dragging them a decade ago EXCEPT THAT ONE WHO CAN ROT IN THE BLEACHERS STILL STATESIDE

Killatrav needs to pace his killabladder so he doesn't keep missing folkore wtf

Apparently they still kiss when they have time

Aussie fans won as always

And that's what you missed on Glee Eras