#most valuable comic books of the 70's

[thekimspoblog]

Not much is known about Caleb Dawson before the 70's, but we know he was 37 in 1976 when he was arrested for disorderly conduct at a protest. He had been involved in occult and counter-cultural movements for some time before that, helping to edit several books. Dawson spent 3 years in prison, and afterwards decided to turn his life around. Between 1988 and 1994, he worked his way up the ranks in the industry of television broadcasting. His comic-book style was used in many storyboard projects. There, he met his partner [name redacted]. But Caleb eventually felt that even in Hollywood, he was persecuted for his homosexuality. He adopted an interest in libertarian and antigovernment political theory and began talking about founding an isolated commune.

This plan never came to fruition, but eventually he was approached by Ricky Sipes while visiting a convention in Spokane, Washington. After a brief conversation on Dawson's interest in theology, Sipes offered him a position as the parson at his own secessionist commune. Sipes felt a sense of spiritualism and community would be useful to keep the peace within his micronation. However, between 2008 and 2012 Dawson and Sipes began to clash on political disagreements; namely that Sipes did not allow same-sex marriage within his community and Dawson saw this as an obstacle for him and his (by then, serious) romantic partner. In 2014, Ricky Sipes died, his will instructing that his estate should be managed by Dawson. After finally marrying his partner, Dawson used these funds to take the church in a new direction; focusing more on medical research and women's health services.

Dawson never gave up his interest in "counter-cultural art movements" and (most likely attributable to Sipes) Dawson eventually found a sort of passing fascination with Saul Goodman as a phenomenon on YouTube. Dawson had already been architecting an attack against the for-profit prison industry for a while now, and so Goodman just seemed like a valuable piece on the chessboard.

Later that year, there was a terrorist attack on the Tampa Bay Family Planning Center, a charitable organization for which Dawson sat on the board of directors. The security guard was murdered and one of the doctors was taken hostage. The situation was resolved peacefully though, thanks to the action of one good samaritan. Even if it violated policy, Dawson was eager to review the security tapes to learn more about this anonymous hero...

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Read More > Top 10 Most Expensive Comic Books Ever Sold

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: The 6 Best Books On The History Of Manga And Anime

  Say you’re a fan of anime and manga who’s looking to learn more about history or craft. Where do you begin? There’s whatever insight you can glean from the work itself, of course. There’s also a good amount of information available online, from animation blogs to translated manga interviews to personal pieces. But when all else fails, turn to the library. Here are some excellent nonfiction books on the manga and anime industry that I’d recommend to just about anybody. I’ve also read at least sections of every book on this list, so you have my guarantee of their quality!

  Image via Penguin Random House

  Pure Invention: How Japan's Pop Culture Conquered the World reaches beyond manga and anime to encompass Japanese pop culture post World War II. But there are plenty of stories in here that fans of anime and manga might find fascinating: 

  The toy car that inspired top developers at Nintendo

How the karaoke machine led directly to idol culture, as music producers sought to produce music that ordinary people could sing

The manga-obsessed student radicals of the 1960s, many of whom came to work on later anime projects like Mobile Suit Gundam

  Author Matt Alt’s choice of interviewees and attention to detail marks Pure Invention as one of the best of its kind. If you’re a curious reader looking for an accessible (and recent!) popular history, I highly recommend this book.

  Image via Bloomsbury.com

  For fans abroad, the history of anime begins with the airing of Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy on Japanese television. But this wasn’t enough for Jonathan Clements, a long-time anime and manga scholar who continues to blog on Schoolgirl Milky Crisis. His academic text Anime: A History begins in the 1910s, 50 years before the airing of Astro Boy, in fact, Astro Boy only appears halfway through the book! Clements is concerned not just with the medium of anime itself, but the cultural traditions, historical events, and individual people that brought it into existence.

  One of the greatest obstacles standing in the way of English-speakers seeking to understand the history of Japanese animation — besides, as Clements notes, the haphazard nature of even those resources available in Japanese — is the language barrier. Online writers at sites such as Sakugablog have done fantastic work in making some of this information accessible, but those same writers would be the first to acknowledge there’s still plenty we don’t know. Anime: A History synthesizes countless Japanese-language source texts and interviews about the history of animation, yet Clements is careful to acknowledge that the testimony of individual actors within the industry must be weighed against both their own agenda and the words of others. While Anime: A History would be a valuable text if it was nothing more than a synthesis, Clements’ ambition to build a coherent history of Japanese animation from a production standpoint that thoroughly examines its subject matter and context from all angles is what makes it essential.

  Image via Stone Bridge Press

  Jonathan Clements collaborated with equally prestigious anime and manga scholar Helen McCarthy to produce The Anime Encyclopedia, whose third edition was published in 2015. It’s an enormous text (over a thousand pages long!) that covers everything from summaries and critical appraisals of popular titles to specific themes and tropes to nuggets of cultural history and influence. If I were to criticize this project, I would say that recent anime writing outside the United States exposes The Anime Encyclopedia’s biases; for instance, the magical girl series Ojamajo Doremi only merits a few paragraphs despite its status as a beloved children's series in Japan. Keeping that in mind, it’s an impressive resource that is great fun to browse (and to disagree with)!

  Image via j-novel club

  Mari Okada is one of the most prolific and influential anime writers of the past decade. She’s worked on adaptations, original projects like Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day and KIZNAIVER, and even directed her own films. In her memoir, From Truant to Anime Screenwriter, Okada frankly discusses her personal struggles: her fraught relationship with her mother, her years as a young student when she couldn’t bring herself to attend class, and the process by which she gathered her courage to touch upon her personal experiences in her work. There are chapters of this book that wouldn’t be out of place in an Okada-written drama, which I suppose is the point.

  Okada’s memoir is in part a testament to her work ethic and her willingness to tackle any challenge no matter how difficult or annoying it is. But it’s also a rosetta stone for her work: not just in how it overlaps with her personal life, but in its emphasis on the importance of communication despite how difficult it can be to voice even simple feelings. Whether you’re a fan of Okada or not, I found this to be a great resource for writers nervous of the fraught boundary between fiction and personal experience or for readers who want to know what makes Okada’s work so distinct.

  Image via Stone Bridge Press

  Frederik Schodt is one of manga criticism’s greatest elder statesmen. His book Manga! Manga! put him on the map, not only for its editorial content but also for its translated excerpts of Japanese comics — including what would be, for years, the only available English chapter of Rose of Versailles! Yet that book was published in 1983 and sections can’t help but read as dated now. So I’m recommending the sequel here, 1996’s Dreamland Japan. 

  Like its predecessor, much of Dreamland Japan is devoted to detailing Schodt’s theories as to what manga is and how it works. But the sections of the book I personally find most valuable are the profiles where Schodt writes at length about specific manga artists he either personally enjoys or believes to embody a specific genre unique to manga. The freakish kitsch of Suehiro Maruo; Ryoko Yamagishi’s historical epic Hi Izuru Tokoro no Tenshi (Emperor of the Land of the Rising Sun); and alternative artists like Kazuichi Hanawa and Shungicu Uchida. These chapters stand as a stark reminder that despite the recent popularity of manga in the United States, many fantastic comics remain completely unknown to most English-speaking audiences.

  Image via ComiPress

  Finally, there’s Udagawa Takeo’s Manga Zombie! Translated into English by John Gallagher, it’s an eccentric and rewarding text that profiles several avant-garde manga artists from the ‘60s and ‘70s. Udagawa strongly dislikes the market-driven manga hits that would go on to rule the world from the pages of Shonen Jump and fights instead for the careers of authors whose work was published in the pages of pornographic magazines as often as they were in Jump or the alternative magazine Garo. Most of these authors have never been published in English, whether officially or through illicit means like scanlations. If not for the translation of Manga Zombie — or for Udagawa’s further works of manga scholarship — the artists he writes about might vanish into history without leaving a trace.

  The comics detailed in Manga Zombie can be grotesque, ranging from the “fleshbomb style” of artists like Masaru Sakaki to prescient weirdos like George Takiyama. Some might be repelled by the content here; personally, I’m disappointed by the lack of female comics artists featured, although Udagawa (who mentions the girls comic pioneers the 49ers in the foreword to his book) is certainly aware of them. But I love reading folks talking about their favorite work that I’ve never heard about, and Udagawa makes for an idiosyncratic tour guide to some truly unique material. For those willing to brave the world of Japanese exploitation comics, Manga Zombie is a hidden gem.

  What’s your favorite text about manga or anime? Is there an interview you consider especially interesting? Let us know in the comments!

      Adam W is a Features Writer at Crunchyroll. When he isn't reading weird fantasy novels and horror fiction, he sporadically contributes with a loose coalition of friends to a blog called Isn't it Electrifying? You can find him on Twitter at: @wendeego

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a feature, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Adam Wescott

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Panels Far, Far Away: A Week in Star Wars Comics 8/28/19

A crowded week of comics brings the end of Galaxy’s Edge, two new Age of Resistance tales, and a one page wonder from Charles Soule.

Star Wars Age of Resistance: General Hux #1 written by Tom Taylor and art by Leonard Kirk

There are few characters that are as delightfully contemptible as Armitage Hux. Played with sniveling petulance by Domnhall Gleeson, this rabid cur has become the face of the First Order’s own take on fascism and male insecurity.

One larger criticism of Hux as a character is that his position as a punching bag for other big bads robs him of menace or presence. Writer Tom Taylor finds a way to take that concept and twist it, revealing the violent underbelly to Hux’s seemingly fragile exterior.

The set up to “Marooned” feels fairly familiar for Star Wars. Forcing two rivals to survive alongside one another following a shuttle crash bares more than a passing resemblance to Star Wars Rebels episode, “The Honorable Ones.” While Rebels used this story structure to force two enemies to find the humanity in one another, Taylor opts for a darker approach and shows how Hux uses Kylo Ren to help him manipulate those around him. Taylor paints a Hux that knows how to play the room but also harbors a violent and simmering need for vengeance. It goes a long way to transforming the man into a force to be reckoned with. It makes a case that maybe all those beatings dished out to Armitage over the course of two films may be building toward something awful.

Leonard Kirk’s art is best at the moments when his characters do their worst. There is a certain eerie quality to how he draws Hux and he captures this man’s own sadism in unsettling ways. 

Score: B+

Star Wars Age of Resistance: Poe Dameron #1 written by Tom Taylor and art by Ramon Rosanas

Out of the central characters in the current Star Wars trilogy, few have enjoyed the limelight quite as much as Poe Dameron. In addition to starring in all three of the sequel films, Poe also has a regular guest role on Star Wars Resistance and even got his own comic series that ran for over thirty issues. 

In this way, there just isn’t really much for writer Tom Taylor to offer. While there certainly are aspects of Poe’s character that could be explored (give him a boyfriend dammit), most of this hot shot’s life has been chronicled already.

Taylor finds a nice solution in giving us a much earlier story than we have previously experienced. We follow Poe during his New Republic days as he attempts to hunt down and capture a mysterious freighter that may have ties to the newly formed Resistance. 

There isn’t much drama here, but Taylor has clear fun in giving Poe a relatively low stakes mission to flex his pilot muscles and discover a less restrictive alternative to the New Republic navy. Taylor holds the identity of Poe’s mysterious rival until the last page, and while it isn’t necessarily shocking, the reveal is rife with dramatic irony and offers a fun twist on one of the more contested dynamics in The Last Jedi.

Score: B

Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge #5 written by Ethan Sacks and art by Will Sliney

It’s a standoff in Dok-Ondar’s shop of oddities as the past, present, and future of Batuu come crashing together. The result is a busy finale that is fun, but ultimately disposable and lacking in direction.

Kendoh’s crew has Dok-Ondar cornered in their attempt to steal half of the Sword of Khashyun and to make matters worse, the First Order has arrived to put a stop to the criminality of Ondar’s shop. Oh! And the old Ithorian still has to tell us what exactly happened with him and Doctor Aphra on Moraband. Everyone has a trick up their sleeves and who exactly is playing who will become apparent soon enough, but not after a few blaster bolts are shot and sarlacc’s are fed.

As you can probably tell, there’s a lot happening in the conclusion to Galaxy’s Edge. Not only did Ethan Sacks hold over the ending of his Doctor Aphra centered tale from last week, but there’s also three different factions locked in a room together with their sights on valuable treasure. It could have made for a fun and tense issue, but there just isn’t enough breathing room for many of Sack’s creative choices to pay off. In particular, Kendoh and her team were never really compelling characters so investment their fate and success is a hard sell. Dok-Ondar also takes a far more sinister turn here than one would expect from previous installments and it ends the comic on an oddly nefarious note.

In general, there’s a weird sort of disconnect happening throughout Galaxy’s Edge. There’s a particularly off putting sequence that sees the comic’s First Order antagonist rattling off about responsibility and order and how Batuu is in need of this sort of direction and hegemony. Will Sliney accompanies this monologue with brief stills of various locations at Batuu or, in a more cynical fashion, attractions at Disneyland. It feels as if the creative team got to the end of their script and realized that they hadn’t really done enough to plug the land that the comic ties into and this segment was thrown in. If we had spent more time with the planet of Batuu or its inhabitants maybe we could’ve had an emotional connection to this sequence, but as it stands, it feels hollow and calculated.

Sliney’s art also feels off here. The blocking for the big crowded showdown in Dok-Ondar’s shop is messy and confusing. For being the climax of five issues, it makes for an underwhelming set piece and disappointingly confusing to read.

Score: C

Marvel Comics #1000: “Red Four” written by Charles Soule and art by Terry Dodson

Well, turns out Marvel snuck in a tiny bit of Star Wars outside of its main line of books this week. The highest profile comic from the House of Ideas today consists of eighty different short stories each told with various creative teams to capture the full history of the Marvel universe and publisher. Given how important Star Wars was to the company in the 70’s and 80’s and now again in present day, it’s only appropriate that one of those eighty pages get dedicated to the galaxy far, far away.

As a whole, Marvel Comics #1000 is a fun if disjointed love letter to all things Marvel. Some stories work, some do not, but it’s really hard to be too critical of the individual pieces given the strict creative mandate that the various talents had to work under. Even with that considered, Charles Soule and Terry Dodson turn in a sizzler of a little Star Wars story that sees Darth Vader evading defeat by a team of Rebel pilots. It’s short, effective, and another bit of comics based coolness for the Dark Lord. Soule always had a great sense of how to write Vader and his punchy script makes the most of the single page. Dodson’s economical panel structure is to be commended. It’s a tight little story that is sure to bring a smirk to Vader fans.

Is it worth the $9.99 price of admission alone? Hell no. The story’s already available all over the place online if you really want to check it out. If you are a Marvel fan in addition to a Star Wars one, it is definitely worth giving this tribute a look, but if you don’t like to cross your fandom wires too much, probably give this a skip.

Score: B

[ink-logging]

Dreadstar #1-2

Dreadstar #1 (1982 – I read the newsstand edition of #1, published 1985), Epic Comics

By Jim Starlin. Colors by Glynis Oliver

Dreadstar #1 opens with a long, long, long ten-page recap. Vanth Dreadstar is a refugee from the Milky Way, which has been destroyed by war. He settles on planet Nimbus in the Empirical galaxy, where he tries to forget his old life and live in Peace. But, inevitably, war comes to Nimbus, anyway. A Monarchy starship lays waste to the planet leaving Dreadstar, Syzygy Darklock (a powerful magician), and Oedi, cat-human hybrid and a farmer, as the only survivors. They vow to end this war, and become the core of the rebellion against the war. They are joined by Willow, a blind cybernetic telepath who can see through the eyes of her pet space monkey, and later by Skeevo, a smuggler.

The war is between the Monarchy and Instrumentality. The Monarchy, is what it sounds like, a feudal dynastic monarchy ruling half the galaxy. The Instrumentality is a powerful religious order led by Lord High Papal. They have taken over the other half of the galaxy. Now the two powers struggle for supremacy over the Empirical galaxy. It’s clear that Starlin is playing around with classic themes of authoritarian dominance, whether monarchic, or religious, doesn’t matter. He sees both as two sides of the same coin. Both are wrong, and the struggle between them kills innocents. Dreadstar & crew need to free the Empirical, both literally and figuratively.

The first issue is a heist. The crew attack an Instrumentality space station which is full of precious metals. Vanth wants the hoard of wealth to give them the funds to escalate their struggle against both sides.

Starlin draws the crap out of this issue. The environments are fully realized, and the crew fight hundreds of robots, all rendered on the page without too many shortcuts. I’ve always liked the way Stalin plays around with the grid. He’s unafraid to chop the grid into small slivers, to give the action an added urgency. He really likes density on a page. All the pages have either a lot of panels, or are rendered with a lot of detail. He also doesn’t skimp on text. He really wants to pack a lot of information into the comic. The result is a pretty satisfying read. Even if the intro info dump is a little much, you come away immersed into a huge story. It made me pretty excited for issue 2.

The whole thing is really reminiscent of Star Wars. It checks all the same boxes. Science-fantasy, check. Mystical swords and powers, check. Empires bent on domination, check. A scrappy crew caught in the middle, check. A furry companion, check. You can keep going and keep finding more similarities. And it makes sense. Star Wars made space opera fantasy really popular at that time, and many comics around that time featured high adventure in space (Omega Men, Star Jammers, Alien Legion, among many others). But Starlin is an idiosyncratic creator and he does make it his own. He injects his favorite themes: mysticism, religion, authoritarianism, and a sense of cosmic grandeur. A lot here is reminiscent of Warlock & Captain Marvel, his 70’s psychedelic cosmic comics for Marvel. Dreadstar takes all these concepts, themes, character types, and mashes them into a huge sprawling space epic that is all his own.

Dreadstar #2

After loading up on cash in the first issue, Dreadstar & gang continue their rebellion against the 200 year war between The Monarchy & The Instrumentality. The 2nd issue focuses on Willow, the blind telepath. She can read and affect the minds of humans and machines. We start out with Willow being a total badass as she effortlessly takes out a squad of military police that endanger their mission. We see how valuable she is to the Dreadstar crew. Very quickly she retreats in her private quarters and begin to ruminate on her life, which of course means we’re about to get Willow’s origin story. She joins up with Dreadstar after he rescues her in another operation (these events were apparently told in Epic Illustrated). She chooses to leave her unhappy life, and stowaways in Dreadstar’s spaceship. When she’s discovered, she has a powerful psychic outburst. Vanth & Syzygy decide that having a telepath onboard could be useful, so they decide to keep her around. Syzygy trains Willow how to use her mental powers, but she has some kind of mental block that prevents her from reaching full potential.

Most of this issue is an excuse for Starlin to go all Ditko on the art. Much of the training sequence with Syzygy and Willow, takes place on various astral and mental planes, mystical dimensions, and other realms. Panels are full of the kind of cosmic psychedelia Steve Ditko pioneered in Doctor Strange and other books. Starlin has always been into this stuff. Warlock was full of Ditkoesque psychedelic touches. We’re treated to squiggly cosmic pathways, portals to unknown dimensions, and blinding white energy emanations that are the ‘force that dwells within all of us.’

Syzygy manages to identify Willow’s block: She was sexually abused by her father (this proved to be very controversial in future letters columns). To overcome her trauma, she enters—against Syzygy’s warning—the white energy of her soul only to be permanently blinded. But she triumphs over her traumatic blocks and becomes a powerful telepath. She accepts the trade-off: blindness for power. Dreadstar gifts her a space monkey, and now, by seeing through the animal, she’s not so blind either. The white light stays with her, and in times of need she can call upon it. I’m enjoying this so far.

Tom K @transatlantis

[kawitchii]

Little Witch 101: Sabrina the Teenage Witch

Today we take a step back from anime’s little witches to look at a little witch close to my heart: Sabrina Spellman.  Long before she started her chilling adventures with black magic, demons, and Satan, Sabrina was just your average all-American girl.  She went to high school, had a teenage romance, and lived with an eccentric family.  Plus, she managed to balance all of this while being a witch.  Though she may not have been America’s first magical girl, Sabrina certainly was America’s first little witch and, as the years have shown, she’s always been beloved by many.

From comic book sweetheart, to animated middle-schooler, to black magic princess—the world just can’t get enough of Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

An All-American Little Witch through the Ages

Sabrina made her debut as a comic character in Archie’s Madhouse in 1962 and kept appearing as a regular until 1985 even though she managed to get her own comic volume in 1971. This Sabrina was part of the Archie’s line up of characters and had frequent interactions with his friends since she only lived in the next town over.  Sabrina still was a secret witch in this scenario, only ever revealing to the group that she was a witch years later in a remake of the original Archie comics.  It’s also interesting to note that a major point of Sabrina’s story was that if a witch fell in love with a mortal, they’d lose their powers.  In fact, witches weren’t supposed to fall in love at all. This, of course made Harvey’s presence a special problem in the original series.

In the 70s, Sabrina’s first animated series featured some new characters called the Groovie Goolies who are inspired by classic Universal monsters.  This version of Sabrina has a distinct 70s meets magical girl vibe to it that jumps right out at you from the start of the show’s opening:

"Once upon a time, there were three witches, who lived in the little town of Riverdale. Two aunts, Hilda and Zelda, are choosing the ingredients to create an evil wicked witch. But suddenly, Zelda bumped right into Hilda and accidentally added beautiful girls' stuff as an extra ingredient. Thus, the grooviest teenage witch was born. She has white hair with a pink headband, and blue eyes. She wears a blue dress with a black belt and black shoes. She loves to goof off and battle evil forces using her ultra-magical powers. It so happens that she is the first bewitching American superhero — Sabrina, the teenage witch!"

This was the first time Sabrina’s adventures resembled action packed magical girl adventures. She’s not just a hip high-school student with a band made of groovy monsters, but a kick-butt, super girl! In fact, she really likes fighting evil (reminiscent of the titular character of Star vs the Forces of Evil) just as much as she likes doing regular mortal girl things.  Unfortunately this adorable series only ran for four seasons.

It wasn’t until 1996 that Sabrina would be on TV again, this time in live action form.  Arguably the most popular version of Sabrina, Sabrina the Teenage Witch set a couple of firsts that would influence Sabrina stories for the rest of history. This series was the first to go into depth about Sabrina’s family life as a mortal and witch.  This also is the first series that introduces the lovable and sassy Salem as a talking character, which is now something that’s expected of new Sabrina series. Finally, Sabrina the Teenage Witch was the first version of Sabrina where she wasn’t born with knowledge of her powers, but instead found out about them on her 16th birthday, giving her even less experience and training than all her other counterparts.

Sabrina in Sabrina: The Animated Series follows suit because she is 12 rather than a high school girl. In this series, she often gets help from a genie-like creature called the Spooky Jar in order to do more complex magic.  This magic often backfires on her and causes problems, but always results in important life lessons.

Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch takes a turn for a more Eastern interpretation of little witch but for good reason.  It was heavily influenced by a Sabrina manga made in the 90s.  In this series, Sabrina is a princess who is destined to become ruler of the witch world.  Salem is not a sassy friend, but an enemy spy sent to set Sabrina on a path of destruction. Sabrina even needs to go to two schools: her mortal high school and a magical one.  With this comes double the rivals, and double the love interests with not just Harvey but a dreamy warlock named Shinji.  In this series, Sabrina also battles the forces of evil that are sent to her by Enchantra, an evil sorceress looking to destroy Sabrina and take her powers.  This was the most off-beat of the Sabrina series until recently.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina features a world very similar to the original Sabrina Comics, but with a spooky twist.  Instead of being witches with powers that come naturally, witch powers come from a deal with Satan.  Unlike previous incarnations of Sabrina, she’s proficient in her powers here, but it is expected that she sign her name in blood in the Book of the Beast during a black mass on her 16th birthday.  It’s a pretty heavy change to the normally upbeat and comical Sabrina story, but that isn’t the only change to the Sabrina story…  Poor Salem doesn’t even get to talk!  Though this series has its major differences, it’s a must watch for lovers of horror starring witches.

The Real Sabrina Spellman

Sabrina may have gone through a lot physical changes over the years, but she’s always been the same character at her heart.  Sabrina is a spunky, caring, kind of clumsy girl who just wants to do the right thing and help others.  Of course, this means using her magic, even though she’s never quite a master at it. It especially gets sticky when she uses magic to help mortals.  Sabrina’s interloping with mortal affairs constantly seems to get her into trouble.  These magical hi-jinks are especially worrying to Sabrina’s family, which is comprised of her aunts Hilda and Zelda as well as their cat, Salem Saberhagen.  Unfortunately, Sabrina is separated from her birth parents, warlock Edward and mortal Diana, because of the Witches Council.  Humans and mortals are not to live in peace with one another, let alone marry and have children, so Sabrina is always a special case.

Still, Sabrina lives in the mortal world and is plagued with mortal problems.  She’s half-mortal after all, so these issues are always important to Sabrina whether it’s something as trivial as fitting into slim clothes or as earth-shattering as telling her mortal friends she’s a witch.  This is a reoccurring issue in all of the Sabrina series since her love interest is always Harvey Kinkle, a nice, average human boy. Sometimes Harvey finds out about the magic, sometimes he doesn’t, but his presence is a persistent problem for Sabrina no matter the iteration of her story.  It’s the same question that is reflected in her upbringing.  Which world should she choose: the mortal world or the witch world?  Since she is part of both, Sabrina can’t understand why she can’t have both.  Her parents didn’t choose.  Why should she?

Not only is it difficult for Sabrina to separate herself from the mortals because of love, rivalries always play some sort of role in Sabrina’s life.  Though Sabrina’s original rival was another witch, named Rosalind, all of her other rivals are mortal girls who mirror the real teen issues of high-school hierarchies involving cheerleaders and popular girls. They may seem like trivial problems, but these rivals are often the cause of Sabrina’s interference in mortal affairs.  Girls like Gem, Libby, and Amy have tried to steal away Harvey, bully Sabrina’s friends, and make fun of her family.  Sabrina can’t help but try to teach them their own lessons by using magic to make the girls suddenly nicer or, in a case from the live action show, accidently turn the a girl into a pineapple.  These instances in turn teach Sabrina her own valuable lesson: not all problems can be solved with magic.

Like most little witches, Sabrina’s story of being extraordinary in a world of average people is relatable, but unlike most little witches, Sabrina is tied to both the world she comes from and the world she lives in.  She’s able to solve problems other witches can’t because of her mortal upbringing.  Her witch life has left her with an idea that most problems can be solved easily, which causes other problems in her mortal life.  It’s this constant balance of these two halves that make Sabrina’s story entertaining no matter what adventure she goes on.

There’s plenty of ways to enjoy all kinds of Sabrina stories both legally and illegally so if you want to support the series you definitely can!  Archie Comics has the 90’s comics to the current Chilling Adventures Series available for sale, but no classics.  In that case, you’d have to search them up on illegitimate sites. Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996) is available on Hulu, Amazone Prime, and Google Play.  Sabrina the Animated Series is available through Starz, Amazon Prime, Google Play, and iTunes.  The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is available on Netflix.  Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch is the only series not available for streaming legally.

[hellyeahheroes]

Characters That Should Be In Young Justice S3, Part 4: Legacy

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Many characters in Young Justice are connected by the theme of legacy, being sidekicks of heroes from Justice League or in another way following their footsteps. As such, this time I looked at characters that could continue with this theme and expand on it, carrying a legacy of characters we already have seen on the show, or others, whose history we haven’t yet explored.

Number Ten: Firestorm

Firestorm is a weird character in that he went through multiple identities and adaptations are happy to cherry-pick for their own interpretation. In Justice League Action it’s a teenage Ronnie Richmond and professor Stein, in Batman; the brave and the Bold it’s adult Ronnie and teenage Jason Rusch, in Injustice 2 it’s Jason and Stein and in Legends of Tomorrow it’s Stein and an adult Jason. In New 52 it was teenage Ronnie and Jason as separate Firestorms who could fuse into one bigger Firestorm called Fury. And that’s not even getting into characters like Firehawk, Gehenna or Mikhail Arkadin that were thrown into the mix over the years. Or that time with fire elemental. As such, I feel it would be interesting to see Young Justice’s take on the concept. Maybe we could have multiple people able to merge into different Firestorms, with their own relationships and conflicts, with the Team or the Light trying to gain some of them as allies?

Number Nine: Jessica Cruz Green Lantern

As I’ve mentioned recently, DC Rebirth managed to push Jessica to the popularity that allowed her to become the representative of Green Lantern mythos in both DC Comics Bombshells and DC Superhero Girls. I’d say let’s strike the iron when it’s hot and give her appearance in Young Justice. While the concept of multiple Green Lanterns isn’t new in this Universe and has lead to a pretty nice joke about Guy Gardner in season one, we never had a Green Lantern actually working with the Team and while Jess is an adult, she is a rookie so it would make sense for her to be assigned to the Team first. For the better fun, I’d also suggest bringing in her partner and fellow Lantern, Simon Baz - I want to see them in the early days, clashing and bickering and the Team having to help them get along, before developing beautiful friendship we know from comics.

Number Eight: Mary Marvel

Fun fact: Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. actually are supposed to exist in Young Justice Universe - one bit of obscure information reveals they operate under codenames Laurietant Marvel and Sergeant Marvel. It never came to be, but honestly, I’d love to see it happen - in a more serious, dramatic and sometimes the outright dark world of Young Justice a ray of sunshine here and there won’t hurt and she could fill nicely in the spot missing since Billy stopped being a regular part of the team now.

Number Seven: Tanya Spears Power Girl

Tanya is a relatively fresh character in DC universe, but she already managed to leave an impression and gain few fans and her appearances in Deathstroke prove she can work very well in darker stories as well, especially in contrast between her naivety and idealism and more cynical people around her. Being a super genius who can change the size and has super strength makes her a kind of addition the Team doesn’t really have and her connection to Superman family allows us to have a character from it without someone with similar powers stealing Conner’s thunder. And, as a bonus, in the previous part I have brought up introducing second, younger Wally West from New 52 to Young Justice - seeing how these two are now friends and looking out for each other, I wouldn’t mind seeing it on screen.

Number Six: Kevin Kho O.M.A.C.

O.M.A.C. lives....SO THE MAN CAN LIVE! Holly shit is the concept of O.M.A.C. (One Man Army Corps) just freaking awesome or what? A normal person turned into a literal one-man army by a supercomputer on a satellite, Brother Eye. Be it to carry orders of mysterious and maybe not so benevolent as it looks Global Peace Agency or Brother Eye’s own agenda, he is a force to be reckoned with. There were multiple incarnations of the character over the years, but New 52′s Kevin Kho or his teenage version from DC Rebirth, Kevin Cho, seems best suited for a story in modern times. And it helps in this version O.M.A.C. is basically the Hulk - powerful, giant monster that can give even toughest enemies a pause. Carrying orders that not necessarily need to align with the Team’s mission, he could as well be a valuable ally or a dangerous enemy. That being said, Kirby’s original 70′s series was years ahead of its time and I’d gladly see if some of its influences or antagonist have found their way into Young Justice. Especially with how it’s been implied that story’s O.M.A.C. is being manipulated and his superiors are not as good as he thinks.

Number Five: Stargirl

A legacy character to both Starman and Star-Spangled Kid, Courtney already has made her way into other shows, having minor roles in Justice League Unlimited, Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Justice League Action. As such I’m interested in seeing what would be the take on her from writers of Young Justice. She is another one of those characters who can bring more optimism in darker moments, but also have some potential for drama on her own (especially if we go with New 52 version where she is motivated by the death of her brother). For a bonus, she was a love interest for Captain Marvel and YJ Billy should be of that age by now, so...

Number Four: Emiko Quinn Red Arrow and Number Three: Connor Hawke Green Arrow

Arrow family is strong on Young Justice, with Artemis as one of the main characters, not one but two Roy Harpers and Arrowette coming to join the cast and some small but sometimes surprisingly emotional appearances by Oliver Quinn himself. So why not add more? I could totally see Emiko, Olivier’s half-sister and Connor, his son, as his newest protegees and potential recruits to the Team or allies helping them on occasion. I’d love to see either of them interacting with Artemis in particular.

I also have a different idea - Green Arrow was beating himself on how he has failed Roy Harper, both of them and even more on the supposed death of Artemis. Maybe we could see him trying to somewhat do better by retiring as a Green Arrow and becoming a full-time mentor for younger members of the Team...while his City is protected by new Green and Red Arrow, who obviously show up from time to time?

Number Two: Zachary Zatara

Zachary is Zatanna’s cousin, who also possess magical abilities like her. He does have a different personality, being more arrogant and confident with his magic. He calls himself the world’s most popular teenage magician. While not earning many friends, he does seem to gain fans in and out of Universe. In Young Justice, his addition could be interesting both because Zatanna herself was a part of the Team and he could be a great contrast to her for the fans. But also because of the fact Zatanna is now on Justice League. And so is Doctor Fate. I can totally see him calling her out for not having yet saved her father and his uncle from Fate but outright working with the guy who took Giovanni from them. And I can certainly see him trying to do something about it himself.

Which leads us to our last entry on the list

Number One: Khalid Nassour Doctor Fate

I never really forgave myself sleeping on when DC You Doctor Fate book launched. So here is a small bit to make up for it. I want Khalid to show up in Young Justice and take a part in finally saving Zatanna’s dad from the Helmet of Fate and then put it on himself, maybe figuring a way how to not end in the same situation as Giovanni and others before him (he is Kent Nelson’s grand nephew, he could have found a way). He is an interesting character in his own right and I want him to have more spotlight.

- Admin

[houseofvans]

ART SCHOOL | Q&A w/ THEO ELLSWORTH (Missoula, MT)

From DIY comics, art zines, animations, drawings to hand drawn woodcuts, artist Theo Ellsworth has doodled his way from childhood and high school to galleries and museums all over the world. One look at his body of works, you’ll find yourself drawn into a detailed, imaginative, stream-of-consciousness narrative realm, where strange creatures, surreal beings, and dreamy landscapes flow and blend into one another, with no beginning or end. Not only one thing, Theo also is the house artist for the London based electronic record label, Astral Industries, creating art for bands like Flying Lotus, Ramona Falls, and Algecow. Learn more about Theo Ellsworth’s art and what his early artistic influences are, what materials he loves to work with, and what he has coming for the rest of 2017.

Photographs courtesy of the artist

Introduce yourself?  Hello, I'm Theo Ellsworth. I draw a lot. Pretty much whenever I can. I live in Missoula, Montana.

My drawings take many forms: I make hand drawn woodcut art for galleries and museums, I also make comics and art zines. Sometimes I do large scale drawings on walls. I do illustration work of all kinds. I'm the house artist for the London based electronic record label, Astral Industries. I've also made album art for Flying Lotus, Ramona Falls, Skeleton Farm, and Algecow. I've been dabbling in animation and I'm currently excited to be learning woodblock printing. My work's been featured in Best American Comics, Cicada Magazine, The Treasury of Mini Comics, Smoke Signal, The Graphic Canon, and the upcoming book, America 2020.

When did you first get into drawing?  Was it a hobby turned career or something you knew from the start? I've loved drawing since I was a kid, but it was in high school that it really became an essential part of me. I started out just doodling a lot with straight sharpie on whatever piece of paper I had on hand. Something about just letting my hand run free to follow whatever shapes it wanted to make, really helped me relax my brain in this weird new way. It was never an absent minded kind of thing. It never felt I was spacing out. It felt more like the act of drawing helped me carve out a personal thinking space where I could concentrate and function more naturally. I got sent to the principal's office for drawing in class all the time in high school and I used to get bad grades in my high school art classes for not following the assignments correctly. Now, I feel lucky to be making a living making art. If I don't draw regularly, I get grumpy and hard to be around. Something about making art seems to keep me feeling intact and able to face the world.

Who were some of your early artistic influences? Reading comics and children’s books as a kid really had an impact on me. I always knew I wanted to make narrative work with my art.  When I discovered the world of self publishing, zines, and mini comics  at the Small Press Expo in San Francisco back in 2003, I realised that I could do it all myself. The first zine I ever printed was a series of drawings on receipts. I started a photocopied comics series called Capacity, which was eventually collected into a 335 page book published by the Brooklyn based small press, Secret Acres. My newest published book is a 128 page, wordless psychedelic horror comic called An Exorcism, published by the excellent Latvian small press, Kus Komikss.

What mediums do you love to work with? What are your essential art tools? I’ll use any kind of pen, but my favorite is the Rapidograph, which is a technical pen that can be refilled with india ink. I also love just drawing with cheap ballpoint pens.  I love to draw on folded paper. I like the idea of drawing on a sequence of pages as opposed to drawing on a single sheet of paper. The act of drawing becomes more of a thought process; a series of drawings that travel somewhere, as opposed to a single static image. Some of my folded paper notebooks have been reproduced as art zines, such as Logic Storm, Antidote, and Relax, We Have Alien Vehicles. These zines are probably fairly cryptic objects to any viewer expecting a narrative, but working on each one helped me navigate the time period they were drawn in. I carried them around with me and worked on each one a little at a time, until they were filled. I Like having an ongoing work like this in motion that I can take my time with and slowly build on. I like to draw on a folded paper size that can be easily reproduced on a photocopier and potentially made into an art zine and I draw on both sides of every page, so the zine is an exact reproduction of my notebook. Sometimes I only make a few copies or none at all of any given piece, but keeping that format keeps me locked into a sequence of pages that I have to work my way through.

Do you keep a sketchbook or work your ideas as you go along?  What type of sketchbook do you keep – disorganized chaos or neat and clean? Besides my folded paper drawing notebooks I keep, I don’t really keep a sketchbook. I don’t really do preliminary sketches of ideas for the most part. I always have this impulse to make everything a finished drawing.

What was the first show you ever exhibited in? What was your last show? My very first show was at a coffee shop called Butterfly Herbs in Missoula, MT. By most recent show was at Giant Robot in LA.

Where did you learn your knowledge of art or making art? Art School or Self taught.  For the most part, I'm self taught, though I'm currently learning woodblock printing from an incredibly print maker named David Miles Lusk and I've been learning a lot of great animation tips from my friend Stefan Gruber, who's a genius animator.

Describe your artistic process for us. It’s all pretty stream of conscious. It might be easiest to describe my process with my woodcuts. I started making the woodcut art, originally because I got tired of framing work for shows and wanted by gallery work to be something that felt really different from my illustration work. I got a scroll saw and started cutting out shapes in hard-wood plywood, drawing on them, then coating them in varnish.  I’ll go into my little woodshop in my garage and draw out as many shapes as possible on a big piece of plywood and cut out a whole pile of them, so I have a nice stack to work on. I never completely know what they’re going to look like until I’m working on. They just start out as these vague person, animal, or house shapes,and it’s a true joy to sit with each one and discover the details. I do a yearly solo show of my woodcut pieces at Giant Robot in Los Angeles that I usually make at least 75 new pieces for. I had a show there this past June. Right now I have 3 pieces in a group show at Grumpy Bert in Brooklyn, NY and 9 new pieces are about to go to a show at Radius Gallery in Missoula, MT.

What makes you smile when viewing art? What is it you’re looking at – composition, color, line? I'm inspired by all kinds of work. I love outsider art and folk art. I love weird art comics, but I also still have a huge love for 60s, 70s, and 80s superhero comics. I love ancient art and textures and patterns in nature. Any art that really feels like it was made from an inner artistic impulse usually ends up getting me excited and inspired. I love art that feels a bit crude or awkward but full of feeling and personal expression. That kind of art does way more for me than something super polished and calculated. I love children's art and I collaborate with my 2 young kids whenever I can.

What’s a common misconception about artists? I don’t think many people really understand the focus and effort that goes into a single work of art. I love having a studio that I can ride my bike to, close the door and have periods of time where I'm totally immersed with no distractions. I also like sitting up after everyone in my family has gone to bed and working on my zines or woodcuts. I get significantly less sleep than everyone else in my family, but making use of that quiet time is so essential. The most valuable thing to me about making art is simply the experience of focus and concentration; the satisfaction of putting care into something. The journey of following a vague impulse until something tangible and often unexpected has come into existence. It sort of feels like developing a photograph of something from my subconscious, like I'm actively engaging with something mysterious and beyond my understanding.

Do you have a favorite artist(s) that does a completely different medium than yourself? Oh yeah! I have a huge love for art environments. One of my favorites is Le Palais Ideal in France, made by Ferdinand Cheval. He was a Postman in the late 1800s who built a complex and beautiful homemade structure on his land. He had no prior experience with architecture. He simply followed this mysterious artistic impulse and made something startling and unique. There’s nothing else like it.

What are your favorite Vans? I like it when people draw on them and add personal touches.

How are you not just ONE thing? Everything I do feels like it’s part of the same world and comes from that same initial creative impulse, but I definitely need that variety of approaches and focuses. It keeps me inspired and seeing things from new and different angles..

What’s on the horizon for the rest of 2017? Right now, I'm working on a new series of folded paper notebooks called Thrill Mouth. It's more of a pure comic book, inner-space explorer adventure series drawn in ball point pen. I printed some copies of the first issue a few weeks back. Some of the copies have hand drawn glitter gel pen details on the covers. I usually can't stop myself from getting labor intensive and ridiculous with anything I make. I've been making zines and mini comics for about 15 years. It actually was relief when a publisher first contacted me, wanting to put out a book, and I love working with the publishers I've been lucky enough to work with so far, but making these little self published art booklets is an important personal practice and I always try to have one in the works.  I’m also working on a graphic Novel with author Jeff VanderMeer.

Follow Theo Ellsworth

Website | http://thoughtcloudfactory.com Instagram | @theoellsworth Etsy |  https://www.etsy.com/shop/theoellsworth Tumblr | http://theoellsworth.tumblr.com

[phantomchick]

Can we PLEASE just talk about  Dawnstar for a moment?  I mean there is not enough dawnstar in the comic book world yet and barely any talk about her in fandom but she’s AWESOME! 

So let’s talk about her ! Dawnstar is from Starhaven, a planet colonised by Native Americans and whose inhabitants are genetically engineered to have wings and superluminal flight. Her peerless interstellar tracking abilities make her one of the most valuable member of the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30th century!

Dawnstar and her people are of Anasazi Indian heritage, and her appearance and costume still closely reflects this. Back in the 13th century, members of the Anasazi tribe were abducted from Earth by mysterious aliens for unknown reasons and relocated to Starhaven, making the Anasazi the first human colonists of the planet.

Dawnstar was created in 1977 by writer Paul Levitz and artist Mike Grell, during a period when DC decided that the Legion needed more ethnic diversity.  Which is nice y’know? Coz normally they didn’t think about that much but there was a big push in the 70′s. 

Her original continuity was  New Earth 

And she served in A LOT of missions with the Legionnaires - contributing her often Totally under-rated talents at tracking and high-speed interstellar travel to perform many rescues of her colleagues, as well as investigations of personal disappearances and similar mysteries. She was a BAMF no holds barred. With a great character and personality, who repeatedly got the others out of bad situations.

She brought her many talents into Legion adventures during other time periods as well, especially the 20th century. 

And was also notable for her early role in the Crisis on Infinite Earths, being one of the heroes selected by Harbinger for a first line of defence as the crisis unfolded! I want to see the writers and artists of today’s take on her, but a good take - honestly the N52′s attempt at Dawnstar was sooo bad. They whitewashed the ever living fuck out of her. Seriously. I am not over it. 

- They made a canonically dark skinned native american character as white as Stephanie Brown. It was eesh. And the series was one of the first of the n52 ones to get axed mid story so like are she and the rest of the legion actually still stuck in this century or what? Was the whole thing new52 story of them erased from history? What is even going on with that? Are they even still on the agenda for Rebirth?? -

Hoping they’ll bring a random-to-most-people character like Dawnstar to her full glory is ‘whatever’ i know. But what with the rebirth initiative and the desperation of DC to seem on top of things in the eyes of the fans after the trainwreck that was new 52. I think a lot of things that weren’t even a little possible might just be possible now.

Plus in all honesty ? I totally crave more fan art of her. 

[blackgoddessofsassiness]

DC Universe Streaming

Need to purchase X-Men t-shirts on-line? Whether you could have a love for The Avengers, Incredible Four, Thor, or X-Men there are a lot or t-shirts and different merchandise to personal. My childhood included a love for 60s and 70s Marvel and DC comics, and my means to draw originates partly from studying the stories I learn in these days. We worked for a yr collectively on the piece to plan and draw it. Toy companies like Hasbro and Kenner used to provide 1000's of Batman motion figure than is launched every year with some variation in it. Transformers 2, the science-fiction movie is the newest sensation, and is essentially the most awaited film of the 12 months. Let's take the movie Avatar for instance. Once in a while I went back to the sport to take a couple of more screenshots to extend a plot. Inside a couple of minutes, I began making comic strips. Not like his other comic strips, in Battling Boy, the hero is a child, who is on a mission to avoid wasting the town.

The truth is, the opposite series of battling boy became common. To conclude on this matter, I think it's a terrific thought to present our youngsters the humorous comics created method-again-when, comics from your and my childhood. To learn a story in adventurous manner is quite exciting for all the kids. You have got to overcome the restrictions of speech bubbles and the issue of telling a story body by body. Admit it you've! I’m sure you will have heard this common online retailer. Since Kids's Graphic Novels are actually just an outdated idea with a fancy new name, why shouldn't you discover taking previous successful comicbook ideas and reinventing them for a new generation? The thought was to convey the same meaning with phrases that I prompt by means of colors, textures and images. Popular Online Comics solidify a meaning of a phrase because pictures assist that means to phrases. The nomination was a major achievement for an artist who had - fairly literally -started out small, drawing Put up-it notice sized comics and hiding them in different people’s work in bookshops. The primary comic strips appeared in Germany in 1865. It was about two boys who are getting punished for always getting into mischief.

Moreover, if we are honest with ourselves, we all know that a whole lot of mischief is downright funny. Why are old coins value more than right now's coins? Complete collections will fetch so much greater than random particular person comics. Our purpose is to offer our readers a good piece of entertaining and academic comics on which is able to grow up not considered one of the future generations. These blockbuster motion pictures performs a vital role within the comeback of comics. People who wish to cherish their childhood reminiscences with the comics; they can easily discover low cost comics to start their comic assortment. In at the present time of "I want the most recent and latest," we actually discover that some of the true treasures are issues of outdated. Comic books are detailed stories. Apart from conventions, yard sales and used e book shops can also be extremely cost efficient sources for collectible comic books. A comic e book adaption in addition to a novel publication is being completed for the movie's promotion. That assumption is unsuitable and is an insult to your entire comedian book group.

These comic guides give you the sort of data you want like where to get the uncommon and precious comics and the place you may get first problem comics as properly because the back challenge ones as effectively. By selling and buying and selling comics you might be there have been the artwork work is most enjoyed and valued. Apart from, that is the place you get the meet fellow lovers and catch up on the most recent within the comedian books world; data that can prove invaluable. Some comedian books editions are collector's gadgets and if preserved in mint high quality condition. Books are restricted as a result of the reader cannot physically see what the writer envisions. Are these behaviors to be condoned? Eyes change into circles or dots, mouths are reduced to curved traces, and noses or ft are triangles. Get the most recent news. Those that already evaluate vast skills of our web site, confess that it is absolutely the most handy and easy option to be in contact with the newest improvements of the world of comics.

Nicely aware of the advantages that come from reading comics. Which Marvel comics must you read earlier than (or after) Captain Marvel? Repetition. Return to your day by day newspaper and glance on the comics’ page. The cartoonist is utilizing repetition to identify the character. Subsequently, we could say that it has nothing to do with a altering traits, whatever is new and trendy, photo to pop artwork print stays in the midst of its known usability in subject of art. I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! There actually is something for everyone. Cosplay additionally means costume play and the fans often come to the comedian conventions dressed in costumes. Eight delectable Expansions that followed added to the joy of the sport play. Then by all means, use it. By way of the use of these exaggerations, it doesn’t matter what different details I include. The possessed doll first hit the screens within the 1988 horror traditional 'Child's Play'. Corey Haim, the lead of the unique horror film, and Corey Feldman, the 2 Coreys, reprise their unique roles. However, in 2003 Hasbro would relinquish management to Batman's rights to Mattel. You additionally get preferential therapy in some cases and entry to particular occasions and performances.

Read Comics Online - An Offshoot for Valuable Entertainment Alcohol can find its way into the hands of characters in fiction. It's often used as being a device to demonstrate each time a character is an anti-hero or perhaps a villain, along with your more pure characters abstaining from something could alter their mental state, or not bothering given it has no relation to them. Some characters, however, use a history with alcohol that is certainly less about setting them up as bad boys for example Wolverine, but a little more about establishing them as human with very real flaws.

There is little the Hulk cannot accomplish together with his strength, which only grows stronger along with his anger, which I think is a direct reflection with the negativity that resides in a lot of people. "The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets!" To quote the smoothness himself. When Bruce Banner 'Hulks out', he or she is nigh DC Universe Premier invincible: rapidly healing from otherwise fatal wounds, able to run for miles without losing breath or momentum, and in a position to fell a building along with his bare hands.

The second option you will have to consider can be used bookstores. Used bookstores that exchange literary wares will invariably possess a long stack of comics that can vary from modern age to silver age and beyond. Sometimes you will see a good bookstore employee which will explain to you where they keep their vintage copies of golden age options and will sell these to you an inexpensive price. Without apology, I admit that I am the consummate collector of Batman paraphernalia. Recently, the astonishing work, The Batman Files, found its way into playing. Anyone who appreciates the mystique of The Dark Knight will cherish this book. And while I admit that readers often say of proper books, "I could not put it down," that has been truly my experience. I poured on the design and relished the high quality illustrations for a few hours after opening it. Asterix Comics or The Adventures of Asterix and Obelix happen to be translated into greater than 30 languages worldwide and have also received numerous awards across the years. I personally love the Asterix Comics for his or her amazing love of life and tongue-in-cheek interpretations of assorted people and events.

[ericfruits]

Why Disney Can Afford to Pay More for Fox

June 20, 2018 10:49 a.m. ET

Walt Disney Co.’s DIS 0.99% blockbuster track record, along with some unique quirks of comic book history, explain why it can top Comcast ’s CMCSA 1.77% bid for 21st Century Fox ’s FOX 7.25% entertainment assets.

Disney has released the top-grossing film world-wide in six of the last seven years, according to Box Office Mojo. This included two Star Wars movies and three Marvel movies, highlighting the company’s ability to take over iconic properties and juice them up further. Analysts at MoffettNathanson estimate that Disney accounted for over half the profitability of the top five movie studios last year.

This is the crucial backdrop to Disney’s sweetened offer for the Fox assets, including its film and television studios. The two companies said Wednesday they have agreed to a new deal worth more than $70 billion in cash and stock, up from Disney’s previous offer of around $55 billion and besting Comcast’s $65 billion bid. Investors were positive about Disney’s bid, driving up its shares more than 1%.

21st Century Fox and Wall Street Journal-parent News Corp share common ownership.

Disney believes it can boost the value of Fox’s assets. Particularly enticing to Disney are some long-lost Marvel properties that could become highly profitable in their hands. Back in the 1990s when Marvel Comics was in financial trouble it sold the film rights to some of its most popular characters. Sony snapped up the rights to Spider-Man, and Fox nabbed the X-Men, including Deadpool, plus the Fantastic Four.

There is little doubt that these heroes would be earning more under Disney management. Disney’s last five films based on Marvel characters grossed $5.7 billion world-wide, according to Box Office Mojo. Fox’s by contrast came to $2.7 billion. This is despite the fact that Disney has reached pretty far down into Marvel’s library, making smash hits out of previously obscure comic book titles like the “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

Perhaps the X-Men brand is just getting tired. There have been no fewer than six X-Men movies, plus several spinoff films. The latest X-Men tentpole film in 2016 was a box-office disappointment. But Disney has shown it can revitalize seemingly exhausted comic book franchises. In 2015 it struck a deal with Sony to take creative control, though not full ownership, of Spider-Man movies. Disney’s rebooted web-slinger lifted the haul for “Spider-Man: Homecoming” to $880 million last year, compared to $709 million for Sony’s Spider-Man film three years earlier.

Spider-Man also appeared in Disney’s “Captain America: Civil War,” which grossed $1.15 billion and “Avengers: Infinity War,” which has so far earned more than $2 billion, highlighting Disney’s unique skill at cross-promoting characters and properties. This is to say nothing of theme-park and merchandising tie-ins.

One risk of course is that comic book movies themselves will fall out of favor. But the Fox assets up for sale include decades of films and television shows—such as “Avatar,” “Titanic” and “The Simpsons,” to name just a few —that Disney can mine for reboots, theme-park rides, and so on. On a conference call Wednesday, Disney chief Bob Iger called out Fox cable channels FX and National Geographic.

Comcast’s main advantage, by contrast, is its vertical distribution capabilities. But the logic of a horizontal Disney-Fox combination may top this. After all, the more upstream content that Disney controls, the better position it is in to launch its own direct-to-consumer streaming service, as the company has plans to do.

Even if that fails, controlling the most valuable entertainment franchises puts Disney in a better position to negotiate with downstream distributors, whether streaming platforms or traditional cable providers like, well, Comcast.

Investors and moviegoers should be excited to see Marvel’s heroes reunited in Disney’s Magic Kingdom.

Write to Aaron Back at aaron.back@wsj.com

https://ift.tt/2ysVKn7

[recentanimenews]

THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL REWATCH Goes On An Escort Mission with Episodes 204 - 210

  Welcome back to THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH. I'm Daniel Dockery, your host for this week's batch of episodes, and I gotta say, I'm gonna miss reading these writers' responses to whatever Naruto and His Amazing Friends happen to doing that week. It's got me feeling all sentimental, especially now that we only have two more weeks left. And it's because I was feeling so sentimental that I decided to approach my questions a little more...personally.

  Sure, I wanted their opinions on the latest round of filler, which included an overload of escort-style missions and some fun genjutsu use, but I mostly wanted to dive into their lives and see what makes them tick. What drives a person to watch Naruto and then answer questions about it each week? What lurks in the heart of a Sasuke fan? What are the hidden depths in a being that has committed a chunk of their lives to counting how many bowls of ramen a Shonen Jump character eats? And since I doubt we'll ever get a hard-hitting documentary about the hidden feelings of a Naruto fan, that means it's up to me to do the digging. Consider me your Anime Werner Herzog. 

  So let's dive in!

  Naruto sure does love its escort missions. There's two back-to-back in this set of episodes. What's your take on them? I know that, whenever a video game is like "Ya gotta get the professor to the control room and if he gets blasted, it's lights out!", I want to throw a PS4 out a window. And in anime, it's usually "Ya gotta protect this guy (that has a valuable secret that you won't learn about until it's waaaay too late." But I want to know your feelings.

Joseph: They're not as downright immediately awful in anime as they are in games, but they have to be handled interestingly. Naruto filler does not do that. This week's episodes were, through and through, interminable.

Paul: I don't mind escort missions in general, although as noted above, they all do tend to fall into the same "vital secret withheld" pattern. The living national treasure episode didn't work for me, because the secret artist, Shinemon, was so thoroughly detestable that -- despite attempts to humanize him that came far too late -- I would have been perfectly happy to see him dashed to bits on the rocks.

Kevin: I think I dislike the escort missions more on paper than I do in practice. At least by introducing someone to escort, the show goes to a new location and has a new character or two for Naruto and whoever else he's with to interact with. It's not handled particularly well most of the time, but at least it's an easy way to get something new-ish out of the filler.

Carolyn: Fetch quests < escort missions except in Resident Evil 4. As far as Naruto goes, I don't think it's the escort missions themselves that are the issue, so much as it's the repetitiveness of just about every storyline. But that's a whole other issue.

David: On one hand, escort missions make a lot of sense as something ninjas-for-hire would do frequently, especially the younger ones like our main characters who need the experience. On the other, we've talked enough here about all the more interesting ways "being a ninja" could be portrayed as a concept, so it does feel pretty lazy that they keep returning to this well.

Jared: We've certainly seen our fair share of these types of missions, so they're not terrible when watching compared to when you have to do them in a game, but the execution in the ones we saw this week is the problem. They really didn't bring anything new to the table that we hadn't already seen done better.

Danni: I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who made it through that one mission at the end of Metal Gear Solid 3 without failing on the first try, so as far as Naruto's escort missions go, I guess I didn't hate them. Gantetsu seems cool at least.

  Noelle: Escort missions in general are alright (in anime, not in games), but this one didn't really do it for for me. Lazy execution will bring anything down, really.

  Kara: I played City of Heroes and World of Warcraft so I tired of escort missions pretty quickly from a game standpoint. From a show standpoint, they can be interesting if they're done creatively. To their credit, neither of these even approached the annoyingness that was the rich kid ninja-for-a-day, but I would absolutely have murdered the sculptor and used the rest of the trip home to figure out a noble-sounding death for him.

  Gosh, we're in the home stretch, huh? So I want to know: How does it feel to have made Naruto a part of your weekly routine for so long? Is it something you look forward to? Did you ever have a problem fitting it into your week? Did you ever have to tell someone "No, I can't hang out. I've gotta see what these ninjas are up to"?

  Joseph: I looked forward to it for about 70% of the rewatch, so not bad! I never had to go too out of my way to keep it as part of my routine, but there was a time I had to make sure to download episodes on N*****x so I could watch while in England. Crunchy-hime, gomennasai.

Paul: Just this evening, I had to pass up walking the dog with my sister in order to catch the weekly ninja shenanigans. When we first started, I'd set aside a block of two specific dates and times each week to watch Naruto, but now I just shotgun all seven episodes as soon as the questions are available. It'll take adjustment to fill that Naruto-shaped hole in my schedule. Maybe I'll catch up on the 300+ episodes of One Piece I need to watch...

Kevin: A surprising amount of my life has started revolving around this Rewatch, to the point that I actively plan things like D&D sessions around knowing that questions normally come in on Wednesdays or Thursdays, so I need to either watch the week's episodes early or keep those days clear. At the same time, I'm legitimately looking forward to continuing the Rewatch into other shows and then to Shippuden, since watching these long form shounen series so quickly gives a different viewing experience than watching week to week.

Carolyn: There were definitely a few times I had to pass on things for Naruto but for the most part I was able to watch it while doing other work so it wasn't too inconvenient. I can't say it was the highlight, though the first few arcs definitely reminded me of why I was such a fan so many years ago and I was pleasantly surprised to find Naruto -- a former least favorite character -- is now one of my top favorite characters.

David: Back before this filler started, I would have said Naruto was one of the most highly anticipated parts of my week anime-wise. Now, uh, not so much. I'm looking forward to getting to Shippuden though.

Jared: It certainly feels weird that we're going to be done with OG Naruto in two weeks. As someone who hadn't watched a lick of Naruto before this, it's been fun. Although the filler at times has tested my patience with that. I've definitely had to maneuver some stuff around or make sure I don't record a podcast too late in order to watch episodes which has made for some interesting ways to make sure everything works out.

Danni: It's weird to think how I've ostensibly watched one episode of Naruto a day for nearly the entirety of 2019. To be fair though, I averaged nearly two episodes a day in the 10 months it took me to watch the entirety of the Dragon Ball series, so this just feels like a light continuation of that. I haven't given up on any social obligations to watch Naruto, but it has cut down on my available tea time with my students in Fire Emblem.

  Noelle: I never thought I'd be watching Naruto in 2019, but it's August and I sure did just that! It's been more a trip down memory lane for me, and I think I have a more updated perspective on some of the things I recall that were shaky. It's been pretty interesting comparing what I thought as a teenager to my impressions now, and it's been pretty amusing to see how some things haven't changed. The Rewatch is definitely something I have to specifically make time for in my schedule though.

  Kara: My friends now joke that I'm "watching Naruto for a living." I honestly thought this was going to be like pulling teeth. Really, only the filler has been like that. I was pleasantly surprised to find it's enjoyable at its best. Also couldn't help but do a bit of a double take this week when the words "It's Naruto, he'll be fine" were spoken unironically. How times have changed.

  Are there any points in your life that you regard as filler arcs? I remember taking golf lessons for a week when I was 23, which seemed super out of character for me, since I find golf amazingly dull. So I look back on that as "non-canon Daniel." Is there anything like that from your own life that anime fans would argue isn't part of the official timeline of You?

  Joseph: Off the top of my head, I've been pretty damn canon for my entire run. There were a couple months where I lived in LA to help my friend direct his graduation short, but that was more of a NaruJoe Gaiden. Surely some of the six (6!) years I spent farting around in college were filler, though.

Paul: My filler moments would be when I've struggled with bouts of serious depression. Those portions of my life feel hazy and unreal, and if it turned out that I were merely a character in someone else's comic book, I suspect those would be the awkward bits where they fired the previous writers and artists, and the editors had to fake it until a new batch came along.

Kevin: I lived with my parents for about 18 months after graduating college, just looking for some kind of employment. Day in and day out, basically just lounging around home, occasionally having bursts of productivity by applying to a bunch of jobs all at once. This is also the time when I was seriously studying Japanese and picking up mobile gaming. Near the end, I got a seasonal job working for Target and then started writing features for Crunchyroll. I think that's about as filler as it gets, even down to changing up the formula to stave off boredom.

Carolyn: I had to think about this for quite a long time. I'm not certain I can say there was much that I could call filler except possibly my education, which is kind of depressing. I first started going to college for an elementary education degree before realizing I don't actually have the patience to be a teacher. Later I got a certificate in medical transcription/billing and coding ... and did nothing with it. It's all worked out, but those would have to be the filler arcs, I guess.

David: I spent my first semester of college working on a music degree only for my interest in that to peter out halfway through and basically wasting my time for the rest of the year until I found an interest in computer science, so that's probably the closest.

Jared: For me, I'd probably go with all the choices I went through before settling on what I eventually graduated college with. So, there was the long filler arc where I thought I was going to be an automotive mechanic. That transitioned into the very brief web designer arc. After that was the dark time where I had to work at Walmart for two years after dropping out. Finally, there would've been the journalism arc that would eventually transition me onto the English path that would take me out of college.

Danni: My life is a filler arc.

  Noelle: This is a tough question... I do think a lot of things in my life have lead up to where I am now, even if I did feel they were useless at the time. Maybe all the summers I spent at summer camp; I don't think I retained anything particularly useful from those experiences, except for maybe a Pokemon card or two.

  Kara: I think my almost ten years working for a mainstream news website would constitute that. It started out okay, but then it was just a lot of time-killing with very little new scenery. Turning in my notice and becoming a freelancer was scary, but it really did feel like moving on to a new chapter. Which isn't to say every day is super-exciting plot progression, but at least I'm not seeing the same things over and over with slightly different character designs.

  Okay, in our Naruto slack chat channel, there's a debate going on about genjutsu and how useful it is. So, to give us a little more #content, I wanna know your feelings about it here:

  Joseph: It seems pretty useful, but only at an absurdly high level. I'm a huge sucker for illusions so I don't mind the fact that it's just that most of the time. In these particular filler eps, there's an instance where if you fall in imaginary Genjutsu lava, your body actually thinks it's burning and you could die as a result. I'm not going to put much stock in Filler Power Logic, though, so I dunno. I guess it's just a cool concept rather than one I think is super useful all the time. Freddy Krueger uses Genjutsu, so there's that.

Paul: I actively enjoyed the Yakumo arc, although I feel like having so many Kurama clan members with String-Bean Genjutsu was wasted potential. One of my favorite science fiction films is Forbidden Planet, which also features a super-powered id beast running amok. I know some others were arguing that genjutsu is weak as heck, but applied properly, I think it can be one of the deadliest and most inventive tricks in the ninja arsenal, especially when it fools the brain into damaging the body.

  Kevin: I'm the one who started the discussion, so my thoughts are already well known in the channel. For the audience though: I feel like Genjutsu is almost objectively the worst possible thing to specialize in for a Naruto character. Taijutsu basically lets you bench press mountains and ninjutsu seems to let you do pretty much anything magical, and they both allow you to outright kill your opponent. Meanwhile, outside of the insanely powerful genjutsu shown in this week's episodes and the one that Itachi likes using, genjutsu only ever seems to immobilize the opponent.

On its own, that might be fine, since you could stop them and then kill them easily, but even schoolchildren know how to dispel low level genjutsu, and Kuranai showed that when that doesn't work, you can just stab yourself once to get out of a genjutsu. Not ideal obviously, but much easier to defeat than a man moving faster than the eye can see, or a kid trying to stab you with a ball of lightning.

For some of the others:

Ninja tools (Tenten): Not seen often and also a contender for worst option because of how rarely Tenten gets to win at anything. But being able to summon pretty much any number of any weapon has a lot of versatility.

Ninja animals (Kiba, Shino, etc.): They always seem to end up being more useful than I would expect them to be, while genjutsu always ends up being more boring than I would expect.

Kekkei Genkai: Because they don't need to follow the same rules as standard jutsu, the creators have more freedom to be imaginative with what the abilities can do.

Medical ninjutsu: Always useful in keeping people alive (brought back everyone's favorite bowlcut, after all), and Kabuto showed how it can be used offensively. Tsunade also hasn't showed how powerful medical jutsus can get, yet.

Sealing: We haven't seen much of it yet, but what we know is that if you can't kill something, you can seal it away. Maybe not the most practical specialization on a day-to-day basic, but exceptionally useful when needed.

A different group chat I'm in actually came up with a great way to make genjutsu more engaging, and it's basically what Shikamaru does with his Shadow Possession jutsu. Instead of the ninja casting a genjutsu and then basically nothing happening until either the person under the jutsu breaks out or someone comes along to help them get out, the genjutsu creates an opening for someone else to attack, creating combos and interesting combat scenarios.

  Carolyn: Yeah, I have to agree with Joseph. Even if the logic doesn't exactly make sense, anything that deals with mind-bending and reality manipulation is a plus in my book.

    David: It makes sense to me that genjutsu could be seen as the least useful ninja art to practice if you're a normal person in this world, but in the context of the show where the focus tends to be on the most powerful characters, everything except genjutsu feels completely underpowered. So it depends on your lot in life I suppose.

  Jared: We've certainly seen instances of lower level Genjutsu where it seems easy to get out of and know you're under the influence of it. In that instance, it would probably be less beneficial than other forms of jutsu, but if you have a knack for being a high level practitioner of it, then I'd say it's pretty beneficial. Especially as seen here where you can basically trick the brain into believing everything is real and have it cause legitimate damage. The amount of people who are going to be able to operate on that high of a level is going to be slim though, which makes it seem weaker than what it can actually be.

  Danni: Evo was this past weekend, so I've been thinking of genjutsu like a high-skill ceiling fighting game character. For low level shinobi, genjutsu is so easily countered that it's never a viable option. You're better off polishing your skills taijutsu + ninjutsu combos. However, when a real master sits down and devotes themselves to genjutsu, their ability is almost godlike.

  Noelle: I think I agree most with the sentiment that low-level genjutsu is pretty harmless, but high-level genjutsu is deadly. After all, it does rely on tricking the senses, and if you've lost control of your primary senses, then what is there to trust? They may seem like fun and games, but hallucinations in the real world are bewildering enough as is. Sensory adjustment being weaponized can be downright deadly in the right circumstances.

  Kara: Like Paul, I really enjoyed the Yakumo arc. This was a very "made for me" story, between the genjutsu and the taming of the Id monster - that's all stuff I love. Personally I enjoyed how much time was spent developing the idea of genjutsu: that a lot of it is our mind working against us, and in many cases the more intelligent you are, the harder it gets you. Plus our brains are our own worst enemy, so of course it would be terrifying to have them turn against us. I'd honestly rather be kicked in the face a hundred times than live out some sort of eldritch nightmare I couldn't escape, "real" or not.

  Do y'all like ramen? What's your favorite kind? I know that this isn't very relevant to the episodes, but we've been keeping a ramen count for about eight months and I haven't seen much discussion about how y'all actually feel about ramen. I personally really dig it.

  Joseph: Going back to LA, there's a spot my friend and I were hooked on in Little Tokyo called Orochon Ramen. We were training ourselves to stand up to the spiciest number, but never quite made it there. I would sweat INTO my ramen bowl, It was deliciously excruciating, or excruciatingly delicious; whichever sounds better. I think it did level up my spiciness in general!

  Paul: I've had proper ramen from a proper Japanese ramen restaurant in New York City, but, hypocrite that I am, I actually prefer the store-bought stuff from Nissin and Maruchan. I enjoy the pork flavor, which they label as "Oriental flavor" for some unknown reason.

  Kevin: I'll be perfectly honest, Naruto is the reason I started eating ramen more than a decade ago, and I still probably have a bowl or two per week. It's just so simple to make! Boil some chicken broth, add the noodles, add anything frozen (like peas), wait a few minutes until you can break up the block of noodles, add any other vegetables/eggs/whatever, simmer for a few minutes to cook things through, top with green onion if you feel fancy, serve. I also add soy sauce and ginger for a bit more flavorful broth. Maybe 10 or 15 minutes or so to get a bowl full of tastiness. Great for any time that you don't have a better idea for what to eat.

  Carolyn: I've never had real ramen and I really, really want to. The pork flavor labeled "Pork flavor" is the actual best of the store-bought stuff. Sorry, Paul. Oh, and also the mushroom flavor that doesn't even exist anymore. We can cancel shrimp and chili.

  David: Some friends of mine live next to a good ramen place so I like going there when I get the chance, but otherwise I can't say I eat it often. My diet is pretty terrible actually, being mostly frozen meals and the occasional actual food on days where I feel like I have more free time.

  Jared: I've also never had legitimate ramen, so all I have to go off of is the store bought kind and even then I can't remember the last time I had that.

  Danni: When I was in Japan I went to a grocery store and bought some random cups of instant ramen, which turned out to be curry-flavored, and I love me some curry. I ended up bringing a bunch home with me when I left. I currently have one left in my reserves, but I just can't bring myself to eat it and say goodbye to my curry-flavored ramen yet.

  Noelle: Ramen is my go-to food when I don't feel like putting a lot of effort into cooking. I love it! I usually end up eating tonkotsu or shoyu. In restaurants, I like mine with a good helping of char-siu.

  Kara: I started eating ramen when I was very little because my uncle, who was between college and grad school and living with my grandparents and me at the time, had it for lunch every day. (I thought he was cool, which he is, and I wanted to be like him.) He had beef with a slice of Swiss cheese melted on it. I had vegetable with white American cheese on it and eventually "graduated" to beef (though still with cheese). I've had proper ramen and I really enjoy it when it's possible to get it, but sometimes I just crave college food.

  And highs and lows, I guess:

  Joseph: These'll be quick. My high for the week was the concept of Dropout Ninja. I love the idea of unaffiliated bad dudes who decided to quit school and, presumably, set up a Foot Clan-esque underground network. The low is the Yakumo arc. So much drawn-out explanation for what should have otherwise been a pretty neat bit of intrigue and backstory.

Paul: My high point is the id beast from the Yakumo Arc, because the idea of being betrayed by one's own subconscious is a conflict that I groove on. Honorable mention goes to Kurenai being a quintessential shinobi by being willing to endure misplaced vengeance rather than allowing her student to come to harm. My low point is the sheer number of waterfalls that Naruto got tossed over. Two waterfalls in as many episodes is a Wile E. Coyote thing.

  Kevin: High - Cat-in-the-Craddle ninja. I honestly thought about putting him as my low point, or at least as a head scratching choice for how strange an ability it is, but he's one of the few things that really sticks out to me in this batch of episodes, and I actually do like seeing versatile skillsets, even if they've stopped even pretending to be ninja-inspired.

Low - The guy who made the national treasure. I'm so annoyed by basically everything he ever did that I'm not even bothering to look up his name. He started as a jerk and ended as a jerk. Congratulations, now get out and never come back.

  Carolyn: High point, like I mentioned earlier, would have to be the illusions. That stuff is just always fun for me. Low point, yeah, smugness is a no go.

  David: My high point is the concept behind the Yakumo Rescue arc, especially Yakumo herself, practically jumping into the show as a viewer with being inspired by Rock Lee and all. Low point is just how long that arc is - five episodes is about two too many, so it lost a lot of luster along the way.

  Jared: High point this week was some of the different and spookier styles the show tried to implement in the Yakumo arc, albeit briefly. Outside of that though, the low points would probably be everything else with that arc going too long and the other episodes just being basic concepts we've seen executed better elsewhere.

  Danni: My high point is the Yakumo arc, just because of the parallels her situation had with Naruto's. The weakest part of Naruto in my opinion is how little it bothers delving into the fact that Naruto has a giant, murderous demon sealed inside of him that almost definitely killed his parents. Seeing him recognize the similarities between them and make a silent vow to master his own terrifying power was great, and hopefully will become more significant in Shippuden.

  My low point is...also the Yakumo arc. It's just so unfortunately incongruous with the actual mainline plot. If Kurenai had been tasked with this mission for some time, why did she only just now decide that she's unfit to command her team? Also, I imagine that despite Yakumo's incredible power one day being very much needed in the Hidden Leaf Village, no one will ever say a word about or mention her ever again. Yakumo deserves to be canon, dang it!

Noelle: High point, illusions definitely! I like the idea of using horror when it works, and I think they did a decent enough job in doing so. Low point, the general sense of repetition and overall, I think some points stretched far too long. This could've used some trimming and compression.

Kara: High point is the Yakumo arc in general, with special focus on the horror imagery and Id monster. There were some genuine "NOPE" visuals in there (Yakumo's portrait grabbing her and talking to her), not to mention Sakura opening a door and looking out into the void of space and just screaming.

Low point was the freakin' "national treasure" sculptor who spent the whole episode mocking our lads for not dying on the job. I hope Akamaru got an extra spray on him before they kicked him out of the village.

  And for the weekly numbers:

Counters Week- Ramen: 0 bowls + 3 cups Hokage: 0 Clones: 94 + 2 uncountable scenes Total- Ramen: 201 bowls, 17 cups Hokage: 62 Clones: 912

  And that’s it for this week! Remember that you’re always welcome to watch along with the Rewatch, especially if you’ve never seen the original Naruto! Watch Naruto today!

  Here’s our upcoming schedule:

-On August 16th, NICOLE MEJIAS finishes up a mission!

-And finally, on August 23rd, CAYLA COATES wraps up the Rewatch in its entirety!

CATCH UP ON THE REWATCH!

Episodes 197-203: Solving a Mystery

Episodes 190-196: Matchmaking Gone Wrong

Episodes 183-189: No Laughter Allowed!

Episodes 176-182: Reach for the Stars!

Episodes 169-175: Anko’s Backstory At Sea

Episodes 162-168: The Tale of the Phantom Samurai

Episodes 155-161: Quickfire Curry

Episodes 148-154: The Forest is Abuzz With Ninjas

Episodes 141-147: Mizuki Strikes Back!

Episodes 134-140: The Climactic Clash

Episodes 127-133: Naruto vs Sasuke

Episodes 120-126: The Sand Siblings Return

Episodes 113-119: Operation Rescue Sasuke

Episodes 106-112: Sasuke Goes Rogue

Episodes 99-105: Trouble in the Land of Tea

Episodes 92-98: Clash of the Sannin

Episodes 85-91: A Life-Changing Decision

Episodes 78-84: The Fall of a Legend

Episodes 71-77: Sands of Sorrow

Episodes 64-70: Crashing the Chunin Exam

Episodes 57-63: Family Feud

Episodes 50-56: Rock Lee Rally

Episodes 43-49: The Gate

Episodes 36-42: Through the Woods

Episodes 29-35: Sakura Unleashed

Episodes 22-28: Chunin Exams Kickoff

Episodes 15-21: Leaving the Land of Waves

Episodes 8-14: Beginners' Battle

Episodes 1-7: I'm Gonna Be the Hokage!

  Thank you for joining us for the GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH! See you next time!

  Have anything to say about this batch of episodes? Let us know in the comments! We're accepting questions and comments for next week, so ask away!

----------------------------------

Anime Werner Herzog is a writer and editor for Crunchyroll. You should follow him on Twitter!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[theonyxpath]

Gag! Choke!

Yes, the They Came From Beyond the Grave! Kickstarter funded last week, and we’re all really thrilled that it will be over-printed to get copies in stores and that now it can start building some extra projects thanks to the generosity of our backers.

Thanks, folks!

With three weeks left to run, we figure that with good word of mouth we’ll be able to open up a good solid handful of monsters for the Monsters From the Crypt book we’re building with Stretch Goals, as well as more projects we haven’t yet revealed.

So, spreading the word if it looks cool to you is important – please do it if you get the chance!

But if support trickles in rather than gushes – that’s OK, too! What we want with our new games is enough support in terms of backers so that the Kickstarter lives up to its name. A little kick that gets the final book into stores and the hands of folks who will play it, or a great big kick into even more of both are both excellent outcomes. One is just more biggerer and means we’ve got a larger base group to start with.

Having had both in the forty-some KSs we’ve run, there are challenges to either situation. A lot of biggerer KSs, for us and for a lot of other TTRPG companies, wind up being logistically hard to handle because no one involved is truly ready for how problems multiply at 4,000+ backers.

But littler KSs can sometimes not make enough to cover the costs if printing or shipping suddenly goes up. We’ve been lucky in that we never had a KS that actually ran at a loss, but it has been close! So, challenges for both, like I said.

Finally, in talking about They Came From Beyond the Grave!, I just wanted to give you some first-hand thoughts about our game that was played at our Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Con a month-ish ago.

First, here’s the link to our Actual Play on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/qLEFXntIa3g

If you’re not into watching an hour-plus of a gang of gamers explore a creepy old house in the 1970s, or at least roleplay doing that as we sit in little windows, I’m told that the Onyx Pathcast on Friday, August 7th will contain an audio presentation of this gaming session.

I really was looking forward to playing this. It was my third game in three days, which is the most TTRPG playing in that amount of time that I’ve done for years. But, I went into it knowing I’d be playing a Professor, and one that had been a bit messed up by the secrets he had uncovered through his career. So, I figured he’d be a natural for shouting out lines and Quips, which would make diving into a new game much easier.

In fact, I’d just been in a game that weekend with Dixie, but I’d never had Matthew as a GM, and didn’t know Ian or B. Dave. Fortunately, once again the weird Professor role allowed me to do my thing while getting used to how they played their characters – and if you watch the Actual Play, you can see that Ian worked up to his character a bit, as he had a dark secret or two, while B. Dave went all-in from the start.

Which was a delight, and allowed Dixie and I to work out some banter and methodology for how our characters worked together: she was hip and driven, and I was weird. Our time partnered up even gave me a chance to come up with pseudo-scientific catch-phrases in addition to the Quips Matthew provided!

V5 Let the Streets Run Red art by Ken Meyer, Jr

Here’s Dixie, with some thoughts about the game:

“I love how it does camp along with actual horror, and the cinematics like costume change and dramatic meteorology make for amazing scene changes. I had so much fun watching B. Dave’s character and also getting lost in the red room and drenched in blood was a highlight.”

Speaking of costuming, I really think this game could be a fantastic opportunity to wear both 60s/70s and kinda Victorian clothes while playing. And the “costume change” cinematic card did come in handy for us after getting soaked in blood up to our waists, as Dixie and I used the card so that as we entered the room where the other characters waited, we were in two totally different, but non-blood soaked ensembles!

For myself, I did adopt one bit of costume: round tinted glasses. In the webcam, no one could easily see my eyes, which was really interesting and helped me keep a little mystery going along with the weird science stuff. In my mind, I was modeling myself on the dark glasses-wearing Quincy Harker from the old Tomb of Dracula comic by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. It must have worked too, because at one point Dixie wondered if the glasses were because I actually was a vampire or at least a ghoul.

Which was a great example of how just one bit of costuming or prop can create a whole different set of reactions while we’re playing.

System-wise, everything flowed really easily and intuitively and the added system elements like Quips and Cinematics made sense where they fit into the base Storypath System.

By the time we realized that we needed to head towards the episode’s denouement, it was obvious that the four of us could have played these characters locked in a broom closet and still have come up with tons of fun roleplay, so it was very smart of Matthew to move us towards the big reveal or we probably would still be playing and have only gotten through half the mansion (and plot).

And a satisfying ending it was, too. Everybody got to do their characterful things, and Matthew got to give us the big reveal (no, I’m not going to tell you. You gotta check it out!). Some fiery atmospherics, and we were out in the murder mansion’s driveway again, battered but maybe a tad wiser. Maybe. And with clues towards a larger menace to face in the future!

Here’s Matthew’s takeaway of the session:

“They Came From (in both its iterations) is always a joy to run, with players and audiences alike responding well to its combination of madcap laughs, hammy acting, and fun, gameplay and narrative altering mechanics. I really couldn’t have asked for a better group to show the game off at Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Convention, with Ian, Rich, and Dixie each adding their own creative flair to their characters, while B. Dave Walters stole the show with his smoooooth P.I., using the Raconteur Archetype.

One thing that stands out most to me from that session, is how differently it played to the session I ran for Red Moon Roleplaying (the third episode of which they’re uploading tomorrow!). Both games were great fun, but struck a different tone and style, and I think that speaks to the flexibility of the game and the characteristics the players brought to each game. Both are great fun and contain a lot of laughs, so please check them out!”

Nuff said! Please give it a look-see!

Titanomachy art by Felipe Gaona

What Did We Talk About At Today’s Meeting?

Thanks for asking!

For World of Darkness fans, it’s the return of the Dog Days of Summer Sale at IPR. From July 30th to August 31st, all Vampire 20th Anniversary deluxe books, screens, and dice are 50% off! And so are select Werewolf 20th and Wraith 20th deluxe books and screens! Exclusively at Indie Press Revolution!

In our ongoing efforts to try and connect gaming with helping out our communities during this tough period, a good number of the Twitch games running on our channel this week will donate proceeds to various charities including RAINN, the US’s largest anti-sexual violence organization; The Trevor Project, the national 24-hour, toll free confidential suicide hotline for LGBTQ youth; the Transgender Law Center, the largest national trans-led organization advocating self-determination for all people; and The Bail Project, a national nonprofit organization that provides free bail assistance and pretrial support to thousands of low-income people every year.

If you have a chance, you can enjoy watching some great gaming and elect to contribute to some worthwhile causes.

Yugman‘s art by Shen Fei

As a reminder, as I think I mentioned this last week, we’re doing our annual Gen Con “What’s Up With the Onyx Path?” panel virtually this year at Gen Con Online. Join Dixie, Eddy, Danielle Lauzon, maybe Matthew if the trans-Atlantic timing works out, and myself as we discuss just what we’re doin’ these days, dontcha know!

Finally, as I’ve gone on about pretty much since the pandemic started, we’re looking at more and more ways to enable folks to play our games virtually. This week we have a Virtual Table Top “encounter pack” going on sale at DTRPG that is usable for your VTT playing: Hunt for the Red Widow, a short encounter designed starting Talents in the Trinity Continuum Core setting.

It has the storyline written up, character tokens for the antagonists, maps, and some new powers, all the pieces needed to play through chasing down the Red Widow and her minions after their theft of a valuable artifact hidden by the Aeon Society. It’s designed to be easily fit into your virtual gaming, and just as easily into face-to-face gaming, too!

Give it a run through and let us know what you think! After all, we need to hear from you as to which of the many projects we’re getting out there work for you, so that we can create more ways to explore our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

Blurbs!

Kickstarter!

The They Came From Beyond the Grave! Kickstarter funded last week, and as it finishes its first full week we have opened up (like a crypt!) the Screen and the first section of Monsters from the Crypt: a book containing More Monsters! Next up in Stretch Goals are the T-Shirt and even More Monsters!

Thanks to all of you who have pledged to enable this fantastic project and its Stretch Goals!

Here’s a specially-made special trailer by the brilliant Larry Blamire:

And keep your eyes open for:

Onyx Path Media!

This week: Scion Status Update Roundtable featuring the affable Neall Raemonn Price!

As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

With They Came from Beyond the Grave! haunting Kickstarter, let’s take a look at some of the media related to that game!

Over on twitch.tv/theonyxpath, Vorpal Tales are running their first campaign of They Came from Beyond the Grave! This follows their fantastic They Came from Beneath the Sea! campaign, and I really think you should check it out! Their YouTube channel has episode one right here: https://youtu.be/Q6na0WHTfjo

Meanwhile, over on YouTube, our friends at Red Moon Roleplaying have started their own They Came from Beyond the Grave! story, with their usual excellent editing, quality, and in this case, a lovely cast of players led by Director, Matthew Dawkins! Come join in and listen to the Cult of Abaddon at play: https://youtu.be/RDYzNbk7VkQ

Also on YouTube, Larry Blamire’s hilarious trailer for They Came from Beyond the Grave! has dropped and is there for your viewing pleasure. It’s a testament to the kinds of stories you can tell using this game: https://youtu.be/NP65PlAw7mI

And finally, also on YouTube, in case you missed it we have the actual play of They Came from Beyond the Grave! that Matthew ran for Rich Thomas, Ian Muller, Dixie Cochran, and B. Dave Walters. Dare you enter Karnstein Manor? https://youtu.be/qLEFXntIa3g

This week on Twitch, expect to see a whole heap of games, including a lot of games we’re running for charity!:

Scarred Lands – RAINN

RPG Chaos, with Danielle Lauzon – Transgender Law Center

Cavaliers of Mars, with Vorpal Tales – The Trevor Project

They Came from Beneath the Sea!, with Ravyn Evermore – The Trevor Project

V5, with Gehenna Gaming – RAINN

They Came from Beyond the Grave! – The Bail Project

They Came from Beneath the Sea!, with PolishedCryptid – The Trevor Project

Changeling: The Dreaming – The Last Faerie Tale

Mage: The Awakening – Occultists Anonymous

Exalted Essence, with Monica Speca – Transgender Law Center

Scarred Lands – Purge of the Serpentholds

Chronicles of Darkness – Tooth & Claw

Get watching for some fantastic insight into how to run these wonderful games and subscribe to us on Twitch, over at twitch.tv/theonyxpath

Come take a look at our YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/theonyxpath, where you can find a whole load of videos of actual plays, dissections of our games, and more, including:

Storytellers with Coffee: Technocracy Reloaded – https://youtu.be/hb44inqafmE

Changeling: The Lost – Littlebrook Reunion Episode 23 – https://youtu.be/-O-74ePyQC4

(Matthew’s favourite) Scarred Lands – Purge of the Serpentholds Episode 8 – https://youtu.be/PFBYHw5TqoM

Deviant: The Renegades – A Cautionary Tale – Session Zero – https://youtu.be/5u9haYcXHa8

Storytellers with Coffee – Changeling: The Lost and Other Games – https://youtu.be/K7STCgIi8RY

Storytellers with Coffee – The Games of Onyx Path – https://youtu.be/QxRRq-WQytg

Subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon if you want to be notified whenever new news videos and uploads come online!

The ExaltCast continues with its superb breakdown of Exalted, hosted by Monica Speca and Exalted Writer Chazz Kellner. Check out their array of episodes (the show’s only just started!) over at http://www.exaltcast.com/

Our very own Chris Allen continues his chronicle of Werewolf: The Forsaken here and on Twitch: https://youtu.be/FyghldnRGPM

Please check these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games! We’d love to feature you!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

We’re told that the App Dev is currently creating an updated version for the latest devices, so keep an eye open for those!

Virtual TableTop!

This Weds, we are releasing a Virtual Tabletop encounter pack for the Trinity Continuum Core: Hunt for the Red Widow on DTRPG!

Hunt for the Red Widow is a short encounter designed starting Talents in the Trinity Continuum Core setting. When a renowned but mysterious thief known as The Red Widow steals an ancient artifact from the Æon Society’s vaults, it is up to the party to track her down and recover the device. She is heading to an old ruin said to unlock the artifact’s true power. Can the heroes reach her in time?

Inside you’ll find:

A short encounter for use with the Trinity Continuum Corebook

Two new antagonists: The Red Widow, and her minions, known simply as “Ghosts.” Virtual tabletop tokens are included to represent the antagonists

Two maps, ready to be uploaded into your virtual tabletop platform of choice

New Anomaly Powers.

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost Second Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And now Scion Origin and Scion Hero and Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order

It’s the return of the DOG DAYS OF SUMMER SALE!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, part the fourth of Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad, a multi-part PDF for Scarred Lands will be adventuring on DTRPG!

This section of Yugman’s includes:

6 new Backgrounds detailing Devotional and Political societies

Two new subclasses

Nine new spells

New equipment and magic items

Plus, as mentioned above, also this Weds, we are releasing a Virtual Tabletop encounter pack for the Trinity Continuum Core: Hunt for the Red Widow on DTRPG!

Hunt for the Red Widow is a short encounter designed starting Talents in the Trinity Continuum Core setting. When a renowned but mysterious thief known as The Red Widow steals an ancient artifact from the Æon Society’s vaults, it is up to the party to track her down and recover the device. She is heading to an old ruin said to unlock the artifact’s true power. Can the heroes reach her in time?

Inside you’ll find:

A short encounter for use with the Trinity Continuum Corebook

Two new antagonists: The Red Widow, and her minions, known simply as “Ghosts.” Virtual tabletop tokens are included to represent the antagonists

Two maps, ready to be uploaded into your virtual tabletop platform of choice

New Anomaly Powers.

Conventions!

Though dates for physical conventions are subject to change due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, here’s what’s left of our current list of upcoming conventions (and really, we’re just waiting for this last one to be cancelled even though it’s Nov/Dec). Instead, keep an eye out here for more virtual conventions we’re going to be involved with:

PAX Unplugged: https://unplugged.paxsite.com/

Keep an eye out for our games being run at the online version of GenCon at the end of the month, as well as our What’s Up With the Onyx Path? panel currently slated for 1pm, Thursday July 30th!

https://www.gencon.com/online/

And now, the new project status updates!

Development Status from Eddy Webb! (Projects in bold have changed status since last week.):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep.)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

The Devoted Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

Saints and Monsters (Scion 2nd Edition)

M20 Technocracy Operative’s Dossier (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Prometheus Unbound (was Psi Orders) (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

No Gods, No Masters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Redlines

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Wild Hunt (Scion 2nd Edition)

CtL 2e Novella Collection: Hollow Courts (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Squeaks In The Deep (Realms of Pugmire)

Trinity Continuum: Anima

Second Draft

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

Dead Man’s Rust (Scarred Lands)

The Clades Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide To Magick (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution Fiction Anthology (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Exalted Essence Edition (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Development

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Assassins (Trinity Continuum Core)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

V5 Forbidden Religions (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

V5 Children of the Blood (was The Faithful Undead) (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Manuscript Approval

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

V5 Trails of Ash and Bone (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Post-Approval Development

Under Alien Skies (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Editing

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum)

LARP Rules (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Book of Lasting Death (Mummy: The Curse 2e)

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (They Came From!)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Dearly Bleak – Novella (Deviant: The Renegades)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Post-Editing Development

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Indexing

Lunars: Fangs At The Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Art Direction from Mike Chaney!

In Art Direction

Tales of Aquatic Terror

WoD Ghost Hunters (KS)

Aberrant

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Mummy 2

Deviant – Sam doing fulls for this next. Contracting out all the rest.

Legendlore

Technocracy Reloaded

Cults of the Blood God – Rolling along.

Scion: Dragon (KS) – Splats contracted.

Masks of the Mythos (KS) – KS art contracted, a couple of finals already in.

Scion: Demigod (KS) – KS art in progress.

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (KS) – KS running.

TC: Adventure! (KS) – Cover is in.

Geist: One Foot In the Grave

In Layout

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad

Vigil Watch

TC Aeon Terra Firma

V5 Let the Streets Run Red – Almost wrapped up, still working on Loresheets.

Pugmire Adventure

Scion Titanomachy

Trinity Core Jumpstart

Proofing

Trinity Aeon Jumpstart – PoD files updated.

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate – Indexing.

Cavaliers of Mars: City of the Towered Tombs

Magic Item Decks (Scarred Lands)

Yugman’s Guide Support Decks (Scarred Lands)

At Press

TCFBTS Heroic Land Dwellers – PoD proof on the way.

TCFBTS Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Shipping from printer to KS fulfiller, PoD proofs on the way.

Pirates of Pugmire – Shipping from printer to KS fulfiller.

Pirates of Pugmire Screen – Files at press.

Dark Eras 2 – Files at press.

Dark Eras 2 Screen and booklet – Files at press.

Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition Dark Eras Compilation – PoD proof on the way.

Contagion Chronicle – Press prep.

Contagion Chronicle Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

Lunars Wall Scroll Map – Files at press.

Lunars Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

Scarred Lands Creature Collection – Printing.

Scion Companion – PoD proofs ordered.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Today marks 80 years since the first named appearance of Bugs Bunny on screen. A Wild Hare in 1940 was his first appearance as Bugs. He did appear earlier as a Bugs-like rabbit in Porky’s Hare Hunt, but he was unnamed in the episode. Guess they liked the reaction to his character enough to give him a name. For several generations that grew up with the cartoons, especially run in blocks on TV, Bugs was an anarchic, rebellious, and sarcastic role model – very often the first that young minds were exposed to.

You can tell because even to this day we quote certain lines, like my old WW buddy Ken Cliffe who often replied to questions about whether the text for game books would hit deadlines with “Could be, rabbit. Could be.”

[beanburrito1015]

Are required classes more important that Fine Arts?

A while back in my junior year English class, my teacher asked the question along the lines of, “Are Fine Arts just as important as subjects like Math, English, and Science?” Now, I come from a very conservative town, so most of my classmates had very traditional views, resulting in the majority of them answering no, Fine Arts are not as important as the other subjects. But alas, we never got the opportunity to have that debate in class, but I was ready. That question has been pestering my mind since that day. Growing up, my parents would always tell me to get good grades in Math, English, and Science, because “those were the ones that mattered”. I never thought much about it until hearing that question. Why was it that my grade in Pre-Algebra mattered more than my grade in Theatre? Why have we been taught this from such an early age? 

It boils down to the futures of the youth and the practicality of their future careers. Compare the amount of times you have heard parents or school counselors encouraging kids to become doctors or lawyers or engineers to the amount of times you have heard parents wanting their kids to be actors or artists or musicians. The difference is drastic, and understandably so. In most cases, the adults in a kid’s life want what is best for them. Being a doctor is a very practical job, usually coming with a steady income and benefits. There is a sense of stability that comes with having a practical job, something that everyone wants. But what if I told you that the jobs that adults don’t want the kids to get are just as important, if not more important as the others? What if I told you that fine arts are a defining part of every culture? 

There are considered to be seven different fine arts, those being architecture, sculpture, painting, literature, dance, music, and since the twentieth century, film/cinema. Those might vary a little bit between who you talk to and where you are from, but those are the main seven. 

Architecture

Every single building you have ever been in, of any sort, was made possible by the architect(s) who designed it. You would not have a house, a physical school, an office building, or anything in between if it weren’t for the art we call architecture. These things are necessary for everyday life, whether we realize it or not, and society as we know it would collapse without them. 

Sculpture

This one might not seem as important as the others, but think again. It could one hundred percent be argued that pottery is a form of sculpture. According to the Ancient History Encyclopedia, “pottery is one of the most common types of items found by archaeologists during excavations, and it has the potential of providing valuable information about the human past”. Had it not been for ancient peoples inventing and creating different forms of ceramics and pottery, we would know a lot less about them, and we wouldn’t have the basic eating and drinking utensils that we have today. Furthermore, think of the most iconic sculptures in history. David, by Michelangelo. The Statue of Liberty. The Great Sphinx of Giza. Although these aren’t essential parts of human history, what they symbolize are important parts of our cultures. 

Painting

Painting, along with sculpture, are huge parts of culture and history, most notably, The Renaissance. Renaissance is defined as “the revival of art and literature under the influence of classic models in the 14th-16th centuries”. Think of paintings like The Last Supper, or The Creation of Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Each of those are important to many Christian religions today, and are iconic pieces of work that basically define Christianity as a whole. I would argue that religion as a whole would be very different if it weren’t for the artwork created many years ago. Or think of the cave paintings left behind from thousands and thousands of years ago, giving us a glimpse of what life was like back then. Painting also paved the way for other forms of artwork to take place, such as animation and graphic design, things that we use/consume every day. 

Literature

If literature wasn’t taught in schools, everyone would be… you guessed it: illiterate. Literature and language go hand in hand. If it weren’t for literature, it would be extremely hard to learn how to use language. And vice-versa. If it weren’t for language, literature would cease to exist. Every single book about anything you have ever read, whether it be business, self improvement, history, textbooks, or even fiction stories would not even be possible without literature. The Bible, Quran, Torah, and any other sacred religious text, which are the texts that a lot of people base their morals off of, wouldn’t be here, resulting in nobody knowing what each religion is about, causing religion itself to crumble. Most forms of news are written down, on a newspaper or online, and without that we wouldn’t know about the world around us. Sure we have live news networks on TV, but more on that later. So yes, literature is important. 

Dance

Dance has been a way to express emotions for thousands of years. Swing dancing, slow dancing, or even mosh pits are ways to connect with other people, and have been for quite a while. Without dancing we wouldn’t have things like Homecoming and Prom, which can be big parts of the adolescent experience. Dancing is a great way to socialize with others and convey emotions without even having to say a word. Furthermore, dancing is a great cardio workout, which is great for your physical health.  

Music

What do you think about when someone mentions the 60s? The 70s? The 80s? You might think of the crazy hair styles, the politics, the hippies, and the ridiculous fashion (which is definitely making a comeback), but something that never goes without saying is the music of those decades. The rise of pop, disco, alternative rock. The Beatles, Bee Gees, Journey. Bob Dylan, Elton John, Michael Jackson. In fact, you could talk about any decade from the last century, and the music of that time will always be a defining part of that discussion. Even centuries ago, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Chopin were superstars! Music has always been something that humans have loved and enjoyed, and it always will be. It is something that people can identify with. People can find a community of others with similar music taste, they can feel welcome and accepted because there are others like them. People feel pride when they hear their national anthem. Musicians write songs about politics, social issues, historic events. “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel is a great example of this. After 9/11, Alan Jackson wrote a hit country song called “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” about the tragic events that happened that day, and tells us that the greatest thing we have is love. On the opposite end we have “Weird Al” Yankovic, who makes ironic parodies of existing songs. Music has always been a way for people to express themselves and their ideologies, and to have fun. I have heard so many times that “this song/band saved my life”. Music is more than just instruments and sounds, it’s real, raw emotions, that covers every topic that a person could think of, and is a huge part of world culture. Without music we couldn’t connect with others nearly as well as we can with it. 

Film

Have you ever seen someone get offended when someone else hasn’t watched Star Wars? I have seen that way too many times, mostly because I am a person who hasn’t watched Star Wars. But why does it matter so much? I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but it is because of the cultural importance of that movie. Star Wars is a universally known movie series. If you haven’t seen it, you know what it is and a basic summary of what it is about. Along with music people can find friends through having a similar interest in movies, for example, Comic-Con. Movies basically run every single marketing campaign ever. Whenever there is a new Disney Pixar movie coming out, you’ll see fruit snacks shaped as the characters, and McDonald’s happy meal toys based after the movie. You will constantly see posters and commercials advertising for the movie. Film, like music, lets the writer or director express their emotions and ideas to others. Film is just like literature, just easier to understand. It can teach and educate us, make us feel emotions, and blow our minds. Get a job in the film industry, and you are set. Another part of the film section of fine arts is TV broadcasting. TV can bring us the news, sports, and lots of other forms of entertainment, all of which are important to humans. 

Either the kids in my junior year English class didn’t know what fine arts even were, or they didn’t know what the hell they were talking about, or both. Sure, the other subjects are very important, and help us further innovate technology and the world around us. Sure, having a career in STEM will be a great career, but you could make a career out of any of the fine arts above just as easily. Remove any one of the fine arts from society, and the world would be wildly different. Saying that the fine arts aren’t as important as Math, English, and Science is an ignorant and uneducated statement, and it shows that you know nothing about the world around you. 

[julienduaccount-blog]

Lit Review First Draft

Julien Mark

Dr. KT

Writing 1133

10/09/19

This is a literature review pertaining to research about the groundbreaking 1970s American television sitcom “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”. The purpose for searching through records and collecting details about this program is to evaluate its wide-ranging impact on American culture. The show received special attention during its seven year run on CBS network’s program list. It won many awards, and was applauded by critics. Episodes attracted high ratings and large audience numbers. Its significance in the world of television surpasses its overall quality and popularity. Therefore, searching for credible sources about the show is not difficult. The Academic Search Online database returns with numerous essays, accounts, and articles that examine the series and its influence on American culture. Many of the titles directly name the show and its star. The final selection of sources are thematically connected. They are the ones that explore how the show supported the modification of the decade's socio political  status quo, particularly that of women in American society. 

Two sources included are books that one would see in a liberal arts college course. The first is Women's Rights: Reflections in Popular Culture, a textbook for a gender studies or history course.  Ann M. Savage is the author.  She is a professor of Critical Communication & Media Studies.. Savage contends that “Popular culture serves as a mirror of what is happening in a culture at any given time while simultaneously disseminating ideas and perspectives that influence public attitudes about social issues” (Savage xii). The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s impact on American culture is explored in the first chapter of the textbook, Television.This book is an example of a modern source that includes Mary Tyler Moore in its repertoire of socially conscious and progressive feminine icons. The book was published in 2017, so it covers a longer and more relevant account of the history of American women in arts and media related fields. The second book is an older publication written in 1997 by June Sochen, a professor of history at Northeastern Illinois University.  From Mae to Madonna : Women Entertainers in Twentieth-Century America, is a piece that explores the lives and careers of some of the most iconic women in the entertainment business. The chapter most relevant to the objective is titled Women Comics. As the writer, producer and star of her own sitcom, Mary Tyler Moore “may be responsible for stretching the boundaries of good taste, for expanding women’s expectations for themselves, and for making a place for all other women entertainers” (Sochen 164). The show caused a shift in the social consciousness of America, and other television networks observed and studied the series with hopes of creating another fresh project. The names in the book are in chronological order, and some of them correspond with names from Savage’s work. For a student, it is typical  to get a report from a textbook. Using these two books gives my work cited list more variety. It is valuable to give attention to sources specific to teaching.  Professor Savage states that the values and attitudes of American society are visible through the lens of pop culture, and there is an entire chapter dedicated to this concept and a specific section about Mary Tyler Moore. 

Academic journals are effective and reliable secondary sources. Most of the ones cited as research material for this paper mention Mary Tyler Moore and her show by name. There is one source that does not. Professor Jennifer S. Clark from Fordham University writes in her article Liberating Bicentennial America: Imagining the Nation through TV Superwomen of the Seventies about the methods adopted by television networks to keep up with the changing socio political climate during the 1970s. The author contends that networks at the time saw an opportunity to tap into a new market, and created content that could appease supporters of more liberal values, mostly feminism. Clark uses the comic book hero Wonder Woman as her case study, but because of the time period and the relevant feminist themes, the source provides an interesting look into an externality of this social progress. “In economic terms, fantastically heroic women proved vital to the financial fortunes of network television” (Clark 437). American audiences started to embrace the strong female protagonist, and the networks adjusted as such. More content with those kinds of themes sprouted. The article refers to many of those programs, but there is no mention of the Mary Tyler Moore show. The article is still relevant because it provides context and describes the climate at the time the show was on the air. 

Other journal articles directly refer to Mary Tyler Moore and her show. These are self-evidently important, but they can be broken down into two categories. There are sources that emphasize the feminist overtones, and others that examine the show’s place in television history. Allyson Jule strongly defends the former choice in her piece Using The Mary Tyler Moore Show as a Feminist Teaching Tool. This is arguably the most relevant source in my arsenal, because it touches directly on my topic. 

An elaborate work cited list with a variety of sources is crucial to a piece of writing such as this. After collecting a plethora of articles, narrowing down the sources to a synchronized body of work is what gives a new paper its specificity. The links between the sources in this paper include how the show aided the feminist movement and the general empowerment of women in America. For a television sitcom to unite an audience and have them reflect on its message is a great feat.

Works Cited

Butler, Bethonie. “Five Ways 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' Revolutionized Women on Television.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 26 Jan. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/01/26/five-ways-the-mary-tyler-moore-show-revolutionized-women-on-television/.

Clark, Jennifer S. “Liberating Bicentennial America: Imagining the Nation through TV Superwomen of the Seventies.” Television & New Media, vol. 10, no. 5, Sept. 2009, pp. 434–454. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/1527476409333666.

Gliatto, Tom, et al. “1936-2017 MARY TYLER MOORE. (Cover Story).” People, vol. 87, no. 7, Feb w0q7, pp. 54-62. EBSCOhostsearch.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=121093537&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Jule, Allyson. “Using The Mary Tyler Moore Show as a Feminist Teaching Tool.” Gender & Education, vol. 22, no. 1, Jan. 2010, pp. 123–130. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/09540250902769446.

Savage, Ann M. Women's Rights: Reflections in Popular Culture,  ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/du/detail.action?docID=4865672.

Sochen, June. From Mae to Madonna : Women Entertainers in Twentieth-Century America, University Press of Kentucky, 1999. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/du/detail.action?docID=1914986.

TEACHOUT, TERRY. “Saturday Night Strive.” Commentary, vol. 136, no. 1, July 2013, pp. 70–73. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=89867098&site=ehost-live&scope= site.

[kidsviral-blog]

What These People Found In Their Attic Changed Their Lives Forever.

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/what-these-people-found-in-their-attic-changed-their-lives-forever/

What These People Found In Their Attic Changed Their Lives Forever.

The recent popularity of shows like Storage Wars and Pawn Stars has suddenly gotten people really into digging up old treasures from neglected rooms of the house. More than likely, most of you will discover nothing more antennas from old TVs and a couple cranky raccoons in your empty rooms.

However, it might still be worth looking. These people below found some absolutely insane things in their attics. Some of those finds were valuable, some just down right creepy. So grab a flashlight, we’re going exploring!

Hitler’s Record Collection: Alexandra Besymenskaja was looking for a badminton racket in her father’s basement when she stumbled upon a stack of records labeled, ‘Führerhauptquartier’, which was the name of Adolf Hitler’s headquarters. Apparently Besymenskaja’s father was a captain of the Russian military intelligence unit and decided to take a musical souvenir from the captured Reich Chancellery.

flickr

Cash, Money: Josh Ferrin had just became a home Bountiful, Utah (a fitting name) and when he began searching the rooms of the new house, he quickly found a secret attic in the ceiling. It apparently held some old WWII ammunition cases and a bunch of rolled bills. The total amount of cash ended up being $45,000. To set an example for his kids he decided to return the money to the family.

totallytop10

A Long Lost Masterpiece From Vincent Van Gogh: A Norwegian man found the elusive ‘The Sunset At Montmajour’ in his attic in 1991, about 100 years after the troubled artist killed himself. The man originally thought the painting to be a fake because it was unsigned, but using x-ray technology it was revealed to be an authentic Van Gogh.

wikipedia

A Gift From A Russian Czar: When New York art gallery owner George Davis died, his executor found this Faberge figure stashed in his attic. After some research he found that the statue was commissioned by Czar Nicholas II himself, as a gift for his wife Alexandra. When the doll was auctioned off it went at $5.2 million dollars.

nydailynews

Martin Luther King’s Lost Interview: Steven Tull was going through his father’s attic in Nashville when he came across a tape labeled, ‘Dr. King Interview Dec. 26, 1960’. When he played the tape it turned out to be a interview with Dr. King by Tull’s father, who was an aspiring author, dedicated to writing a book about the civil rights movement.

flickr

The Original Manuscript To Huckleberry Finn: In one of her grandfather’s old trunks, librarian Barbara Gluck Testa found one of the most famous authors in America’s manuscript to one of the most famous novels of all time. Twain usually dictated his work so this handwriting is probably that of one of his assistants or his wife, but still, Tom Sawyer would approve of her treasure hunting skills.

totallytop10

Ex-Boyfriend: Yup. A woman and mother of five sent her nephew up into the attic to investigate a strange noise. The boy found a sleeping man, who turned out to be his aunt’s old fling. The ex had just recently finished doing time for stealing her truck. The police later found a modified vent he used to spy on her and her family, along with piles of feces of urine. I’m gonna go ahead and assume she didn’t take him back.

torontosun

First Issue Of Superman: David Gonzalez bought a house in Elbow Lake, Minnesota (seems like the Mid-West is the place to be!) and inside he found a copy of Action Comics #1, featuring the first appearance of Superman ever. Even with a slight tear on the cover the book sold for $175,000 which is a lot of money considering David’s home only cost him $10,100. (I seriously need to move to the Mid-West.)

wikipedia

A Mummy: Ten year old Alexander Kettler found an actual mummy in his grandparents attic. The mummy was given to his grandfather in the 1950’s as a “souvenir” for his trip to North Africa. (Do the bodies of dead people count as souvenirs?) Upon inspection, the mummy was found to have an arrowhead lodged in its brain.

theverge

Quing Dynasty Vase Valued At 70 million: In London a brother and sister climbed up into their deceased parent’s house and inexplicably found a relic from the Jiangxi Province in China. Again, why aren’t people telling their families about these sorts of things?

multimedia

Grenades: This past March four live hand grenades were found in a Milwaukee home. Maybe in addition to confiscating the weapons the police could have also investigated the last owners of the house, please?

flickr

This has inspired me to take a look at my parent’s old attic. The chore of spring cleaning may end with finding something extremely valuable. I doubt I’ll find anything worth millions, but at least it’d be pretty rad to see my old roller blades and stuff. That’s my kind of treasure.

Read more: http://viralnova.com/attic-findings/