Comic books and Manga Thread

[Ricky Jackson]

Travis suggested we do a CanCon themed ep, and with Canada Day coming up consider it officially on the schedule 

I remember the various VHS tapes of the 70s cartoons as well, but hadn't thought about them for decades until a few days ago

Thanks Duke!

[Shrike02]

I watched this past episode and greatly enjoyed it. I have an idea for an episode.

[Ricky Jackson]

7 hours ago, Shrike02 said:

I watched this past episode and greatly enjoyed it. I have an idea for an episode.

Love to hear it

[Shrike02]

15 hours ago, Ricky Jackson said:

Love to hear it

You already have but I'll remind you in the coming days.

[Ricky Jackson]

Popeye cartoons of varying quality on the new FM!

 

[TheDuke]

Thank you guys for continuing to make these. I really enjoyed this one. And thank you Johnny for singing the full Popeye song. I love the full song but it feels like I usually only hear the first part of it. And yes, I am a dude.

I have never read the Popeye comics. They used to show the original black and white Fleischer cartoons on Saturday mornings on TCM where they would only show one a week which was annoying as I would usually want to sit and watch a block of cartoons not just one, but I think they were trying to emulate the feel of being at a movie theatre in the 30s as they would usually also show an hour long B western, a live action short, and a single episode of an old movie serial like Tarzan or Flash Gordon or something. 

I loved the live action Popeye movie as a kid. We had it on Betamax where I think my dad did the old trick of renting it once on VHS and copying it on a blank Betamax tape as I don't remember seeing commercials. I love all the little things in the town of Sweethaven like that guy chasing his hat who keeps kicking it away before he can grab it and the guy who keeps telling Popeye all the taxes he is gonna charge him. The music is weird but adds to the charm of the movie. Its annoying that Popeye hates spinach up until the climax but it really builds up that awesome moment when he finally eats it and punches the octopus. I just wish we had more of Popeye kicking ass but then I feel the same way about the old cartoons so it's appropriate.  Popeye was a hero to me as a kid at the level of Hulk Hogan and Superman because I loved seeing them just beat the bad guy at the end.

Popeye vs Sinbad is probably the best Popeye cartoon I have seen.  Sinbad is my favorite version of Bluto and the stakes in this cartoon feel a lot higher than typical Popeye cartoons which are mostly gag cartoons. The animation looks amazing in color and to be honest sometimes I think I find the Fleischer style with the rotoscoping is a cool effect and makes the movement in their cartoons look smoother than Warner or Disney even though Disney and WB tend to look like they are drawn better.

Another comic strip where a new character showed up and replaced the main character was Robotman/Monty, although I think Monty was meant to be more of a main character than Popeye.

The bathroom break you added was funny. It reminds me of the Matt Cardona and Bryan Meyers podcast where whenever they talk about AEW action figures, Matt Cardona has to "take a bathroom break" ever since he was rehired by WWE, so I guess he is not allowed to talk about AEW.

If you want to talk about TV themes to fall asleep to, I used to have a small black and white tv in my bedroom at my parent's house that I would put on at night when I went to sleep, and I remember watching a lot of Taxi which had a great theme to fall asleep to. I think Johnny meant boring songs and this is not boring but Taxi sounded like a great jazzy lullaby to me. Other greats TV themes to fall asleep to were MASH, Hill Street Blues, and the original Law & Order.

Overall a really great episode. 

[Ricky Jackson]

Thanks once again for the thoughtful response dude!

[Ricky Jackson]

New FM all about (mostly) 70s Wonder Woman!

 

[TheDuke]

I have to admit, outside of Justice League and Superfriends, I am not a big fan of Wonder Woman. I recently bought a Wonder Woman: Challenge of the Gods book at a Free Comic Book Day sale at my local comic shop that reprints issues 8 to 14 of the George Lopez post-crisis 80s run so we will see how that goes. I did like that movie about the creator of Wonder Woman you guys mentioned. I don't believe I ever saw the 70s live action series. The modern DC movie wasn't that great, and I started watching the sequel but never finished it because I wasn't enjoying it. That Justice League unlimited series Johnny mentioned is I think my favorite DC animated series. Can't wait for Herc and Rocket Robin Hood.

[Ricky Jackson]

Thanks Duke!

[Matt D]

I wrote this back in August on DVDVR but I've thought a bit more about it since it's remained true for this year. I glanced through one of the DC/Marvel crossover issues but that's about it past reading my youngest part of Bone (as I have with my other kids).

----

This is the first year of my life where I didn't at least check in on what was happening with Marvel. At some point, maybe ten years ago, maybe less, I was reading most of the line. I was very engaged at the start of Krakoa X-Men. Right now I'm not even picking or choosing or going with writers I enjoy or projects that sound interesting. 

I'll occasionally look at news of new projects or what not, just out of curiosity but I haven't read, new or old. I think some of it was how Krakoa went of the rails. Some of it might be (weirdly enough) getting more into a wrestling space than I was previously which cuts into time (More wrestling projects primarily). It may be that I can watch video on my phone (often wrestling but old movies too) on my commute where I'd read comics before. 

So there are external issues. But some of it is maybe the floodgates finally breaking on the comics themselves and my relationship with them. For years Marvel's steady continuity helped keep me hooked, and I really learned to enjoy the "thought experiment" style of the 2010s where they'd spend a year or two with a specific thought experiment (Jane Thor, Spider-Ock, etc.) but I think it's just stretched past the point of me being emotionally engaged. I wonder if Krakoa bringing everyone back had something of an impact on that too. It was a lot all at once, especially as it fell off the rails. Some of it is aging past both the characters and the writers too. I enjoyed the mid-2000s-2010s wave where the people who had read comics in the 70s, got out, and then got back with Frank Miller, etc. were bypassed by those who grew up on the Secret Wars era Shooter 80s Marvel runs. And it was sort of nice to see people who came into comics with Liefeld/Nicieza X-Force or whatever like I did. But now I feel like we're edging past that and it's just time. 

Some of it is that I was never big on art and one thing that kept me going was the big shared universe and the story that never ends and I just feel like that itch isn't as powerful anymore or that you can get it in more places than before. It's almost become the norm in some ways as opposed to something you could ONLY get in superhero comics. 

It's just kind of weird to reflect on because it was so much a part of my life for so long. 

-----

What I'd add to this is that past a tiny bit of curiosity for Absolute Martian Manhunter, I really haven't had any interest in either the Ultimate Line or the Absolute line. I'd go farther than before and say that not only do I get that "shared universe" itch scratched other places now, I'm not even looking for it like I was when I was younger. You hit a certain age and have your life full of enough stuff and I do think it's something you outgrow. 

Unlike some people in this thread, I doubled down on wrestling, new and old, and projects related to that. Part of it, I think, is that the culture around wrestling is so much less developed than the one around comics, so writing about wrestling lets you actually say something interesting that maybe hasn't been said before, whereas everything's been said with comics. 

I wrote things like this 12 years ago https://placetobenation.com/a-house-divided-civil-war-examined-in-light-of-todays-avengers/

or argued with people all the time on comicbloc back in the day, and I'm writing stuff like this for wrestling all the time, and I just couldn't imagine doing it with comics now. 

I never loved the medium/craft of comics as much as I loved what I could get out of continuity and lore and shared universe and a story that never ended.

And there's so much literature now about how everything in every medium has become like that since COVID. There was a bit back and forth going on yesterday or the day before about people who love video games without ever playing them because they love the lore and the watch parties and what not.

And I'm just not interested in any of that anymore. Which I suppose I was sensing a year ago but didn't quite work it out fully until later. 

[Ricky Jackson]

My current love of comics is purely history/nostalgia based, specifically reading, collecting and studying comics from the Silver and Bronze Age, with some dips into other things (Love and Rockets, Mad and Mad inspired 50s comics), as well as an equally obsessive ongoing journey through classic newspaper strips, mostly pre-1950s. I like to keep aware of the current comics scene, and when I had Marvel Unlimited and DC Infinite I went through a bunch of stuff from the 2000s-early 2020s, mostly because of the convience of having everything at my fingertips, though I did really enjoy a lot of what I read. (Immortal Hulk, Hickman's and Fraction's FF, The Visions)

As far as continuity goes, i fell in love with Marvel in the early 80s and the tightly organized Jim Shooter universe. Once we got into the 90s it became increasingly difficult for me to reconcile the current product with the story started in 1961. By the time the first Ultimate universe started I just gave up on caring about continuity completely. All this parallels my views on wrestling. Totally stopped caring deeply about the modern product circa 2000, and became increasingly obsessed with the past with each subsequent year. And comics history and appreciation totally replaced the same interest i had in wrestling as my top obsession in 2020. So I'm the opposite of you, Matt, my brain only has enough space left for wrestling these days.

Anyway, just watch Fantasy Masterpieces, that will give you enough of a comics fix 😉