The Baby-Sitters Club: The Truth About Stacey (Full Color Edition)

The color reissues of the Baby-Sitters Club graphic novels continue with book two in the series, The Truth About Stacey. These volumes are based on the original novels by Ann M. Martin as adapted and drawn by Raina Telgemeier (Smile), now colored by Braden Lamb.

Originally published in 2006, only the covers have changed. And it’s interesting to compare the illustration to the one used on the previous book — here, Stacey (in the background by herself) has the huge, egg-shaped eyes I associate with Telgemeier’s slightly exaggerated emotional storytelling, while on the previous cover, everyone was more restrained, with dot eyes and simpler poses. None of the catching a character mid-eating or the big laugh of Kristy (on the left here). It’s a more dynamic, more expressive illustration now, with the characters situated in a location instead of a generic, backgroundless space.

The story is the same, though. The Truth About Stacey is about the title character learning to accept life with diabetes. Stacey previously lived in New York City, but when she was diagnosed, her friends ditched her. Now she’s living in a small Connecticut town, and given her previous experience, she feels set apart by her condition. Plus, her parents are overprotective, making her more self-conscious. Additionally, the baby-sitters club is facing competition from another agency with better marketing ideas.

Re-reading it now, I didn’t notice before just how much kids can learn from this series, whether it’s how diabetes is managed or clever ideas to make baby-sitting more interesting. There are a certain number of fortuitous discoveries, as some of their rivals don’t take childcare seriously, which makes it easy to win back customers, but overall, the young audience should love seeing girls like them reaffirm friendship and work together to solve problems. Having the book in color, which does make it more attractive, opens the story to a wider audience.

Book three, Mary Anne Saves the Day, will be out in color in October, with book four, Claudia and Mean Janine, due in January.

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Justice League: Gods & Monsters (Review)

Justice League: Gods & Monsters is the best of the DC original animated movies in a long while. That’s because it’s fresh. It’s based on an original story by Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett, two creators who know what they’re doing, and the result is that you don’t know every plot beat before it happens. That kept me interested, even if the film was more violent than I usually like my cartoon superheroes.

I liked the revamped takes on the characters. Superman is still rocketed to Earth from Krypton, but this time around, he’s the son of General Zod (and so rocks a goatee and trench coat) and was raised by Hispanic migrants (so he’s voiced by Benjamin Bratt and sometimes breaks out Spanish). At one point, he explains himself to Lois Lane (Paget Brewster) by evoking his past:

“I’ve seen the harshness of life. If I deliver justice with a heavy hand, it’s because I’ve been on the receiving end.”

Wonder Woman (Tamara Taylor), meanwhile, is a New God, survivor of an arranged marriage to Orion — and a redhead! — while Batman (Michael C. Hall) is literally a vampire … but not the evil monster fantasy type. His origin ties directly into the theme of the film, about technology run amuck. Kirk Langstrom was working with Will Magnus (C. Thomas Howell) when he was transformed through an experiment gone awry. Now, important scientists are being killed (including Ray Palmer, who’s been working with miniaturized horses), and the Justice League is blamed, since this version is more violent, caring nothing about killing their enemies if needed and working outside the law (represented by President Amanda Waller).

Here’s an action sequence from early in the movie that shows their approach:

And two with the reactions of observers:

I didn’t care, personally, for the number of deaths, nor the explicitness of them, but I know that’s an old-fashioned opinion. The overall characterization and plot were both a lot more interesting than I thought they’d be, and they feel modern. What makes this most involving is that I didn’t know what was going to happen next, since it’s not based on a pre-existing comic story, although the characters are familiar enough to want to know more about them. Yet because they’re different versions, their more brutal approach isn’t grating. I can see myself watching this more than once, the second time to pick up the details now that I’m familiar with this new take on the Justice League.

The extras include a 12-minute sneak peek at Batman: Bad Blood, the next movie, which introduces Batwoman, who disrupts Batman’s extended family of Nightwing and Robin Damien. Nightwing has to impersonate Batman when he disappears. My favorite part is that Batwoman is played by Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck, The Astronaut Wives Club).

“Alternate Realities: Infinite Possibilities” (19 minutes) discusses the use of variations on existing characters in DC history, Elseworlds and imaginary stories. “Calculated Risks: The Making of Gods and Monsters” is a 24-minute making-of about the genesis of this film.

There are some tie-in elements. Each of the three main characters got a six-minute focus cartoon in the online Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles Machinima series:

• “Twisted” pits Batman against this universe’s Harley Quinn
• “Bomb” shows the government worrying about Superman’s power
• “Big” has Wonder Woman rescuing Steve Trevor (Tahmoh Penikett) from the robot Giganta

There are also origin comics, first serialized on ComiXology, then reprinted, coming out over the next month or so. (The studio provided a review copy. Sadly, it wasn’t the deluxe edition with the Wonder Woman figure.)

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Batman Unlimited Sequel Monster Mayhem Coming in August

Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts came out direct-to-home-video in May, and it apparently did well enough that there will be a sequel in the series.

Batman Unlimited: Monster Mayhem will be available on DVD and Blu-ray Combo Pack on August 18, or on digital August 4. It’s set on Halloween, when the Joker, Scarecrow, Clayface, Silver Banshee, and Solomon Grundy have teamed up to take over the city. The Joker (Troy Baker) has come up with “digital laughter,” “a computer virus that’s part of a diabolical plan to jeopardize all of Gotham City’s vital technology” — technology that includes Cyborg (Khary Payton)! Helping Batman (Roger Craig Smith) are Green Arrow (Chris Diamantopoulos), Nightwing (Will Friedle), and Red Robin (Yuri Lowenthal).

The package will also include ten shorts from the popular DC Nation collection, including “SHAZAM! Courage”, “SHAZAM! Wisdom”, “SHAZAM! Stamina”, “Green Arrow: Onomotopoeia-Bot”, “Green Arrow: Brick”, “Green Arrow: Cupid”, “Deadman: Deadman Catch”, “Animal Man vs. Captain Cold”, “Animal Man vs. Black Manta”, and “Riddler: Riddle Me This!”

Here’s the trailer:

And here’s a clip featured on DC All Access:

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Batman v Superman Surprises

You’ve probably seen the trailer, which debuted at Comic-Con, for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (coming to theaters March 2016), but just in case, here it is:

What immediately stood out to me were the things I didn’t like:

• Fearing Superman because he’s different and can do amazing things.
• Ma Kent (Diane Lane)’s speech about Superman not owing anyone anything. Ma, what happened to heartland values and optimism? (Before that, the bits about hope and heroism are nice.)
• The general dark mood and look, underscored by requiem music.
• Batman being a jerk and trying to take down other heroes.
• Luthor sounding more like the Joker.
• In short, not believing in heroism.

Today, DC released a lightly annotated version of the trailer, with comments mostly talking about character first appearances, but while watching this, I noticed some things that I might like about the movie.

• Ben Affleck as a really determined Batman. He looks good in a business suit, too.
• I thought Alfred (Jeremy Irons) was Robert Downey, Jr. for a few moments, which led to some fascinating ideas about Wayne and Stark hanging out together.
• Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) seems powerful.
• There are more connections to Man of Steel than I realized.
• Mercy Graves (Tao Okamoto) is in it and looks cool.
• Hey! Batman’s dad is the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan)!

Thomas Wayne played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan

In general, I agree with this article “Hollywood is missing the one thing that makes Superman great”:

There’s a great anecdote that legendary comics writer Grant Morrison — the man responsible for one of the best Superman stories in recent memory, 2005’s All-Star Superman — tells about Superman in his memoir Supergods. In the memoir, he mentions the inspiration for his story — he was at a convention, and he saw a handsome man in a Superman costume just sitting down and relaxing on a stoop.

That was Morrison’s epiphany: The most powerful man alive wouldn’t be tortured but instead would be the friendliest, most relaxed person you ever saw….

Superman isn’t good or special because he’s an alien who crashes on Earth and ends up being incredibly powerful. He’s special because after all that he becomes someone who always does the right thing because he was raised by a couple of decent people from Kansas.

But that’s not in fashion, I guess, and since The Dark Knight was DC’s biggest modern superhero media success, I guess it’s understandable that they want to maintain that mood.

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Pixels

Pixels is exactly what it promises: a movie where video games have come to life, and Adam Sandler and friends, former arcade champions, are the only ones who can save the Earth. In other words, it’s dumb summer fun, something to goggle at while sitting in a dark, air-conditioned theater.

I’ve put the trailer at the bottom of this post, but I think it gives away too many of the cool effects and plot points, such as they are. (The second one is even worse.)

The movie isn’t great. Too much time is spent getting to the point we’re all waiting for, watching Sandler, Kevin James, Josh Gad, and Peter Dinklage battle glowing, animated characters, assisted by Michelle Monaghan (thankfully given much more to do than I expected) and Qbert. Similarly, too many scenes are too long so that Sandler can say things meant to be wisecracks but are notably unfunny.

He’s the biggest problem with the film. Sandler only appears to have one emotional note, that of apathy. He says what he’s supposed to say, but no matter what it is, he gives off the air of uncaring remove. He is unable to project sincerity, which damages the scenes where he needs to be emotional in some way. Particularly unpleasant is his meeting with Monaghan’s character, which should have the love/hate snap of a classic screwball but winds up uncomfortable. I wish someone else had been in his role, someone like Bradley Cooper, perhaps.

There are points that could have been made about the trap of young achievement — three of the four male leads are handicapped by early praise that damages their ability to achieve anything once they’ve grown up. The film is wish fulfillment, the imaginative fantasy of any boy who thought “I wish there was a way for my ability with video games to mean something.” That these games are 30 years old allow for even more comment on nostalgia, but nothing’s done with any of these themes. The whole just lays there as the audience waits to see more of the set pieces promised in the trailer.

It’s also unfortunate that a movie that bothers to correctly name the inventor of Pac-Man, Professor Iwatani, has a major plot point turn on a factual error. There were two cameos, that I won’t spoil, that tickled me, and the creatures and the pixelation effect are cool to see, but overall, this film is merely a time waster. (Disclaimer: I work for Sony, who released this, but in a different division from the movie arm.)

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DC Bombshells Digital Comic Launches Tomorrow

The DC Bombshells comic will be available as of tomorrow digitally. MTV News posted preview pages, which these images are taken from. It’s written by Marguerite Bennett, designed and drawn by Marguerite Sauvage. Looks fun and attractive (even if that is a terrible pun), although I’ll be waiting for the print version, due August 12.

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Mastering Manga 3 Announced; Input Sought

Mark Crilley has posted the below YouTube video announcing that Mastering Manga 3, a followup to Mastering Manga With Mark Crilley and Mastering Manga 2: Level Up With Mark Crilley, will be published next year (2016).

He says in the video that he has plans for what he wants to cover, but he also wants to know what suggestions readers would like to see. He asks for ideas for what he hasn’t covered or what people think he didn’t cover thoroughly enough. They should be made by commenting on the video page. There are already over 2,500 of them!

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Black Lightning Collection Marks End of Decades-Long Conflict

Amazon has a listing for a collection of Black Lightning comics due next April that’s listed as authored by Tony Isabella. This surprised a number of observers, since Isabella has been vocal for decades about his poor treatment by publisher DC, claiming that they promised him rights and compensation for the creation of the character that were never captured in paper contracts and so never fully realized.

Isabella’s outspokenness has often prevented more visibility for the character, since the company presumably didn’t want the negative press (which could have been avoided with some kind of settlement offer, one assumes), and it was often easier just to stay away from the whole mess. Isabella also wanted to be the one to write the character, and that may not have fit in with company plans. His second go-round with the character in 1995 — after creating him for an 11-issue run drawn by Trevor Von Eeden in 1977-1978 — lasted eight issues before conflict with the editor ended that relationship.

Isabella has commented on the upcoming collection with a description of a conversation with a DC executive he calls “a good start”. He writes:

… my understanding is that the book will contain Black Lightning #1-11 from the first series. It will also include the Denny O’Neil/Mike Nasser story scheduled for issue #12. That story was included in Cancelled Comics Cavalcade and also published in an issue of World’s Finest. I’m okay with the inclusion of the non-Isabella stories in Black Lightning Volume One because I appreciate a fan’s desire to have the entire run in one book, and also because I don’t want to deny Denny O’Neil, Trevor Von Eeden, and Mike Nasser whatever royalties they’ll receive from the reprinting of those stories. The fact that this is Black Lightning Volume One shows there is a desire on everyone’s part to do a Black Lightning Volume Two with my 1990s series.

With a growing emphasis among customers and commentators on diversity in comics, it’s about time DC reconciles with Isabella, since they need to make better use of Black Lightning, their first major black character. He’s been updated in various ways by various creators, since the original Afro and lowcut shirt don’t play today, and I’d like to read more of his stories, particularly with his daughters.

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Love Stage!! Volume 1

It takes something special for me to enjoy a yaoi title, since I’m not a natural fan of the boy/boy sex genre. In the case of Love Stage!!, that extra element is humor in a celebrity context. The title’s story is by Eiki Eiki, it’s drawn by Taishi Zaou, and it’s published by SuBLime Manga.

The premise is goofy but fun. Izumi’s parents are famous. They were filming a commercial involving a wedding 10 years ago, and Izumi, a boy, got roped into dressing up as a flower girl at the last minute to keep things rolling. He was really cute that way, too. So cute that his co-star, a boy named Ryoma, became obsessed with him, thinking he was a little girl.

Unfortunately, Izumi was not a natural performer, and he was so traumatized by the experience that he wants nothing to do with fame or acting. He’s become an otaku, in love with the manga character Lala Lulu, and dreaming of making his own manga, now that he’s in college. (Sadly, he has no artistic talent. The drawings of his drawings are so scary bad they’re funny.)

Izumi’s older brother Shogo is a popular musician, and the family is managed by the focused Rei, while Ryoma has since become a hot young actor. The company behind that 10-year-old commercial wants to do a reunion spot, which requires everyone do whatever they can to convince Izumi to participate again. (Shogo’s approach is to use his celebrity to obtain super-rare Lala Lulu merchandise with which to bribe his younger brother, an approach that demonstrates real knowledge of what motivates fans.) This all wraps together some of my favorite manga subjects: fame, creative dreams, the clash between fantasy and reality, and pushy families.

You’ll notice I haven’t said much about the love story. The events getting to that point are entertaining enough on their own. For instance, it’s adorable when Ryoma tries to calm down Izumi. I liked the lengthy lead-in to seeing Ryoma and Izumi together, since it makes them characters, not just sexy figures. Speaking of figures, Taishi Zaou’s characters are stereotypically manga-styled, which is just right for this story, with a gorgeous male idol and a goofy boy capable of passing for female. The storytelling is solid and emotionally expressive.

Typical of the genre, there’s a bit of non-consensual action, as Ryoma, who’s never been interested in boys before, keeps thinking that seeing Izumi naked will shock him out of his crush. Thankfully, events are interrupted before they go too far, and the series premise is established: Ryoma wants Izumi. Izumi wants to draw manga. Everyone else wants Izumi to realize his acting talent. These characters are charming, and I want to see more of them. Love Stage!! is a lot of fun.

Erik Eiki previously created Millennium Prime Minister. Preview pages are available at the publisher’s website.

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Automan on DVD From Shout!

Probably the announcement out of the recent San Diego Con that most excited me is a very silly one: Shout! Factory will be bringing Automan to DVD! I have a huge fondness for that goofy show, as you can read in the link. TVShowsonDVD briefly referenced a tweet from the company that mentions “Manimal/Automan”, so I suspect a combo pack with that other highlight of cheesy 80s TV sci-fi. (I won’t mind seeing Simon MacCorkindale as a black panther again, [...]
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Raina Telgemeier Announces Next Book

Raina Telgemeier is arguably the most important comic author of the modern era, with her books Smile, Sisters, and Drama placing on the graphic novels bestseller list for three years running. She’s created classics for entire generations of young readers and demonstrated that comics for girls can be hugely successful. Her next book, Ghosts, will be published by Graphic in fall 2016, as her other works were, and it will be fiction, as Drama was, but with the emphasis on [...]
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Bloom County Has Returned!

The most significant comic strip of the 1980s, Bloom County, has returned! (It was funnier and cuter than Doonesbury and not as weird as The Far Side.) I’ve no idea how often we’ll see new strips, but Berkeley Breathed posted this to Facebook today. While the characters look the same as before, the time difference is foregrounded. And what timing! I praised the strip, in that first link, for its political comedy; we could sure use the same this election. [...]
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DC Redesigns Show End Logos for TV Slate

DC has released this compilation of the end logos they’ll be using for their TV shows next season. In order, it’s Arrow, Gotham, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (the hardest one to figure out, imo), Supergirl, The Flash, iZombie, and Lucifer. I’m planning on watching all of them except Gotham. This executes on the promise, when DC adopted their “peel” logo in 2012, that they would be customizing it more often. Notice that the DC and Warner Bros. Television logos interact [...]
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Paramount Works With AMC to Bring Movies to Home Video Faster

Traditionally, there’s at least 90 days between the time a movie plays in theaters and it’s available for DVD/Blu-ray/digital purchase. That’s because theater owners get very angry if they feel they’re being competed with as a viewing option. However, Paramount is trying something different. They’ve reportedly cut a deal with AMC theaters to share revenue in return for playing the film even though it’s planned to go to home video earlier than the usual time period. The first two test [...]
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Phoebe and Her Unicorn: A Heavenly Nostrils Chronicle

When a friend recommended the Phoebe and Her Unicorn comic strip (formerly known as Heavenly Nostrils) to me, she described it as a more modern, girl-centered Calvin and Hobbes. She was right. Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson is the first collection of the strips. Phoebe is playing near a pond in the woods when she skips a stone that hits Marigold Heavenly Nostrils, a unicorn. Marigold is so beautiful (at least, in her own mind) that she was [...]
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Archie Riverdale Series Coming to CW

Greg Berlanti, the TV producer behind such successful comic adaptations as Arrow, The Flash, and the upcoming Supergirl, is working with Archie Comics on Riverdale, a live-action one-hour TV drama. Originally developed for Fox, the show has now been announced for the CW (which makes sense, since Warner Bros TV is co-producing). As you can see from the promo art, the characters will include the usual Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Jughead, but also Josie and the Pussycats and (I’m guessing) [...]
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Atari Force Returns!

As I’ve said before, I really liked Atari Force. Yes, it was originally a home-video-game tie-in, but the 20-issue series by (as Mike Sterling reminds us), Gerry Conway and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez was good science fiction with a motley crew of characters beautifully drawn. Dart, the tough, tattooed bounty hunter, was my favorite.

Now comes word that Dynamite and Atari will be working together on several projects:

• “a retrospective hardcover book comprised of photos and concept artwork, as well as behind-the-scenes information and interviews with those involved in Atari’s history” — neat! I would love to know what eventually took the company down, since it seemed everyone I knew had one of their cartridge gaming consoles.
• “original graphic novels and comics based on popular Atari properties such as Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Crystal Castles, and Tempest” — not so sure about this, since most of those games are simple shooters. I’m not sure what you’d take from the properties — other than the very well-known names.
• Atari Force reprints — yay! I can see if the material still stands up. It’s not always worthwhile to go back to your childhood favorites. But in this case, I have faith.

Heidi’s coverage begins with a photo of the Atari 2600, their best-known game system, and I’m having flashbacks to the days when you actually had to screw things to your TV. Plug-and-play HDMI, scoff.

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