Vincenzo Averello

So after many years of waiting and hoping Futurama is at long last returning to finish its sixth season (really this should be season 7 but it seems it takes two years to air a season a Comedy Central). I’m not going to explain why this is an achievement but this show has at least nine lives.So I’m going to make some short comments about the two episodes that Comedy Central premiered last night. Sadly, neither had the anime parody announced but there will be a full season (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2011-06-23/new-futurama-episode-with-anime-inspired-sequence-previewed). I will warn you now there are some spoilers but nothing to egregious. This is a comedy so telling the basic story is there but not ruining any of the jokes. I might say a sight gag but its a sight gag so go and see it. This is your last warning for this article.

Neutopia:

This wasn’t the greatest episode but it did have a very classic Star Trek feel to it for the second act. This comes as no surprise that Futurama would parody Trek. It was a fun episode but the big gag was having a collection of characters (all the main cast, a few regular support characters, Labarbara and Scruffy most notably, and some featured extras) have their genders removed and then later switched. There were some minor hijinks here with this and the now classic terrify nudity that comes to live on Futurama but really the whole point was the make character designs that fit the characters if they were of opposite genders.

Benderama:

Okay, I’ll admit it now I’m a bit of a science Apocalypse nerd. This one was based on the grey goo theory of mankind’s demise. The basic premise was that Bender gained the ability to create two smaller versions of himself that also had that same power. The result of this is a quintillion small Benders are created. Yet again this episode features equation jokes (not as good as last year’s but still, the show is for nerds) which seemed accurate at quick glance. This episode is not touching but very good. I worried at one point that Futurama would have a quality decline but I have yet to see it, the only thing that happens is that the writers have to get back into shape but that never takes long.

Well there you have it. Futurama got a second batch of episodes on Comedy Central and hopefully a good run that ends on the terms of the production staff.

So if all works out this post should get automatically get posted to our new twitter account. Also if you are not following us you should at https://twitter.com/#!/AGC_Blog

Author: Vincenzo Averello

While the title may sound a bit melodramatic, that’s what a buyout of Hulu would mean. The original premise behind Hulu was that the big media companies were creating one effective website that had everything on it. The three that participated each own 27% of the company with a host of smaller companies taking the rest.

It seems that someone is trying to buy-out Hulu. Rumor has it that this is Yahoo. This seems strange but so did AOL buying the Huffington Post. I don’t expect that Yahoo will actually buy this but it more them trying to make news. But if the big companies aren’t part of Hulu, it will die. Now that people have gotten used to streaming each of these companies can go off and make their own system or group up with another established service. Sure there is ad revenue but I don’t think that all three of the networks involved will stay after the buyout. I’m not making a guess as to who will leave first.

This would be a serious tragedy if Hulu dies. It was innovative and the player works well for me at least. It has been used by other companies like Funimation to stream there anime. Hopefully, if the Hulu company dies its software will still be available for others to use, instead of having to build a new system from scratch which can often be painful for the first few uses.

Source:

http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/22/technology/hulu_buyout/index.htm

Author: DM

There is a news story that pisses me off just often enough to make me completely down on the news and this week is certainly no different. An online article put up from SFGate, the San Francisco Chronicles online presence, with an origin from the news site Benzinga is this weeks. The article titled, “Cyber Terrorist Or Lonely Geek-Teen” contains a story regarding a teen named Ryan Clearly who has been arrested in England and thought to be behind recent LulzSec hackings involving the CIA, the US Senate, and Sony among others.

There is a great deal of talk about whether or not those involved are activists or criminals and whether, based on their targets, they might have a political agenda, but I’m not writing to talk about that. I am writing to talk about this article in specific. It starts by cementing a lonely geek stereotype for Mr. Cleary, eliminating from him the possibility of belonging to any sort of social group when he was in High School. The move on to describe how he is holed up in his room day after day, seemingly alienated from his mother, suffering from Emotional Behavioral Disorder, and having a history of suicidal tendencies starting at age 10. Read that list again. They expound on that by sarcastically saying that the mother should be proud, and calling him a mindless vandal.

I am often right there with the next person who says that we tend to be a bit to light on criminals in a general sense but this situation is fubar in every way imaginable. Reading between the lines you see a mother who caters to her son either out of fear of him or confrontation with him, a barely legal 19 year old who has obviously had some severe emotional problems from a young age, and finally the same kid who seems to be obtaining his social connections via a hacker group that may or may not have an agenda. God help us though let us jump straight to alienating him with comments that he has undoubtedly been getting since he was a kid. There is no doubt that Ryan Clearly is a strange duck who I will go out on a limb and say is probably not very likeable. Does that really mean though that he is a poster child for geeks and hackers or that it is a simple case of antisocial-ness? While the story does not state it flat out, there are certainly implications toward that conclusion.

As a last note, SFGate has the solution to being an emotionally disturbed, suicidal, suspected cyber- criminal; Get a Girlfriend. (Insert facepalm here)

Additional reading: (which I encourage as this has been a very interesting story to follow if you are at all interested in “hacker” news)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2007345/Ryan-Cleary-Hacker-accused-bringing-British-FBI-site.html

http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/168508/20110623/ryan-cleary-lulzsec-lulz-security-hack-hackers-hacked-trial-charged-anti-operation-ddos.htm

By DM

If you are into the next best thing and give three cheers for consumerism when you enter the mall, here is the next big thing for you: ESI Cases and Accessories have teamed with the Jelly Belly Candy Company to bring you flavored phone cases for the iPhone/iPod and Blackberry lines. Earbuds with the same sweet smelling features are also being offered up for sale. The flavors available are being drawn from Jelly Belly’s most popular and are Strawberry Cheesecake, Very Cherry, Blueberry, Licorice, and Berry Blue.

All I have to say is that these things had better work better than that scratch and sniff crap when I was a kid. Your first two sniffs smelled like whatever is was supposed to smell like took steroids and crawled up your nose and into your brain, and then like nothing at all, and that was assuming you got whatever it was you were supposed to scratch within a timely fashion. Note I did not say first person to scratch because you never really needed to do that anyways.

In any case, I have no doubt that these will fly off the internet and regular shelves alike and onto peoples phones because, let’s face it, people like buying useless crap for their phones. So be on the lookout for these online and in stores.

DM

Coming off a strong start with the first season of The Walking Dead, management/production company Circle of Confusion, relatively inexperienced with television series production, is putting together several other comic related projects. The comic books Chew and Powers are being fashioned into television series, with Powers starting filming soon and Chew still in the early stages of production.

Powers, based on the comic book written by Brian Michael Bendis, premises two homicide detectives investigated the seedy underbelly of the super hero world promises to be dramatic cross somewhere between heroes and any number of procedural crime shows. Meanwhile Chew, based on the comic book written by John Layman, is being fashioned into a more comedic version of the book, which features Tony Chew, a federal agent cibopath (cibopath being one who reads psychic impressions on the things eaten).

While I am a little worried about Chew’s proposed comedic base, I will hold judgment until I see what form that will take. The show has been sold to Showtime, who has something of a history of “Dark Comedy” shows, and that is an outfit that just may be form fitting for Chew. Right now, it is still in early preproduction so we can wait together to see what form Chew ultimately takes.

Meanwhile, FX is producing Powers, which is well into casting and promises to be filming soon. As long as they keep the procedural out of police procedural part of it and keep the story considerably better than Heroes was in the last few seasons in the super powers portion, we could be looking forward to a good and gritty show to entertain us this fall.

By David Rosenthal

It didn’t occur to me when I started to knitting back in college how much yarn would take over
my life. Of course it didn’t happen all at once, it started off slow. At first, I would only buy yarn for
projects that I would be working on currently. And then it went downhill from there. Two things started to happen: 1) I started to buy yarn that I just thought look cool or interesting, 2) I would get yarn as gifts or as a way for people to get rid of yarn because they had too much yarn and wanted to get rid of some of it.

At this point I have a big plastic bin of yarn and I have no idea what to do with it. The yarn itself
is of many different colors and kinds. The bin sits right by me as I sit on my computer, so I’m always in constant reminder of how much yarn I have. This being said, if I’m out with friends and we pass by a yarn shop, I have the urge to go in. Plus don’t even get me started on Etsy.com. Etsy makes it so much easier for me shop for yarn and not move anywhere.

Every time I walk into a shop or look around Etsy, several thoughts go through my head. The
first thing is that always passes though my head is “what are you doing? You know that you have so much yarn. “ The second thought is a voice yelling at me saying that I have too much yarn and I shouldn’t buy anymore. The last thought is  always something along the lines of I don’t have this other pretty yarn that I could have a lot of fun with. And it’s so pretty and I bet it’s soft too.
I know there are other people that do crafts that also have the same problem. I know its
borderline hording but something that I have fun with and it’s nice to have different projects. Even when I’m working on a project, I’m always looking at what to do next. There is always something else to knit. Always.

New Hope for the Green Lantern Franchise on the Horizon

DM

In the wake of a Green Lantern movie that at best has been described as mediocre to almost good, the Cartoon Network has taken what advantage they can to unveil the first official trailer for their new Green Lantern animated series set to debut this fall. It is not the worst idea that I’ve ever heard either. Many reviews pointed out how the Green Lanterns powers were not captured well by cgi and seemed too broad scoped for a feature film, whereas they would be ideal in a cartoon format. Well now it’s happened, and I would venture to say that that was the Cartoon Networks plan all along. The message is not so much look we have a cool Green Lantern feature too but rather look our Green Lantern feature will do it so much better.

After watching the trailer the first thing I thought of as it ended was, “Huh, it’s a new clone wars show.”The best part is that that is not a criticism; it is a compliment of the highest order. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a fantastic show and well worth modeling. Look at it from the outside. You have a group of individuals with powers out making sure justice is served in a Galactic setting. Current reports say an enemy group of red lanterns fueled by rage and violence will counter them. It is Star Wars: The Clone Wars sans the force with power rings. The animation is similar, the characters appear to have that same bravado, and if the storylines are remotely good, I see a hit on the horizon. Look towards Green
Lantern: The Animated Series to be the blockbuster that the feature film failed to deliver.

Vincenzo’s Opinion

I couldn’t come up with a clever title but after a quick search I can’t find much about this show as far as the production staff other than Bruce Timm is producing it. This doesn’t say much for confidence in the staff. I wasn’t quite impressed with the trailer and I don’t see this competing with Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes or Young Justice, both of which I’ve enjoyed. I have yet to see a TV successor to Justice League Unlimited. Currently the nearest thing I see is original movies. I will reserve final judgement but this has the making of a show that is great for kids but doesn’t have the same appeal to older audiences.

Vincenzo Averello

Today it was announced that Mobile Suit Gundam: the Origin is going to be adapted into anime. This is an unexpected move to say the least. Gundam: the Origin serialized in Gundam Ace magazine in Japan starting in 2002. There was a failed attempt to release the manga in the United States that maintained the magazine size page but only gave 4 or 5 chapters to a book (more similar to an Image Comics trade paperback). Sadly, this method made little sense since the Japanese collections had about 8 to 10 chapters and made clearly delineated stories (two volumes to a story). Suffice it to say I still await the release of the rest of it here.

So what makes Gundam: The Origin so special. Well, for one its popular here among Gundam fans. Also, it adapts the original Mobile Suit Gundam series into a manga series (there are other manga series that do this). That also makes this strange that it creates a circle of production going from the 1979 anime to the 2002 manga to a 2011 or 2012 anime. It might make more sense if things were changed but (from what I read, only 6 of the 22 volumes of manga) not much was changed, just expanded. The character designs and mech designs were more or less faithful so it has the recognizable look for all the characters. Amuro looks like Amuro, Char is Char, and a Gouf is no Zaku, boy. Sure the artist put his own spin on it but still a Gundam fan needs no introduction to the characters.

The announcement says nothing about this series other than its happening. I hope that this finally gives us the 52 episodes that Gundam was supposed to get all those years ago. This would be tragic if it was only a 13 episode thing that only tried to condense the story too much. I will keep an eye on this story to bring up developments. But we should have another Gundam story on Saturday when Bandai announces more stuff.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-06-22/gundam-the-origin-manga-to-launch-anime-project

Author: DM

I’ll start out by saying I didn’t get into comics until late in life. When I did though, I devoured them like pothead with the munchies. That said, one of my die hard beliefs involving comics is that the first few years of Ultimate Spider-man was one of the best things to happen to comics since Bruce Wayne’s parents were mugged to death in that alley.

A little info: Ultimate comics is Marvel Comic’s alternate universe imprint that is for the most part treated like the monster crafted by the diabolical Dr. Frankenstein himself. It has regular continuity issues, inept writing, and enough “back to the drawing boards” moments to boggle the most diehard fan. Spider-man started it all by taking an iconic, long lasting character and breathing fresh life into him. Artist Mark Bagley and writer Brian Michael Bendis produced 111 issues of genius. It continues to this day with Bendis at the helm and though it has not been without its faults it is something that can’t help but be considered groundbreaking within the comic world.

And now they are killing him.

In an ultimate comics spanning story called the Death of Spider-man, Peter Parker is being pushed through his own personal gauntlet that will end in his death, the concluding issue of which comes out today. As much as I consider the Ultimate imprint so much garbage anymore, I will admit that the storyline has been good, maybe even great. Bendis has
produced some of his best writing for this storyline, recalling for me some of his best work from the first 100 issues of Ultimate Spider-man.

What does this death mean? In the greater scheme, perhaps it means very little. Peter Parker still swings around in the mainstream continuity being readied for “Spider Island”. Readers seem to be split between caring too much and not caring at all. That’s really to be expected though.

I would argue a different point. I think it will impact the mainstream Spider-man in a particularly meaningful way. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I believe it will impact how people see Spider-man. Peter Parker will die defending his Aunt May and other friends from his most deadly enemy, the Green Goblin, unmasked and watched by
multitudes on the streets of Queens. The world will know that this young man took it upon himself to defend the city and at times the world from countless threats and we as readers will have a chance to see their reaction. We might get close at times, but we will never be provided this opportunity in mainstream marvel. The very idea that this is an alternate universe imprint allows us this meaningful opportunity.

Some might argue that we saw Spider-man unveiled as Peter Parker during Marvel’s Civil War crossover. We did see this and it was intriguing. However now we are provided with the additional opportunity to see Peter Parker die in a way that fulfills how the hero Spider-man was born. Where once upon a time Peter let a thief go rather than waste his time, leading to the death of Uncle Ben, he has now stood up, shot and beaten, and defended his family and friends to the death. The Mantra of with great power comes great responsibility has been fulfilled in the most meaningful way that it could have been.

Rest in peace, Spider-man. Job well done.

For further reading:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/comics/2011-06-21-Ultimate-Spider-Man-meets-his-ultimate-fate_n.htm

http://www.ndtv.com/article/hollywood/ultimate-spiderman-spins-his-last-web-113859