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Episode 137 – Atomic Karate

Episode 137 – Atomic Karate

WEEK IN GEEK: Both Andrew and Dan saw Wonder Woman this week and decided to bring in a third voice to discuss the movie, Mary Traverse (from our friendly rivals, The Nerdhole), and they go pretty deep into this excellent, excellent movie.

THE GREAT WAR: Noting the novel decision to set Wonder Woman during World War I, Dan and Andrew discuss that war’s place in popular culture.

WORKS CITED:

WORKS CONSULTED:

LINKS:

For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Stayin’ in Black” by Wax Audio
-“Is She With You? (Wonder Woman Theme)” by Hans Zimmer & Junkie XL (from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice)
-“En Avant La Musique” by Manuel Dante Mathieu Faivre, Miguel Vladimir Saboga, and Yvo Abadi (from Valiant Hearts: The Great War)
-“Wonder Woman Theme Song” performed by the Ron Hicklin Singers (written by Charles Fox and Norman Gimble)

Episode 135 – Pure Chaos

Episode 135 – Pure Chaos

WEEK IN GEEK: Fueled by the emotions generated by the recently released trailer for Star Trek: Discovery, Andrew slipped back into the Star Trek pool by spinning up Star Trek Online and Star Trek Timelines while D. reads the first trade collection of Eric Powell’s (formerly of The Goon) newest comic series, Hillbilly, from Albatross Funnybooks.

EXHAUSTED DESPAIR: D. Bethel saw the newest entry into the venerated Alien/Aliens franchise, Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant, and definitely had feelings about it. Fueled by an online discussion generated by The Hollywood Reporter article, “‘Why Alien: Covenant’ Is Actually a ‘Blade Runner’ Sequel in Disguise” by Josh Spiegel (and because Andrew hasn’t seen the new movie yet), it seemed only right to bring on friend of the show and Alien enthusiast, Taylor Katcher, to talk what worked and what didn’t work in this new movie.

Isle of the Dead” (fifth version, 1886) by Arnold Böcklin. This is homaged in Alien: Covenant.
To bring it back around, H. R. Giger painted an “Isle of the Dead” homage titled, “Hommage à Boecklin” (1977) whose art book, Necronomicon, directly inspired Ridley Scott’s first Alien film (and to hire Giger to design the creature).

UPDATE: Thanks to listener, Johnny Flores, for pointing out the tweet that has the shot from Alien: Covenant that recreates Bocklin’s painting.

David’s Garden, from Alien: Covenant. You can see why D. Bethel audibly gasped when he saw it in theaters.

WORKS CITED:

Spiegel, Josh. “Why ‘Alien: Covenant’ Is Actually a ‘Blade Runner’ Sequel in Disguise.” The Hollywood Reporter. 20 May 2017.

WORKS CONSULTED:

Couch, Aaron. “‘Alien: Covenant’ Screenwriter on the Michael Fassbender Scene That ‘Easily Could Have Gone Wrong.’The Hollywood Reporter. 21 May 2017.

LINKS:

  • Visit our website at forallintents.net and leave your thoughts as comments on the page for this episode.
  • Join our Facebook page
  • E-mail: Andrew – andrew@forallintents.net, D. Bethel – dbethel@forallintents.net
  • Subscribe to our YouTube channel.
  • Subscribe to and review the show on the iTunes store.

For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Stayin’ in Black” by Wax Audio
-“Alien Nation” by Scorpions

Shortcast 24 – What Is A Man

Shortcast 24 – What Is A Man

WEEK IN GEEK: With Andrew sick this week, the Shortcast ends up being a bit more organic than normal with both Andrew and D. sharing stories about this year’s Free Comic Book Day festivities. Specifically, Andrew got his hardback copy of Ms. Marvel, volume 1 signed by the creator herself, G. Willow Wilson, while Dan discusses the Hulu Original documentary, Batman & Bill.

LINKS:.

  • Visit our website at forallintents.net and leave your thoughts as comments on the page for this episode.
  • Join our Facebook page
  • E-mail: Andrew – andrew@forallintents.net, D. Bethel – dbethel@forallintents.net
  • Subscribe to our YouTube channel.
  • Subscribe to and review the show on the iTunes store.

For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Thunder Busters” by Wax Audio

Episode 130 – Form a Constant Voltron

Episode 130 – Form a Constant Voltron

WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew watched the live action remake of the Disney animated feature, Beauty and the Beast and D. Bethel discusses his experience at this year’s Sacramento Indie Arcade Expo.

REGRESSIVE RESURRXION: First, the comic book news cycle went nuts because the first post-Inhumans vs. X-Men book was released, X-Men Gold, which was then subsumed by the fact that people seemed to like it, which was then subsumed by the likelihood that X-Men Gold artist, Ardian Syaf, may have placed possibly intolerant symbology in not-so-hidden places throughout the book. Then it turned out that he definitely did that. It has been a roller coaster of news and insight into Indonesian politics (where Syaf resides) that has been mostly very sad and upsetting for X-Men fans.
*Extra Bit: Marius Thienenkamp of Comicsverse wrote a thoughtful analysis and retrospective of this entire affair.

THE TWO MASTERS: On the threshold of the debut of Doctor Who‘s Series 10, it was revealed that actor John Simm would be returning to the show in his former role as The Master, the longtime foe of the show’s titular hero. Last seen at David Tennant’s departure from the lead role, he returns during the tenure of his successor, Michelle Gomez as Missy. What this means for the episode(s) in which they appear together (the last one or two of the season), we can’t yet say, but both Dan and Andrew are pretty excited about it.

WORKS CITED:

LINKS:

For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Stayin’ in Black” by Wax Audio

Shortcast 23 – Special Sickness Edition

Shortcast 23 – Special Sickness Edition

D. Bethel has been hit with a bad case of the sicks, so a Shortcast is in order. It’s a busy week! Emerald City Comic Con is happening this weekend and Andrew will be there, no doubt wandering around. If you see him, say hello [ , ] for all intents and purposes. If you attend, let us know what you thought of the event in the comments!

WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew attended an event celebrating the launch of the Kickstarter for the first tabletop game by friends of the site, Luke and Nicole (from AcrossTheBoardGames.net), Food Truck Champion while D. Bethel decided to deepen his knowledge of Wolverine lore by reading the first fifteen-or-so issues of the long-running Wolverine comic book series by Chris Claremont and John Buscema.

For all intents and purposes, that was a shortcast recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Thunder Bustin'” by Wax Audio

Worth a Look

Worth a Look

Batman: The Animated Series has become a show whose perennial place in nerd culture is all but assumed and revered. Andrew and I discussed the show, albeit briefly, back in Episode 59 – BTAS, as a segue to talk about dreams and dreaming in fiction, but the show, obviously, has done a lot more than that throughout its 110 episodes across seven years of airing (I’m including The New Batman Adventures in the tally). When talking about the show, one conversation that must surface is its diversity of storytelling and the risks it took. What set the show apart from not only every other animated series on American television may also have set it apart from nearly any other television that aired at the time of its release. Namely, it’s willingness to have strange, experimental episodes that challenged the expectations of superhero fans and television viewers.

Sure, it will be remembered for its strong, more traditional, Batman stories like “Heart of Ice”, “The Demon’s Quest”, and “Robin’s Reckoning (Parts 1 and 2)”––the last of which won an Emmy––but it will also be remembered for its non-traditional, esoteric stories like “Perchance to Dream”, “Legends of the Dark Knight”, “Over the Edge”, and “Almost Got ‘Im.” It was a show that learned to take risks, and what’s fascinating is that, apparently, a lot of that ethos was there from the start.

Concept art from the BTAS Writer’s Bible. Art by Bruce Timm. Source: io9

One of my prized possessions, creatively, is a book written by Paul Dini and Chip Kidd called Batman: Animated which covers the history of the show and is filled with amazing photos of everything from concept art to marketing photos for Batman-branded soap. But a bit of space is devoted to the development of the idea of what Batman: The Animated Series would be, hinting at the thorough show bible that Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, and Mitch Brian put together. Basically, a show bible is a treatise on the characters, stories, tone, and plan for a tv show used to keep the studio on track as well as acting as a set of guidelines for artists and writers hired to work for the show. Somehow––and thankfully so––the show bible has gotten out there in pdf form and it is as glorious as I was hoping it would be.

The cover to Batman: Animated by Paul Dini & Chip Kidd, art by Bruce Timm.

Whitbrook points out in his article (which also has a link to the pdf) that the show bible takes firm stances in how the creators saw the show. Even if the show wiggled its way out of those chains a bit as it went on (you can’t not have a bat signal), its overall view of the character himself was carved from stone and rooted in change from the status quo:

One big emphasis throughout the bible is an ardent desire to tell darker Batman stories; after all, the last solo Batman TV series before this one was Batman ‘66. Like Tim Burton’s 1989 movie, The Animated Series sought to distance itself from that interpretation. Sometimes it did so subtly, with mentions like “no Bat Signal or hotline” to keep him separate from the Gotham police, or by making Robin an occasional partner rather than a full-time companion.

While the show worked its hardest to separate Batman from his previous televised iterations to make him into the brooding loner we all know and love, what Whitbrook’s article and its attached copy of the Batman: The Animated Series show bible illustrate (pardon the pun) is how something as important and groundbreaking as this show actually came together through an almost supernatural synchronicity of passionate, creative people who were willing to break the rules every now and then and try something new with, at the time, a forty year-old medium and a sixty year-old character.

Although I court a lot of pushback as soon as I say it, I feel pretty lucky to have grown up reading comic books when I did, in the early 1990s. For those with vehement dissenting positions to this opinion, I offer a truce by completely agreeing with you when you say the content of this point in comics history was rather lacking as creators felt the need to push good taste to its limits in many different ways. However, these comics were connecting with kids––with me––and while I can’t say their influence was all beneficial, they certainly stirred the imagination. With that in mind, a lot of choices made both narratively and, especially, artistically at the time are nigh inexcusable when held up against modern criteria.

In light of the speculator market and the inflated sense of worth the industry had of itself at the time, for a fan the early ’90s were quite exciting in spite of all of that. It was this excitement for not only the characters, stories (what there were of those, at least), and creators that drove us back to the shops every week, but it was also the industry as a whole during this time, especially during the flashpoint formation of Image Comics. I remember the creation of Image Comics happening. I remember thinking it was really weird. I remember being really excited for it, as well. (A good documentary about the formation of Image Comics exists, called Image Revolution, that is well worth the viewing.)

Cover from Youngblood #1 by Rob Liefeld, the first comic published by Image Comics. Source: Geek.com

As the ’90s faded away and the market crashed and Marvel went bankrupt and the industry and its fans actually had some time for critical self-reflection, Image Comics, as it had started out, became the pennant we could all point to and say, “That, right there, is what was wrong with comics in the ’90s.” In some ways, such assertions are very true. Fast-forward twenty years, though, and the “worst” in industry has become the outstanding front runner for thoughtful, challenging, and earnest comics above almost all other publishers. The about-face is astounding and couldn’t have been written better for fear of being too cliché and feel-good. But it all comes down to the principles that formed the bedrock (or badrock, harhar) of the company, as iterated by Jensen in his article:

Image had two rules: all comics were owned by their creators, and no Image creator would interfere with another’s business.

As it stands today, Image Comics is a beacon in the industry and is at the top of its game. I’m sure many people lament the 180-degree turn from its superheroic start––I experience light pangs as I think about it but shrug them off––but there’s no doubt that what Image is doing today aligns (at least in theory) with the concept that founded the company: complete independence. Because of that, Image books are bringing more attention to creators, more good to the industry, and better comics for readers, and I wouldn’t trade that for the gun-toting, veiny-muscled, blood-soaked comics of yore any day of the week.

Episode 119 – Too Much Content

Episode 119 – Too Much Content

WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew plays Overcooked! with Taylor Katcher while Dan watches Crazyhead on Netflix.

PHOENIX FALLING?: The Phoenix Comicon has come under scrutiny recently as it became public that, essentially, people would have to pay to be volunteers at the show by paying dues to become members of the Blue Ribbon Army Social Club. Dan and Andrew discuss the issues surrounding this controversy, such as “Why is this a controversy at all?”

Sources:

UPDATE: Square Egg CEO and Phoenix Comicon director, Matthew Solberg, has resigned his position on the board of the Blue Ribbon Army.

MINDING THE NUMBERS: In Bleeding Cool article covering December’s comic book sales numbers, Andrew and Dan dive deep into 2016 sales by Marvel and DC and compare their respective performances and draw some interesting (if very not scientific) conclusions from the data.

D. Bethel’s Exhaustive Data Collection

For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Stayin’ in Black” by Wax Audio
-“Nerd Law” by D. Bethel
-“Bleeding Me” by Metallica

Shortcast 20 – From Behind a Comfy Jacket

Shortcast 20 – From Behind a Comfy Jacket

Despite some mild technical difficulties and some remote-location recording, Andrew and Dan bring you through the holidays with a brand new Shortcast!

WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew plays some updated versions of previous Weeks in Geek, going back to Master of Orion and Civilization VI while Dan is mildly skeptical of the new Image Comics series from Mark Millar and Greg Capullo, Reborn.

Leave your thoughts about this week’s topics as comments at forallintents.net. Be sure to join the official Facebook page and subscribe to the YouTube channel for even more content and conversation. To help the show out and spread the word, please subscribe to the show on iTunes and leave a review.

For all intents and purposes, that was a Shortcast recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Thunder Busting” by Wax Audio

Episode 115 – The Eye of Agamemnon

Episode 115 – The Eye of Agamemnon

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WEEK IN GEEK:  Andrew finally sat down and saw Marvel’s newest addition to its cinematic universe, Doctor Strange, while Dan sits down and replays the opening of Mass Effect 2.

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS: After being pushed back in the movie schedule before getting removed completely, The Inhumans finally gets a release date…on television…kind of. While it’s premiere will be in IMAX theaters for a few weeks, Marvel announced that a The Inhumans tv show will air on ABC alongside Agents of SHIELD. Dan and Andrew talk about this newest plan and what it says about the static between Marvel’s movie house and television studios.

NEW WHO, IN COLOR: The Second Doctor’s premiere story, “The Power of the Daleks,” is getting a DVD release in fully animated form (due to the original episodes getting wiped by the BBC in the 1970s), but more interestingly the release will be getting an extra feature of the whole story in color. Andrew and Dan discuss this feature as well as the state of missing Doctor Who, based on the News Blast Andrew wrote about this announcement.

Leave your thoughts as comments at forallintents.net. Be sure to join the official Facebook group for links and conversation with other listeners. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch Andrew and Dan play video games. If you want to help the show, be sure to subscribe and review the show on iTunes to spread the word to new potential listeners.

For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Stayin’ in Black” by Wax Audio
-“More Human Than Human” by White Zombie
-“I Am the Doctor” by Jon Pertwee

Episode 114 – Su Gana

Episode 114 – Su Gana

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WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew played DC Legends as well as Peter Molyneux’s new mobile game, The Trail while Dan got sentimental up reading Prophet: Earth War issue number 6, which finally wraps up the big Prophet reboot.

REMEMBER, REMEMBER: Though Dan and Andrew missed November 5th to properly discuss V for Vendetta, in the eyes of some Americans, the country did us a solid by possibly setting up a situation where that story could happen for real. They discuss V for Vendetta‘s relative applicability in terms of the comic, the films 2005 release, and 2016 America. Being an Alan Moore book and with the recent elections so near, politics are discussed but––with hope––done so through a critical lens and as it applies to nerdy stuff.

Leave your thoughts about this week’s topics as comments at forallintents.net. Join the Facebook page for conversations with listeners, exclusive links, and notifications about updates to the website. Subscribe and leave a review of the show on the iTunes store to help spread the word to new potential listeners. Also, be sure to subscribe to the official YouTube channel.

For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Stayin’ in Black” by Wax Audio
-“The Girl from Ipanema” by Antonio Carlos Jobim
-“Rockin’ in the Free World” by Neil Young