Continue reading »]]> Yesterday evening, I received an email from my friend and fellow indie author Terri Giuliano Long. She asked in support helping spread the word of her new Huffington Post piece entitled “Sticks and Stones: The Changing Politics of the Self-Publishing Stigma” (link TBA when post is up). It is cross-posted to IndieReader.com, though, so can be read here.

In her post, she discusses some of the harsh words that have been thrown back and forth in this changing landscape of the publishing industry. Some of them have not been so nice, on both sides of the aisle. I am not one to start or participate in verbal wars and try to remain a neutral party. As I posted on Terri’s blog a month ago, I believe that the joy in the new way of doing thing’s is that we now have more options. And by we, I mean both readers and authors. How can this be a bad thing?

As I don’t want to rehash Terri’s amazingly well-researched and cited article, I will simply share my own personal experience as to why I decided to self-publish and am extremely happy that I did.

When I first completed the manuscript of Toonopolis: Gemini in 2010 (the ‘final’ draft prior to professional editing), I started the process of querying agents and publishing houses. At the time, I knew the self-publishing market was opening quickly but I told myself I would try to go through the traditional route. After all, I had a very unique idea (a novel set in a cartoon universe) that, still to my knowledge, is the only story of its kind. Why wouldn’t someone want to jump on this concept?

I got a response from nearly every agent I queried. This, to me, was a good sign that the initial concept at least intrigued people to read my queries. However, every response came back with the same responses: “I don’t see a market for it”, “I don’t think I’m the agent for you”, and various speak which I have come to learn is very common in responses. I had an exchange with one New York agent that was promising but ultimately led to a polite rejection.

While I waited for this process to happen, I began researching self-publishing options. After reading JA Konrath’s blog, A Newbie’s Guide for Publishing, I knew that self-publishing would be my path. At this point, I had spent 3 months querying (not long at all by most standards). I decided to wait 3 more months for my last “if we don’t reply in 90 days” queries to expire and I started the process.  By now, it was March of 2011.

Toonopolis: Gemini did not publish until May 30th, 2011. Why? Because I wasn’t going to let my debut novel be another greasy patch hurting the reputation of self-published authors. I paid for a professional editor (http://www.alphaediting.com/). I hired an illustrator to do custom cover art and internal chapter header illustrations. I researched like mad to understand formatting, printing, distribution, social marketing, and anything else I needed to understand. I formed a publishing company (http://portmanteaupress.com/). Then I published.

I understand that many people get leery of self-published books. I mean, any yahoo can upload a .doc file to Amazon now-a-days, but I didn’t want to be that yahoo. I have met a very large number of fellow indie/self-published authors who have put in just as much energy, if not more, than I have to being as professional as possible throughout this process.

It frustrates me and pains me that people lump all indie authors together based on a few bad experiences. I understand why, especially when traditional authors like Jodi Picault are going out of their way to badmouth us lowly upstarts, but it still pains me nonetheless.

Almost a year after Gemini first published, I have a much better understanding as to why it wouldn’t get picked up by an agent or a traditional publisher. It is far too unique of a concept. It can’t be pigeonholed into a marketing platform that already exists in traditional houses. I have had to create a platform for the Toonopolis books over the last year, including trying to create viral images to explain my world. It has been a lot of work. I have spent a lot of time creating this market, but it is very rewarding.

But in the end, I’ve sold over 300 copies of the book so far (not to mention about 5000 free downloads through KDP Select free days). Am I breaking records and making the NYT bestseller list? Absolutely not. But have hundreds and thousands of readers been exposed to a genuinely original concept thanks to the doors opened by self-publishers? Yeah.

And I’m proud to be one of them.

Continue reading »]]> So yesterday, a new song (I’m The One That’s Cool) was released yesterday by the awesome crew over at The Guild. This is their third song/music video release (the first being a pop-dance song by Felicia Day, the second a bollywood-style Indian number by Sandeep Parikh).

Both of their first songs were in line with their roots working on The Guild webshow, a self-deprecating jab at themselves and other MMO gamers. This most recent song is different, though, and has a lot more to say about culture. It’s amazing how much a simple song by a group of actors/comedians can shine light on interesting trends in popular culture.

Here’s the video. Watch and listen. More of my thoughts afterward:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFhgupR565Q

At first, I was just enjoying the song (it has a Foster The People/OK Go type of new-indie rock sound), but listening to the lyrics made me think about what it really says. I spend a lot of time on Twitter and Facebook and whatnots, and I see a lot of people putting “geek” into their bios. It is becoming a type of badge of honor and something that people WANT to be.

As a lifelong geek, I am happy to see this. It’s great that “geek’s becoming chic” as Felicia Day says in the lyrics, but I do feel a bit hipster in that I was geek way before it was cool. I know plenty of people were treated the way The Guild cast were treated in the video for being geeks.

Reading the YouTube comments section led me to look at the aspects of bullying that are shown in the video. I was never bullied myself (I had two older brothers who were the opposite of geeks), but it happened a lot in school. I think this video is awesome and can serve as the Geek version of the It Gets Better project aimed at letting gay and lesbian teens know that they can make it through the bullying and become the cool ones.

Maybe I’m just reading too much into it, but bullying anyone for any reason is not cool. A lot of national attention is being brought to the bullying of gays and lesbians, but maybe this video can help to extend it to other fringe cultures as well (Geeks being one of them).

So don’t worry, geeks. Don’t let the asshat jocks and prom queen b**ches keep you down. You’re the one that’s cool. Anyone agree with me?

Continue reading »]]> It’s been a while since I properly did a blog post. I was overwhelmed by maintaining the cartoon reviews, although I still intend to get that going again. If anyone wants to guest review something (either current or classic) please give me a holler through the Contact Form!

click image for source

A few days ago, I was reading information about the new Michael Bay TMNT project and was hardly surprised that there was a huge backlash of Ninja Turtle fandom against the rebooting of the origin story to eliminate the radioactive ooze and instead make the turtles part of an alien race. I decided to try a Twitter-xperiment and see what type of reaction I’d get from my followers.

I tweeted: “People upset cause Michael Bay TMNT project makes them aliens. #YUMad? Magical evolution ooze too realistic a backstory?”

A Few Responses:

@ERMcKeon: @toonopolis Because they’re no longer Teenage MUTANT Ninja Turtles. :-p
@smurfwreck: @toonopolis I would consider myself mad, but then again why bother changing the origin when the original is still relevant?
@SheenahFreitas: @toonopolis That ooze is the epitome of realism. XD But, it’s a classic. Don’t mess with a classic. Don’t turn turtles into aliens.

My friend Chris from GeekScholars Movie News gave me my favorite response over on Facebook: “This wouldn’t be a problem if the source material was TANT…but it’s not.”

Personally, I was only trying to incite a little nerd rage amongst people, but there is some truth in my ambivalence towards the idea. I have stated before that I am not scared of remakes and reboots, my take on the new Thundercats remake covers that. Some remakes end up better than the originals (The Karate Kid, the Ed Norton Incredible Hulk). Some don’t and the world still spins.

I guess the whole point of this little rant is to just tell people to chill out, the same way Michael Bay is asking them to do. (Granted, the confidence level of a Michael Bay project is already pretty low for most people, so that’s not helping things.)

I know it doesn’t look good. A retcon of this magnitude is usually reserved for the comic book industry (of course, that’s where our beloved turtles got their starts anyway), when a new creator decides they dislike the history and want to write their own. I, for one, like to try to remain optimistic. Hey, even co-creator Peter Laird offers us the following words of encouragement: “It’s possible that with enough truly creative brainpower applied to this idea, it might actually work. I’m not saying it’s probable, or even somewhat likely… but it IS possible.”

Oh… *fingers crossed*

Thoughts?

Continue reading »]]> Hello there!

To those of you that were sad at Toonopolis, The Blog going on hiatus in November (yes, both of you!), fear not! I promised an update in the new year and have a plan to allow this site to build great content while not stretching myself too thin!

First, you will notice that I have moved any and all mention (aside from the Amazon links to the right) of my books and reviews and such over to my publishing company’s new site (http://www.portmanteaupress.com/).  This will allow this site to focus more specifically on being my personal author/cartoon blog site.  Anything related to the publishing side of my business will now be found at the other site and this one will be more personal.

I felt it was important to separate my personal and business sites with their own blogs, to make it easier for people to enjoy this site without feeling like it only exists to sell my books (which is only partially true ;P).

That being said, the change in format to the site is thus: there will no longer be regular weekly updates on Wednesday or Saturday.  Instead, I will set up an open-forum policy for anyone who wants to review cartoons to send me guest posts and I will post my own whenever I have time or am inspired to do so.  This lack of regular schedule will allow me to not strain myself too much trying to keep up the content like I did last year.

I also previously tried to limit people so that I could have different authors do different posts.  No more!  If you want to post a review every week, you can do so.  Just contact me and let me know what you want to do.

It is important that anyone who wants to follow the blog sign up to the email list (Subscribe to Toonopolis, The Blog by Email) so you get the updates when they happen instead of just coming back and checking every week.

Thanks for the patience and I look forward to a fun 2012 of continuing to post high quality reviews of old school and current cartoons as well as update people on my progress with writing my Toonopolis books, my forthcoming War of the Forgotten (adult urban fantasy) series, and any other writing projects throughout the year.  Huzzah to a new year!

Continue reading »]]> As I was struggling to find time to watch cartoons to finish off Super Hero Month, I came to the realization that I have been simply stretching myself too thin.  After releasing a novella and nonfiction book less than a month apart, I have realized that I am just spending far too much time with online efforts and need to scale back.  I know there are some that have been following this blog faithfully and I appreciate that, but I will be going onto an indefinite hiatus until, at the very least, the new year.

If you want to know when I start back up again, just sign up to the email notification on the right-hand side of this page.  Then you’ll know!  And knowing is half the battle.

Continue reading »]]> Today’s Old School Wednesday Review is from Nelson.

Nelson is a geek and a gamer.  Early on, he was hooked with cartoons and Intellivision, but it wasn’t long before he found the gateway drugs of comic books and the NES.  He spent most of his life just building up his geek resume with each successive gaming system and acquiring rabid fanboy passion for all sorts of cartoons, comic books, TV shows and movies until finally becoming victim to pen and paper role playing games.  Now he dishes out his extreme opinions to whomever will listen, in person or on the internet or tries to focus that energy into writing or drawing when he isn’t busy wrangling the small zoo that has taken root in the one bedroom apartment he shares with his girlfriend.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAkL2-vh2Sk

Being a huge comic geek and growing up reading the X-Men as a kid, I asked Jeremy if I could review the 90s Fox X-Men cartoon for his Old School Wednesday reviews during Super Hero month.  I may have started my comic book career with Spider-man, but The X-Men have always had my full attention once I started with their books.  Though to be fair, this is a cartoon review and not a comic review, so I should say that I started my cartoon career with (as far as MY memory serves) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Voltron, He-Man, The Real Ghostbusters, and The Transformers (we’re going to go ahead and ignore Looney Tunes and Disney only for the sole reason that they don’t contribute to the point I’m about to make).  These cartoons all carried a similar theme.  Teams put together to protect the innocent and fight evil.  And if you’re going to make an argument against He-Man, I’ll give you he wasn’t part of a team, but he still had a whole bunch of friends who constantly helped him out against the bad guys and were no slouches in combat.  The point I’m trying to make is, I was groomed since a child to appreciate the genre.

Not bad animation for a 90's cartoon.

With that being said, let me jump back to the reason we’re all here right now.  Let’s break this beast down and really poke at it to see what made it tick.  I know Jeremy usually takes a stand on plot and voice acting, making it a point to avoid critiquing animation, but I’m going to go ahead and jump straight to the animation because I feel it’s one of the most important aspects of this show and what really helped make it work.  The actual “animation” or the movement of the characters and scenes were pretty clunky and cumbersome as early 80s and 90s American animation was, but the fact that the art style mimicked the comics of the time was an ingenious way of keeping you from noticing how awkward it looked for Wolverine to jump over a chain link fence.  That is, up until the last 5 or 6 episodes of the final season where the animation changed jarringly to a very cartoony and even more colorful version of itself.  I can only assume it was because the show had been canceled and they knew it, because even several of the mainstay voice actors, like Gambit’s, never returned, even though the character was still used.

Later style animaton from the tail end of the show's run.

Speaking of the voice acting… as far as that’s concerned, I’ve got to admit, for the majority of the show, every single character sounded exactly as they sounded in my head when I read the comics.  The voices were incredibly well done.  From Wolverine’s deep gravelly voice, a Storm who sounded authentically African, to Gambit’s Cajun charm or Beast’s intellectual, yet sometimes silly witticisms, the voice cast, most of whom were reasonably unknown and pretty much stayed that way, nailed it.  Don’t think I’m just talking about the heroes, either.  Sure, Professor X basically sounded like Patrick Stewart before the Shakespearian actor filled the role, but the villains were just as perfect.  Magneto was just as charismatic and commanding as he should have been, while Mr. Sinister’s eerie, auto-tuned voice sent the right creepy signals to my brain.  Apocalypse’s voice, both booming and terrifying with the hint of a mechanical quality always kept the mystery alive as to his origins.  To me, these actors and actresses set the bar rather high and put into place the standard by which all following voice actors working with these characters would be judged.

The popular ones.

Now, as far as the plot goes, I have plenty of love and hate for the way the show presented itself.  The cornball factor was apparent since the word go and, if not for the heavy grasp of nostalgia, would have made re-watching the entire series on Netflix a masochistic torture fest.  Not every episode is dripping with heavy handed morality or glaringly massive plot holes, but there’s enough peppered throughout the entire run of the show to make it hurt.  The episodes that did work often stemmed from an actual story from the comics that was adapted to fit the team they chose for the cartoon.  Being the X-Men, the writers had hundreds of characters to choose from and did their best to pull from the most popular X-guys-and-gals at the time.  Sometimes this made a story canonically incorrect or chronologically confusing, but for the most part, I believe the show really came through with certain stories like the Phoenix Saga and even the Dark Phoenix Saga, two iconic story arcs from the comics.  Another plus in the story column was that it definitely had an overall continuity from beginning to end, and aside from a few plot points being unexplainably out of chronological order (Jean Grey seems to be dead a few times after she’d just been in the previous episode which is pretty strange even for her), the overall story tied the episodes together, albeit rather loosely, but together nonetheless.  There were, unfortunately, so many times where the story was literally moved on by one or more characters either doing something stupid for no reason, or NOT doing something completely obvious for no reason.  These were the times I let my eyes glaze over as I waited for some super hero action.

Yeah, not allowed to use the stabby bits for real...

The action, by the way, was pretty awesome.  Watching everyone get tossed around, through walls and busting up Sentinels was always satisfying.  In fact, generally the only really annoying parts of the action involved every single time Wolverine would squat, poised over his opponent with claws popped, ready to strike while spouting some nonsense one-liner, only to be blasted, kicked, thrown, or shot off because… let’s face it… there’s no way Fox was going to ever let Wolverine stab any living creature with his claws.  Unless it was purely mechanical, Wolverine tended to end up as useless as Leonardo in the Ninja Turtles movies fighting real live Foot Soldiers.  Wait, I’m sorry, did I say ONLY annoying part?  I meant the second most annoying part.  The most annoying part was the screaming.  Boy, howdy! did this show love screaming.  If I went back and actually counted, I’m almost positive that close to 60% of the episodes contained at least one person shrieking bloody murder. Whether it was Rogue (the usual suspect) being overwhelmed by the memories she absorbed from someone, Xavier being overwhelmed by physic backlash while using Cerebro, or Wolverine and Sabertooth trying to decide once and for all, who had the biggest, er… claws, the characters on this show loved screaming.

Overall, this was one of the great cartoons of the 90s and I’ll never forget the mornings spent making sure I was awake in time, with a big bowl of cereal watching it with my brother, cheering the team on, and always curious to see what the villains were doing.  Plus, it was always fun picking out the random characters they would put in the backgrounds all the time that I was familiar with from the comics.

(By the way, in tune with the cornball aspect of the show, I’ve got a free cookie to anyone who can tell me without cheating how many times in the series a character spits out their name, followed by the command: “Remember it!” Bonus for anyone who can also correctly identify who says it.)

Continue reading »]]> In week one of Super Hero Month, I reviewed a DC show.  In week two of Super Hero Month, I reviewed a Marvel show.  This week… I review a show by Man of Action.  Who is Man of Action?  Why, the amazing team behind a show I’ve reviewed in the past (Generator Rex) and the show I’m reviewing today, Ben 10: Ultimate Alien.

It’s very unlikely that anyone who has paid attention to cartoons has been able to avoid the Ben 10 series for the last five-six years.  Although this review is specifically about the latest iteration of this series, it’s kind of impossible to ignore the first two: Ben 10 and Ben 10: Alien Force.  My six year old has been hooked on this show since the first version (and we’ve got the boxes of toys labeled Ben 10 to prove it), but I have too, especially now that the show has an older and darker edge to it with Ultimate Alien.

The voice cast on this show is both diverse and amazing.  The different alien transformations of Ben Tennyson (the title character) all have a different voice to match the alien, allowing the show to tap into such awesome voice talents as Dee Bradley Baker, John DiMaggio, Jeff Bennett and more (and only need them for the episodes in which those aliens appear).  The main three characters are consistent across Alien Force and Ultimate Alien: Yuri Lowenthal (Ben), Ashley Johnson (Gwen Tennyson, his cousin), and Greg Cipes (Kevin Levin, their ‘friend’).  All three are very well done.

No, that's not Jax from Mortal Kombat or Cyborg from Teen Titans. Kevin can absorb the substance of materials and convert his body into it.

For those who have missed the previous two Ben 10 shows, the general premise of the show is simple: aliens are out there, some kids on Earth are offspring of human/alien parents or grandparents, Ben Tennyson (one of these kids) finds a watch imbued with the DNA of all of the alien races in the universe (which he can use to transform into said aliens) and fights to protect the universe.  The original series was very campy and silly, with Ben and Gwen only being 10 years old.  Beginning with Alien Force and leading into Ultimate Alien, the show gets much more series with the characters aged to their middle teens.  This is where the series really gets its wings.

With the second series, Kevin Levin gets inserted into the show as a reluctant member of the hero team and adds a whole new level of awesome to the series.  A shady, black-market salesman who joins up with the team initially just on “common enemies” pretenses, Kevin is by far the most complex character on the show (and, as I said last week in the Iron Man: Armored Adventures review, I like my anti-heroes).  As Ultimate Alien progresses, we learn deeper levels of Kevin’s motivations and realize finally why he really wanted to befriend Ben and Gwen (and only part of that has to do with the unspoken attraction between Gwen and Kevin).  Kevin Levin, to me, is worth the price of admission alone and everything else is just gravy.

If you didn’t like Ben 10, make sure you give Alien Force and Ultimate Alien a watch anyway.  The latter two shows are much more similar in animation, darker themes, and stronger plots.  While I initially was annoyed with the most recent variant of the show with the “Ultimate” concepts of older alien forms (“I’m just gonna have to buy new versions of the same toys now!” I cried), I was happy to see the writers continue to explore the deeper levels of plots left dangling in the past series’ and close up loose ends while adding new layers.

This is just a small sample of the toys. And only from Ben 10 and Alien Force. Yeah, money sink FTW.

With constant usage of old villains (alien overlord Vilgax, the medieval techno-fiends The Forever Knights, crazed geneticist Doctor Animo, voodoo magic users Hex & Charmcaster) and new (the biochemical Hive and Osmosian Aggregor), the show never has a shortage of bad guys to throw at the heroes (sometimes in combinations/teamwork efforts, for extra fun).  The villains, in many cases, are more interesting and complex than the good guys (except Kevin).

Man of Action has created such an awesomely robust comic book/sci-fi style world in Ben 10.  In some ways, I want Man of Action to do more shows (loving this series and Generator Rex), but in others I don’t want them to dilute the quality of the two shows they produce.  I’m glad Ben 10 is already signed on for a fourth series when Ultimate Alien ends.  While the original Ben 10 had the feel of a ‘test-the-waters/marketability’ kind of show, they really hit their stride since, tell phenomenal stories, and have created some memorable characters.  I don’t care if they keep making me buy more toys and video games for my six year old, because I enjoy them as much as he does.  Ultimate Alien is most definitely a 5/5 Giant Cartoon Mallet kind of show!

Continue reading »]]> Today’s Old School Wednesday Review is from Luke.

Luke Johnson knows a thing or two about cartoons. He also knows that many things about superheroes, and is a published author because of it. You can find his short story, “The Last Laugh” in the anthology Powers, available at Amazon.

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Oh Sega, How Great You Were...

Ah, the 90′s. Say what you will about the decade (and God knows I do,) it was one of the best times for superhero cartoons. Many of the favorites came from traditional sources, such as X-Men and Spider-Man (Marvel) or the Batman, Superman and Batman Beyond animated series (DC). Another breakout star was The Tick, based on Ben Edlund’s comic series.

And then…there was Earthworm Jim.

Earthworm Jim started life as a video game character for the Sega Genesis in 1994. The platformer gained popularity thanks to its gameplay, art style, weird sense of humor, and its success translated into ports to other gaming systems, a few sequels, and an animated series on Kids WB. Which is convenient, since this is a blog about cartoons.

The story is nicely laid out in the theme song: Jim was a normal, everyday worm until a super suit fell on him. The suit gave him amazing strength and plenty of cool gadgets that came in handy when fighting evil, but also drew the attention of villains from across the universe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRli1rRMoSQ

Embedding is disabled, but it’s worth the click for the show’s intro!

Each show would follow a regular format: first, Jim and his sidekick, Peter Puppy (a small dog that would turn into an enormous snarling beast whenever hurt or scared) would find themselves at the mercy of one of the show’s villains. After a quick thwarting came the theme song, then the adventure would begin in earnest. ANOTHER villain would come forth to threaten our heroes/the universe/their neighbor’s eggbeater, leaving Jim and Peter in some kind of mortal peril. Just when things seemed darkest, Earthworm Jim would employ some form of cunning strategy–usually, screaming and wanton destruction–and the day would be saved. Then, a cow would fall from the sky–a fitting end to a 22-minute lesson in absurdity.

Good times.

No, his name was not metaphorical. Professor-Monkey-For-A-Head was quite literal.

It should come as no surprise that the creator of the games, Doug TenNapel, also created the show. Many of the principal elements were taken from the game, but the show expanded them so much farther. The backdrops for Jim’s adventures become that much more bizarre when they’re given names like Terlawk, the Planet Heck, the Boulevard of Acute Discomfort, and La Planeta de Agua (Arriba!) The characters were given full personalities that, in many cases, were different from the game. Princess What’s-Her-Name became a tough rebel warrior, a far cry from her damsel-in-distress role in the games. Peter Puppy becomes a full-fledged sidekick, and also gains a flair for the dramatic. Bob the Killer Goldfish had a southern evangelist voice to go with his dreams of universal conquest. Professor Monkey-For-A-Head’s feud with our hero was only eclipsed by the adversarial relationship he shared with his skullmate, Monkey Professor-For-A-Head. They were fleshed out in a way that wasn’t possible in a video game in 1994.

The quality of writing cropped up in other ways, too. The jokes are many and varied, coming as physical humor, puns, running gags, pop culture references, and even the occasional not-for-kids joke. (“Whip me! Whip me!” “I beg your pardon?”) Dune fans might enjoy Peter Puppy’s take on the “litany against fear,” which he uses to keep himself from freaking out. Earthworm Jim’s train of thought is easily derailed, which leads to some classic moments, and his battle cries are fantastic (“Eat dirt, detestable nemesis of virtue! AAAAHAHAHAHAHA!”) And almost none of the principal characters can finish a simile. Expect a lot of “Prepare to (something) like a…um…” Not all the jokes hit, but most do, and there’s a lot of them.

The characters may seem random but... no... wait, they're random.

Where the show really shines is in the talent of the voice actors. Most notable is the titular character, played to dim-witted, overzealous perfection by Dan Castelleneta. Yes, of Homer Simpson fame. The talent doesn’t stop there, though. Edward Hibbert, known far more for his theater work, lent his stage presence to Evil the Cat. Charlie Adler (Professor Monkey-For-A-Head), Kath Soucie (Princess What’s-Her-Name), and Jim Cummings (Psy-Crow; Bob the Killer Goldfish) have been in the voice acting game since the 80′s, and Jeff Bennett (Peter Puppy; Narrator) is one of the current top names in the business. John Kassir (Snott; Henchrat) was the friggin’ Cryptkeeper. Rounding out the cast is SCTV’s Andrea Martin, who plays Earthworm Jim’s biggest (in every sense) villain, Queen Pulsating Bloated Festering Sweaty Pus-Filled Malformed Slug-For-A-Butt. This was a cast with chops, and they each brought something special to the characters they played.

Unfortunately, even with all this going for it, Earthworm Jim only lasted two seasons. What went wrong? Most likely, it was too good at what it tried to do…absurdity tends to be a niche market. Fine for the video game industry, but not enough for network television (even a network like WB). Another possible flaw lies within that style, in that keeping a high level of quality is like walking a tightrope. Go too “safe,” and the show becomes stale–the writing centers on catchphrases instead of jokes, and characters become one-note. If you lean too far the other way, you risk losing your audience entirely. Did either of these happen with Earthworm Jim? Maybe not…but had it gone on longer, who knows.

GROOVY!

The history of the show after cancellation is…well, mostly nonexistent. It did inspire two more video games–Earthworm Jim 3D and Earthworm Jim: Menace 2 the Galaxy. Also, four two-episode sets were released on VHS. Apart from that, nothing. As far as I’ve seen, it was never picked up by any other channels (as opposed to The Tick, which gained a whole new popularity in reruns on Comedy Central.) No plans have been made to release the series on DVD in the United States. It seems like Earthworm Jim is destined to be a forgotten classic, remembered only by people who were lucky enough to see it while it was on.

But there may be hope yet: according to some anonymous, unverifiable source on Wikipedia, a full DVD set was released in Australia earlier this year. Perhaps there’s a chance we could someday watch the show in something other than grainy, taped-off-of-TV-fifteen-years-ago quality.

If that day comes, I plan on laying money down for it, and I hope you do too. After all, like the theme song says, “Jim can be a winner…if we only sing along.”

Continue reading »]]>

Indie Book Collective presents...

As a staff member of the Indie Book Collective (official title: web monkey), I try to be involved in every blog tour.  Not having the time to commit to being an author on the Veteran’s Day Blog Tour de Troops, I offered to review one of the books on the tour.  For those who don’t know, the Blog Tour de Troops is a blog hop similar to many you’ve seen before, but with one big key difference.

Not only does every commenter earn a free eBook at each stop for him/herself, but he/she also earns a free eBook for a member of the military serving overseas.  The number one requested care item from our troops are books.  Digital books have allowed the military personel to carry a ton of books at once on an eReader and makes some of those long nights and time away from friends and family more bearable.

Onto the review!  I have decided to review George Sirois’s science fiction adventure Excelsior in support of this blog tour.

When I first read the description for Excelsior, I though, “neat, it sounds like Cool World meets Comix Zone!” While reading this wonderful book, I realized I was both right and wrong at the same time. In both of those examples (a movie and and old Genesis video game), creators come face to face with their creations to realize that they are not just alive in their imaginations.

In Excelsior, Matthew Peters discovers that his made-up world and story is not really imaginary at all. Thrust into the continuing storyline of a plot he thought he was writing, Matthew has to find strength in himself that he never knew was there.

The reasons why Matthew has visions of Excelsior and Danab IV are not only explained, they are also an integral and very original part of the story. I was amazed at how well defined the story and world is. Reading the author’s notes, I see that Sirois spent 15 years developing this story and his passion and understanding of the history is very clear.

Like so many works, I felt connections to lots of other stories, sci-fi and fantasy alike. With the recent reboot of Thundercats, I definitely felt elements that reminded me of the Thundercats storyline (which is awesomely awesome) such as the magic jewels and swordplay. Sirois has done a fantastic job of borrowing small elements of familiarity from comic books and cartoons and combining them into an amazingly original and fantastic story.

I highly recommend this for anyone who enjoys sci-fi, comics, fantasy, and action-adventure stories.  (Which, incidentally should be anyone that reads this blog on a regular basis!)

I would finally like to point out how much I loved the relationship between Matthew and his uncle Jason. They show a great example of how a tragedy can pull a broken family together and make both of the two of them better people in the end.

I look forward to more works by Sirois and the continuation of the Excelsior story.

Links:
George’s Blog (Go comment to get your free copy of Excelsior!)
Excelsior on Amazon (Get a free copy then buy one for a friend!)

Continue reading »]]> Today we continue Super Hero Month on Toonopolis, The Blog and switch from a DC property to a Marvel property.  This week, I am going to review Iron Man: Armored Adventures.

As I said last week with Young Justice, I am attempting to review these comic book cartoons this month without looking at them in the light of overall comic lore and continuity.  I also said that I have always been more of a Marvel than a DC, so incongruities with Marvel shows will generally jump out much more quickly to me.  Before I start twitching after watching the first half of the first season of this show, let me discuss the voice cast as I like to do.

The voice cast is not very good.  Adrian Petriw is decent as Tony Stark but the other two main characters have really flat delivery (Daniel Bacon as Rhodey and Anna Cummer as Pepper).  In fact, one of the few voices that stood out as I tried to watch this show was the voice of Mr. Fix.  I really want Donny James Lucas to do some more voice roles, because he’s fantastic.  The rest of the voice cast is pretty neutral at best.

Concept Art. Should have stayed a concept...

That being said, the best part of the show is the theme song done by indie rock band Rooney.  It pretty much goes downhill from there.  The concept of the show is that Tony Stark is a teenager and is thrown into his Iron Man alter-ego after his parents are killed suspiciously.  His best friends Rhodey and Pepper are there and they work together as a teenage crime-fighting unit, only dealing with large-scale issues.  The problem with this concept is that they dropped the ages of the characters but kept the severity of the battles the same.  Typically the shows that work well with the turn-well-known-characters-into-kids theme also drop the importance of their struggles to match the teenage years.

As it is, we have Tony Stark worrying about memorizing lines to Hamlet while battling a villain who has been turned into pure energy from one of his dad’s inventions.  Further, Tony Stark is a major super-genius (as demonstrated very early in the show).  Why in the world would he have trouble memorizing lines for drama class?  The rest of the characters, with the exception of Rhodey, are pretty weak.  Pepper is an annoying chatterbox (a fact that is laid on way too thick).  Happy Hogan (the jock who is basically a weird unintelligent loner) just leaves me scratching my head.

I know I said I’d avoid comparing the series to comic lore and previous iterations of a character, but I do have one major issue with this show in comparison.  Tony Stark/Iron Man is perhaps one of the best anti-heroes in all of comics.  As someone who just wrote a whole novella about the origin of an anti-hero (Toonopolis Short: Anchihiiroo), one might say I have a respect for them.  Tony Stark is supposed to be completely egocentric, only working for the common good when it serves his interests also.  In this show, he becomes a boy hero akin to Peter Parker/Spider-Man (as one of my comic geek friends put it when I asked his opinion on the show).  If I wanted to watch a Spider-Man show, I’d watch Spider-Man… not Iron Man pretending to be Spider-Man.  In fact, while the show was running I often forgot I was watching Iron Man until he was in the suit.

The animation is just so disjointed.

Lastly, the animation is not something I enjoy.  Several shows are starting to use this CGI cel-shading art style (Hot Wheels: Battle Force Five was another) but I’ve found that this animation style works much better for video games (the latest Dragon Quest games, Namco’s Tales series).  The animation of Iron Man: Armored Adventures is choppy and not very fluid.  That’s why I think this style of CG is better for gaming than for a cartoon.

Overall, as happy as I was with Young Justice last week, I am just as disappointed in Iron Man: Armored Adventures this week.  Shows like this are the reason I’ve been avoiding comic book properties over the last few years.  It’s a money-grab trying to capitalize on the success of the Iron Man live action films by slapping the Iron Man name on something that doesn’t even encompass the spirit of the original property.  2/5 Giant Cartoon Mallets.  This came pretty close to being my first 1/5, but as I said before, that is reserved for something that is completely unwatchable, not just mostly.