From: The Gathering 2012
About: Technology in 20 years
With: Simon McCallum

Gary Mitchell mentioned you are interested in doing a promo exchange with us and that you are also interested in doing some podcasts with us. Can you give me an email addy, so I can add you to the info list?

Thanks!

I just finished reading Marvel Comics #1. I was surprised by how dark the pre-war comics are. I’d read some of the golden age Captain America stuff and thought it was pretty bland but the earlier stuff has a lot of death and some deep storylines. My favorite is the Sub-Mariner and the artwork is very neat. The characters may not be drawing better than I’ve seen before but the underwater effect is really well done and very cool. i’m not sure how the artist did it.

Other shout outs for artists: George Perez (surprised he wasn’t mentioned in the podcast), Alan Davis (great British artist), Jim Lee (ok so everything is a splash page but man can he draw great looking characters), and Ian Churchill.

Anyhow, I think a sequal podcast to the wussification touching on the mid-90′s counter wussification (X-Men animated, Gargoyles, Exosquad, Batman, etc) movement would be cool. Gargoyles could get its own podcast though.

Doctor Who, ‘natch.

Then there’s the Shaun-cast that we’ve discussed before. I know it was put on hold but its still a good idea.

Even though its not something really for me you’ve mentioned a geeky crafty podcast before and that’s the kind of thing my wife would really like.

James Cameron films would be another good topic.

The Terminator series would be another (whether or not its related to Cameron doing #2)

I’ve said before that an anime podcast would be awesome and I think its fitting because you got so many people into the genre even if you’re not big into it now.

That is awesome about Darkwing Duck comics. I loved that show and is definitely my favorite Disney cartoon of the silly Disney (basically of anything that isn’t Gargoyles) and that’s awesome that they’re continuing the stories.

Seriously, though, I did want to point out a factual error. I mentioned that Mystery Science Theater went from Sci-Fi to Comedy. I’m completely wrong. After being like a public access program, MST3K first went to Comedy and then went to Sci-Fi for its last three seasons. I was so tired when doing this podcast that I totally reversed what I was saying. Hope I didn’t piss off any hardcore MST3K fans.

http://www.the-gutters.com/comic/1-lar-desouza

The story as a whole gets complicated with each new volume (there’s about 20+ of them now). It starts off with a girl named Rin whose family was slaughtered by a group of swordsmen called the Itto-Ryu. She seeks revenge on the leader, Anotsu, but quickly realizes that she can’t do it alone. Enter Manji. A weapons master and immortal. Later, adding on to Rin and Manji’s problems, a new group called the Mugai-Ryu recruits them to take down the entire Itto-Ryu. Of course, then you begin to question which ones are the real good guys, and who are the bad ones.

Bottomline, there is enough intrigue, controversy, fighting, blood, and revenge going on to keep you on board for a good while.

even though Bowie’s codpiece is a brain scarring thing.

Also, I think its odd that no one has brought up that a lot of times these stereotypes tend to be more about money then about ethnicity but since a disproportionate number of people of certain ethnicities are poor, then that style becomes associated with the ethnicity. For instance, I’ve heard a lot of people talk about certain white guys “acting black” but it has nothing to do with being black. It has to do with the fact that they come from the same poor neighborhoods as a bunch of black people. So they associate the behavior with the ethnicity but its how everyone in the poor areas is behaving. It would be the same as referring to the Huxtables as “white” just because most doctors and lawyers in the 80′s probably were white.

Looking forward to the final installment.

I also don’t believe that its necessary for anyone to apologise for something that their ancestors did. If you did something horrible then you need to apologise and make amends in any way possible but if need to apologise for the sins of our forefathers no one will ever be able to stop. We all have something ugly in our past.

One thing that I do want to see raised and may be in part 2 is the idea that yes we want people to not react differently to anyone based on race of culture but that tends to lead us to a course where everyone acts the same. Where is the room to embrace ones roots and be proud of ones’ heritage in a nation where its all different? The kicker comes in when some of the things that are part of that cultural heritage may turn someone off for various reasons. Does that make them rascist? I think that’s where the issue becomes far more complex.

As always Jeff is totally awesome and I’m surprised by how much he and I agree despite a generational age gap. Keep up the podcasts and include Jeff as much as possible.

To me the excellent and fair ones are much larger than the ones that are just truly bad, and most of those were third installments of a franchise that were just made to satisfy a contract rather than because they had a good story.

I’m leery of Thor because I think it’ll be to hard to pull off especially in this more “realistic” feel that they want the comic book movies to have but we’ll just have to see.

I’ve enjoyed bits and pieces of some Marvel films, but as a whole they are pretty terrible. The one that I was most excited for (X-Men: Wolverine) was butchered. B U T C H E R E D. It was good as a movie, but not so much as part of the X-Men franchise.

As for Thor… this could either turn out to be a great movie, or further rape of my childhood.

“A side note on this: I’ve always believed the best Zelda to be the original. The reason is LttP, although graphically superior, seemed like it was just a rework of the original, but instead of giving you a “second” quest, they turned it into a “dark” world that you could go back and forth between. Although KewlL, not good enough to be better than the original.”

Couldn’t agree more. If you have your gamefaqs set for 10 posts per page then this link will take you there:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/522595-final-fantasy/57586598?page=1

You have “Paranoid” (Black Sabbath), “Highway Star” (Deep Purple), “Born to Be Wild” (Steppenwolf), “Bad to the Bone” (George Thorogood), “The Peter Gunn Theme” (Henry Mancini), and “Radar Love” (Golden Earring).

A few fun facts:

Jake Badlands was based on the guitarist for Badlands (Jake E. Lee)

Snake Sanders was based on the vocalist for Whitesnake (David Coverdale)

I do hear ya about modern arcades though. They make me sad with just the driving games and shooters. Usually they’ll have a single Ms Pacman or Galaga game hanging around but there don’t seem to be any new video games outside of those genres.

I was also the one who was red-green color blind…

Should I worry that my contributions are getting mentally edited out of these roleplaying sessions?

Oh and Racor had the rope because he was a medieval Batman and therefore had to always be prepared.

Brave Epic, Mekton, and Mage were D10 systems.

Hamilton’s immortal line upon being killed was “I’m gonna go play Playstation!” as he stormed off.

Would love to have another RPG themed podcast done sometime with a different cast…there are so many hilarious stories to tell…

I do also want to point out that Black Panther is actually awesome because even though he does have “black” in his name, he was made in the 60′s which actually gave him an advantage over a lot of the 70′s black characters. 70′s black characters were a reaction to a lot of the racial unrest of the time and were often angry stereotypes (I’m looking at you Luke Cage). T’challa was a wealthy, african nobleman. He was cultured and intelligent. I actually like him quite a bit.

In the Fantastic Four animated series of the 90′s, Keith David (Goliath on Gargoyles) voiced T’challa which is all anyone needs to know, really.

One of the things that I see is that a lot of guys are challenged in writing women and either write them as total bitches or write them as ho-bags. Nynaeve fits the earlier bill and Faye from Cowboy Bebop is an example of the latter. Its best when women run the spectrum. As much as I like Robert Jordan, he does *not* know how to write for women. Contract that with Melanie Rawn who can write men and women with great skill. Sioned (I know you’ve never read Rawn) is probably the epitome of the strong female character whose strong mentally and emotionally as well as being tough.

I also want to point out that there are many types of strength. It seems that everyone mentioned here was capable of kicking butt even if they were a multi-faceted character. Not every strong woman needs to be a badass. Buttercup in the Princess Bride is a strong woman and she’s completely useless in combat. She’s not a screamer though and she is willing to stand up for herself.

For future discussions, I’d love to see a Marvel rebuttle either in general or taking some of the Marvel characters and talking about them. Some of the bigger names probably deserve more than one podcast, maybe one for podcast and one for other media. Characters I’d love to hear about – Submariner, Nightwatch, Cable, Hulk, Adam Warlock, Thunderstrike, maybe Thor and Thunderstrike before the Thor movie comes out…

For DC characters, Batman is definitely a character who probably deserves two podcasts – one for comic and one for other media otherwise you probably have 2 or 3 hours discussing Batman as a whole…

But yeah, great nostalgia trip for me to hear a podcast talking about Goonies, Princess Bride, and more of the seminal movies that made us as we are.

Can’t wait to hear the next installment.

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/12/07/worst-comic-book-gifts/

i don’t have a current gen console; my newest is a PS2, and i’m much more likely to fire up my NES than the Playstation. but the thing that could make me go with one of the Sony or Micro$oft motion systems would be a good shooter with arcade-quality gameplay. give me “Ghost Squad Evolution” in my living room; i don’t care if i have to buy a special controller to get the recoil effects.

re: games in general

some people play computer games, you know. “Plants vs. Zombies”? love it. have had it for a year and a half on my PC, and it is AWESOME. i don’t know how many times i’ve beaten it, and i still go back to it. the current GOTY edition for Windows comes with some cool stuff, too; you can make a zombie avatar of yourself to stagger across the yard.

“StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty” or the new “Cataclysm” WoW expansion pack could be good gifts for a PC gamer on your shopping list.

and for the old-school (or really cheap) gamers, the RetroN 3 system runs about $50; it’s a console that plays NES, SNES and Genesis cartridges. $50 for a console and another $50 at Goodwill for games would be (imho) far more than half the fun of a Wii. the included controllers are wireless, but it will also accept any NES/SNES/Genesis compatible controllers as well.

other random geek gift suggestions:

“Wednesday Comics” trade
books!

and, of course, the usb-powered Optimus Prime head speaker:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002LJM4SE

but Marvel has been better at the diversity thing for a long time. and DC’s been screwing up a lot recently; look at how they’ve treated the Milestone characters.

Spider-girl – hispanic woman
blue beetle – hispanic male
new question – gay latina woman
young avengers – 2 gay males, 2 women, black male. 1 white guy (a jerk)
new Bucky – girl (teen)
the 99 – muslum hero group
the atom – asian (now dead)
wolverine’s new girlfriend – hispanic
new x-men kids – gay kid, asian girl, brazilian girl, angry white male, black smart guy, hispanic guy, hick white southern guy
batwoman – lesbian female
new aqualad – black male
miss martian – female, martian
static – reintroduced black male
ravager – female
young allies new guy – hispanic male

Justice League Generation Lost is keith Kiffen and Judd Winick.it stars a russian,fire ( brazilian woman), ice (international femaile), blue beetle (hispanic), booster gold (the dumb/greedy white guy)

I think the hardest part of introducing non-derivative characters is that people don’t support new characters. People say that they want new characters and diversity, but the sales numbers are not there. The best shot of getting one to stick is to make a character a “spin-off” and hope that enough spider-MAN readers like Spider-GIRL. However, every team book now has a pretty solid number of non-white-straight-american-males per book.

I think that the companies are doing pretty well of trying to introduce diversity and get these new characters to stick, but if people don’t buy the books with the new characters, they are more likely to go-retro and return the mantle to the original white guys.

And I don’t say beaner-beetle. That’s a dumb name.

This stuff has been part of my life since I was a kid. I can’t remember how i first watched A New Hope but I’ve been watching it for as long as I can remember and I remember being super excited when i finally got a chance to rent Empire and Return around the age of 5 or so. Dad read the LotR series to us as bedtime stories and I used to watch original Trek on weekday afternoons in the days before Next Gen came out. Oh yeah I got into Doctor Who as well which I kind of just stumbled on at 5 years old because another kid that I knew watched it and then my dad said that it was something he wanted to watch more of as well…and now you know the rest of the story.

One! I work with a guy who recently came from Bristol a few months back. I mentioned the show and he mentioned that he worked with Andrew Lincoln in some small acting projects Small effin’ world, yeah?

You can see my new buddy, Craig, here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnHgHwIziH0). He plays the Jack character in this Titanic parody.

I got into most of this stuff because my grandpa bought me comics and toys when he came to visit. That got me into comics and toys, and I never felt the need to “grow out of it.”

my 2 cents on the Twilight argument:

Hardcore-Twilight fans annoy me when we talk about the subject. Most of these girls have picked on me or at least talked down about my “geeky” hobbies for years but are now suddenly all over Twilight as if it were the second coming of Jesus. I get the general argument that they can be introduced to other areas of pop culture, but I have generally found that 90% still look down on comics and the like.

I don’t find anything wrong with reading the series. It is not for me, but I am not the target audience. The people who read it and enjoy it and move on make sense to me.

I just still can’t get over the “cool” kids deciding that it’s “mature” to go crazy over Twilight but comics are just for kids.

TWENTY THUMBS UP