Blog Archives
Saturday At The Movies: Marvel Anime Wolverine
I’m not a big fan of cartoons produced in the Japanese-styled Anime or Manga aesthetic. I know there are a lot out there that are. Some of those fans write for this very website. Still, growing up, I was a huge fan of Star Blazers and Robotech. Silver Hawks was a pretty cool show and Akira was amazing. These programs, and a few others, were able to make the jump across the Pacific and reach North America households to much acclaim. More importantly, they fuelled the imagination of kids and got them interested in Anime and Manga. Maybe that’s why I like the DC Entertainment-produced, Anime-styled, Batman: Gotham Knight, released in 2008, so much. We got to see a favourite character from a radically different perspective.
Not to be outdone, Marvel Entertainment took that same idea and expanded upon it, creating four separate, 12-episode series’, based on their most popular comic book characters.
He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe Have The Power On The Wednesday Run – July 4, 2012
Oh, boy! I still remember the illumination of the “Filmation” animation company letters fall across my cathode ray tube television like colourful dominos, on some mid-week day, after school, in 1983.
Do you?
No?
How about these famous words: “Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword and said…”
No, it had nothing to do with puberty.
It was a cartoon, for heaven’s sake. Based on a line of action figures. Toys! It was He-Man and the Master of the Universe!
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe #1
Written by: James Robinson
Illustrated by: Phllip Tan
Published by: DC Comics
I remember, age ten, collecting the various He-Man set of action figures: He-Man, Skeletor, Man-At-Arms, Ram-Man, Fisto, Extendar, Snout Spout, and Man-E-Faces amongst many others. Sure, they’re unfortunate (and somewhat homo-erotic) sounding names now, but for a while, they were right up with G.I. Joe and his swivel-arm battle grip.
But it was the cartoon series that sold me on all the toys.
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Corina’s Cartoon Cuts: Futurama AND Aqua Teen Hunger Force Return
It’s been awhile since the last Cartoon Cuts, mainly because the volume of references in South Park episodes can be hard to sum up. However, my love for animation is urging me to get going again with the return of Futurama and Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Futurama is a show that parallels Family Guy in its cycle of being cancelled and then re-instated by the networks. We all feared Futurama was over around 2009 when the voice cast couldn’t reach a contract agreement with Fox, but later that same year fans were promised an ‘up to 26 episode’ new sixth season. Ironically, Futurama’s return in June 2010 “helped the network to its highest-rated night.. and its highest-rated Thursday primetime in the network’s history.” Supply and demand, baby. Despite the relative ‘meh’ value of the last season, 26 new episodes have just started rolling out, and are scheduled to air on Comedy Central through 2013.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force is a crazy show that has survived both terrible movie and boring video game adaptations, and doesn’t seem to care at all about consistency or character logic. It retitled itself Aqua Unit Patrol Squad for no good reason in 2011, and again as Aqua Something You Know Whatever in 2012. But that’s really the charm of this show; it’s a unique irreverent oddity, and it’s heading in to an incredible 9th season. I check out the first episodes (with minimal spoilers) after the jump…
The Amazing Spider-Man Pregame: Beware the Lizard!
In just a matter of days the world will finally get to see the cinematic version of one of Spider-Man’s most dangerous foes, the Lizard. What some might not know is that the Lizard, much like Two-Face to Batman, is also one of the web-slinger’s closest friends and allies. Who is the Lizard? How did he come to be? And what might we expect on the big screen in The Amazing Spider-Man?
The Origin of the Lizard
The Lizard, also known as Dr. Curt Connors, first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #6 waaay back in 1963, in a tale called “Face to Face with… The Lizard!” Gotta love them Marvel Age exclamation marks. Yeah, he showed up early in Spidey’s career, in his first year of web-swinging, created by the legendary team of writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko. He was probably the fourth or fifth (it’s subjective, do the Tinkerer and/or Doctor Doom really count?) of Spider-Man’s major classic foes to be introduced. This is the real thing, baby.
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Mat Langford’s Gaming World – Platformer, Dungeon Crawler and RPG? It’s Swordigo!
I’ve always been a fan of platformer games. Their simple objective of getting from landing to landing makes for a good time when properly done. That’s why – due to the lack of physical controls on the device – I’ve always thought that finding a really good platformer on the iOS would be a difficult task, so I set about trying a few until I stumbled across a little game called Swordigo.
Great art style makes this game memorable.
Corina’s Cartoon Cuts: South Park 1%
Last week South Park took a stab at the #Occupy movement in the 1% episode; and as usual they hit the nail on the head in satirizing the inherent generalization of the 99%. With media posed to exploit any occupation they can find, South Park’s lesser known fast food hangout becomes the scene of #OccupyRedRobin in protest of the Presidential Fitness Test.
But all satire aside, the best part of this episode? It’s all about Cartman.
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Corina’s Cartoon Cuts: Best of Simpsons Halloween
Halloween is still my favourite holiday of the year by far. Candy, costumes, horror films and no family obligations? Awesome. And call it nostalgia or die hard loyalty, but The Simpsons is still my favourite source of Halloween-themed entertainment. So, in celebration of my favourite holiday and my favourite show, I’m happy to bring you my Top 5 Simpsons Halloween episodes.
