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Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale Goes Live-Action

sword-art-online-e1470251382554-2737559Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale, based on the smash hit light novel series published by KADOKAWA’s Dengeki Bunko boasting worldwide sales of 19 million copies, is set for its global premiere in spring 2017.

In partnership with the KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Skydance Media, a U.S.-based diversified media company, has acquired the worldwide live-action rights for Sword Art Online.

Having already spawned a comic book series, two TV anime adaptations, and video games, and with its first theatrical film, Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale, set for worldwide release in spring 2017, this marks Sword Art Online’s first foray into live-action television. It will be developed as a TV series based on the storyline of the original series.

According to the studio, the story premise is:

2022 – The NerveGear, the world’s first dedicated full-dive device developed by the genius programmer, Akihiko Kayaba. It was a revolutionary machine that opened up infinite possibilities for the world of VR (Virtual Reality.) 4 years later…. A next-generation, wearable multi-device called the Augma has been released to compete with the NerveGear’s successor – the Amusphere. A cutting-edge machine boasting the ability to enhance AR (Augmented Reality) to the maximum, the Augma offers a safe, user-friendly experience, as it can be used while the player is awake, making it an instant hit. Its killer title is an ARMMORPG developed exclusively for the Augma, “Ordinal Scale (a.k.a. OS).” Kirito is about to join Asuna and the others as an Ordinal Scale player, but…

The cast includes Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Kirito), Haruka Tomatsu, Kanae Ito, Miyuki Sawashiro, Ayahi Takagaki, Rina Hidaka, Hiroaki Hirata, Ayana Taketatsu, Hiroki Yasumoto, and Koichi Yamadera.

With screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis (Avatar, Shutter Island, Terminator Genisys) on board to pen the pilot episode, all bases seem to be covered for the live-action launch. In addition to the TV series, Skydance Media is planning a Sword Art Online virtual reality experience through Skydance Interactive. Kalogridis, already familiar to fans from the CW’s Birds of Prey, said, “For years I have been inspired by the inventive and masterful storytelling of the SAO franchise. I’m thrilled to get the opportunity to work with such talented partners to bring this cutting-edge yet timeless story to a new format at Skydance.”

Based on author Reki Kawahara’s light novel (winner of the 15th Dengeki Novel Award Grand Prize). It tells the tale of protagonist, Kirito’s  heroics inside the mysterious next-gen VRMMORPG called Sword Art Online.

Since the first volume of the novel was published in April 2009, the series has been extremely popular, with cumulative sales exceeding 12.5 million units in Japan (19 million worldwide). The series has been adapted into two animated series, in addition to several games, comics and merchandise, boasting a wide-ranging mixed-media lineup. In Spring 2017, a brand new original story written by Reki Kawahara, is set for a theatrical release. SAO fans around the world are anxiously anticipating its release.

Original author Reki Kawahara said, “I am excited and moved that ‘Sword Art Online’ will be adapted into a live action series by the highly respected Skydance Media. I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation and gratitude to everyone involved in this project, and to the fans all over the world who have so generously and enthusiastically supported SAO.”

Skydance Media CEO David Ellison added, “At Skydance we are in the business of world-building and SAO is a massive pop-culture phenomenon from which we plan to launch a full-scale and wide-ranging set of live action franchise extensions across our business verticals, beginning with television.

“We look forward to working alongside Laeta, Reki Kawahara, and the teams at KADOKAWA and Aniplex to build out a deeply immersive new universe of SAO in an authentic way that honors its well-established fan base around the globe.”

Teen Wolf Season 5 Part 2 Arrives October 18

teen-wolf-s5-2-e1470250605278-5399857The Pack is getting back together for even more supernatural, heart-pounding, adventures in Teen Wolf Season 5 Part 2 on DVD October 18 from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. In addition to the special featurette, fans who purchase the Season 5 Part 2 DVD will also receive a limited-edition collectible GWP poster – available while supplies last.

Reeling from crushing losses, Scott struggles to put his pack back together while the Dread Doctors’ final creation, a creature known as The Beast, terrorizes Beacon Hills.

Teen Wolf was developed by Jeff Davis (creator, “Criminal Minds”) who also serves as executive producer.  Additional executive producers include Russell Mulcahy (Highlander, Resident Evil: Extinction), Joe Genier, Marty Adelstein (Prison Break), René Echevarria (Medium, Castle), Tony DiSanto, and Liz Gateley.  The pilot was written by Jeff Davis and Jeph Loeb & Matthew Weisman and directed by Russell Mulcahy.  The “Teen Wolf” series is based on a Screenplay by Jeph Loeb & Matthew Weisman.  The series is a co-production with, and distributed by, MGM, in association with Lost Marbles Productions, Inc., Siesta Productions, Inc., First Cause, Inc. and DiGa.

Special Featurette

  •  Ultimate Dread – The Creatures of S5

“Teen Wolf” Season 5 Pt. 2 DVD
Street Date:              October 18, 2016
Screen Format:        Widescreen 1.78:1
Audio:                      English DD 5.1
Subtitles:                  English, Spanish (Latin Spanish), Quebecois (Canadian French)
Total Run Time:       Approx. 431 minutes
U.S. Rating:             TV-14
Closed Captioned:   Yes

Tweeks: Batman Killing Joke SDCC Interviews

Okay, first off — Warning! This Batman movie is not for kids! Batman: The Killing Joke is the first- R-Rated DC original animated movie ever. It’s based on the comic created by Alan Moore & is known for being particularly disturbing and dark. This is what sets up The Joker as the baddest villain in Gotham. You know how Batgirl ended up in a wheelchair and then became Oracle — well this is how she ended up paralyzed.

Batman: Killing Joke had it’s debut at Comic-Con and Maddy was there to interview the voice of Batman himself (Kevin Conroy), Ray Wise (yes! THAT Ray Wise!) who voices Commissioner Gordon, and writer Brian Azzarello (who not only adapted the one-shot to the script, but added additional material to the story to give Barbara Gordon a story arc).

Suicide Squad – The Big Reveal (Not A Review, Seriously!)

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This is not a review of Suicide Squad, the latest movie that pisses off the critics. John deserves first crack at that, and you’ll see it in his regular space here at ComicMix this Sunday. And Arthur does his weekly review thing, and I wouldn’t usurp his turf. And I’ll bet our pal Robert gets a few comments in well before the home video release. Yeah, I’ll offer a few opinions here, but after reading the inner-most thoughts of so many of those professional movie reviewers I feel a strong desire to pull the bedsheet off of the painting.

Here’s the bird’s eye lowdown: the professional movie critics are sick and tired of superhero movies. Be warned – no matter what’s up there on the screen, the critics have wandered out of the theater in search of Elvis. Capes and cowls are crap. Enough is enough. Screw you, Robert Downey Junior.

Suicide Squad is not the Gone With The Wind of superhero flicks, and after Batman v Superman and The Killing Joke, it probably seems better to me than it should. Yeah, there’s too many people in it: without them, you can’t establish a squad. There’s one completely unnecessary supervillain plotline, which seems to be the hallmark of recent DC-based adaptations. Big deal. Suicide Squad belongs to three of the most compelling characters in contemporary comics: Harley Quinn, Amanda Waller, and The Joker. And The Joker is only there to establish why Harley is Harley – and Harley is… complicated.

Here’s my big review: if you pull the stick out of your ass before it, and you, plump down into your popcorn-littered seat, you just might have fun.

Suicide Squad the movie is fun. It’s not Deadpool type fun, although the first DC/Marvel movie crossover should be Harley Quinn Meets Deadpool. Yeah, I don’t think that will happen either.

If you’re a movie critic or a professional Internet crank, “fun” doesn’t pay the rent. Critics’ vitriol should be measured the way most guys measure their penis, confusing inches with millimeters. The genre is not done. The genre has been with us since Douglas Fairbanks Senior first donned Zorro’s mask. Costumed heroes are a movie staple. If the earth didn’t open up and swallow those theaters playing Batman v Superman, the genre is safe.

Pick up a newspaper. Read about Donald Trump. The zika virus. ISIS. Killer cops. Hurricanes and tornados. Mongo crashing into Earth. After all that, trust me, Suicide Squad is a fun movie worthy of your time and your need to relax after all that heavy lifting.

Superhero movies have been with us for 100 years and, whereas the current fad will lessen eventually, they will be with us for the next 100 years.

Critics: deal with it.

Love, Mike Gold, professional crank

Box Office Democracy: Jason Bourne

I have repeatedly gone on the record as a huge fan of the Bourne series. The Bourne Identity was a landmark action movie; one that changed how fight scenes are choreographed and shot throughout all of cinema. When they needed to prove that James Bond wasn’t a Cold War relic, they did it by making him more like Jason Bourne. The Bourne Ultimatum won three Academy Awards and deserved every one of them; it’s a stunning example of the genre. The Bourne movies always seemed like they were two steps ahead of the action game in the same way their protagonist was two steps ahead of his pursuers but something has happened in this nine-year layoff. Now Jason Bourne feels a step behind.

There isn’t anything wrong with the Bourne formula— I still quite enjoy globetrotting and big set pieces filled with any combination of fighting, car chases, and explosions. The final sequence in Las Vegas is as good as any other climax this franchise has had. Neither Athens nor Berlin feel very special as exotic locales, and going back to London again after it was featured in Ultimatum feels a little lazy, but there’s only so many countries out there and we are on the fifth movie here. Tommy Lee Jones is here to be the token evil old white guy and that’s all fine. The real problem is that because this is the paradigm now, what once felt fresh is now cliché and this is all evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

Matt Damon did a round of press where he seemed very proud that he only has about 25 lines of dialogue in Jason Bourne, and what a mistake that was. Bourne isn’t an emotionally expressive character, so if he isn’t telling you how much he cares about things it’s easy to assume he just doesn’t. If we let everyone else in the movie tell us how important things are or how emotionally devastating these revelations are, then we start to empathize with those characters more than the titular one. It’s easy to assume everything is rolling off his back as he stumbles through more and more of the plot. Even when they go to the tired trope of fridging a prominent supporting cast member (for the second time in three movies if we’re counting) it doesn’t seem to have an impact that lasts longer than the scene directly after the one it happens in.

There’s a big story going on in Jason Bourne, but I’m pretty sure Bourne himself has no idea it’s going on. There’s some big conspiracy between Jones and his CIA influence on a social media platform run by stereotypical tech mogul Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed) and while Bourne comes in to possession of files that could expose the program we never see him read them, mention them, or seemingly have any interest in present-day CIA operations. Bourne is consumed with evidence that his father (a character that has had zero footprint on this series to date) might have been killed as part of a cover-up. The bad guys spend the entire film scrambling to cover-up and protect a program that the good guy has no knowledge of or interest in. It feels like the two sides are brought together solely by contrived coincidences and in a saner world never would they come in to conflict.

I want to believe that the Bourne franchise is bigger than this misstep. The biggest problems are narrative and let’s be honest, no one is seeing these films for their tight, coherent storylines. It needs to be a little better than this, but this is a slight stumble not a tumbling fall. Paul Greengrass, if he chooses to stick around, can recover from this and make a better movie. They left so many plot threads to continue on, from Ahmed’s character not coming close to having a character arc, to the surprise emergence of Alicia Vikander emerging as the most compelling entity in the whole film. In fact, if they decided to move away from Damon again, I would much rather watch a movie about Vikander’s morally ambiguous CIA character than I would like to have Jeremy Renner back. We’re 15 years in to the Bourne era, and while Jason Bourne is not the genre-defining pipe bomb its predecessors were, I’m not ready to write the whole venture off yet.

Dennis O’Neil: The Sound of the Bat

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I was on my way to meet the voice of Batman when I lost my mirror. I’m pretty sure the culprit was from New Jersey and so I’d like to blame Chris Christie but the Jersey governor really had nothing to do with it. Maybe next time.

We were in Manhattan, on busy 34th Street, in the midst of dense crosstown traffic creeping along, barely moving. Suddenly something struck the car, only about a foot from the driver’s head. Since I was that driver, the matter was of some concern to me. What had happened was, a truck had inched into my lane and hit my driver’s side mirror and there I was, looking injured and forlorn, and there, too, was the truck driver, a youngish dude in work clothes, blaming me. If you know me, you know that refusing to cop to a fault is not in my catalogue of questionable behavior, so believe me when I tell you that I am pretty damn sure that it was not my fault, thank you very much, but the east bound lane of a street rife with vehicles in the middle of the afternoon didn’t seem like a good venue for a debate and anyway, he was back in his truck pretty quickly, creeping east, so I would have been debating his tail pipe and, finally, going a distance to avoid any sort of confrontation is in my catalogue of questionable behavior. (Is writing very long sentences questionable behavior? You decide.) I got out and briefly inspected the damage.

I got back behind the wheel and saw a parking lot a block away. We weren’t late, not yet, but we were getting close, but the parking lot could be our friend in need. Just zip in there, grab a ticket and hurry to my destination. Then a police officer came from the curb and knocked on my window. I rolled it down and started to explain the broken mirror. But the mirror wasn’t the problem; intent on getting to the parking lot

I had forgotten to rebuckle my seat belt. That omission was going to cost me the better part of a benjamiin. And I remembered some of the reasons I no longer lived in Manhattan.

But we finally reached our destination, a recording studio, and I finally met Batman… well, actually, Batman’s voice. Kevin Conroy has been doing the voice work for the various animated versions of Batman for almost 25 years, so yes, I’d certainly heard him, but I’d never seen him. Soon, I was sitting next to him in a sound booth, both of us wearing microphones, watching an animated movie on a monitor and talking about it. No script, no rehearsal, just looking at the flick and commenting on what we saw. When the movie was released on DVD, what Kevin and I said would be an optional soundtrack. Strange gig. But a nice one. Kevin was pleasant and friendly and so were the techie guys. I’d do it again in a hot second, though I might ask to negotiate the broken mirror. I could live without attention from the officer, too.

PS: The Arts and Leisure section of the New York Times dated July 31 had a nice story about Kevin Conroy and Batman, which is where I got the idea for what you’ve just read. Maybe there’s some way you could check it out?

 

TMNT: Out of the Shadows Cracks Home Video Sept. 20

TNT2HE-016_Lunch Box Packaging_TNyh_01_R15HOLLYWOOD, Calif.  – Your favorite pizza-loving heroes return in an epic new adventure loaded with wall-to-wall laughs that critics are calling “the best Ninja Turtles movie ever” (Eric Walkuski, JoBlo.com). TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes to Blu-ray Combo Pack, Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack, 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack, DVD and On Demand on September 20, 2016 from Paramount Home Media Distribution.  The Heroes in a Half-Shell also will be available in a limited edition two-movie Blu-ray giftset with collectible metal lunchbox. The movie debuts two weeks early on Digital HD September 6.

Raphael, Leonardo, Donatello, and Michelangelo are back to battle bigger, badder villains, alongside April O’Neil and a newcomer: the hockey-masked vigilante Casey Jones. After supervillain Shredder escapes custody, he joins forces with two dimwitted henchmen, Bebop and Rocksteady, to unleash a diabolical plan to take over the world. As the Turtles prepare to take on Shredder and his new crew, they find themselves facing an even greater threat with similar intentions: the notorious Krang.  Hailed as “fun from start to finish” (Brian Medina, Movie Pilot), TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS stars Megan Fox, Will Arnett, Laura Linney, Stephen Amell, and Tyler Perry in the live action film that is fun for the whole family.

The TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Packs include more than 40 minutes of action-packed bonus content. Peek under the shell at the film’s eye-popping special effects, take a look inside the Turtles’ tricked-out van, go behind-the-scenes to explore the Turtleverse and much more!  The film additionally features a Dolby Atmos® soundtrack* remixed specifically for the home theater environment to place and move audio anywhere in the room, including overhead.

Plus, the DVD and Blu-ray Combo Pack comes with reversible Turtle Masks in all four colors, for a limited time while supplies last.  The TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS Blu-ray Combo Pack will also be available in a collectible metal lunchbox that includes the Blu-ray Combo Pack of 2014’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Digital HD copies of both movies, and the two reversible masks.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows Blu-ray Combo Pack

The TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS Blu-ray is presented in 1080p high definition with English Dolby Atmos, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, Portuguese 5.1 Dolby Digital and English Audio Description and English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles.  The DVD in the combo pack is presented in widescreen enhanced for 16:9 TVs with English 5.1 Dolby Digital, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital and English Audio Description and English, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles.  The combo pack includes access to a Digital HD copy of the film as well as the following:

Blu-ray

  • Feature film in high definition
  • Bonus Content:
    • We Are Family
    • Whoa! Expanding the Turtleverse
    • House Party
    • It’s Tricky: Inside the Van
    • ILM—The Effects Beneath the Shell
    • Did You Catch That?  Turtle Eggs!
    • Deleted Scenes

DVD

  • Feature film in standard definition

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack

The Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack includes all of the above, as well as a Blu-ray 3D presented in 1080p high definition with English Dolby Atmos, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, Portuguese 5.1 Dolby Digital and English Audio Description and English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles.  The Blu-ray 3D disc includes the feature film in high definition and 3D. The Combo Pack also includes access to a Digital HD copy of the film.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack

Fans can enjoy the ultimate viewing experience with the 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack, which includes the Blu-ray detailed above, as well as an Ultra HD Disc presented in 4K Ultra HD with English Dolby Atmos, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, Portuguese 5.1 Dolby Digital and English Audio Description with English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles. The Combo Pack also includes access to a Digital HD copy of the film.

 

Two-Movie Blu-ray Giftset with Collectible Metal Lunchbox

The TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES Two-Movie Giftset with Collectible Lunchbox includes Blu-ray Combo Packs with access to a Digital HD copy of each film as well as the following special features:

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS (2016)

Blu-ray

  • Feature film in high definition
  • Bonus Content:
    • We Are Family
    • Whoa! Expanding the Turtleverse
    • House Party
    • It’s Tricky: Inside the Van
    • ILM—The Effects Beneath the Shell
    • Did You Catch That?  Turtle Eggs!
    • Deleted Scenes

DVD

  • Feature film in standard definition

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (2014)

Blu-ray

  • Feature film in high definition
  • Bonus Content:
    • Digital Reality
    • In Your Face! The Turtles in 3D
    • It Ain’t Easy Being Green
    • Evolutionary Mash-Up
    • Turtle Rock
    • Extended Ending
    • “Shell Shocked” Music Video
    • Making of “Shell Shocked”

DVD

  • Feature film in standard definition

The Blu-ray Combo Pack, Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack and 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack available for purchase include a Digital Version of the film that can be accessed through UltraViolet™, a way to collect, access and enjoy movies.  With UltraViolet, consumers can add movies to their digital collection in the cloud, and then stream or download them—reliably and securely—to a variety of devices.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows Single-Disc DVD

The single-disc DVD is presented in widescreen enhanced for 16:9 TVs with English 5.1 Dolby Digital, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital and English Audio Description and English, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles.  The disc includes the feature film in standard definition.

The Month-long GOT Season 6 Party has Kicked Off

  • News
  • August 3, 2016

300px-game_of_thrones_2011_logo-svg_-2437173In conjunction with the release of Game of Thrones: The Complete Sixth Season on Digital HD, HBO invites viewers across the land to the launch of a brand new political movement: The GoT Party!

One party that everyone can get behind, TheGoTParty (GoTParty.com) is an unique, interactive and engaging online campaign asking the series’ fans to help select the very first Game of Thrones Party ticket, pledge their support for their candidate and purchase of Game of Thrones: The Complete Sixth Season on Digital HD (or individual episodes) from all leading digital platforms.

Choosing from beloved and controversial GoT leaders including Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow, Cersei Lannister and Petyr Baelish (and their potential running mates Tyrion Lannister, Lyanna Mormont, Maester Qyburn and Sansa Stark), voters will have the singular opportunity to shape the very first GoT party and its ideals. On TheGoTParty.com, “voters” can learn more about the candidates, compare platforms and cast their ballots for the leader they feel can carry the GoT Party into the future.

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Running until August 31, TheGoTParty.com will be continually updated with original video content, real-time polls and infographics, adding to the interactive excitement.  With a dedicated hashtag (#GOT2016) and multiple social media channels, the electorate (read: fans) will be able to stay abreast of the campaigns, as the GoTParty candidates do pitched battle (at the polls). Then, on September 1, TheGoTParty.com will announce the winners, adding a singular and highly enjoyable chapter to HBO’s record-setting series.

As the winds of change swirl around Westeros and the Seven Kingdoms, GoT fans have, at long last, the opportunity to let their voices be heard loud and clear with The GoT Party.  So, if your audience is feeling disenfranchised or left behind with current goings-on, we invite you to point them towards GoTParty.com, where they can help to separate the contenders from the pretenders, and shape the future of TheGoT Party forevermore.

Molly Jackson: The Magic of Nitpicking

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Like most geeks, I picked up my very own copy of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child last weekend. It was definitely cheaper than a ticket abroad to see the play live and waiting for the show to make it stateside would take way too long. I eagerly went home to read it immediately and to once again delve into the world created by J.K. Rowling.

In case you aren’t a Potter fan and are still reading, this latest addition to the Potterverse is a play based off an original short story (that as far as I know hasn’t been released to the public) by Rowling, John Tiffany & Jack Thorne. The play was actually crafted by Jack Thorne. A quick note about what I thought about the play. It was enjoyable to be back in that world, if even for a short time. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed that due to the play format we lost some of the usual detail I’ve come to expect in a Potter story.

I also thought that the path of the story was a little boring. It just seemed like an imitation of Rowling’s own work rather than imagined by her, which makes me wonder how much involvement she really had. However, I am glad that I read it and did enjoy that another story made it into the Potterverse. I would love to see it live; to see the special effects described in the story would make it worth it.

My biggest pet peeve of the play isn’t the story or the play itself. It’s that there is no listing of characters with a short description at the start of the play. If you have ever read a playscript, a listing of characters is always at the start, usually with a short description. This just jumped right into the play with no thought to the characters. If you read a play, this is how you are initially introduced to characters, versus watching a play where characters are distinguishable by actor, costume, makeup, or acting style. While I was reading, characters whose names that I did not know just popped up with no introduction or reason for being there and I was forced to go along without understanding. Granted, the main characters I know from years of reading but new characters deserve an introduction.

I went on a long, overdone rant about this oversight to my poor roommate, who happened to be within earshot. She agreed with me, partly to shut me up and partly because she studied theater in college. And I don’t think my concerns are unfounded; I’m positive some high school is already planning their own illegal production of Cursed Child with photocopies of the same edition I own. And these students will not learn about theater in the accepted way. The play format was thrown out by Scholastic, a company that, until now, I considered a standard bearer for youth education.

On the other hand, I have to wonder if I am nitpicking just a little too much. We’ve just watched the four actresses from Ghostbusters (and especially Leslie Jones) get verbally attacked for starring in a female-led version that didn’t conform to fan’s vision. Fans attacked Marvel over the Captain America hails Hydra plot rather than see how it played out. The entertainment culture has changed that if I wanted to, I could repeatedly harass Rowling, Thorne, Tiffany, the editors at Scholastic, the executives at Warner Bros., and so on.

It has become a trend to not just share your opinion on the internet but to shove it in anyone’s face/feed repeatedly until they block you or leave social media.

I see the irony in writing a nitpicky post and then complaining about nitpicky fans. The difference is that beyond this post, I won’t do much. I’ll probably just talk about it with friends, family, and random geeks that I meet and converse with. Do I think I’m right about this oversight in publication? Yes, I really do. Do I think that others will agree with me? Yes, I really do. Am I starting an Internet protest about this? Nope, it just isn’t worth it to me.

Mike Gold, Mickey Mouse, and Ren & Stimpy’s DNA

Mickey Toon

Listen up. I’m going to tell you a horrible, horrible secret. And it’s about me!

I really don’t care for most Disney animation. The earliest black and white stuff is fun, and there are a few shorts here and there that I enjoy. The features? Not as many. Alice in Wonderland… that’s about it. As Craig Ferguson might ask, “how long have you been in ISIS?”

Floyd-Gottfredsons-Mickey-Mouse-1930Disney comics is a totally different thing. Every time I’m forced to list my all-time favorite comics creators, Floyd Gotfriedson and Carl Barks are always on that list. Gotfriedson’s Mickey Mouse newspaper strip brought depth and characterization to the popular rodent. His adventures were truly adventures, full of wit and charm, brilliant craftsmanship, on-the-button pacing, and heart. Lucky for us, our pals at Fantagraphics have been reprinting them in brilliant hardcover editions.

Carl Barks was the master behind Disney’s Donald Duck family of comics, published by Dell and later Gold Key. You’ve probably heard of him: he’s one of the very, very few Disney comics creators who’s adapted work was screen-credited, in Duck Tales. Unca Carl created Uncle Scrooge, the Beagle Boys, Magica De Spell, and a great many other pillars of the Disneyverse. His comics are that good; even better. You will often hear geriatric baby boomers mentioning Barks in the same breath as Will Eisner and Jack Kirby. Here, too, Fantagraphics been reprinting them in brilliant hardcover editions.

But three years ago, my animation preferences expanded to include some work produced by the current Disney studio. I haven’t opened my heart to more of the “original” material; I’m enjoying the new series of Mouse cartoons (featuring the entire Disney-toon cast), available on the appropriate Disney cable channels – excluding ESPN – and on sundry Disney apps for smartphones, tablets, AppleTV… they made it really easy for me to find this stuff.

donald-p3And who do we have to thank for it?

I’d say Ren and Stimpy.

These shorts, which average a paltry 210 seconds, have damn near everything the classics do not: they are anarchistic, irreverent, self-parodying, and wacky as shit. In other words, they’re entertaining – even to a guy un-American enough to not worship about a half century of Disney animated output. The style, also reminiscent of Ren and Stimpy (and even more reminiscent of small budgets and short deadlines), works perfectly for the pacing.

Of course this material won’t replace those I consider to be the masters of animation such as Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, and the Fleischer family. Cartoons aren’t profitable enough to warrant such budgets. But after more than two decades of soulless mainframe computer hyper-modeled “3-D” crap, these new Disney shorts are a breath of fresh air. Damn near all of them. And there’s a lot out there, too.

Give a few a test-drive. Like I said, each takes about three-and-one-half minutes out of your life.

And, because I now like some Disney animation, there’s one less reason to send me to Gitmo.

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