Wednesday, June 30, 2010

A Note on Intelectual Property

Today's comic book news brought word that Image Comic has changed the name of it's upcoming Guardians of the Globe mini-series to Guarding the Globe. This seems like a bizarre change in name. The Guardians of the Globe tells prospective readers what the series is about: a team of superheroes. In addition, the Guardians already have a built in fan-base, being long-time supporting characters in the series Invincible. So why change the name to something so generic sounding and uninformative. My suspicion is that DC Comics is flexing its legal muscles. You see for the last 20 years DC Comics has had a team of superheroes called the Global Guardians. It sounds similar enough and DC is probably well within it's rights to do this. However, it does screw over fans who were looking forward to a Guardians comic and the name change isn't going to help the title in a hostile marketplace. I know that it's important to protect trademarks but the Global Guardians are group of ethnic stereotypes who haven't held a series in years. Really, DC, you couldn't just let this one slide?

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Things that Bugged Me This Week

- DC comics's killing off the all-new Atom in the new Titans: Vilains for Hire comic. I mean, I personally don't have a problem with him not being the Atom any more. (I always liked Ray Palmer, the orginal Atom, better and legacy characters are ludicrously overused to the point where there have been roughly one million Robins). However, he was a beloved character with a fanbase and could have easily been given a distinct identity. Killing him just comes of as a gratutious way of creating cheap drama and pushing Ray Palmer back into the spotlight.

-The fact that I will have to retract the previous statement in the somewhat likely event that that the upcoming Titans story-arc will reveal that the all-new Atom isn't actually dead.

-People who make scurilous comments about the Marvel editorial staff who undid the Spider-marriage. Just beacuse some people have different tastes does not mean that they have deep psyschological problems.

-The one Internet comentator who engages in the behavior mentioned above and then reveals way to much information about his disturbing sexual hangups to the entire internet with no sense of irony.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Music Video Awards

In the tradition of the` MTV Music Video Awards, I've decided to give out awards to music videos. Unlike other music video awards, the Nateys are not awrded on the basis of quality. Instead they aare awarded on the bais "Becaus felt like it."

For "Music Video as Elaborate Joke Setup" the award goes to "Falling for the First Time" by the Bare Naked Ladies. (The man won't let me embed this so you'll have to look it up yourself.)

"Most Needlessly Frightening Music Video" goes to "The Bird and the Worm" by the Used



"Would Have Won Most Neeelessly Frigtening If I Hadn't Repressed It" goes to "Schism" by Tool



"The Quinesential 80's Video" goes to "I Beleive In a Thing Called Lov" by The Darkness



"The Decemberists are Awesome" Award goes to "Sixteen Miltary Wives" by the Decemberists

Friday, June 11, 2010

Behold the Youtube

A funny Weird Al Song!

It's funny because it's about failure.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

An Announcement

Wow! I didn't really mean to be away from the blog this long. My sincere apologies. I'll try to update more regularly in the future.

In addtional news, since I feel silly reviewing a movie that's been out of the theatres for over a month, I will finsh my Kick-Ass Review when the the DVD comes out.

To tide over the wrath among my fan-base, I will instead submit fcor you reading pleasure, an biref review of the new TBS Neighbors from Hell.

The show is one of the more recent attempts to make a cartoon show for adults and cash in on the South Park fans. The show is about the Hellman family, deomons sent to Earth by Satan. Their goal is to infiltrate an oil company and destory a gigantic drill that can literally tunnel into Hell. The series primary joke, indeed its only joke, it that the Hellmans are actually quite nice compared to their psychotic and racist neighbors. (The tile has double meaning. Isn't that clever?)

Neeedless to say hilarity fails to ensue. No one seems to have told the writers that jokes need punchlines. The whole schtick about "look! Aren't these people disgusting" isn't funny on it's own. For example, one overly long gag is devoted to one of the neighbours picking up dog poop with her hands. Ther's nothing funny about the scene. Instead, it come off as creepy and disturbing.

In additon, the whole storyline with the drill makes no sense. Since the show ends when the Hellmans suceed, their pretty much going to fail every week. It's like Pinky and the Brain except that there's only so many ways you can fail to destroy a gaint drill. Also it's not funny. What's worse it that there is no need for this plot contrivance. There are a thousand less complicated ways to pur the Hellmans on earth. For example, the father, Balthazar is bit of a bungler. All I'm saying is that "banished due to ineptitude" makes for better story potential then "the need to sabotage a drill."

Finally, thers Pazuzu. He is an imp/family dog. He also has the most annoyiung voice known to man. I hate him with a pasison. He sounds like a peice of glass being rubbed on a chalkboard. Since I can't embed a video, youre going to have to take my word for this. This is the worst animated show to appear on television since Clutch Cargo and it's not half as entertaining.