Eruditorum Press

Anarchist spank inferno

Myriad Universes: Malibu Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The Early Days

, , 1

In late Summer, 1993, Malibu Comics launched the official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine tie-in series.

I freely admit I’m not a comics scholar so I could be wrong, but this has always struck me as a surprisingly and fascinatingly unorthodox partnership for a franchise as big as Star Trek. Except for the very earliest days of tie-in comics all the way back in the mid-1960s, Star Trek has thus far been very careful to only court the “Big Two” comics publishers, namely DC. And even then, Gold Key was not some random upstart imprint: Cheap as they might have been, they made their name on doing all the comic book tie-ins for all the big franchises of the day: Scooby-Doo, Looney Tunes, the Disney stuff that wasn’t handled by the European division, and yes, Star Trek. That kind of thing was utterly Gold Key’s wheelhouse. Malibu Comics, by severe contrast, was a small, rather fiercely independent imprint, and one that had cultivated an image of doing more idiosyncratic and experimental projects targeting a more niche audience.

It was Malibu, in fact, that published a lot of the US Manga Corps output, that being a handful of *super* hardcore American manga fans more or less led by Ben Dunn who made it their mission in life to translate and localize some of the more eccentric output of the Japanese comic industry for US audiences, or adapt some of the then-current anime hits to a manga style if adaptations did not already exist. Indeed, the most notable Malibu-published US Manga Corps project of this period was none other than Project A-ko, which we might take a look at next season if we have time, simply for the sheer charming ridiculousness that stems from reading Project A-ko as contemporary of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. But the mere existence of US Manga Corps under the banner of Malibu Comics reveals a lot about how truly strange this license really was: This is still before the 90s otaku boom in the United States led by the triple threat of Ranma 1/2, Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon (although that wave was on the verge of cresting in 1993, and indeed Project A-ko would be a part of that in 1994), so anime and manga fans would still have been seen as a pretty niche target demographic.

The only other big license Malibu had at the time was Street Fighter, and while yes, Street Fighter was massively popular in 1993, you have to remember that A. the video game industry was nowhere near the lumbering behemoth with feet of clay it is today so that doesn’t carry quite the weight you might think it would and B. Street Fighter is still a quintessentially Japanese series. So giving Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to Malibu Comics, to sit alongside the video game tie-ins, creator-owned superheroes and friggin’ Project A-ko (sorry, I will never get over how silly amazing that is) is a really unique and brazen lateral move that says something interesting.…

Continue Reading

Shabcast L15TEN

, , 3

You have to wait two or three years between Star Wars movies.  And that’s when a trilogy is under way.  At other times you have to wait decades.  Hopefully it won’t be that long before the next bit of my even-more-exciting-than-the-films Forward, to the Past! trilogy of posts appears.  In the meantime, here’s Shabcast 15, AKA Shabcast L15TEN.

This month I’m joined by my online buddy Daniel Harper of the Oi! Spaceman podcast/blog which he co-hosts/writes with his wife Shana Wolstein.  (I know you know.  Phil, James, and I have all been guests on it lately.  I’m just covering all the bases.) 

Dan and I are both Moffat-sceptics (to put it mildly) but in this episode we talk at length about a Moffat episode we both really like, the series 8 classic ‘Listen’.  We make time to snark at the man too, but generally we come to praise Moffat not to bury him.

Download or listen (ho ho – pun intended!) here.

We also talk a little bit about a certain recent news event.  If you can guess which artist has unwittingly donated songs to this month’s edition, you get to download the Shabcast for free.…

Continue Reading

Comics Reviews (January 13th, 2016)

4

Digital edition codes will work for the first person to try to use them at marvel.com/redeem.

Secret Wars #9

This is the way the world unends. Not with a bang, but with a monstrously delayed issue that’s basically the long lost final act of Hickman’s now four-year-old Fantastic Four run in which large swaths are conveniently set in a featureless white void so that Esad Ribic doesn’t have to draw backgrounds. This isn’t necessarily a bad conclusion to Hickman’s big Marvel story; indeed it’s a pretty good one if you’ve been following and committed to Hickman’s thing for the six years plus he’s been doing it in the Marvel universe. And if you’ve actually kept track of that, more power to you. But as a conclusion to Secret Wars it’s a soggy mess. 

Digital Code: THMBJBG0UQD2

All-New All-Different Avengers #3

Hobbled by the extent to which Waid is determined to reiterate both the classic Lee/Kirby Avengers #1 and the first Whedon film. When Waid is writing a team book about the specific characters he has here – and it’s one of the best Avengers lineups in memory - this is a real treat, but he doesn’t get to it nearly often enough to make up for the formulaic punch book it is the rest of the time. One of the most disappointing launches in memory, doubly so for Adam Kubert’s sleepwalkingly generic superhero art.

Digital Code: THMJUXG01VD2

Guardians of the Galaxy #4

There’s a part of me that just wants to say “dude, stop trying to make Yotat happen” at this point, but for all that the cliffhanger’s a bit of a swizz, the bulk of this book is the first real demonstration of the appeal of Bendis’s Guardians that this relaunch has had – a team book full of personalities and with the space for them to get multiple good moments per issue. Unpretentious and at this point a well-worn Marvel style, but as I often say about Bendis, when it works it is like slipping on your favorite pair of shoes. Actually I’ve never used that metaphor before because it’s an appalling cliche. But that fits too.

Digital Code: THMMALB8XVI9

Darth Vader #15

Vader Down ends strongly, if with an issue that suffers from having too many things to tie off. The limitations of the form are evident – most obviously in the way in which Vader and Luke can only ever have a near-miss encounter here – and at times the pull of restoring the status quo so this can still be “canon” between Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back make the construction a little too visible. And I’m not entirely thrilled with Aphra ending up in the book I don’t read instead of the one I do. But on the whole, this was a glorious little Star Wars romp that was well-timed to coincide with when the cultural mood was right for a Star Wars romp. Interested to see what the book does once it gets its head down and goes back to its own plots, though. …

Continue Reading

Eruditorum Presscast: Chris O’Leary/David Bowie Memorial

, 20

I’m joined by Chris O’Leary of Pushing Ahead of the Dame for a podcast on the obvious topic, as well as several others. We start by talking about Chris’s nearly-finished exploration of David Bowie’s entire discography (well, actually we start off-topic about Miracleman), move on to how Bowie designed his own death as a pop event, give Kieron Gillen credit for inspiring David Bowie’s cancer, and finish with discussions of a strange and motley assortment of Bowie albums both obvious and stranger. All in all, as I joked with Chris after, an hour of discussion containing absolutely no sentiments you’d find in a Guardian think piece about Bowie.

Download it here.

Chris’s book, Rebel Rebel, is out of stock at Amazon here. …

Continue Reading

Myriad Universes: The Worst of Both Worlds Part 4: And Death Shall Have No Dominion

, , , 1

The cover for this month’s issue is definitely one of the most memorable and distinctive in the series for me. It’s a striking print featuring the busts of Data, Captain Riker, Commander Shelby and Ro Laren looking at a central image of the two Enterprises taking on a Borg Cube while Locutus looks on. This was the cover art DC chose to represent The Worst of Both Worlds for the trade paperback reprint, or at least it’s the one I remember seeing in that catalog of assorted Star Trek merchandise I had back then. As a result, this may be the single image that I most associate with the comic book line, and one of my most singular memories of it. Incidentally, it’s also likely at least partially responsible for subconsciously elevating Laren’s stature as a regular for me. Not so much Shelby: I knew who she was and that this was a sequel to “The Best of Both Worlds”, but wishful thinking and low resolution magazine scans kept me pretending she was Tasha Yar long after the awareness of my own self-delusion began to set in.

The issue itself is a bit more of a workmanlike affair. It’s a perfectly satisfying conclusion to The Worst of Both Worlds and, together with its immediate prequel, comprises a joint two-hander that’s a serious contender for the single most kickass title in the show’s history. For real, “The Armies of the Night” followed by “And Death Shall Have No Dominion” is right up there with Original Series and Phase II levels of delightfully cheesy and bombastic episode names. The story, however, merely does what it needs to do and not a whole lot more than that: It’s essentially one big protracted action scene followed by some rather unfortunately obvious stalling for time, which is always a fun thing for me to have to summarise for you.

Following up on last month’s cliffhanger, the strike force is aghast at the death of one of the Worfs (at this point it’s still meant to be unclear which one it is, but we all know it’s the alternate one), and some convenient transporter interference buys the characters enough time to express their shock and disbelief in tandem. Once Alternate Geordi is able to retrieve the team, with Locutus in tow, it’s finally *officially* revealed that the Alternate Worf perished while protecting Locutus from a stray Borg energy beam. Captain Riker is angry at his fallen comrade’s bravado, but our Worf cautions him not to grieve, for his counterpart died a warrior’s death and, in his own eyes, finally redeemed himself. Commander Shelby reports that the Borg cube she was sparring with has broken off and is speeding to Earth. Commander Riker notes that this is a discrepancy between the sequence of events in the two universes, as when they captured Locutus the Borg didn’t seem to care. Captain Riker figures this Locutus is more valuable to this collective, and while Data, Doctor Crusher, Captain Picard and the Geordis start work on freeing Locutus with Ro Laren, Deanna Troi and our Miles O’Brien, he asks Commander Riker to stay with him on the battle bridge as the Alternate Enterprise moves to meet up with Commander Shelby to fight off the Cube.…

Continue Reading

Bizarrely, Though, it Comes Back: The MST3K “Pop Between Realities”, Two Years On

4

Seth Aaron Hershman revisits his TARDIS Eruditorum guest post in the wake of new events.

A formal announcement that Mystery Science Theater 3000 was coming back was a long time coming. Joel Hodgson had prodded at the topic in April 2014 at the end of a WIRED oral history of the program, a mere five months after my article on what was then PhilSandifer.com.

Ah, remember that article? I was so naïve then, saying things like MST3K was “some sort of bizarre mirror-world version of [Doctor Who]”.

“If MST3K hadn’t gotten canceled fifteen years ago, it’s possible we could have had 4 or 5 hosts by now, and it would be just like Doctor Who…” –Joel Hodgson

Ridiculous, right? I even had this whole section on how the show was about the ability or lack thereof to fight back against a preconceived narrative.

“The story of MST3K has been going for almost thirty years, but now – thanks to you – we’re finally getting to throw out the ending that we’ve been stuck with for fifteen years, and start writing the next big chapter.” –Joel Hodgson

I mean clearly I was just plain wrong about everything. Nineteen-year-old me was kinda dumb, wasn’t he?

In all seriousness, I’m not here to brag, I’m here because I feel like Joel repeatedly comparing the program to Doctor Who and framing its return in terms of narrative give me an interesting launchpad to expand on some of those ideas I haphazardly tossed onto someone else’s website two years ago.

Let’s quickly reexamine my claim that the period from 1999 up through now do not, in fact, constitute a sort of “Wilderness Years”. A Wilderness Years, I decided back then, requires a certain tethering to the source material in terms of intellectual properties in a way that post-MST3K material rejects. You can’t write a Doctor Who story without associated characters and such but you can write an MST3K story so long as you’re making fun of things. I’m not entirely sure how well that logic holds up, but I think ultimately what I was getting at is that MST3K‘s central conceits travel a lot better than Who‘s do by virtue of their relative simplicity.

It’s a harder argument to make now that MST3K is actually coming back. But ultimately “Wilderness” implies a sense of loss and distress that none of these spin-off projects have. RiffTrax has been more than successful with its DVDs and cinema showings. Trace Bealieu and Frank Conniff appear to be having a lot of fun with The Mads Are Back. The motley of fan projects that’ve sprung up have always been more fun things to do than a grappling at an absence. They all seem to be, as Joel might put it, “New Beginnings”.

So having rejected one sense in which MST3K might operate with Who, let’s examine what Joel does mean when he makes this comparison. It’s possible he means just in terms of the general conceit of replacing the cast and upgrading the set every few years, and his other parallel—to Saturday Night Live—seems to back this up.…

Continue Reading

A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones 3.01: Valar Dohaeris

3

Smirking lessons

State of Play

The choir goes off. There is a cold open running three minutes and set north of the Wall. The opening image is pitch black and inhuman screaming, then a fade-in on the windswept landscape and Sam running in terror.

 The board is laid out thusly:

Lions of King’s Landing: Tyrion Lannister, Queen Cersei Lannister, The King’s Hand Tywin Lannister

Dragons of Astapor: Khaleesi Daenerys Targaryen

Direwolves of the Wall: Jon Snow

Direwolves of Harrenhal: The King in the North Robb Stark, Caetlynn Stark,

Bears of Astapor: Jorah Mormont

Mockingbirds of King’s Landing: Petyr Baelish

Ships of King’s Landing: Davos Seaworth,

Burning Hearts of Dragonstone: King Stannis Baratheon, Mellisandre

Roses of King’s Landing: Margery Tyrell

Archers of the Wall: Samwell Tarley

Stags of King’s Landing: King Joffrey Baratheon

Direwolves of King’s Landing: Sansa Stark

Tigers of Harrenhal: Talisa Stark

Flowers of King’s Landing: Shae

Bows of the Wall: Ygritte

Bears of the Wall: Lord Commander Jeor Mormont

Chains of King’s Landing: Bronn

 Winterfell is abandoned and in ruins. 

The episode is in eight parts. The first part runs seven minutes and is set at Mance Rayder’s camp north of the Wall. The transition is by location. The opening image is a snowy landscape, then Rattleshirt walking. 

The second runs twelve minutes and is in sections; it is set in King’s Landing. The first section is seven minutes long; the transition is by hard cut, from Jon to children playing in the Blackwater, then into a brothel. The second section is five minutes long; the transition is by image, from the sky to the sky in a POV shot from a dazed Davos.

The third part run three minutes and is set at Harrenhal. The transition is by hard cut, from Davos and Sallador to the Stark banners.

The fourth runs nine minutes and is in two sections; it is set in King’s Landing. The first section is five minutes long; the transition is by implication; the letter Tywin is writing is early planning for the Red Wedding. The second section is four minutes long; the transition is by dialogue, from Tywin talking about Tyrion’s whores to Shae.

The fifth part runs two minutes and is set in Astapor. The transition is by image, from the water of Blackwater Bay to a dragon flying in the water.

The sixth runs three minutes and is set in Dragonstone. The transition is by image, once again to water.

The seventh runs six minutes and is set in King’s Landing. The transition is by hard cut, from Davos being dragged away to a street in Flea Bottom.

The eighth runs seven minutes and is set in Astapor. The transition is by dialogue, from Cersei and Margery talking about feeding the poor to Daenerys having the way the Unsullied have been starved explained to her. The final image is of Daenerys reacting to Barristan Selmy’s arrival by deciding to go for a Full Web.

 

Analysis

In the overall history of Thrones, this marks the start of a strangely transitional era.…

Continue Reading

Myriad Universes: The Worst of Both Worlds Part 3: The Armies of the Night

, , , 0

Well, the cover art pretty much gives away the end of the issue. And also the whole cliffhanger, because you know damn well which one of the Worfs is going to eat it.

But there’s some other stuff that happens before we get to that point. Picking up from last month, Data and Captain Picard are trying to figure out why Locutus isn’t where he’s supposed to be, but with the Borg closing in on them they don’t have a ton of time to ponder that. They beat a retreat back to the shuttlecraft, but the collective is onto them and latches onto the shuttle with a tractor beam before they get very far. Thankfully, the Alternate Enterprise crew is able to beam them to safety before the Borg blast the shuttle to smithereens. Back in the observation lounge, Data reveals that Locutus is likely on Earth, the Borg having set up a command base at the location of the former Starfleet Command in San Francisco (and I love, by the way, how after assimilating the entire galaxy, the Borg choose Starfleet Command of all places to set up shop), which Data was luckily able to discern by doing something with a tricorder (Friedman will always get a pass from me for this sort of stuff: There’s also a continuity error involving the alternate Guinan, or rather the lack thereof, that crops up here, but the story is good enough I’m not bothered by it). Captain Picard once again volunteers to lead the strike force to extract Locutus, alongside Data, Commander Riker and both Worfs.

Commander Riker reminds his counterpart that his crew has no intention of sticking around to help win their war for them, and is assured that the Alternate Enterprise crew has ever intention of returning them when the mission is completed, citing once again the fact that the dimensional rift will be open for several days. Captain Riker promises that the strength of his word will be proven when the time comes, however, there is soon an implicit justification of these concerns when he orders the alternate Commander Shelby to use the Enterprise as a distraction while the strike force is on Earth looking for Locutus, because she has the “more expendable ship”. As they beam down, Commander Riker exchanges some terse, barbed words with the alternate Geordi for his “optimism”, which is really Will’s code for the dismissive, arrogant snarking tone of the entire Alternate Enterprise crew that the alternate Geordi seems to embody the strongest (I guess Will and Laren share a few things in common after all). Meanwhile on the Enterprise, Shelby begins to set her own mysterious plans in action, and so does the Alternate Miles O’Brien, who reveals he’s got a plan of his own up his sleeve to potentially betray Shelby the way she plans to betray Captain Riker.

The highlight of this issue, otherwise a bit of a setup for the big finale (and double-length 50th issue celebration!)…

Continue Reading

Saturday Debugging

10

This is just a quick update on the state of the site.

Things are, as predicted, much better on the new host. The horrible proxy errors are gone, and things are much more harmonious. There were some lingering issues from the migration that took a few weeks to quash (we went an entertainingly long time without the ability to delete spam comments), but we’ve now got that sorted and are moving forward, with the current priority being making comments less awful and fixing the variety of display bugs (especially on mobile). Yes, replacing those captchas is first on the list. Look forward to it!

If you have any questions about the technical side of things, feel free to ask in the (currently still frustrating) comments.…

Continue Reading

«‹ 108 109 110 111 ›»