The (already checked out) Hodge and the Podge:

1. Huh, I haven't done one of these since two years ago when I went on vacation? Well, I'm on vacation again, and as always the blog will continue to trundle along aimlessly while I'm out. My internet connectivity may be worse than usual this time, but...y'know, I think I'm okay with that. I have a small mountain of stuff to read.

I could've sworn I had more than that. I finished Stephen King's Bazaar of Bad Dreams and Stan Lee's graphic memoir Amazing Fantastic Incredible, and I have a stack of those Marvel digests and a couple of the DC 100-pagers waiting as well. I don't necessarily need to plow through all of it, but now would seem the time.

2. I tweeted these, but didn't put them up here yet:

So this was my most recent arts-n-crafts type project: 3D-printed Mystery Science Theater 3000 Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot from Shapeways! Like many of my little projects, it was fun, but also reached a point where I just wanted it to be done. I had never purchased 3D-printed items before, and it was interesting. One thing I noticed: it's not tooled the same way a plastic model might be, so everything doesn't 'click' together the way you think it ought to. It was also somewhat more expensive than I'd like; both the printing and the paint. I was very specific to get the right colors for them! But my painting is probably not going to get much past the point of 'passable.'

I'm sure we'll see them in the backgrounds of something sooner or later; but usually when I do something like this, that just means a real version is coming any minute now. YOU'RE WELCOME.

3. I don't talk movies very often here, but I got Moviepass a while ago, having decided to enjoy that ride as long as I can before they sink like the proverbial stone. The Wife had it for a bit before she got pissed at them for changing their terms midstream, which they have a few times now: you can only see a movie once, and they can implement a "surge pricing" surcharge at certain times. The latter, in my neck of the woods, is grade-A bullcrap. Maybe opening weekend for some movies, but I got dinged three extra bucks for Ant-Man and the Wasp two weeks after it came out, on a Thursday, for a half-empty showing. I was so mad I went back the next day and bought a ticket for Hotel Transylvania 3 and left. Don't test me, Moviepass.

The Youngest and I did like Ant-Man and the Wasp; and I have seen a few more in theater than I usually would have: Hereditary, Hotel Artemis...I kinda hated Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. I might hate that whole series. Every single one, "Ooh, these dinosaurs are majestic, noble creatures," that then go on to kill a bunch of people. The teaser at the end of this one; I felt like everyone responsible for making those things and letting them loose should be up for war crimes, because people are going to die because of their willful negligence and gross incompetence. Errrg. Look, if you cloned an ankylosaurus--okay, they're my favorite--they'd still be fairly dangerous just due to their size, but you'd have proved you could do it, yay science, and you could stop there without creating dozens of man-eating remorseless killing machines and crapping all over the environment. Man, when is Turok: Dinosaur Hunter getting a movie, put me down for one for that...

Anyway, Moviepass is starting to delineate for me what movies I'll expend the least little effort to go see, and which ones I won't until they end up streaming on Netflix or something. Depending on that effort, I may or may not go see the First Purge this afternoon. I'm kinda doubting it, but maybe. (EDIT: Yeah, I went, it was okay. It dodged at least a couple clichés I thought it would hit, and there's a couple good jumpscares, but I don't think you can shoot plastic explosive and blow it up, and I don't think it would make a fireball, either.) Not unlike the Jurassic World movies, I think Purge films raise a lot more questions than they have any intent of answering. If all crime is legal during the Purge, wouldn't corporations just cash in then? Do all their bribes and illegal dumping and trade violations at once? "Hey, you're federally protected from being fired the rest of the year, but tonight? Yeah, you're fired." Maybe I'll hold out for Jurassic Purge, where you can kill all the dinosaurs you want.


4. I still buy the occasional Star Wars Black figure, although I'll often try to hold out for a deal. Which I did here, but I had wanted the landspeeder, not because of the movie though, but because of Star Wars #31! Luke's got his hat and macrobinoculars right there on the splash page; but later in the issue Luke, the droids, and Han and Chewbacca make a guns-blazing escape from Mos Eisley on the landspeeder...somehow. I mean, Threepio's probably not the quickest getting in, then you have to stow Artoo, and Han has to sit on Chewie's lap? It's like having an El Camino and three friends.

I re-read one of the trade reprints I have of the next issue, and although they're still in the 'speeder, Carmine Infantino cheats like crazy with long shots or framing the panel without everyone in it. Still a favorite couple issues of the old Marvel run, though.

5. Some bad news: per Bleeding Cool, Bongo Comics was putting out their last issue of the Simpsons, #245; and SpongeBob Comics was going on indefinite hiatus as of #85. The Simpsons had been running for 25 years, and my son has been reading SpongeBob for a good seven years. Although Bongo had stopped their Futurama comic a while back, this end still seems sudden; I know they had Free Comic Book Day books just this year.

Along with those, the Transformers titles are ending for an end with Unicron; or at least a substantial reboot. I thought B.P.R.D. was wrapping up as well, but not quite yet; yet it still feels like a lot of my pull list is going away. I know there's a few titles still to come that I'm still looking forward to, like the Mystery Science Theater 3000 comic, and Ann Nocenti's the Seeds. But it still feels like a net loss. We'll just have to see if anything new jumps out later.