"Futurama" renewal

Best news ever (even with a near-revolution occurring in Iran):

FUTURAMA IS RENEWED!!!

It's about goddamned time!

Finally, someone has had enough sense to bring back one of the funniest, smartest, best shows ever (sometimes I think it may even be better than "The Simpsons").

Check out the news at Entertainment Weekly:

http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2009/06/its-official-futurama-returns.html

And check out the official site/forum of Billy West (today's Mel Blanc and more):

http://www.billywest.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4862&PN=1

This is truly a glorious day.

The State of Comics

I am afraid.
I am afraid of becoming one of those people who loved comic books for a time but eventually couldn’t take all of the changes and quit reading new stuff.

Every time there are major changes across the board in comic books, there are many people who quit reading, while new readers pick up the slack. There are people who decry the “grittiness” that came about in the 1980s. There are people who stopped reading in the 1990s because of the proliferation of X-titles and the superficial focus one the artists and splash-pages. A lot of people who had quit reading were brought back in with the Ultimate line.

Comics have now come to a point that I almost can’t stand reading most of them. Every year, there is at least one big event that’s supposed to rock the universe of each of the Big Two. One is the minimum. There are usually a few crises or wars that are supposed to change things forever. And it’s not artistic. It’s commercial. Purely commercial. And it ruins things for anyone who doesn’t want to buy 20 titles per company per month just to be able to keep up.

Aside from that, I think many comic writers have run out of good ideas. Or, at least, ideas I enjoy. A while back, I dropped “Ultimate X-Men” and “Ultimates” from my pull because of declining quality and terrible convolution. I’ve only kept “Ultimate Spider-Man” because Bendis has stayed on, though it has declined a bit. I stopped reading “Daredevil” shortly after Bendis stopped writing it. I may soon drop “Punisher” because it seems that no one can compare to Garth Ennis.
It was difficult enough to keep up with what was happening to Batman when I only bought “Batman” and none of the other Bat-titles or miniseries. Now, this whole “death” thing is just pissing me off. Morrison’s “R.I.P.” was terrible. I read some good things about Morrison and Quitely’s “Batman and Robin” over at http://buildingbatman.blogspot.com/ but I don’t really like the idea of anyone but Wayne behind the cowl.

Nothing that I read or hear about in comics really captures my interest anymore. Maybe I’m just being old-fashioned, like the people who miss the Silver Age. Maybe I can’t change with the times. Still, I have to wonder if people are really happy with stories like “R.I.P” and “Brand New Day” or if comic book fans are simply resigned to accept whatever they’re given because they have nowhere else to go for stories featuring their favorite heroes.

If more people feel like I do, I hope that we can come together to demand more from the Big Two. The first step is to stop buying the crap.

Terminator Salvation

This movie is amazing. It’s a fantastic war movie and a great story about underdogs fighting their oppressors.
I had some reservations about McG directing, but I figured he couldn’t do any worse than “T3”. Luckily, he did a great job and I think this movie stands well with the first two.
It’s filled with delightful little references and the look of it is fantastic.
This is the closest that Christian Bale has ever come to one-note acting, but he is great as John Connor.

I’m definitely looking forward to the DVD.

Star Trek

The new flick is pretty fantastic. While I’m a casual fan of the old cast, I think that these new guys do a great job.
This movie has great action and decent characterization, but it does lack the scientific and philosophical depth of some of the original episodes/movies.

I’m definitely looking forward to whatever else J.J. Abrams and the new cast and writers bring on.

(P.S. I intended to write a review after seeing it opening night, but I have definitely let the blog slip. So long as somebody’s reading it, though, I’ll keep it up.)