Sunday, December 30, 2012

Okay, You Know What?

There are mentally ill people in Canada, in Australia, in Japan, and in every single corner of Planet Earth.

Of those three countries, none have mass shootings on even a semi-regular basis.

I don't think autistic people is the problem with U.S. America right now.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Imports Complete

Importing of the old blogs is done. I will also be leaving these up on 2-Bit mainly for the purposes of history, but from this point on the content will not be a mirror.

This is not the layout I'll be using by the end of this process. Stay with me, folks.

Short Fiction by Anonymous/Unknown Author

  

Short Fiction by Anonymous/Unknown Author: G

Short Fiction by Anonymous/Unknown Author: A

Articles by Anonymous/Unknown Author: T

Articles by Anonymous/Unknown Author: N

Authors: A

Literature: Anonymous/Unknown Author

 

Articles by Anonymous/Unknown Author

  

Articles by Anonymous/Unknown Author: G

Moving: Day One

Things have gotten a little messy around here since I've started this attempt at The Archive. A little too messy, even for a hoarder like me! In an attempt to clean it all up, I'm splitting the site. I'm packing up and moving! My personal affairs and wild fan nonsense will be rehoused at a new location, and 2-Bit will be exclusively devoted to The Archive and its needs. Hopefully this will tidy everything up a bit.

I hope you will excuse the mess over the next couple of days while I go about the moving process. There's going to be little bits of the old blog with the new blog for a bit, just while I shift and sort and all that fun stuff.

My goal is to have this all complete by the first. So without further delay, here we go!

Monday, December 24, 2012

The Dancing Fool (1932)


The Bum Bandit (1931)


The Betty Boop Limited (1932)


Teacher's Pests (1931)


Swing You Sinners! (1930)


Swim or Sink (S.O.S.) (1932)


Sky Scraping (1930)


SIlly Scandals (1931)


Saturday, December 15, 2012

Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #1 (Review)

Best of ShowBest of Show by Paul Tobin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Best of Show is the first issue of Marvel comics child-oriented and now-defunct Marvel Adventures line of superhero comic books. These adventures feature the popular heroes of the Marvel Universe in stories and situations more suited to young readers instead of some of the more mature and controversial directions taken by the mainstream series. Usually corny, easily digest, and with emphasis on the fun and funny, some stick-butt fans might find these comics to be in poor taste, but these are the same people who never gave Superhero Squad a try, and that's a pretty good show.

This story stars Spider-Man, Iron Man, and The Hulk without really mentioning their alter egos. It's all heroes all the time, and they seem to be roommates of sorts. This isn't a premise I have a problem with, and it's interesting to see just what heroes do when they hang out together. Turns out they're just like everybody else! Iron Man and Spidey are having a show of just what Webhead can stick to while Hulk is enjoying himself pizza by the handful. It's laid back and a nice break from some of the overly tense mainstream stuff.

There isn't particularly much to say about such a short and lightweight story, though, and I want to try avoiding doing a synopsisview, since that isn't a review and it drives me up a wall. I'll say that while the situation these all-stars end up in is a little far fetched and ridiculous, even for comic books, it does make sense if you're willing to understand that these characters are normal guys. They don't always have to be punching things.

That's what this story explores, and I think it's fun. It treats the heroes as average Joes dealing with average Joe stuff... with a super twist. The characters are all fairly true to a basic and general idea of who they are. Hulk is the most toned down in this regard, being more like a giant child and not a seething mass of rage. Which is actually pretty accurate now that I think about it.

The art is really good. A lot of people will disagree with me, because there's this emphasis on supposed "realism" that permeates our culture, but this is an art style I enjoy. The colors are vibrant and eye-catching, the lines are clear, the people are distinct. It isn't cluttered with detail. It's got just the right blend of basically everything to be good art.

The comic's got some charm to it. It's pretty good. But, like most children's works, it isn't groundbreaking. It's a good ten minutes if you've got a commute to kill, and you don't mind a superhero story that isn't full of blood and grit.

Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #2 (Review)

Bad SportsBad Sports by Alvin Lee
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Unlike the previous issue of Marvel Adventures Super Heroes, which handled its ham quite well, this issue was a little too silly. The premise is comic-book acceptable: Spider-Man, Iron Man, and The Hulk go into space to destroy some meteors headed for Earth which turn out to be a group of space-dwelling aliens. Alright, that's interesting, let's see what happens.

"Dude, you got repulsored."

Oh boy. So these Meteor Men, as they're called, talk like The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, despite being denizens from the darkest depths of space, mind you, and are on a thrill seeking journey to perform the universe's most extreme sports. Their favorite being nothing less than "Planet Bombing," a sport with a tell-all name which they plan to perform on Earth, not caring one ounce for the human population.

To thwart this the trio of heroes... enter a week-long extreme sports contest with the Kowabunga Krew, which results in a number of bizarre and uncharacteristic situations such as... Kree... Karaoke.

There's a little too much silly on display here, even for me. That's typically a bad sign. I mean, maybe if this were a parody title or something, but that just isn't the case. This is a series designed to deliver superhero adventures to a younger audience, not to make jokes which are all too self-aware and shove the characters in ludicrous situations.

This series has taken a horrible turn with this issue. I hope it can recover, because this is seriously bad.

Crazy Town (1932)


Friday, December 14, 2012

Animorphs: The Invasion by K. A. Applegate (Review)

The Invasion (Animorphs, #1)The Invasion by Katherine Applegate
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The Invasion" is the very first book in the quite lengthy Animorphs franchise, a series of superhero-inspired action sci-fi books written for an older Middle Grade audience. I'd say somewhere between ten and fourteen would be the target audience for this book. Despite the intended demographic, it's still a pretty good read for adults, particularly those who don't like to engage a tale for a lengthy period of time. Were I not a lazy butthead, this book would have been finished in a single sitting. But like I said, I'm a lazy butthead.

As a kid, maybe around sixth grade, I fell in love with the Animorphs books. I never finished the whole series, unfortunately, but I had about forty of them. Now I'm down to about twelve plus one or two of the spin-off titles. It hurts, you know. Not the book, but having lost them all. So much of my childhood washed away in the tides of time. No clue where my Goosebumps books got to, and I had every single one of the original books... twice. Captain Underpants, Deltora Quest, Animorphs... alas, all lost.

My apologies for the slight derail. Going through my books one day, realizing I haven't read many of them, I decided to make it a mission not to bring in anything new until I had read every single book I already owned. This is a goal which I failed at miserably, but I gave it an attempt! I still want to go through and read everything I've collected over the years, so I thought I'd start off by going through the Animorphs series again. See if it still hit some chords.

Boy, did it! I'm so glad I went back to this series. It's been a struggle, for me, reading through some of the books I've picked up over the past couple years. Something about them just seems to bug me, to push me out, can't get into them. I was beginning to fear that I'd lost an interest in reading at all. Fortunately I picked up "The Invasion" and it kicked that nonsense right the hell out of me.

This is a page turner. The story is filled with suspense, oozing angst from all possible angles, and it leaves each page and chapter with some kind of hook. That is the surest way to get a reader, even a disinterested one, to flip from cover to cover without pause. Which, incidentally, you're supposed to do so the cool animation in the corner can move. While I know some people complain about cliff hanger chapters, it's a style that personally works for me. Sure, it's a little cartoon. You know, "Find out on the next exciting episode of Dragon Ball Z!" But what's wrong with that? I personally love this stuff. It leaves you grappling with yourself and the late hour of the night, trying to decide whether to sleep or keep going. Spoiler alert: you'll say "one more chapter" and read the whole book.

The characters are, if not all likeable, at least varied. And curious. You've got Jake, the Red Ranger--wrong series, my bad. Jake, the leader, who seems to be the most level-headed of the bunch. He's the narrator for this book, and we get to take a look at his decision making skills, which aren't quite developed yet. He's kind of afraid of everything, and feels like he's going through a dream. Not quite the leader the rest of the team wants him to be, but he knows he has to be and he gives it the old college try. Tobias, who escapes reality and embraces his new ability to morph, Marco, who acts like a huge spoiled jerk for the entirety of the book and rejects the gift they've been given, seeing it as a curse. Actually, at this point, the boys are all fairly stable, but I'll have to admit not really having a handle on the girls yet. Cassie is the more developed of the two, but unfortunately she doesn't have much depth. She's the typical animal-loving nature girl. Then there's Rachel, who I feel has been poorly under represented here. I really don't have any feel for what kind of character she is. She's a girl, and she gets full of herself when she's an elephant. That's about all I know.

What drags the book down, but is to be expected, are the immense cliches it relies on. The series is very basic. This is the bad guy, he's a jerk and talks with a deep, booming voice. He's also an alien, so naturally he must say things in very long and drawn out ways instead of being concise and to the point. Also, he's from space, so everything he does must involve the fourth moon of the second planet of a dying star. Because he's from space. And the star is dying, so he's bad. Did I mention he was from space?

The other issue I had was with the writing itself. There were times, mostly towards the first half of the book (this issue began to dwindle about halfway through) where the author was clearly writing down to her audience. That is never a good thing. I get that this was written for younger people, but that isn't really an excuse to treat them like idiots. This is a bad thing. It ruins what would otherwise be an awesome book, and it assumes that pre-teen readers aren't initiated enough to figure things out or look them up. Plenty of children's material does not talk down to its audience. That material continues to make itself relevant while the Teletubbies disappear into the pits of obscurity where they belong. Keep your nose levelled and write like you want to read.

Besides those two issues there really isn't anything wrong with the book, and there's a whole lot right. On a Venn diagram comparing Pros and Cons, the Pros circle would heavily outweigh the Cons circle. Heavily.

The books are cheap, you can find them for about four bucks each on Amazon, sometimes less. I'm going to fill in the gaps of my collection and finally read this series right through, just as it deserves. If you're between hard-ass "grown up" books and want something light to bridge the gap, dig out some snack money and grab this book. You won't regret it.

View all my reviews

The Amazing Spider-Man (Review)

This was one of those movies that I didn't think I would like right off the bat. The first trailer I saw gave me a very bad vibe, but being a monstrous superhero fan I decided to try it before I made my actual call. For months I put it off, out of fear that it would in some way tarnish the memory of Raimi's first two Spider-Man efforts. However, after my family picked it up on Black Friday (er, I'm sorry, "The Event.") and my recent obsession with The Spectacular Spider-Man animated series (which I will get around to reviewing at some point. And boy, is that a good show!) I finally tossed it into the ol' PS2 (actually, my girlfriend's PS2, but you get the idea) and sat back to what my family had hyped as "An amazing adaptation."

They have almost never been more wrong. Almost. And I have never been more sourpuss. Almost.

This movie sucked egg sacs. I'm not just saying this as a jaded Spidey-Fan, because I can handle my share of "It's good as a movie" adaptations. To illustrate: I like the X-Men trilogy. Things need to change, at least a little bit, and keeping all aspects of a story one-hundred percent faithful is not how you progress culturally, nor does anybody want to reexperience the same damn thing forty-million times. Changes are okay. I don't care that they made changes to the story. So Parker didn't get bit while on a field trip, and so what that he didn't meet Betty Brant first (suck it, Janers.) That doesn't matter.

What changes do matter, however, are character changes. Now, I won't lie, this is probably the one thing you'll actually catch my being a hypocrite about. If the character ends up changed in some way that I find logical and sense-making and story-improving, then I'm all for it. Making Peter Parker a little more down-to-earth and modern-nerd? Sure go for it. That makes sense, especially since they're trying to portray a modernized story.

That's not what they did. Peter Parker is an asshole. There's really no other way for me to put it. Actually, every single person in this movie is an asshole except for Gwen Stacy, a character who is increasingly growing on me as all of her portrayals across recent media have added something to the stories, and I can't wait to get my hands on the original comics to see just how she was back then. Ben Parker? Asshole. Aunt May? Asshole. Dr. Connors? Asshole. Flash Thompson? Asshole. Oh hell, do I have something to say about Flash Thompson. Captain Stacy? Asshole. Every single character is an unlikeable asshole. I did not connect with or relate to any single one of them.

Peter Park is portrayed as a heavily depressed and brooding high school student, which he would be to an extent considering his background. However, what they didn't portray was a modern nerd. Parker comes off as a gross loser, the kind of person who uses other people for their things and then ditches them when he gets bored. As Spider-Man the writers replaced his fun and witty quips with malicious and not-even-passive aggressive disses. Everytime he opened his mouth, I wanted to punch him in it.

Flash Thompson, whom the movie decided to develop more than the previous adaptations had, has moved up from dumb-as-nails bully to dumb-as-nails literally-assaulting-your-ass-all-over-Gorilla. Early in the movie we see Flash literally beat Parker bloody. Okay, he's a bully, that's what bullies do. If that's all they were going to do with the character, that probably would have been okay. Make him the heavy-fisted asshole and move on with it. But not this movie, no sir. They attempt to give him a human side by making him pay his respects when Ben Parker is murdered. Solemnly he walks up to Peter at the locker, and after making a snide remark about how "it feels good" that Parker has him pinned up against the wall, he mumbles something about being sorry for Peter's loss. No. No. No. I mean, yes, that is true to Flash Thompson. Flash Thompson would feel bad for Peter, and about Uncle Ben, and he would pay his respects to Peter and his family. But the Flash Thompson they portrayed earlier in the film, who beat Peter Parker into a bleeding husk and was later humiliated by him in front of all the hot ladies? That Flash Thompson would pin Peter Parker to the wall and laugh at his loss. If you're going to change your characters, be consistent about it. Don't portray them as a truly dangerous asshat one second and a compassionate, caring acquaintance the next.

Ben and May Parker are the next two on my list of "Just shut up" character portrayals. They got Ben right some of the time, being an elder and kind-hearted man who appreciates his nephew's talents. However, the second half of the film sees him becoming a raging madman, again a total switch in characterization. Yeah, he'd be pissed off at Peter's recent actions and irresponsibility. But to undergo a complete personality change? Yikes. Ben and Flash need to check into an analyst's office and get themselves tested for bipolar disorder. Ben Parker was such an unsympathetic character that I hardly cared when he died. It almost made me happy. Finally that moron is gone.

May Parker didn't feel right, and was just downright annoying. The kindly old woman from literally every other interpretation of the story was reduced into a shrieking ninny with far too much emphasis on properness who felt it was her place to tell everyone in the household what, exactly, they could keep and what they could not and where they could be placed. She shows zero concern for objects which are clearly important to her husband, telling him to get "that junk" off her table while he's trying to rescue it all from their flooding basement. She passes off as uninitiated and self-absorbed, and that's just the kind of person that makes me want to flip tables and storm off.

Dr. Connors was a little grinding because, like everyone else, he was an asshole. He was extremely underdeveloped, and his motivations for basically everything weren't very clear. Because they weren't really there. He wanted to make the world a better place, to make people stronger and more capable creatures. To accomplish this, he kills a bunch of innocent people on a bridge in his mad attempt to... stop someone from leaving town. Okay, Lizard.

I get they were trying to do a Hulk/Banner thing with Connors and The Lizard, and that would be accurate to the character. But they just didn't do that. I was completely confused for the majority of the movie whether or not Connors was in control of what the Lizard was doing. It wasn't until the absolute end where he is sprayed with some kind of anti-lizard venom and becomes human again that you see that Connors wasn't really himself when the reptilian one took control. They play it far too ambiguously by having The Lizard as a coherent character whose thoughts and desires aren't too indifferent from Connors' own. Which really isn't any better than the mindless-reptile-predator route, because Connors was given almost zero depth as a character. He was literally "Scientist bad guy has an asshole boss (this movie has such a depth of character!) so he experiments on himself and turns bad." That's it. Awesome.

And how does Connors plan to make the human race superior? By creating a giant device that will transform everyone into lizard-men. Okay. Yeah. Okay. This is pretty comic book, which makes sense considering this is a comic book movie. And while when you say it in one sentence, it is really cheesy and corny, they can make it work. Anything can work if it's done right and given some care. This. This was not done well and given no care. They needed Lizard to have some kind of "master plan" so they just dragged something out of a Saturday morning cartoon show and glued it into the already undeveloped hodgepodge of bullcrap this movie streams at you for about two hours.

Unlikeable as they all are, there is some marked character development for both Peter Parker and Captain Stacy. Like, the natural sense-making kind and not the bipolar-attack kind that Ben Parker and Flash showed off. Peter Parker learns, after a scolding by Captain Stacy, that he can't just use his powers to get revenge on his Uncle's murderer, but that he has a responsibility to use his powers to help people. That would mark the change from average-asshole to asshole-superhero. Captain Stacy, the only other character to convincingly develop, learns (a bit late in the game) to trust Spider-Man. Of course, this gets him killed. Oh well.

Aside from piss-poor characters and a non-existent plotline, the movie suffered from weird visual decisions that made it pretty hard on the eyes. For one, I could not read any of the text they displayed on screen, and it wasn't because of my bad eyesight. All the text seemed incredibly, well, sharp. And I don't mean that in a visual-aspect definition, I mean it was sharp. It hurt my eyes to look at it. This is a growing trend in visual media, because I've had this problem with a lot of video games starting back around 2007. This seriously needs to stop, because in this film and in those games text is a pretty important aspect. I would like to read it without purchasing a new TV, because my current one isn't even ten years old yet, and it still works beautifully. Fix your font.

The other problem I had with the visual direction of the film was how indistinct everything was. There were lights all over the place, and it was not fun attempting to figure out what objects were as they whirred by at thirty miles an hour with everything glowing like freaking Las Vegas. Scenes that weren't overlit were super dark, and none of the characters could be made out except for fleeting glances. When it came to any action sequences, everything was far too fast and hard to follow. I mean, maybe they fastness wouldn't have been an issue if the visual work wasn't so weird, but it was, and everything was just an absolute eyesore from start to finish.

My girlfriend attributed this to all the colors appearing hyper-saturated, which is something I'm sure she would know much more about being an artist. And a damn good one. But that got me thinking that yeah, something seemed a little odd and familiar about it all. It was as though someone took the whole movie, shoved it into GIMP, and applied a very heavy burn filter to the entire film. This is not good.

But I can't trash the whole movie, because when it got good it got pretty good. Peter Parker revealing his identity to Gwen Stacy, roping her into a kiss with his spiderwebs, was a good scene. I felt the high school-age emotional angst like a wet blanket, which is exactly how high school-angst felt. So that was cool. That was a good scene. Spider-Man getting pegged down by the cops and sitting defeated while Captain Stacy rips his mask off, finding his strength only after stewing in mixing, putrid emotions and bursting out of confinement. Ultimately failing in his escape efforts and being found out gave that scene the fist-punching feeling every teen experiences of doing everything right, giving it your best, and realizing the world doesn't actually give a shit how hard you try and will make it all go absolutely horribly wrong anyway was one of the most emotionally compelling things I've witnessed in cinema in a long, long time.

Also, the part where he's waiting like a spider in his sewer-web and the lines start plucking but he's playing Bubble Bash. That was cool.

But that's it. Total accumulated time for the portions of these scenes which were good? I'd give it maybe three minutes out of the whole one-hundred and thirty six. For those of you good at math, that's about 2% of the entire freaking film.

I'll make that my official stance on this. 98% of The Amazing Spider-Man is really god damn awful, and 2% of The Amazing Spider-Man is really bleeding awesome. If you want to sit through 133 minutes of shite for 3 minutes of cool, this movie's for you. If you value your time, go watch something else.

Is There a Santa Claus?

We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

"Dear Editor: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says 'If you see it in The Sun it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

                                       "Virginia O'Hanlon.

"115 West Ninety-Fifth Street."

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinquished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank god! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

From The Sun, September 21, 1897

From Beyond the Styx: English Gardener Tells of Experience While Heart Stopped

During a serious operation, John Puckering's heart stopped beating, and he was "dead' four and a half minutes. In that brief interval, he said, his soul slipped away, and joined a heavenly company. It was as tho he were "looking into a great place, something like a hall."

"There was a good light," as the Associated Press carried the English gardener's account, "and I saw crowds of people. So many were there that they seemed like a multitude at a football match. The people stood in a circle, and I noticed that there were no children among them. They looked natural, with healthy faces, and they appeared to be dressed as on earth. I was deeply impressed by the happiness which shone in their faces, and which was so intense that I felt as tho I should not have minded joining them."

Among the happy company were some friends. One had died seven years before. This "old friend" nodded to the visitor. The happiness he saw "thrilled" the gardener, and he "lost all fear of death." The scene was "as realistic as my own back garden," he said after his "return."

While Mr. Puckering was sojourning on the other side of the Styx, Dr. G. Percival Mills slipped his hand under the diaphragm of the apparently lifeless body, massaged the heart, and injected adrenalin. Artificial respiration had been started, and Puckering's heart beat again.

After convalescing, Puckering returned to work, carrying the memory with him. Tho he was apparently unaware of it, his account was published in the press on both sides of the Atlantic, and a controversy ensued. Sir Oliver Lodge, famous physicist and spiritualist, is reported to have dismissed the story gruffly.

Lady Doyle, widow of the creator of Sherlock Holmes, said the revelations "entirely corroborated" what she and her eldest son, Denis, and "millions of others have known for years." The fact that Puckering is "an unimaginative fellow who had taken no interest in spiritualism, and couldn't have known he was giving exactly the same description we have been given of first impressions after death," said Mr. Doyle, "leaves no doubt in my mind."

On the other hand, Dr. J. B. S. Haldane, famous British scientist, who had recently returned form the United States, was not impressed. There is nothing unusual in the stopping of a heart for five minutes, he said. He thought it probable that Mr. Puckering had a "revelation." "People," he said, "often do under an anesthetic."

Experiences similar to Mr. Puckering's have been reported before and with as much detail. Whether people who have been resuscitated ever actually were dead is for medical science to determine. People apparently drowned often have been revived.

From The Literary Digest, February 23, 1935

Abbott and Costello Comics #6