This is Post 291: Happy Anniversary!

Today, the 7th of August at 11:39 most local time I made my first post here. It's now a little over 10 years later. If I was more well prepared I would have made this post at 11:39 but in keeping with the whole "I don't really have any schedule for these posts" vibe this blog has it's a bit later then that.

But yeah. 10 years later, 3 blog names & a little under 300 post later here we are.

so... The Year of Anniversaries: how's that going? well... you should be able to see that it's not. I might get one of those ideas for a post out. I might not. The Year of Anniversaries might go the way of the 2020 project: announced but undone.

who knows. I know this is much of a anniversary post but I ever year I always seem to forget which day the anniversary is on. I know it's early August but never which day. so we get this.

Here is to another 10 years of sporadic postings!

Stay Jazzy, Everybody!

- Brian

This is Post 290: Year of Anniversaries!

It's 2017 everybody & it's the Year of Anniversaries! Get Hyped!

*throws handfuls of confetti & glitter everywhere*

I bet 2 questions:
1. What is the Year of Anniversaries?
2. Why is is starting on the 15th of January?

I'll answer Question 2 first & the answer is: Because!

The answer to Question 1 is that there is a number of different things that all have anniversaries this year that are near & dear to my heart. There are 4 main things that are having anniversaries this year. I say 4 main ones because I keep finding out about more & more things that reach milestones this year that I'm not sure if i'll cover.

The Main Reason 25 years ago in 1992 I started to read Comic Books. I'll be turning 34 this year so there is a greater chunk of my life that I've devoted some engird to reading comic to then I have not. That is a lot of time. So... over the course of the rest of this year there will be a bunch of special posts (read as: there will actually be posts here on the blog) that will be devoted to things I've read over the last 25 years. Along with a bunch of new topics, I'll be revisiting a few older topics I've covered here on the Blog. I have not run out things to talk about in relation to Age of Ultron & Zero Hour!

The next 2 reasons are related to that first reason because without that first reason I wouldn't care about one of the other reasons & one reason wouldn't exist. 10 years ago, I started a blog. This blog in fact. Almost 300 post, a handful of them actually good & worth reading! What am I going to do for Post 300? I don't know, it's coming up really soon.

Reason 3? 20 years ago was 1997. That my dear readers was an awesome year for comics. Most people have a favorite time period of comics. a favorite age of comics: Gold, Silver, Bronze, Platinum, Dark, Other! But I've managed to pinpoint it down to about a year (I sometimes lump in the years on either side of it) & one company. I really like DC Comics circa 1997. Why? You'll have to wait for that post to find out why!

What is the fourth reason?   This a thing I've never talked about here on the blog: VHS. The year I started my blog is also the year that VHS died. At least the home video market died & I really liked VHS so to mark the 10th anniversary of it's passing I'm going to be talking about some of favorite tapes from my collection. A collection I started in 2009.

So... once again: it's the Year of Anniversaries! Get Hyped! Be back here later this month for the fist official post in this year long event!

Until then: Stay Jazzy Everybody!

- Brian

This is Entry 250: Brian on the Aisle #12

This post is will be multi-tasking post. It's a 250th post, It's the 12 entry in Brian on the Aisle & I'm counting this as a part of the 2012 Project. The movie I'll be reviewing is The Adventures of Tintin.

Early on in my readership of comic books (The Early to the Mid 1990's): I read the Tintin books, collected almost the whole series (didn't notice until recently that I'm missing a few books). I loved them as kid. Still like them as an Adult. They are Awesome!

My enjoyment of the books were greatly enhanced by the fact at the same time that I was reading these books there was also an animated series based on the books on TV (They were on the cable network HBO. I think the cartoon were Canadian made or at least release in the States by a Canadian company). I could see all the action on the screen & then add those moving images to when I read the books.

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As I have done in the past, I saw Tintin at the second run theater near my house (3 dollars a movie!). Tintin is also one of the those movies that recently came out in both 2D & 3D, the theater I saw at it didn't does that the fancy 3D to show it in. I saw a few times during the movie that it might of looked cool if I saw it in 3D. But seeing in 2D in no way diminished my viewing of the movie.

The "Adventures of Tintin" series of books span over 20 books. What adventure do you start with? I think the filmmakers went with a good choose. A personal favorite of mine, a storyline that I'll be calling the Unicorn Saga. The Saga unfolds over 2 books: The Secret of the Unicorn & Red Rackham's Treasure. The movie was not just a translation of those 2 books. The Movie is a mix of those 2 books, parts & characters from another book in the series (The Crab with the Golden Claws) & Bianca Castafiore (a supporting character who appeared in a number of the Tintin books).

I understand why the added in the bits from The Crab with the Golden Crabs. That is the book where Tintin met Captain Haddock, a character who is featured quite heavily in the Unicorn Saga. So they had to explain how Tintin knew the Captain somehow. The addition of the Castafiore to the movie's story while not in any of the these 3 stories I did quite enjoy & didn't mind this alteration because it was in keeping with how she might have been used in the books.

The way the entire Unicorn saga is unfolded in the movie is totally different from the books they come from. Is this a bad thing? No. Not really. They needed to added in the elements from the Crabs to Unicorn so the overall story is different then the books. I did feel the melding of the 2 stories were done quite well. There were a few elements present in the Unicorn books that were felt out of the movie as they might of not made sense. Basically all of the plot to the Crabs books is not present in the movie which is ok since they only wanted to use the Unicorn plot line & having this secondary plot line would have been confusing as it in no way tied into the main Unicorn plot line.

The characterisation of Sakharine, the movie's main villain, is different then it is in the books. How he is presented in this movie he is more an amalgamation of very different characters from the books. This did leave me a bit puzzled as I watched the movie. I being a big fan of the books & having just reread the Unicorn saga recently I had the book freshly in the mind. I just couldn't place who Sakharine was in the books as I watched the movie. I knew that name! I thought of the character with that name to be a some what minor character (which I still think so as I took a look back at the books) where as in the movie he is the main villain! Many of the Tintin books used a number of different villains in the books & I can see why they wanted to have 1 central villain for the movie.

For the main cast, I would say the characterisations is pretty spot on. All the voices & actions fit with how I think they should have been. The catchphrases were all there! The CGI was a bit weird but something you could get use to. I was a bit weird seeing the "cartoony" look of the characters represent in such a realistic way. At times I felt that Captain Haddock's head was a bit to large.

Professor
Cuthbert Calculus

One thing I thing they could have done was the "whole" Unicorn story in this one movie. This one leaves us on a cliffhanger, setting up a sequel. I put the word whole in quotation marks because the movie does end how the story ends in the books. There were a few different events that happened in the books that didn't happen here & a few that happen in a different order. I suspect that many of those events would happen in the second movie. Many of those events are from the second book/second half of the story. I really hope they do make a sequel because my favorite character from the Tintin series is introduced in the second half of the Unicorn story. That character is Professor Cuthbert Calculus! He is Awesome! I'm not sure why I like him so much but I do. He is just plain awesome & quite a snappy dresser I might say. He was the one character I wanted to see show up in the movie but he didn't. Mainly because all of the stuff he did the Unicorn saga hadn't happened yet. If He's not in the sequel, I am going to be mad!

There were so nice references to the the other Tintin books in the movie (mostly in the opening credits & in the framed newspaper clippings at Tintin's home). You did get to see some of the Art of the books in the movie too which was nice.

So... Final Thoughts: What did I think of the movie? I thought it was good. Did I think going into that it was going to be bad & that it was going to "rape" a cherished piece of my childhood? No. I mainly wanted to see how they handled the story which they did quite well. It did quite boring (at least for me) during two long action sequences in the later half of the movie. I just felt they were overly long.

What do I give this movie? 3 & half Blistering Barnacles out of 5!

I greatly look forward to seeing the sequel!

Until next time, Stay Jazzy everybody!

- Brian

This is Entry 247: 2012!

The year is 1992.


In Sports: The Washington Redskins win Super Bowl XXVI. The Dallas Cowboys win Super Bowl XXV. The Chicago Bulls win the NBA Finals. The Toronto Blue Jays become the 1st Canadian team to play in the World Series & the 1st non-American Team to with the World Series.

In Politics: 41st President of the United States George H.W. Bush become violently ill in a Japanese televised state dinner. While there there his threw up on Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa & then fainted. Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaced Jaiver Perez de Cueller of Peru as the UN Security General. Bill Clinton, before becoming 42nd President of the United States, plays the saxophone on the the Arsenio Hall Show.  Ross Perot buys a block of TV time for his Presidential Campaign.

On TV: Seinfeld, Barney & Friends, The Real World, Batman: The Animated Series, Martin, Goof Troop, Eek! The Cat, Roundhouse, Hanging with Mr. Cooper, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Mad about You, Ghostwriter & X-Men: the Animated Series all had their premiere episodes. The Cosby Show, MacGyer, Growing Pains, The Golden Girls, Night Court, Darkwing Duck also had their final episodes. The Sci-Fi Channel (now Sy Fy) & Cartoon Network premiere.

In Movies: Aladdin, The Bodyguard, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Basic Instinct, Lethal Weapon 3, Batman Returns, a Few Good Men, Sister Act, Bram Stoker's Dracula & Wayne's World are the Top 10 Movies of the year. Other notable movies are: 3 Ninjas, Bebe's Kids, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cool World, Cutting Edge, Death Becomes Her, Ferngully: The Last Rainforest, Encino Man, Honey, I blew of the Kid (sequel to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids), The Lawnmower Man, The Crying Game, A League of their Own, The Mighty Ducks, The Muppet Christmas Carrol, My Cousin Vinny, Passenger 57, Reservoir Dogs, Rock-a-Doddle, Sneakers, Stop! or My Mom will shoot, Toys & White Men can't jump.

In Video Games: Mortal Kombat is released to Arcades. The Ecco the Dolphin video game is released. The Sega CD (an add-on to the Sega Genesis) is released in the US. 2 Games from the Ultima series of games were released (The Black Gate & The Stygian Abyss). The Later being the 1st 3D role-playing video game.

Notable Births: Disney Channel stars Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus, Dylan & Cole Sprouse.

Notable Deaths: Actor Dick York (Darren Stephens #1 from TV's Bewitched), Author Issac Asimov, Comedian Sam Kinison, Actor Robert Reed (Mike Brady from Tv's Brady Bunch), Comedian Benny Hill, Actress Marlene Dietrich, Musician Lawernce Welk, Carl Stolz (Founder of American Little League), Martin Goodman (Long Time Publisher of Marvel Comics), William Gaines (EC Comics/MAD Magazine Publisher), Joe Shuster (Superman Co-Creator) & Pierre Culliford/Peyo (Smurfs creator).

In World Events: Euro Disney was opened (The name was changed to Disneyland Paris later on). The 1992 Summer Olympics are held in Barcelona, Spain. Hurricane Andrew happened.

Now what does 1992 have to do with 2012 besides being 20 years ago....

In Seattle, Washington: A 9 year old boy starts down a path that will come to define his life.

Over the course of the rest of the year (& maybe a bit into 2013): I'm going to go over the comics I've read over the past 20 years. Most of the comics I'll be talking about are the "good" comics, the ones I really enjoy/enjoyed. But some of the "bad" comics might make their way into the retrospective if I think they are worth talking about.

There are a few notable Comic Book milestones that happened in 1992:

- Image Comics is founded.

- Detective Renee Montoya (Batman #475) & Carnage (Amazing Spider-Man # 361) make their 1st appearances.

- With Issue 12, NFL Superpro is cancelled.

- Spider-Man 2099 #1 is published.

I'll be back soon with the 1st official post in what I am calling "The 2012 Project". Until then, Stay Jazzy everybody!

- Brian.

This is Entry 243: Coming Attractions!

Here is the "teaser poster" for a project that has been in the planning stages for a few months. It will start up soon (for hopefully obvious reasons). What it is actually is about will be revealed at that time.

Until then, Stay Jazzy everybody!

- Brian