I was just checking YouTube, and I can see there's quite a bit of buzz there about the Netflix Sabrina series, so I'll probably start there, since most of the videos are short and of course it's free.

I might need to be a little careful to avoid too many spoilers, so I'll have to think about that a little bit before deciding which YouTube reviews/comments I'll decide to watch.

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on October 31, 2018, 11:19:10 AM
Netflix gives you a free month if you sign up as a trial.  Even though I already did that once a couple of years ago, they gave me another free month so if you want to try Sabrina, it wouldn't cost you anything. 


As far as Riverdale, I really thought two seasons was enough and I was surprised when it was renewed for a third season.  I'm pretty sure I'll get around to checking out season 3 eventually but I keep reading snippets of reviews from people who liked the first two seasons suggesting that season 3 is not very good.  I don't usually implicitly trust other peoples opinions on such things since I have a high tolerance for cheese (which is why I probably was fine with seasons 1 and 2), but I think I read something about a cult leader or something and I don't know why but that's a bridge too far for me.  Again, I'll probably get bored enough to check it out eventually but I'm good for now. 


Also, a co-worker of mine who gave up on Riverdale halfway through season 2 said she was going to watch Sabrina (she's not an Archie Comics fan) and I always enjoy things more when I have someone to debrief with after it's over.  She's not as far along with Sabrina but she's enjoying it.  I finished it this morning and loved the ending, especially because it does have roots in MLJ history.  The penultimate episode (number 9 of 10) really affected me, but folks who watch and enjoy horror would probably find it pretty tame. 


If you check it out, I'll look forward to your review!!

This is all very interesting. I'd give your post a double-like if I could. I watch much less television (which no longer really seems like the appropriate description anymore, if you know what I mean) than the average person. Probably because I always have piles and piles of comics (the floppy kind as well as collected editions, and American comics as well as Japanese manga) on my list of things to read every week -- and I've gotten WAY behind in the last few weeks as it is. Still, I try to watch a few things, but at this point it's almost exclusively anime. I have an extensive list of anime series I want to watch (most are versions of manga I've read), and it takes me quite a while to work my way through those.

Like I started watching the anime version of PLANETES (which I had recently read already in total as manga), but found it to be quite different and not as good (so far) in my opinion. I had only gotten about six episodes into that, before I got distracted again and started watching the first 9 episodes of PRISON SCHOOL (which brings me up to the events of Volume 3 of the manga, which is all that I've read so far). Unlike Planetes, Prison School is adapted almost exactly from the manga with no deviations (well, "deviations" are part of the story, but I mean it's a note-for-note adaptation). I guess I'll go back to Planetes again and finish watching the anime, while I find the two manga volumes of Prison School which I couldn't order through Diamond via my LCS (which means I probably have to find them on Amazon). I prefer to read the manga before seeing the anime. Other things on my list of stuff to watch which I've read the manga, but haven't seen the anime adaptation as yet, include ONE-PUNCH MAN, MOB PSYCHO 100 and DEATH NOTE. Then there anime series I'd like to check out that I haven't read the manga of. I've seen a few episodes of the anime for THE DISASTROUS LIFE OF SAIKI K. and really enjoyed those (although I definitely prefer the subtitled ones over the English-dubbed ones) so I'd like to see the rest of that series at some point, as well. The manga doesn't seem to have been made available in English translation, that I could discover. I find I can watch most of this stuff online in some form.

Of course, time spent watching video is time not spent reading, and vice-versa.

I'm encouraged by your enthusiasm for the Netflix SABRINA, and I'm definitely giving some thought to that Netflix free trial. The hardest part is figuring out how to find the time to watch those 10 episodes without falling even further behind in the list of stuff I've bought to read, plus anime related to manga that I like.

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on October 30, 2018, 06:54:18 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on October 29, 2018, 08:17:51 PM
Nobody watched The Chilling Adventures of SABRINA on Netflix?

Wow, the apathy is mind-boggling. I mean, even I'M a little curious about this one, and usually I couldn't care less about this kind of stuff.

Can't believe Tuxedo Mark isn't all over this.

I've watched 8 episodes (of the 10) and am about to watch the last two.  I love it even though I usually don't like horror.  I enjoyed the first two seasons of Riverdale but I haven't watched any of season 3 yet.  Something is keeping me from watching it and I'm not sure what.

Love is a strong word, so that's got to count for something. I have not watched Riverdale after all this time, nor do I really feel any desire to. On the other hand, even though I don't have Netflix, I would consider watching Sabrina if the opportunity presented itself (like at someone else's house, or if it eventually becomes available on general-release DVD). I am interpreting your last comment as there being something about Riverdale that is annoying or disturbing to you on some level, something which has eventually put you off the show even though you already invested your time in the first two seasons.

Quote from: rusty on October 29, 2018, 08:36:11 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on October 29, 2018, 08:17:51 PM
Nobody watched The Chilling Adventures of SABRINA on Netflix?

Wow, the apathy is mind-boggling. I mean, even I'M a little curious about this one, and usually I couldn't care less about this kind of stuff.

Can't believe Tuxedo Mark isn't all over this.

I plan on watching it, but am catching up on other shows first.  It will be available on Netflix for quite some time so there is no real hurry.

Quite the contrast there between RIVERDALE and SABRINA, which is what I can't get over. The former was all people could talk about here for months and months, both before & after the debut. Nary a peep or mumble about Sabrina, though. Oh, well.

Nobody watched The Chilling Adventures of SABRINA on Netflix?

Wow, the apathy is mind-boggling. I mean, even I'M a little curious about this one, and usually I couldn't care less about this kind of stuff.

Can't believe Tuxedo Mark isn't all over this.

Quote from: rusty on October 26, 2018, 07:52:07 PM
I'm been using Previewsworld and its predecessor for the Weekly Releases lists since 2005.  It is pretty useful and each week I use it to make up a list of what I am expecting in my orders from that week, even though my shipments are monthly now.  I will also occasionally peak at the next week list.  I'll stick with the printed Previews catalog, though.  It only costs me 99 cents and I don't mind waiting until it shows up in my order the first week of the month.  The preorder setup at Mycomicshop comes in pretty handy as well and their layout tends to be a decent match for the printed book.  Plus you can only look at new material or graphic novels etc.

I have to admit Mycomicshop has one of the best online comic stores I've ever seen. I often use it as a kind of mini-database, because it's easier to navigate and faster loading than either comics.org or comicbookdb.com !  The catalog section of Previewsworld is pretty easy to use once you figure it out, and you can choose to view "comics", "graphic novels/trade paperbacks", "books", "magazines", "apparel", "toys & models" etc. to further narrow the product listing, including the list within any one publisher/vendor. I just like it because I can copy and paste the information directly from that into a document or spreadsheet, once I've located a product of interest. Also, Previewsworld tends to have the complete monthly solicitation information earlier than any other site. I just can't deal with reading the comic newssites like Newsarama, etc. any more... all those popup ads and extraneous graphics & animation make any of those sites slow and painful to use these days.

Quote from: rusty on October 26, 2018, 07:52:07 PM

I've finished catching up on Valiant over the past few days.

Valiant High 1-4 - An interesting alternate take where the Valiant heroes are teenagers attending Valiant High with Harada as Principal.  It is sort of like the John Hughes films from the 1980s and is perhaps not the most original, but was fun.

I've never been a Valiant fan. Well, okay, actually I was a Valiant fan back when Jim Shooter was the Editor-in-chief. I think that was for the first year-and-a-half, two years... something like that, back in the early 1990s. I really only read them for Solar, Magnus, and Turok. Never really cared much for any of their original characters. So I only picked up VALIANT HIGH because it was Derek Charm's work (which I'd previously enjoyed on both IDW's STARFLEET ACADEMY and ACP's JUGHEAD). I liked it, but I didn't imagine that high school setting could be part of the real in-continuity backstory of the Valiant Universe. Too bad it was so short; I'd love to see a continuation of that, as long as Derek Charm continued to be the artist.

Quote from: rusty on October 25, 2018, 01:01:19 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on October 25, 2018, 12:06:07 AM

Quote from: rusty on October 20, 2018, 03:04:02 PM
I also read around a dozen comics from Joe Books.   Their output is nonexistent now so I am wondering if they have financial problems.

I haven't paid too much attention to JoeBooks, but they're still soliciting new product for January 2019 shipping (Disney Cinestory graphic novels). Only two items for that month's solicitation, but they're still in business.

Were these in the November Previews?  If so, I haven't received it yet.  I didn't see anything in the October Previews and the only item in the September Previews was a Wreck it Ralph activity book.  Their monthly comic titles stopped coming out earlier this year so maybe they are focusing on areas that sell better or make them more of a profit like the Cinestory books.

https://www.previewsworld.com/Catalog?pub=JOE%20BOOKS%20INC.

They've kind of made the Diamond Previews printed catalog almost obsolete now -- not only can you download a PDF version of both the catalog and the order form from Previewsworld.com, but all the catalog listings are online (usually on the Thursday prior to the week when the printed catalog ships to comic shops). And that's coming from a guy who Previews was like The Bible to. I don't even bother downloading the PDFs, because that's just a hassle to page through all the listings, match up the Previews page numbers with the order code numbers listed in the PDF of the same month's order form, and so forth. I just go straight to www.previewsworld.com/catalog every Thursday before the last Wednesday of the month to check the newest solicitations. Don't ask me why, but this month the November Previews solicits were online by 10-18-18, even though it's a month with 5 comic-shipping Wednesdays (although the printed PREVIEWS did arrive in comic shops yesterday, 10/24).

Every month I spend a busy few hours going through all the listings and copying & pasting Diamond order codes of products I plan to order (or am at least considering ordering). I just paste the order codes, product title, price, and projected shipping dates into an Excel spreadsheet, and use that to keep track of what I have or haven't placed an order for yet. I have a color-coding scheme to let me see at a glance whether or not I've already ordered it, and I don't delete those listings until I've actually received the products. It works for me, anyway. I wish it were organized by product type (comics & graphic novels, magazines & books, merchandise & apparel, games) like the physical catalog, since that would make it easier than looking through the listings for each individual company, but... oh, well, so I have to do SOME work. It's always good for me to start working on that new online Previewsworld catalog ASAP, since having a list in Excel lets me sort products by ship dates, or add up prices to see how my monthly comic budget is looking. Sometimes I need to add up the overall totals, then decide whether or not I want some of the more expensive items that badly or not. (Those IDW Artist Editions put a serious dent in things sometimes.) Then again, the more expensive the item, the more likely it is to be advance-solicited (and sometimes, the more likely it is to ship later than scheduled).

Apart from having the Previews catalog listings online, there are other good reasons to use Previewsworld, because you can get lists of everything that shipped to comic shop retailers from DCD's warehouses this week, and what's confirmed as being received by DCD from publishers and planned to ship to retailers NEXT week. You can also get Product Updates (changes in price, format, contents, shipping date), and listings of Cancelled product solicitations. Like, for example, going back through the last 5 months of cancellation listings, I don't see any products from JoeBooks that were cancelled, which might be a good indicator if they were in some sort of financial trouble. Since they're actually shipping the products they're soliciting*, even though there might not be a lot of them, they can't be as bad off as you seem to think.

(Well... apart from that unfortunate failure to ship HARVEY HITS #2, 3 & 4 that they solicited last year... )

Quote from: rusty on October 20, 2018, 03:04:02 PM
I also read around a dozen comics from Joe Books.   Their output is nonexistent now so I am wondering if they have financial problems.

I haven't paid too much attention to JoeBooks, but they're still soliciting new product for January 2019 shipping (Disney Cinestory graphic novels). Only two items for that month's solicitation, but they're still in business.

Quote from: rusty on October 22, 2018, 12:18:05 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on October 22, 2018, 10:29:38 AM
CRUSHER JOE #1-6 (Studio Ironcat 1998)

PLANETES Vol. 1-4.2 - For reasons that completely escape me, what should have been volumes 4 and 5 were instead marked as volumes 4.1 and 4.2 ... ? I don't know why; it's not like thematically they comprised a particular story arc together. Maybe in the original Japanese publication order Volume 4 was a single volume that (for whatever reason) had twice as many pages as the previous three volumes, and ToykoPop just split it in half for the English translation? It's a bit of a disappointment for the series to end as soon as it does, because it really doesn't feel like there's any sense of resolution, and many characters' plotlines are simply left dangling. I was also surprised to learn that there was a anime series adapted from the manga, since I'd never heard of it. There were a lot of side characters whose stories didn't really reach any satisfying ending. This could have been better-focused and a little less rambling off on tangents, but in general, it's a good kind of near-future hard-science based type of sci-fi that I enjoy a lot. ASTRA: LOST IN SPACE is another such similar series. Wish I could find more manga like this. It's SO near-future that much of the underlying backstory historical context has probably already been invalidated since the books were published by TokyoPop in 2004.

I enjoyed Crusher Joe.  I wonder if any company will license and publish the new Crusher Joe: Rebirth series.   


Planetes is a series that I love.  The fourth volume was double sized in Japan so it was understandable that it was split in two for English release, though it came across a bit strange.  I wish the series had been longer.  I also enjoyed Astra and finished reading it recently.


Have you tried Space Brothers and Twin Spica?  I have really enjoyed each of these.  Space Brothers is only available digitally, unfortunately, and certain volumes of Twin Spica can be a little more difficult to find/expensive these days.

I looked up SPACE BROTHERS, and that seems to be just the type of thing I was asking about, so I will probably check out the anime film adaptation to get a flavor for it -- after I get through watching the anime version of PLANETES (seems quite different so far). What I have on hand right now in that genre that I will probably read fairly soon is Yukinobu Hoshino's 2001 NIGHTS (which will be a re-read for the first time since I read it when it was originally published in 1990-91), along with Hoshino's follow-up to that, a 1997-98 Dark Horse adaptation of James P. Hogan's THE TWO FACES OF TOMORROW.

I don't know about this trend to just release stuff digitally and forget about doing print version, but it seems it's the way things are going now, so I'll have to get used to it. I'll look into finding Space Brothers that way. Seems like they're releasing some of Osamu Tezuka's early classic stuff that way too, like AMBASSADOR MAGMA. Or who knows... Digital Manga did a Kickstarter for WONDER 3 and seven others of Tezuka' works in 2017 that was successfully backed, but it seems like the backers are still waiting for print copies, while in the meantime DMP's webstore is selling Ambassador Magma in digital-only format? Something's not right here, and the Kickstarter backers seem restless for their promised rewards.

TWIN SPICA seems like a bit of an oddity there, in that it doesn't really focus on the realistic hardware and science, but is more a story of a girl growing up to realize her dream of going into space. Certainly the art style sets a very different tone for the story than I expect for a typical hard-SF. Maybe I can find it at the library to sample it.

You never know about Crusher Joe: Rebirth. Unless it has someone at a publisher really backing it, it probably won't happen. CJ was a well-known and regarded property once, but doesn't seem as well-remembered these days (you rarely hear anything much about Haruka Takachiho's Dirty Pair these days, either). There are certainly any number of remake/sequels to classic manga (or anime) icons that just never get picked up for US translation. It's very spotty.

CUTIE HONEY '90 Vol. 1 Part 1-6; Vol. 2 Part 1-6 (Studio Ironcat 1998) by Go Nagai - A sequel manga set 30 years after Go Nagai's original (1973) Cutie Honey series. It has nothing to do with the 8-part anime OAV series (usually called New Cutie Honey to distinguish it from the original anime series); that was set 100 years after the original series, so I guess neither the manga nor the anime invalidates the other. Unfortunately, just as the story was beginning to take on some coherence, it's quickly wrapped up in the space of just a few pages and brought to a hurried conclusion.

CRUSHER JOE #1-6 (Studio Ironcat 1998)

PLANETES Vol. 1-4.2 - For reasons that completely escape me, what should have been volumes 4 and 5 were instead marked as volumes 4.1 and 4.2 ... ? I don't know why; it's not like thematically they comprised a particular story arc together. Maybe in the original Japanese publication order Volume 4 was a single volume that (for whatever reason) had twice as many pages as the previous three volumes, and ToykoPop just split it in half for the English translation? It's a bit of a disappointment for the series to end as soon as it does, because it really doesn't feel like there's any sense of resolution, and many characters' plotlines are simply left dangling. I was also surprised to learn that there was a anime series adapted from the manga, since I'd never heard of it. There were a lot of side characters whose stories didn't really reach any satisfying ending. This could have been better-focused and a little less rambling off on tangents, but in general, it's a good kind of near-future hard-science based type of sci-fi that I enjoy a lot. ASTRA: LOST IN SPACE is another such similar series. Wish I could find more manga like this. It's SO near-future that much of the underlying backstory historical context has probably already been invalidated since the books were published by TokyoPop in 2004.

Quote from: SAGG on October 19, 2018, 01:46:10 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on October 19, 2018, 01:31:01 AM

Sometimes I wish Marvel Comics would go out of business. I've heard rumors that Disney doesn't think it's worth the trouble to publish new comics, and would rather just license the characters to someone else that's interested. They may well have a point there.

Heh...let Time-Warner have them. High time for a combined DC/Marvel universe!! 

Actually, there was a point in the 1980s at which there was a serious possibility of that happening -- I don't think it would happen now. Disney bought Marvel for its intellectual properties... the characters, and that was a smart business decision that is making the Disney Company a TON of money off of movies, television, and merchandising of those characters. The Marvel characters have been very profitable for the Disney company -- the sole exception to that rule seems to be in the comics publishing business, where they're raking in mere peanuts; barely worth the effort to keep going.

Disney could certainly license the Marvel characters out to DC Comics for the purpose of publishing comic book stories, but you won't see a combined DC/Marvel universe unless Time/Warner can be certain that any characters created outside of the DC Comics publishing operation are OWNED lock, stock & barrel by WB. In other words, if Marvel Comics as a publishing operation wholly owned by Disney ceased to exist, Disney would license the Marvel characters to another comic book publisher -- in exactly the same way that Disney even now licenses Fantagraphics, IDW, JoeBooks, Papercutz, TokyoPop, and other publishing entities to utilize its company-owned properties Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Uncle Scrooge McDuck... or any of their more contemporary animated characters from recent CG-animated films. Of course there's someone at Disney who still passes judgment on the finished product and says what you can or can't do with those characters, or what needs to be changed before they'll approve it for publication.

Speaking of which, while Marvel Comics hasn't ceased operations as a publisher yet, the licensing of the Marvel characters to other publishers (in this case, IDW, who have already served the Disney company well as publisher of its classic animated characters) has already begun...



And of course, there's THIS, which already happened a while ago, so the Disney company isn't necessarily going to grant any one publisher exclusive rights to publish comics featuring the Marvel characters, should the formerly-unthinkable happen and Marvel Comics itself cease operations as a publisher. In this case, Marvel is actually producing the digests itself using its library of material, while ACP is functioning in purely a business capacity, responsible for taking care of the printing, distribution, and accounting of the Marvel digests, and sharing the profits with Marvel according to some predefined split.

Quote from: SAGG on October 19, 2018, 01:16:21 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on October 19, 2018, 01:04:43 AM

Quote from: SAGG on October 19, 2018, 12:43:36 AM
...Anyone watch this? I do. The newest episodes are on YouTube. It's best described to me as a cross between Sailor Moon, Archie, and Spider Man...

I've been watching it since the first volume of Season 1 came out on DVD, but there was a huge gap between seasons 1 & 2, and when I went back to YouTube a few months ago, it was hard to find the English dubs of the second season episodes, so I only saw a couple of them. It's probably better covered now that I got too busy to keep up with it and lost track of the new episodes. I keep hoping that they'll just put Season 2 episodes out on DVD (NickTV covered the first season broadcasts, and Shout! Factory the DVDs). So far I haven't heard anything about broadcast rights or DVD rights in the North American market.

Marinette is something else. There's a definite Spider-Man influence, along with that of Japanese tokusatsu/henshin hero/magical girl shows, and a few other things as well, as the creators were aiming for something accessible to a global market.

YouTube has them all, and in the case they somehow are blocked, Watch Cartoons Online has them. There are only two left for the season, and they're supposed to be even better than the "Queen's Battle" trilogy, "Catalyst", and "Mayura". It really frustrated me that they screwed with the release dates throughout this year...

Actually, I'd be just as happy to watch the original French episode dubs as long as they were subtitled en Anglais. Not familiar with any of the episodes you cite, since I only managed to see (IIRC) the first two episodes of Season 2, then gave up for a while after the frustration of not being able to reliably find an English language (or even French, subbed) upload of the current episode from one release to the next. Plus you know, all the little tricks they have to do to keep the episode from being removed... mirror-reversed, picture-in-picture, compressed speed, etc.  I don't want to spoil the episode for myself by having to see it that way. For that matter, I don't think I've ever been to Watch Cartoons Online, so I'll check into that.

There have always been issues with episode production order vs. release date order, and Miraculous compounds that issue more than is probably necessary by having different countries (France, Korea, England, Japan, Canada) broadcast the shows in different order. Wikipedia has the episode list in producer Zagtoon's official chronological sequence, as well as notes on what order the episodes aired in different global markets, if you're wondering.

Quote from: SAGG on October 19, 2018, 01:24:01 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on October 19, 2018, 12:47:57 AM

Quote from: SAGG on October 19, 2018, 12:40:29 AM
FINALLY! Sears has declared bankruptcy! It's dead! A(nother) retailing icon is gone! The suffering is over!

You don't have to sound so happy about it. I'm sure plenty of people were relying on that employer for their main income, so their suffering has only begun.

It just makes me wonder what happens after the dust completely settles and there's only ONE major brick & mortar retailer left (Walmart, from the looks of it at this point). I'm not particularly looking forward to being around when that happens.

No, I certainly wasn't happy. Just relieved that the suffering has stopped. I'm sorry, but Sears had been losing money for years. It was time to put them out of their misery. I worked at another iconic retailer that went out of business, Toys R Us, though I've been away from it for over 20 years. I take no pleasure in seeing people lose their jobs, but they had to have known it was only a matter of time before the axe would fall, and can adjust accordingly to finding other jobs, even some in other retailers. Now, I'm assuming K-Mart should be right behind....

Sometimes I wish Marvel Comics would go out of business. I've heard rumors that Disney doesn't think it's worth the trouble to publish new comics, and would rather just license the characters to someone else that's interested. They may well have a point there.

Quote from: SAGG on October 19, 2018, 12:43:36 AM
...Anyone watch this? I do. The newest episodes are on YouTube. It's best described to me as a cross between Sailor Moon, Archie, and Spider Man...

I've been watching it since the first volume of Season 1 came out on DVD, but there was a huge gap between seasons 1 & 2, and when I went back to YouTube a few months ago, it was hard to find the English dubs of the second season episodes, so I only saw a couple of them. It's probably better covered now that I got too busy to keep up with it and lost track of the new episodes. I keep hoping that they'll just put Season 2 episodes out on DVD (NickTV covered the first season broadcasts, and Shout! Factory the DVDs). So far I haven't heard anything about broadcast rights or DVD rights in the North American market.

Marinette is something else. There's a definite Spider-Man influence, along with that of Japanese tokusatsu/henshin hero/magical girl shows, and a few other things as well, as the creators were aiming for something accessible to a global market.

Quote from: SAGG on October 19, 2018, 12:40:29 AM
FINALLY! Sears has declared bankruptcy! It's dead! A(nother) retailing icon is gone! The suffering is over!

You don't have to sound so happy about it. I'm sure plenty of people were relying on that employer for their main income, so their suffering has only begun.

It just makes me wonder what happens after the dust completely settles and there's only ONE major brick & mortar retailer left (Walmart, from the looks of it at this point). I'm not particularly looking forward to being around when that happens.