I apologize for not posting any more this week; the internet's been a bit of a wreck and I've been pretty busy.  Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty much the same as Monday--went on a walk to establish I can navigate without getting killed, see how I use ZoomText, etc.  i learned the uncontracted Braille alphabet (functional Braille literacy ( Read more... )

Mirage/Peter Laird sold the Ninja Turtles to Nickelodeon (or, more broadly, Viacom).  I don't know what to think, aside from figuring that with the press release from Nick calling it a great comedic property with added layers of action and fantasy, they're not going to produce anything nearly as good as the 2003-7 series.  And that this is going to ( Read more... )

     Rented the new direct-to-video movie tonight via the Playstation download service, and thought I'd ramble a tad.  All in all, I think the idea to go straight up space opera was a good one; treating Green Lantern as "just" another superhero.  The story was good all in all, but I did have a couple of complaints.  Minor spoilers as to which ( Read more... )

     I first read Watchmen in 1997, about a year after I seriously started to read comics that didn't involve the X-Men.  I thought "Huh, that was a good story, but I don't really get the big deal."  As years went on and I became more acquainted both with the superhero genre and literary criticism, I appreciated it more but still didn't consider it ( Read more... )

     This is the bare bones of what was a very long, self-indulgent post that I realized was a little embarrassing by any standards.  What it boils down to is this:  When a hobby no longer brings you joy or satisfaction, it's time to abandon it.  That's pretty obvious.  But what if you're ready to walk away from one of your primary hobbies, ( Read more... )

    So I may have jumped the gun a little.  According to a couple of articles, Dwayne McDuffie is actually going to be involved in the Black Panther cartoon after all.  This raises my expectations from "DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM~!" (tm City of Heroes forums) to "cautiously optimistic, though I'd still prefer Wedgie Rudlin not be involved ( Read more... )

        So according to this link, there's going to be a Black Panther cartoon.  This SHOULD be totally awesome, as T'Challa is probably my second favorite (living) Marvel hero after the Beast.  Unfortunately, it's going to be on BET.  I'm of the opinion that Aaron MacGruder of The Boondocks is right--that today's bitches-and-drugs-and-money hip ( Read more... )

    So this is my crackpot theory about literacy issues among pre-adolescent and adolescent males in America.  Two contributing (not solely responsible) factors that nobody really stops to consider:  comic books and video games.

Comic Books:  When I was a kid, comics were a good place to improve your reading skills, or at least learn new and ( Read more... )