Category: Comic Books

Friday Roundup: April 28, 2017

Thomas Holbrook II | The *Nixed Report

With the so called “government shutdown” delayed until next week, the roller coaster of 2017 is still building momentum, which brings us this week’s Friday Roundup.

Unix

 

FOSS Force announced the improvement of their news wire. In addition to headlines and authors, excerpts are now included. DistroWatch Weekly has a review of Ubuntu 17.04, the final series that will use Unity for the desktop environment before switching back to GNOME in the next LTS release. Jesse Smith noted an issue with Snap packages in conjunction with DEB packages.

I think it is worth mentioning that to install Snaps from Ubuntu Software, we need to have an Ubuntu One account. Sometimes, when trying to install Snaps, I would encounter authentication errors with my Ubuntu One account and I found closing Ubuntu Software and then re-opening the software manager and trying to install the Snap again would work around the issue.

I also feel it worth pointing out that Ubuntu’s three software managers (Ubuntu Software, Snap and APT) each work with a subset of the available packages. Snaps, for example, cannot be managed using the APT utilities. Likewise, we cannot use Snap to manage traditional Deb packages. The Ubuntu Software application tries to bridge this gap and works with desktop applications provided by both Snaps and Deb packages. However, Ubuntu Software does not work with non-desktop software or some games, requiring a trip to the command line to manage those items. This situation may get better in the future and we may get an all-in-one software manager, but for now we need three different utilities to manage software on Ubuntu and that makes for an awkward situation.

The CEO of Thinkpenguin Inc was arrested for filming the police at a police checkpoint and may face up to a year in jail. Christopher Waid had this to say:

I was essentially arrested for filming a police checkpoint in Manchester, New Hampshire (police invoked non-existent law to interfere with recording, made multiple contradicting and confusing requests, and were quick to obstruct and damage video recording equipment). Papers please. I don’t think I’ll be posting this to the ThinkPenguin blog as its irrelevant to free software / the company / etc. However I thought people here might be interested in following the case. The entire trial will be highly publicized, recorded, etc. One of the officers humorously threatens me with a motor vehicle violation. To be clear I was not drinking, not driving, had no car nearby (got there via another driver which had his car parks two or three blocks away), and in no way under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

The Debian Project is shutting down their public FTP service, though developers won’t be affected. According to SoftPedia:

This means that the upload queues for both the main (ftp://ftp.upload.debian.org) and security (ftp://security-master.debian.org) archives will be accessible to them. The rest of the world won’t be able to access ftp://ftp.debian.org, nor ftp://security.debian.org starting November 1, 2017.

Overlooked Pop Culture

 

Comic book fans may have a reason to rejoice with the upcoming Marvel Legacy one shot. It includes multiple characters telling a story of the glory days. The story will relate to future of the Marvel Universe going forward.

Podcast co-host Stephen Kelley has a review of the 2017 release of Ghost in the Shell. He does pose a warning to the Internet Outrage Machine before the review is underway:

Let’s get this first part out of the way:

If there is one thing I’m tired of in the realm of film and television, it’s pre-emptive complainers trying to de-rail everything before it even comes out. with any review of this live action American/Chinese Ghost in The Shell film, everyone has drawn battle lines in regards to the elephant in the room of “Hollywood whitewashing”; in fact, I would say you were almost expected to take a side, and if you took a side that many didn’t like you’d get lectured by the other. It’s annoying that folks are getting in fights and “unfriending” each-other because of opinions over a goofy sci-fi film, but that’s our modern society I guess. Some popular reviews from major sites didn’t even talk about the film, they just reviewed everything that was in some way perceived as racist to stoke the outrage fires, this honestly comes across like they never actually watched it.

I’m not going to dwell on this topic too much because I can see both sides and don’t think arguing over whether or not Scarlett Johanson should or should not be cast as The Major actually addresses the actual problem that Hollywood has with representation. The internet witch hunts and rage were nearly identical to what people attempted to do with both recent Star Wars films, and even last years re-boot of Ghostbusters, and I honestly don’t care anymore. I’d rather discuss a film based on an anime/manga property that I’ve loved for upwards of 20+ years, and how it turned out.

/end rant

On a lighter note, Causecon has started today and will run through Sunday. All proceeds will go towards the local Women’s Resource Center in Beckley, West Virginia.

Political underground radio talk show host Jack Blood has made his return after a lengthy hiatus. He has a Patreon page for those who have followed him over the years and want to support him. On said page, he indicated the following:

At this time, the show is 100% commercial free! It will be up to you if it stays that way.

That ends this week’s Friday Roundup. We’ll be back next week.

When Legacies Become Legends

Thomas Holbrook II | The *Nixed Report

I remember watching the X-Men growing up. Even in the 1990’s, things were changing. After all, one could not expect the official comic book storyline to remain the same forever.

Logan in his legacy years.
Wolverine has been a staple character of the X-Men for quite some time.

Times were changing.

Peter Parker went from being married to Mary Jane and about to start family to starting all over after Mephisto reset the universe. As times change, so must the story line it seems.

Even with his healing factor, it was going to be evident that Wolverine would perish. Even the cartoon indicated that he would die at the end of one episode in which Bishop traveled to the past.

I apologize for the spoiler.

The story is set in the future where it’s illegal for mutants to exist. A debilitating brain disease turns the brain of Charles Xavier into a deadly weapon while having seizures.

Logan protects Xavier while his own power is turned against him due to his adamantium skeleton poisoning him. He side hustles while attempting to acquire medicine for Xavier’s condition.

A new mutant comes along who is chased by dark forces and Logan is dragged along for the ride.

Though the movie had plenty of action, the surprising part is how much of a tear jerker it was. Despite Wolverine being the hardened tough guy, he still cared enough about the old Professor to protect him from outside forces.

Xavier would eventually die at the hands of the ones chasing the young mutant and Logan would eventually lose his life due to his healing factor no longer existing. The young mutant and her friends would eventually escape to the Canadian border to start a new beginning.

The sadness reminds me that nothing lasts forever, no matter how much we want them to.

Remixes and remakes will always exist, but the ending reminds me that there must come a time when all good things must come to an end so that new things can arrive from beyond the horizon.

Friday Roundup: FBI and Superheroes

Thomas Holbrook II | The *Nixed Report

Victor Thorn was a divisive figure in alternative media and Faith is an interesting comic book series thus far.
Victor Thorn passed away at the beginning of the month and Thomas is checking out the comic book series, Faith.

This week, I wrote an article reminding people in the alternative media field that Victor Thorn was a divisive figure who encouraged Lisa Guliani, his co-host of WING TV at the time, to go to the FBI over an adult themed satire over 10 years ago. It’s interesting to note that as of late, the WING TV website is only accessible through the Way Back Machine.

For those who weren’t satisfied with what was written, I also did a solo podcast episode going into a bit more detail (if you don’t want to listen below, right click here and select save as).

On a lighter note, I found Faith number one at Hastings, which is going out of business (all locations). Suffice it to say that she isn’t your typical square jawed type of superhero.

That’s all for this week. Check back with us on Monday for more exciting content.

Not Your Typical Superhero

Cover art for Faith Issue Number One
Faith is not your typical superhero, and Valiant seems to trying to speak to a newer generation.

Thomas Holbrook II | The *Nixed Report

As many in Missouri and Texas may know by now, Hastings is going out of business. In Warrensburg, Missouri, it was one of those stores that brought a variety of entertainment related products and services to markets that would otherwise not have them.

Suffice it to say that with Netflix, Red Box, e-commerce, and the changing of the video game market, it would be inevitable that this would occur.

The good news is that bargains can be found while everything is being liquidated. One of them was a comic book from Valiant Entertainment, Faith. The main character, Faith Herbert, is Zephyr, a superhero with psionic abilities.

She can fly, create protective fields, and move entire objects with those fields (including people).

Unlike Big Bertha from Marvel Comics, she is currently not a character meant for comic relief nor does she have to throw up just to use her abilities. She also works for a media outlet, but one targeted towards a new generation.

Faith works as a writer for Zipline, a Buzzfeed knock-off.

The first issue definitely speaks to a newer generation as there is mention of role-playing games (using pencil, paper, and dice), the conflict of interest on selling out to a media site (just to keep everyone else employed), and of course dating (still a normal part of many peoples’ lives).

I won’t spoil everything for the readers here, but I will say that the comic book series is definitely different. Though they have a special issue with a political candidate not everyone will agree with, it’s not the usual square jawed ripped to the max hero with a dull story line.

I’ll definitely keep an eye out for different comics. Have a niche comic you want me to check out? You may let me know in the comments section.