Sunday, May 27, 2012

Toonami Faithful: A Call to Arms!


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Well Toonami faithful, we did it! We got Deadman Wonderland and Casshern Sins to the top of the Twitter trend chart on 5/26/12 when Toonami took over the airwaves, and we also managed to get FMA and Cowboy Bebop trending as well. Great job! Now the next part of support needs to be put into place. Make sure to e-mail Cartoon Network and Adult Swim with your thoughts on what you saw when Toonami returned to television and get vocal on Facebook and Twitter about the programming you want on the block. Even Steve Blum (TOM) said that the block needs all the support it can get and as many viewers as humanly possible to bring us “a better cartoon show”, so it's up to us as a unit to make sure we do what we can to help out by spreading the good word. Let people know Toonami's back, spam the social media, send off e-mails and hashtags like your life depended on it, and most importantly: Watch Toonami. If we band together and remain vocal than who knows what kinds of things we'll be treated to, the power of voice is a mighty one and so far we know we're being heard, we just got to turn that voice into a scream and keep it rolling.

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Luckily for us we've already been treated to two new shows with Deaman Wonderland and Casshern Sins, both of which are getting amazing praise from the Toonami faithful. We've been enjoying TOM bumpers, Toonami-esq music, nice “coming up” cards, classic idents, and even a video game review for an XboX 360 game called “I Am Alive”. And that's just on the first night! Imagine what could be coming down the road if we support the block the best we can and try to boost it's ratings as high as they can go, that's what Toonami really needs. Ratings = advertising, and advertising = money for Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and ultimately......Toonami. It's amazing what we were all able to accomplish using the power of the internet and the power of word of mouth, once in a while huge victories come out of passion and we've all used our passion to ensure that Toonami was given life once again. Keep up the good work everyone, we've done a bang up job so far and it can only get better from here.

Stay gold.

Bang.

©2012 Cozy Cabin Publishing LLC

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Dynamite Entertainment's Pulp Harvest.

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Before the day's of Spider-Man, The Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, The X-Men, The Avengers, and even Superman, there was a day when heroes appeared in a thick paperback form known as “pulp” comics. Pulp was actually the style of paper in which these books were printed on, but somehow the name seemed to have followed these characters as if it was a style of hero. For instance, Superman and Spider-Man are known as “superheroes” while characters such as The Spider and The Shadow are known as “pulp heroes”. Even though a “pulp hero” is someone who starred in graphic novel format printed on pulp paper back in the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's, people associate the word “pulp” as a brand of hero, which is just hilarious. Anyway.....I'm rambling, my apologies.

Today I wanted to discuss some pulp heroes who are making a comeback thanks to a comic book publisher known as Dynamite Entertainment, a company who has licensed a number of these classic heroes of yesterday and brought them back out of obscurity for comic book fans of today to enjoy. Characters such as The Shadow, The Spider, The Green Hornet, Tarzan, Zorro, Flash Gordon, and more are enjoying success in the comic book market thanks to Dynamite, who's really put a push on getting these classic characters in the hands of readers in a day and age where many have forgotten who they even were. Sure, some other companies have come along throughout the years and have published comics based on some of these characters but their readership was so small that the average comic book reader had no idea that these characters were even being published. With Dynamite, these characters have been promoted throughout the comic book industry and many fans who have never purchased a comic book before are buying these books because they happen to be fans of these properties thanks to other media such as radio, television, and the silver screen.

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I personally wanted to bring some awareness to some of these books because I actually read them and find them to be much more entertaining than anything Marvel Comics is currently printing, and most of DC and Image. Books such as The Spider and The Shadow feature a main hero who isn't all about “Trust, Justice, and the American way”, they'd just assume shoot you in the face for your crimes on the public than see you locked away for the rest of your life. It's almost refreshing to see because that's how I feel when I see on the news that a little girl was hurt by some sick monster, or that some whack job killed 10 people because of some silly reason. I'd love to just pick up a revolver and shoot them in the face rather than see them alive and well inside of a cell. It's violent, I know, but it's in our nature to want to see someone who deserved it to suffer. Instead of actually going out and doing something like that I can open up a copy of The Spider and watch the hero kill someone because they took their crime too far, it's nice really. And then you have books like The Green Hornet which features a more traditional style superhero within a pulp environment. The book is fun, witty, entertaining, well written, and drawn beautifully, anyone can pick this title up and enjoy it's rich story while feeling like their enjoying a story with a nice mixture of pulp and superhero. Hey, there I go lumping “pulp” into a category of hero.......well, sue me.

It isn't like these books are short on top tier talent either, many huge industry players have either worked on these books or are currently working on them as I write this. Guys like Garth Ennis, Kevin Smith, Alex Ross, novelist David Liss, John Cassaday, Jae Lee, Jonathan Lau, and many more are working hard to make these books the very best they possibly can be, so give them a peek and tell me what you think. Look. How many more of you are going to get duped into spending all kinds of money on Marvel titles just so you can complete yet another massive universe spanning event? Seriously, stop it. It's getting downright silly and embarrassing. Try sinking your teeth into one of these great titles by Dynamite Entertainment and start actually enjoying your comics again for a change, after reading some of this top line stuff you'll end up thanking me.

Trust me.

As always I want to take the time to thank those who took the time to read my blog, it's much appreciated and you can always check me out at www.twitter.com/manga4life as well as TZ and CBR.

Take care,
Manga4life

©2012 Cozy Cabin Publishing LLC

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

The return of Toonami.

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 Well, the day has finally come ladies and gentlemen. Today, Cartoon Network/Adult Swim has announced that the legendary action adventure block known to millions as "Toonami" will finally be making it's return on 5/26/12. This is a day that up until 4/1/12 I thought would never come, I honestly thought that Toonami was dead in the water and that there would never be a day where we could turn on our televisions and witness the revolution once again. But I was wrong and April Fool's Day 2012 was the genesis of what would ultimately become the return of Toonami to U.S airwaves and believe me, I couldn't be happier. Now it's just a matter of the programming, I mean, it wouldn't make ANY sense to bring back the block with updated packaging just to place it around the already existing anime programming that the network already airs. So what's coming in terms of programming to the block? I guess time will tell and the long and short of it is that we will all just have to be patient and see what the people behind the scenes have planned. But I will tell you this, we've waited almost 4 years for this so I suppose waiting another couple of weeks to see what the producers have up their sleeves shouldn't be too hard to do....

 Yeah, right.

 Welcome back Toonami, it's been a long 4 years without you. You've always supplied us with the best action/adventure programming on television and now that you're back I have no reason to believe you won't do the same for us now that you did back then. I guess a big "thanks" should be given to those who blew up Facebook, Twitter, internet forums, and wrote personal letters to those in Atlanta trying to get the block back, without the fan support Toonami wouldn't have lasted 11 years on the air nevermind a huge comeback years after it's cancellation. Give yourselves a pat on the back because you're the ones that made this happen.

 #Toonami

 Take care, Manga4life

 ©2011 Cozy Cabin Publishing LLC