December 26, 2020 Johanna Other Leave a comment

Is Sherlock a Superhero?

I found myself pondering this question, as one does on a slow holiday afternoon. The first part of the answer is to figure out how you define a superhero. I’ve done this previously. My definition of superhero is categorical, looking at whether a given character has a preponderance of the common characteristics associated with the genre. So let’s run those down, looking at both the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories as well as the character from the Sherlock TV show. […]

December 25, 2020 Johanna Toon Books Leave a comment

A Trip to the Top of the Volcano With Mouse

Following up on A Trip to the Bottom of the World With Mouse, Frank Viva takes the chatty rodent to a different extreme area of the world in A Trip to the Top of the Volcano With Mouse. Mouse and the traveler climb a volcano in Italy, while Mouse spends most of the time asking when they can eat pizza. The landscape around the mountain contains a variety of crops, animals, and temperatures. The child-like mouse, by making lists and […]

December 24, 2020 Johanna Movie News Leave a comment

Henchmen Available to Watch Free Starting on Christmas

Tubi, the ad-supported free streaming service, has announced that starting tomorrow (Christmas Day), they will be showing the movie Henchmen. Here’s some of the promotional text: The movie features an all-star voice cast that includes Thomas Middleditch, James Marsden, Rosario Dawson, Alfred Molina, Craig Robinson, Will Sasso, Nathan Fillion, Rob Riggle, Jane Krakowski, and Bobcat Goldthwait. In Henchmen, a young man Lester (Middleditch) dreams of becoming a supervillain and joins the Union of Evil as a henchman led by fallen […]

December 23, 2020 KC Other Prose Leave a comment

Holly Jolly: Celebrating Christmas Past in Pop Culture

Review by KC Carlson Holly Jolly: Celebrating Christmas Past in Pop Culture is a really fun book, especially since it’s designed very well, with lots of great (and possibly long-forgotten) graphics starring such Festive Folks as Babar the Elephant, Gumby and Pokey, Santa Claus (and his helper, Batman. Wha…?), Frank Sinatra, a whole gaggle of Scrooges, I Love Lucy, Linus and Charlie Brown (of course), and what seems like hundreds of other touchstone holiday characters. It’s written by Mark Voger, […]

December 21, 2020 Johanna Comic News Leave a comment

ComicMix Loses Seuss/Star Trek Mashup Appeal

In September 2016, ComicMix Kickstarted a Star Trek parody in the style of Dr. Seuss called Oh, The Places You’ll Boldly Go!. The book, written by David Gerrold and illustrated by Ty Templeton, never was published, though, as Dr. Seuss Enterprises sued to stop it. In March 2019, ComicMix won a court case on fair use grounds. Now, in a federal appeals court, that victory was overturned, as judges declared that the publication failed to meet the required standards for […]

December 21, 2020 Johanna Movie News 6 comments

Enola Holmes Lawsuit Settled

I was not surprised to hear that the Arthur Conan Doyle estate sued Netflix (as well as production company Legendary Pictures, Penguin Random House, and the author of the original books Nancy Springer) over the Enola Holmes movie back in June (in New Mexico, of all places). They have a reputation of trying to get funds when big-pocket participants are involved in Sherlock Holmes projects. (They promote, on their website, licensing the character for, in addition to Sherlock, the US […]

December 20, 2020 Johanna Comic News Leave a comment

New Publisher for Doctor Who-Related Comics

Cutaway Comics launched this year as a British comic publisher putting out Doctor Who-related titles. They’re focusing on creator-owned characters, which is apparently allowed under British law. (I am always curious about this, but I’m digressing. And it’s great that it allows for various spin-offs.) Cutaway Comics is inspired by the so-called ‘backup’ strips of Doctor Who Weekly, which delved deeper into the characters and cultures of the Doctor Who universe away from the Doctor. The publisher is Gareth Kavanagh, […]

December 19, 2020 Johanna TV News 2 comments

One More Month for DC Universe

I pretty much stopped news-blogging before DC Universe started, so I haven’t covered it much here. Remember? That was the streaming service launched just before AT&T acquired Warner. It had digital comics; original TV shows (some of which were also aired on the CW when pandemic quarantine shut down production and the TV network needed content); and lots of older video programming. That last item was why I didn’t pay much attention to the service. It turned out that I […]

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