Yakitate!! Japan Volume 4

Just when I thought this competition manga by Takashi Hashiguchi had settled into a steady routine — naive country boy with innate gifts for baking bread rises to each challenge, creating a new twist on whatever type of baked good he’s assigned — the author shakes things up with the latest volume. It opens with two digressions. The first features the store manager telling the trainees how he became a master baker. It’s an over-the-top high school satire of young […]

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Automan

After being reminded of this show, and how much I liked it as a kid, I was able to find a set of Automan episodes online. There were only 13 of them, aired in 1983-1984. Automan puts a slight science fiction overlay onto the traditional hour-long cop show. Desi Arnaz, Jr. plays Walter Nebicher (a name that exists only so people can “accidentally” call him Nebbish), a police officer who’s stuck in the computer room when he wants to be […]

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WKRP Music Cuts More Extensive Than Expected

Looks like I won’t be getting the upcoming WKRP in Cincinnati: The Complete First Season DVD set after all. At least, not if this description of music cuts is accurate. in this DVD release, there’s little more half-a-dozen real musical recordings left in. … It’s possible that Fox meant well. They’d been getting requests from fans to release it, so they did. And many of the songs that were cut are just incredibly expensive, like Pink Floyd. But ultimately, if […]

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To Terra… Reviews

With so much good modern manga out there (someday I will read Death Note!), I have to be a little convinced to go backwards in time. I mean, something can be historically important and great for its day but still a little clunky to modern eyes… which is what I thought flipping through a preview copy of To Terra… volume 1. Then it started getting really good reviews, like this one from Shaenon Garrity. I still don’t know, though. It […]

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Probe

Since I’ve been talking about beloved 1980s television, do you think there’s a chance I’ll ever see a DVD set of Probe? It’s best known (if at all) today for being co-created by Isaac Asimov, but I quite enjoyed this short-run TV mystery series. There was a two-hour pilot movie, followed by six hour-long episodes. (Judging by the comments there, some people are still bitter it’s gone.) Parker Stevenson co-starred as genius Austin James, who lived in a computer-controlled warehouse […]

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Dark Horse and the 300

Dark Horse seems to owe much of their survival to the movies. On the one hand, they publish Star Wars tie-ins; on the other, several of their graphic novels have been adapted into successful films (Sin City, Hellboy, and now 300). Usually, a comic company tries to take advantage of that kind of free promotion by selling lots of related comics. DC, for example, had a consignment program with V for Vendetta where retailers could stock up and then return […]

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Death: The High Cost of Living

Looking back at a modern classic, Death: The High Cost of Living maintains its quiet charm over a decade after its publication. Neil Gaiman writes, Chris Bachalo pencils, and Mark Buckingham inks the story of Death’s day off. The opening demonstrates how beautifully Gaiman blends the fantastic and the everyday as Mad Hettie, an apparently scattered bag lady, turns out to be capable of a kind of hedge magic. The dialogue is immediately evocative, with the added Anglophile appeal of […]

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Trying to Make Lemonade

(Hey, at least the controversy I helped uncover doesn’t involve actual lawyers.) So, in an attempt to turn discussion in a more positive direction, I raise a topic for input and constructive suggestion: How does a volunteer group without the resources for paid staff effectively keep its members on message? What are good tools to keep focus on the group instead of individuals? In case something goes wrong, what’s a good way to restrain the over-enthusiastic without hurt feelings?

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