Da Dominion: Home of DOMINIONCAST!

While not a true web comic the Zero Punctuation review series is on the web - features crude animation and makes fun of a specific niche: it’s own audience - More specifically those that may enjoy the game critic Yahtzee Croshaw is grilling that particular week - As an aside anyone with a name combination that unfortunate - if it is not a pseudonym - may deserve to express the deep bitterness he does towards game designers whom have the minimal human trait of being named like people - though one could show this to an indicator of their much chastized lack of creativity - His publishers also seem to make a point of mentioning his Brit-living-in-Australia nationality as though this makes him some awesome hybrid of Shakespeare and Yahoo Serious as opposed to validating his angst with games given the big price mark up Aussies must pay - which he mentions every 3 minutes - or to invoke a form of international street cred for living in a country that’s mostly desert - full of venomous species - and is tough enough to eat onion/squash paste as a condiment.  

Publically-educated urban-stigmatized African-American blogger Digga continues.

Some of you may be wondering “Digg, you charismatic Caribbean adonis of alliterative comical keystrokes, is it right for you to critique a competitor” - One, his reviews entertain gamers which puts him in our jurisdiction and Two we’re competitors the way GameSpot competes with Tyrone - the guy that lives in the apartment down the hall and sells bootlegged games - you can drop by whenever an shoot the shit or fire up some Soul Calibur III but don’t expect us to have a big selection - until we too sell out to a dot com that’ll buy us games (smiling while typing, no jealousy at all)- Plus Yahoo - err - Yahtzee has done something similar:

Despite any intrinsic hateration - or conflict of interest for the suburban -  I enjoy this series a good deal - The choppy simplistic animation matches the stream of consciousness writing style well and invokes a conversational feel - though without the periodic “Huh? What does that mean?” interjections we English speakers must inquire from those speaking the Britstralian tongue - the animation helps with this: so “twat over the head” paired with a figure slapping another upside the head communicates the slang’s meaning - pussying comprehension in the viewer’s mind - The humor is of a moderately cynical bent instead of the bold all caps rage-athon of other online critics that do little but shit on an entire subject and whom restrain any compliments to how hard or easy it is to deride - or pseudo-authoritative fanboys that follow the masses in lock step or those that give an honest opinion based on their tastes but dont acknowledge those preferences - therefore providing no insight unless you’ve read every single review they published.

Most of his insights are spot on - “on the money” in English - and I agree that most games are either clones of the most profitable if not fun or creative paragons or suck ass in their attempts to innovate - which is the highest compliment you can give anyone on a subjective opinion of something - unless you’re in da Dominion where a consensus of such opinion magically creates objective Truth (wank wank) But on Wednesdays, at theescapistmagazine.com, you can treat yourself to 4 minutes of comedic critique not of our making - though you are supporting the outsourcing of laffs. 

Although Temuera Morrison is a bad ass Kiwi and well respected actor, especially in roles where he beats the wife or kills European bad guys with a tribal spear or gun, which ever is handy and period appropriate, this isn’t about him. It is relevant though to point out that not even he, who has added his voice to many Star Wars video games, was onboard with this new Star Wars: The Clone Wars … “movie” (linking to this would make me an enabler).

Ian McDiarmid didn’t show for Palpatine and though Sam Jackson did show up for his 3 to 4 lines it was likely the favor to be named later Lucas traded him for the pimp-purple lightsaber years back. In between serious dramatic roles, like beating the skank out of Christina Ricci, he’s the only trilogy actor to be connected with this. Anthony Daniels showed too for a few lines, but what the fuck else is he doing - polishing the thigh plates on the old suit when not in full costume serving as a butler at Skywalker Ranch?

I enjoyed Cartoon Network’s Clone Wars mini-series so was willing to check out a big screen version. Also, if I may have a moment of vulnerability, I think every deep Star Wars fan in their heart or hearts is looking for a redeeming piece to re-embrace the franchise. Darth George anticipated this weakness, and after bisecting your Dominus from belly to heart to shoulder, looted my wallet for another few bucks.

The 2D animation on the TV series was better than the movie. It had the look of a stop-motion Tim Burton movie but even choppier. Animated lips only often matched the words being spoken. Sabers flashed brightly and punctuated every maneuver in combat, completely aborting the fluid Wushu style of the prequels. I would have minded less if they spliced in a Ryan versus Dorkman clip. There was a duel scene in the series of Ventress fighting Anakin in a jungle with rain steaming off their sabers - nothing in this movie approaches that scene.

Lucas and Gilroy’s story doesn’t really acknowledge the TV show but doesn’t do it’s own exposition either. There’s not even an opening crawl. We learn from an old timey news reel like scene that Jabba’s son - yeah, son - has been kidnapped by the unknown forces and that the Republic must save him or the Hutt Clan leader will give his support to the Separatists. This follows the logic of the universe mostly, as the Jedi are a baby saving type and Jabba would be dick enough to extort them into a favor. Twist one is that the Separatist have actually kidnapped the larva, so foregone a conclusion they make no attempt to hide and have their droids defending the plot in the open.

Once Annie and his new pad wan save the kid - yes, Yoda has given a learner to mister dangerously powerful and moody. Ahsoku is this jailbait alien chick that is reckless and wise cracks on Anakin, but often shows better judgment than he does. I like her mainly for the reverse grip lightsaber style that one of my player characters used in an old campaign - Nicole’s Cythe Nocturne. Dooku tells Jabba the Jedi plan to kill the kid. Showing a holo-image of Annie and the learner taking care of the baby Hutt proves this. The crime boss of the Outer Rim, whom is too wise to be Force suggested, completely buys this lie although the Jedi are SUPPOSED TO BE WITH THE KID!

That taste in the back of your mouth is bile. I went to the men’s room at this point and considered leaving but returned to get my jollies by mentally changing my perceptions Zen/JedI style to make this movie a spoof. Didn’t help much. Turns out there’s a side plot with a Truman Capote-like Uncle of Jabba’s helping Dooku with the scheme. This existed solely to bring in Padme, and therefore gave Daniels screen time, to have a little piece of the adventure. Came off like an afterthought and the time could’ve been better spent on say … story or character development?

Spoiler alert, the ending is happy. This is for kids that are 6 to 8 years old, whom pay no attention to story but like flashy colors. Everyone else shouldn’t even wait for DVD. When it comes to cable, and there’s nothing else on, watch it. If History Channel is showing a program on Greek-era sewage treatment, TiVo this movie.

On we go with the fan boy flagellation of shows I like less than this overlooked animated series of action, angst, and acerbic wit. GO TEAM VENTURE!

#12. Power Puff Girls & #11. Spongebob Squarepants

I’m generally going to call these kid shows that are merely primetime because of the advent of all-cartoon and child interest channels. Primetime is prime because finally you’ve got the brats to sleep, and if you’ve got teens they’re occupied: doing homework, on the net, getting drunk/stoned with friends, choking themselves, or fucking/pursuing it with other teens - whatever their hobbies happen to be.

This is adult time for adult shows. Too early for porn - if you’re single or dating - but late enough to reconnect with your spouse over a good laugh or other programming at your level of maturity. If you’re watching these kind of shows at primetime, feel free to bang your helmeted head against the monitor to show your anger. Teh wurdz wil goe wai sune.

#10. King of the Hill

Futurama: cancelled, but this bullshit is about to start season 13!!! Why is this show even animated when it could be a live-action sitcom without loosing anything? Can’t find a handsome native to play John Redcorn? Can’t find an elderly actor to do Dorf-like shtick to portray Cotton Hill (now dead)? It’s cheaper, sure, but shouldn’t animation be …um … er… ANIMATED?! Decent if clichéd characters and chuckle worthy plots, but what the hell that is impressive about the show escapes me. I do enjoy redneck humor, but the writers are as unimaginative as the characters they’ve made to mock uninspired red staters that form the bulk of a Fox audience.

The Top 10 is breached.

#9. Space Ghost: Coast-to-Coast

What we used to watch when we were the high/drunk teenagers. Funny for it’s time, it’s what I imagine IGN editors talk about when they’re trying to pal around with their writer subordinates - with similar scenes happening at Cartoon Network and other creative companies. Not quite for the Ovaltine generation of fan boy, but those a little older than us: the Grungers, spearhead of Gen X.

I do appreciate the dialogue focused comedy, but you can tell watching it now that it got over on being a novel concept: some awkward real life guest being pitched oblivious non sequiturs by a forgotten super hero. It’s descendants Sea Lab 2021, Aqua Teen and Harvey Birdman are more preferred for their faster paced bizarreness of concept and imagery.

#8 Home Movies

A rub because I really like this show, and for the first time must actually consider it next to Venture Bros. It’s animation is very choppy and blocky but intentionally so being told from the point of view of children. It’s dialogue and characterization are top notch being very witty but genuine with real personalities but not overblown. To contrast with King of the Hill, Coach McGurk and Bill are both fat losers. While Bill is over the top in his stupidity and depravity, McGurk fights to hide his similar flaws, sometimes, with clear macho overcompensating. You’ll chuckle at Bill, but you know someone like McGurk, making him funnier.

Home Movies is defeated because it’s simplistic, with Venture having both more depth and a complex plot archs with recurring villains that may not be fully detailed but soliciting questions - like a comic. Similar to King of the Hill, Home Movies could easily be live-action, sort of flat but funny. It’s a matter of mood whether I’d watch one or the other.

#7 The Critic

Absolutely stinks! One of the new generation to follow the Simpson’s, but not even a cross over in Springfield could save it. How it got this high I can’t fathom, more than likely some grundger added it for the memories of Jon Lovitz on SNL with Dana Carvey and Mike Myers during the post Eddie Murphy depression. Fox made the right call ejecting this puss ball from the line up - though many could‘ve stayed. For these excellent shows like Freaks and Geeks, The Tick and Firefly, we hold a line of silence …

#6 Ren and Stimpy

A classic that lets you know the list makers know their shit some of the time.

The exact opposite of the dialogue focused style, R&S was all about the juvenile gross out art and absurdity story ideas, like the Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen. Remember the nerve-ending fairy? Gritty Kitty litter that could withstand horse shits? Don’t whiz on the electric fence! My friends and I laughed ourselves sore. For all this nostalgia I could get looped in, R&S is essentially a kids show like Power Puff Girlz and Spongebob. This is an excellently done cartoon, without the plot cohesion and substance of a real series though- just insanely surreal gags.

#5. Family Guy

So funny Fox couldn’t keep it cancelled. It’s syndicated reruns were beating the late night giants with their fresh guest and real life people, audiences preferred Quahog. Amazing, and deservedly so.

Characterization is the power of the show, which is otherwise a essentially a sketch comedy program. Someone makes an off the wall comment from left on say … Chester Cheetah being intense sending us to a sketch of the Cheetos mascot snorting chopped up puffs like blow and worshipping Neil Pert. In between these we have a pretty shallow but intense cast that gets really interesting once we get to the alcoholic middle-aged talking dog and the sophisticated super villainous talking gay baby.

The one fault that brings FG down is it’s unoriginality of concept, not execution. This is a more cartoonish Simpson’s with a more mature edge and satire traded in for pop cultural allusions. At the core it‘s another variant of the family sitcom started by Flintstones. Venture Brothers is based off Johnny Quest but is radically different from it’s forbearer taking the concept of a pulp super scientist with family adventure category into a comedic direction that has more substance than the original.

Thin? Thicker than your Mom’s lingerie, and from the way her head is furiously bobbing she agrees.

#4 Beavis and Butthead

King of the Hill style with Space Ghost appeal, NEXT! Think I’m too harsh, watch an old episode now.

#3. Futurama

This can’t be defeated … yet. Futurama was an excellent series that managed four seasons, and is still making movies until it‘s return (hopefully). If VB can make it that long, we’ll see get a rematch. Otherwise, I love them equally.

Both have an excellent balance of comedy and action, both are sci-fi themed, both have great memorable characters, both have made references to D&D and fan boy culture. Action packed with detailed characters and plot archs with enough adult content to get the rewind and pause buttons used - hence mature. Futurama had Gygax on though, that’s a tall mug of win with a shot of awesome boilermaker. Those that disagree may die of a crushed pelvis (not an awful way to go).

Venture Brothers is #4. South Park and The Simpsons are unassailable juggernauts, taking down them would require a cross into the realm of bullshitery - even more so than some may say I’ve gone.

Why the hell aren’t The Venture Brothers more popular? It’s one of my favorite animated series out there and by far the leader of the Adult Swim line up. One of their anime series may get more viewers but that’s a large niche audience: dudes that want to have a photo-induced seizure while
masturbating.

We could find volumes written on marketing and programming placement and advertising, but you don’t want to read my regurgitated research and I don’t want to read what I‘d have to research. Anecdotal comparison - this is the way of comedic/lazy analysis.

IGN.com rated the top 25 primetime animated series of all time, which sounds grandiose if you forget that most of these shows are younger than the Simpsons - itself old enough to vote and screw on camera but can’t legally enjoy a bottle of Molson XXX, but sneaking Natty Lightcause it‘s cheap. Why IGN? Their geek cred is adamantine - and one of their writers would reference adamantium if they wrote that, elevating the dorkdom to vibraniumic. Many of their list are so ancient as to be culturally ingrained or completely different from the Ventures’ genre of comedy.

Old timers get excluded first, cause they’ve had decades of syndication to be awesome and feed off nostalgia like a 60-something fan boy off Ovaltine. The Jetsons are #25, about where I’d rate it as basically being the groundbreaking Flintstones in technological reverse. Points for vision though as houses for the upper middle and higher classes will likely be built on miles tall platforms to avoid the pollution, flodded landscape and minorities never shown. #3 is the Flintstones, deservedly so for being the pioneer of the cartoons for adults that aren’t pornographic genre. Just because many of its fans are dead or dying now -from their cigarette sponsers or natural causes -doesn’t detract from it’s past popularity.

Then there’s Johnny Quest at #20, one spot beneath its spoofing grandchild The Venture Brothers. I can kind of understand this since it’s so old, but can think of many better animated shows of it’s ilk like Scooby Doo (unmentioned) and it only went for one season.There are other non-comedic action series mentioned, like Samurai Jack, Star Wars Clone Wars (Samurai Jedi), Justice League (when Flash isn’t featured) and Aeon Flux (a sci-fi Euro-themed ninja porn acid trip). Though Venture does include action it’s of a decidedly comical bent (Monarch’s winged henchmen taking out attack jets by clogging the intakes with their corpses) and non-heroic (within the fictional world of the show heroes and villains are termed “protagonists” and “antagonists” for political correctness).

It’s like comparing Maxwell Smart to James Bond or Barney Fife to Vic Mackey or Grey’s Anatomy to any other medical drama in the history of television.

This leaves us with a revamped list of Venture’s direct categorical competitors ordered by IGN:
13. The Venture Bros.
12. Powerpuff Girls
11. Spongebob Squarepants
10. King of the Hill
9. Space Ghost: Coast-to-Coast
8. Home Movies
7. The Critic
6. Ren and Stimpy
5. Family Guy
4. Beavis and Butthead
3. Futurama
2. South Park
1. The Simpsons

Now that we have the enemies of Team Venture lined up, the blood shed can commence with a Patrick Warburton bellowed howl in Part Two.

My memory vaguely recalls many years back when I was a geekling of 5 or 6 visiting my dad in Lexington and seeing my first anime on Boston daytime TV.

It ran with a storyline of a doomed Earth with episode countdown and featured as it’s centerpiece an aircraft carrier or some other naval ship of the line in space — which I knew from Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica to be utter bullshit (even if I didn’t know that exact phrasing). Water not for space; water for ocean, dum-dum head! (Yes, I’ve been using semi-colons from a young age)

Had they left in the fanservice of the original a life long anime-addict would’ve been born. I wonder perversely how many boys creamed first to what were supposed to be just kids cartoons (given the devotion/addiction of some for Anime, ALOT)

Years after that as a pre-teen I saw Robotech for the first time and was formally introduced to Anime. The adult themes, sweet-as-shit transformable jets and FUCK’IN graphic illustration of death in war set it apart, above, and beyond the cartoons it shared timeslots with. Unlike G.I. Joe’s last minute bailouts — even for Cobra pilots — this series showed ANYONE could buy it in war.

When Roy Focker, ultra-cool Skull squadron commander ace whom played guitar and had a Black girlfriend, died on a date trying to get some last booty; a kid was sold!

Fast forward to last weekend. I was discussing the StarBlazer Adventures RPG in development, based on an English heavy metal sci-fi comic book of the 70‘s. I goggled StarBlazer for some background and guess what turned up? OLD-ASS Star Blazers (aka Space Battleship Yamato in Japan), that first anime I saw nearly thirty years ago!

I’ve been watching the old episodes I can on the net, now through the eyes of a seasoned geek, and find them to be pretty cool. It’s more action compared to Robotech — which is damn near an All My Children in space, not that I watch All My Children … REALLY — yet a sci-fi saga nonetheless. There were three seasons and several movies for it and I’m tempted to assimilate them all (their narrative distinctiveness WILL be added to my own). There’s even talk of a new series.

Recent discussion on the forums regarding literature classics coinciding with this discovery of an Anime classic is fortunate and promises new portals into creativity. Although my growing Must Read list may have a new competitor … damn it! … NOT ENOUGH TIME! *Head explodes*