toastykitten

Facebook debuts a "snooze" button, where you can mute someone for 30 days. Oh, so a central cyber gathering space that includes everyone you've ever known might not be all rainbows and unicorns?

Batman 66 gets a museum exhibit. I wish they would do this for Wonder Woman.

I'm starting to read comics again. So far, it's incomplete, because I'm limited by the graphic novels at the library, and they never seem to have the complete version of something. I read Black Panther #2, the one written by Ta Nehisi Coates, and Black Widow: No More Secrets, which apparently ships Nat & Bucky (?!). I used to hate reading American comics - hated the art, thought the panels were too busy and had too much in the way of words getting in the way of the art, etc. Current comics art is gorgeous, and takes a lot of their cues from manga, and has color, which manga generally didn't. The coloring really makes a big difference, I think.

I liked Boondocks when it first came out. It didn't always hit the mark, but at least McGruder tried. Now, I don't really read it anymore because it's mostly Huey sitting in front of a TV with a throwaway line. That's beyond lazy - it's like not getting up to turn off the TV because you can't reach the remote that's in front of you on the coffee table. So I had mixed feelings about the new cartoon.

The cartoon is definitely better than the strip is right now. Grandpa's done perfectly, and Regina King does a decent job playing Huey and Riley. On NPR, they were complaining about the multiple uses of the N-word, and they argued that the frequency eclipses the social criticism that McGruder's trying to get across. McGruder says "It seems to be a topic that doesn't ever go away." Me, I think it's beside the point.

The anime-style art annoys me, but that's what happens when you get spoiled by watching too many Hayao Miyazaki movies. I really liked that one gag on the R. Kelly episode where a group of black intellectual types (I recognized Cornell West, but who were the others?) started fighting the "black masses" kung-fu style. There were a couple of other really good gags; the rest of the show's still working out some kinks.

So I guess I'll keep watching to see if it gets better.

You know what's really good, though? Everybody Hates Chris. I love it; it's so sweet and unsentimental, with plenty of the sharp commentary provided by Chris Rock. I had an English professor (who looked disturbingly like Matthew Perry in his drug-addled phase, which was really funny because my prof said he HATED Friends) who said that he didn't think Chris Rock was funny, but that he got away with it, because he would say anything to shock. I don't think that my English professor really listened to Rock, especially since he thought Margaret Cho was funnier. (I like Cho, but my totally controversial opinion is that she was funnier before she quit doing drugs. Wow, I remember watching All-American Girl. Does anyone remember that? After that show got cancelled, the Grandma character showed up in a bunch of random sitcoms.)