Matt Zimmer's Journal

I cannot believe it. The guy was super talented and always so nice to me on his forum. He was the reason JLU was as great as it was. I'm in shocked. To make matters worse I found out Boyd Kirkland had passed away earlier. Why did no-one tell me that?

RIP Dwayne.

http://forums.toonzone.net/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=3098652

He did the same thing when I pointed out what a sucky dialogue writer he was during his run on Static Shock. He hides behind the "internet anonymity" canard towards anyone who has the slightest bit of criticism towards him. Never mind that I (and in this case Greg X) both have our real names listed in our profiles. He took an interesting thread and made it all about him. He only bothers to post whenever his feelings get hurt. The guy has as big of an ego as John K.

By the way, in most cases internet anonymity is a GOOD thing. A lot of political bloggers wouldn't be able to cover the stories they do without it.

I just wrote a post telling him off. I expect to get warned for it at the very least. Apparantly the only creator you are allowed to criticize on Toon Zone is Dwayne McDuffie.

http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0804/03/index.htm

I'll say it again. Not having this series set in the DCAU is a HUGE missed opportunity at picking up older fans but those designs look freakin' sweet. They remind me of New Frontier ESPECIALLY the Green Arrow one.

So of course, everybody online hates them. With the notable exception of Dwayne McDuffie who said on his forum that the designs were amazing. They really are.

Edit: Just to Address something Style 92 said: When The Batman premiered I bashed that relentlessly. I cop to that but in my defense the designs were (and still are) butt-ugly. These designs are neat.

And yes, I SHOULD be more upset that this isn't DCAU considering how much I hated the Bat-Embargo but I'm trying to be mature about this. Even back then I admitted that a lot of my problems with The Batman were irrational.

Style, I think you're totally right that I bashed The Batman. But I honestly think that I was right about a lot of things about the show beforehand. It evolved into a neat series but the first season was absolutely horrible. I just bought the first season DVDs and will have a review up shortly. Short version of the review: The season is as bad as I remembered but is not without it's charms.

I haven't done a straight update in a while. I had a good fourth. My sister is starting to show and I recently found out that the baby is going to be a girl. I feel better about that to be honest. I have a hard time around little kids and girls tend to be better behaved than boys. My niece is still a handful though. :D

Had a kind of crummy day home with my family today however. My mom yelled at me for putting sugar in the iced tea. I'm sick of being yelled at. I became even more annoyed when I learned she had no intention of drinking the tea and had only made it for my benefit as no-one else was going to drink it. I pointed out her faulty logic and said that if I was the only one who was drinking it who cared if I put sugar in it? She told me it was simply a matter of consideration for others (her logic does not resemble Earth logic) which I find QUITE rich considering I and the rest of my family has had to put up with her verbal abuse for years. My mom isn't happy unless she's yelling and making other people miserable.

Got two new plushies on Tuesday, a little Elmo and a little Abby Cadabby. I STILL haven't managed to catch a Street with Abby on it yet but the plushie itself is quite adorable.

Independence Day fell on a Melissa day so I will only get to see her once this week. Lousy Democrats!

Got into an argument on another forum about whether or not the Bush Administration are fascists or not. I still think they have Nazi like tendencies but it WAS pointed out that Bush just doesn't have the support that Hitler did and that an American coup would be unlikely considering most of our military is deployed elsewhere. That makes me feel a LITTLE bit better but I think I DID manage to convince the guy I was arguing with that it's totally possible Bush and Cheney would do the same stuff Hitler did if they could get away with it.

Went to Target to look for the new JLU three packs and was appalled to see they are still selling Chris Benoit WWE action figures. I got into ANOTHER argument on Dwayne McDuffie's forum but I bowed out when it became clear the other guy wasn't even willing to acknowledge that Benoit's and others early deaths are a sign that there is something seriously going wrong and unchecked in that sport. Oh well.

I said this in the comments to the last entry but I will be changing all of my journal tags that say "douche-baggery" soon perhaps to corruption or something else. Calling someone a douchebag is kind of sexist and I've kind of come to see from comments on other forums that just because South Park says something doesn't make it automatically okay. I think I just loved the John Edward episode too much. Which you can hardly blame me for considering how great it was. :P

Oh, and while I am practically DYING waiting for Deathly Hallows I found a cool website with awesome Harry Potter essays in the meantime.

http://www.redhen-publications.com/Potterverse.html

Between this and rereading the books I think I can last another fifteen and a half days.

Beau99's post about an idiot on Toon Zone who has a vaguely racist bias against anime got me thinking about Static Shock and it's detractors who hate the show vehemently without any real reason.

Now I love Static Shock, but even as a fan I can acknowledge that the show oftentimes had horrid dialogue and could be incredibly stupid. But I feel the exact same way about some of the early run of BTAS and the first season of Justice League. Why do those two shows get a free pass on crappy dialogue and stupidity but Static is allegedly SO bad that people were practically weeping when The Once and Future Thing on JLU made it unequivically DCAU canon?

Some of the comments on Toon Zone in that thread King zrz started about him not being happy about Batman's appearances in Static Shock had a vaguely racist undercurrent to them. I've heard on more than one occasion that there shouldn't be any place for superhero rappers (see Rubberband Man) in the DCAU and that the show takes away credibility from the DCAU. I think that's crap. (likewise that similar recent thread about which animation poses in Epilogue were realistic or not was truly eyeball-rolling worthy).

First of all, the same whiny fanboys who say Static Shock takes away the credibilty of the DCAU and makes it less believable OBVIOUSLY believe a world that has demigods running around saving the universe in underwear which is brightly and gaudily colored from talking gorillas, psychopathic clowns, and guys who fight Superman with giant deadly toys is inherantly more believable than Static Shock are delusional. The DCAU franchise is a franchise of KIDS cartoons and the only limit to what is possible in it is the limit in which a KID would be able to imagine. Myxyzsptlixaed is a CRAZY Superman episode and cartoony as all get out. But people think Static Shock isn't realistic.

I've also heard complaints that Batman would NEVER have revealed his identity to Static and that it was out of character but I call b.s. on that too. If ANYONE understands Batman and his character it's Paul Dini who wrote Hard As Nails.

I think an uncomfortable truth is that most fanboys are young, white males with limited life experience and DON'T GET how prevelant racism is in our society. Having a black Superhero on Saturday Morning TV was a HUGE win for African American kids and I think all of the efforts to marginalize the show, for whatever it's faults shows a real lack of understanding about how racist the comments they snidely make are. Dwayne McDuffie was driven off of Toon Zone by a HUGELY racist thread that had a clip of him talking like Kingfish from Amos and Andy. The Mods there tried to do damage control by pretending that they never made comments about how funny it was and editting their original posts. I don't think the mods meant any harm but it just goes to show how limited a lot of fanboys' life experiences are. The whole thing pissed me off so much because it made Style92 believe he had done something wrong when he made a bad joke to Dwayne earlier. If the mods had owned up to their part in the fiasco instead of covering it up Style wouldn't have felt like he shouldn't post there anymore. THAT pissed me off.

There is SUCH an undercurrent of racism on a lot of message boards and it bothers me to think that the only reason Static Shock gets so much crap thrown at it is because they dared to make a black teenager the star of his own show.

Reviews for the latest episodes of Legion of Super Heroes, The Batman, The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Family Guy, American Dad, 24, and the Stephen King novel The Stand.

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By the way, Merlin Missy's review of The Stand on Dwayne McDuffie's forum and how the ending was NOT a cop-out is easily the best summation of the book I have ever read.

The cool thing about posting on different forums is that you can actually use a different persona or posting style for each. I actually use quite a few different posting styles on every forum I frequent even if I don't visit them often.

Live-journal: This is pretty much the forum in which I act completely like myself. Toon Zone was a close second.

Toon Zone: While I DID act like myself mostly (e.i. jokey and loving) I also acted out some of my worst impulses like paranoia.

Animation Insider: One of my favorite personas. Since the board I go to most is debate and discussion I am a total crank. I am usually angry (or at least ACT angry) when I post on that board and it's fun to be a grump.

Leaky Cauldron: I haven't posted on this board in a while but I usually had a wry sense of humor about Harry Potter and it's fandom. Since most of the rabid Potter fandom HAS no sense of humor I didn't fit in that well.

Elmoloversboard: I don't go there that often but when I do I am silly and loving.

Ralph Bakshi forum: I don't really fit in there because even though I am a HUGE fan of some of Bakshi's cartoons (Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, Wizards, etc) I also don't love every single thing Bakshi has done. I imagine I would have been tarred and feathered if I had EVER admitted that Heavy Traffic was one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

jlauniverse: The noob. I really wish I posted there more often but the board has such a great groove going on that I an REALLY afraid to break in.

boneville: The noob again.

actionfigureinsider: I am usually all business here although I AM occasionally very silly.

DailyKos: HERE I am tentative. I don't rocked the boat because I don't want to get flamed and also because I tend to agree with pretty much everyone there.

Dwayne McDuffie's forum: My usual persona is curious. I ask a lot of questions to find things out. I am also a strong defender here of the DCAU not becoming dark and gritty like it seems almost every single other fan wants.

Speaking of forums, I posted a couple of times recently on Toon Zone and am amused to discover that they have taken down at least a hundred of my posts. Each time I log in I seem to have less and less posts to my credit. Despite what people may think (LD comes to mind) I don't really care about how many posts I have but I DO find it amusing that each time I log in it seems like I am further and further away from "Forum Elder" status. There's an irony here, I just KNOW it.

I'm going to try godaddy again. Soon but I just have to steal myself up for it. If it still doesn't work I will welcome any suggestions about what to do about the website.

I was reading Merlin Missy's journal about how the new Gargoyles comic is out (my comic book guy is saving it for me) and Merlin Missy referred to it as new continuity. I LOVE continuity but it sometimes confuses me. MM, one of your complaints about Destroyer was that we didn't know for sure if Lois and Jimmy survived and that we couldn't just take Dwayne McDuffie's word for it because it didn't actually happen on screen. You told me one time you felt the same way about Gargoyles continuity and Greg Weisman's proposed story ideas shouldn't be considered canon because unless it's official it doesn't count. I feel the same way. What did you think of The Goliath Chronicles? I have mixed feelings about it, ESPECIALLY since for me what happens on the screen counts. I also have a difficult time accepting that we can accept The Journey as canon but not any of the other episodes. Do you think the new comic books "count"? And if so are they more canon than the rest of the Goliath Chronicles? I do have to say it will be easier accepting the comics as canon as long as they ARE remaking The Journey. Accepting one story out of a bunch of different ones is a lot harder to do when they are all under the same "official" name.

Joss Whedon is also coming out later this year with a "canon" eighth season of Buffy in comic book form. I cannot accept THIS as canon though for any reason. Fray was supposed to be canon and Chosen sort of wrecked the entire premise. If new Buffy fans are going to see a new DTV or series somewhere down the line I find it hard to believe that any future story will be beholden to comic books that the vast majority of the audience will not have had an opportunity to read. What are your thoughts on the subject?

(By the way, I know Joss is done with the live-action Buffyverse for now but I really think he should focus the majority of his energy on the new Wonder Woman feature. I have a feeling that if it's good, it'll be a hit and give Joss the clout he needs to resume the Buffyverse which sadly didn't happen with Serenity.)

Two more quick continuity questions: If Dwayne McDuffie, Bruce Timm or Paul Dini wrote an issue of the Justice League Unlmited comic book that explained what happen to Lois in Destroyer would you consider it official even if the rest of the series isn't? Mad Love became official. Because of that, what do you think about Harley and Ivy being canon or not? And I also want to hear your thoughts about Brainiac Attacks and whether or not it should be considered DCAU canon?

I know these are a lot of questions but I really respect you opinion and want to know where you stand on these things. You are the most fannish person I know and I would like your imput.