Parano-AI: Collin Kelly- “Batman Beyond: Neo Year”

How does one fight a city? In Batman Beyond: Neo-Year, Neo-Gotham (the electronic infrastructure that governs city life, from traffic lights to the power grid) has awoken from its digital sleep. Its first order of duty is the murder of elderly Bruce Wayne- by accelerating his pacemaker. Left standing is young Terry McGinnis - Wayne’s …

Ode to the Hernandez 1: Early Love and Rockets

How to describe the early days of “Love and Rockets”? Pin-ups that are hotter than the Sonora desert. Male-gazing and female-empowering. Characters that are icons of Latinx queerness- or All-American- or from outer space. Pro-solar mechanics in ripped-off, breast-baring outfits. Dinosaurs, aliens, wrestlers. Mohawks, misfits, monsters. Pansexual pillow fights. Utter realism. Surreal oneirism. Los Angeles, …

Spare Change August 20

Netflix's "Painkiller" is a little TOO entertaining in depicting how Richard Sackler and Purdue Pharma turned Oxycontin into the totally legal, doctor-approved drug behind America's opioid epidemic. (As the miniseries puts it, Oxy is basically "heroin in a pretty pill.") As Sackler, Matthew Broderick is a little too whimsical, a greedy Willy Wonka masterminding the …

Not My Nimona : Nick Bruno, Troy Quane – “Nimona”

There are several ways to look at Netflix’s release of “Nimona”: One way? This is Netflix’s biggest, best, animated feature yet. It is VERY GOOD indeed! I call a lock on Best Oscar for Animated Feature. Another way is a movie with almost revolutionary status as the highest profile American "children’s" movie to be openly …

Manic Manga Pixie Girl : Naoki Yamamoto – “Dance Till Tomorrow”

Better late than never. Naoki Yamamoto’s “Dance ‘Till Tomorrow” (“Asatte Dance”) is a late-'80s work, but was first published in the U.S. in PULP, a late 90's magazine that was rare Western representation for mature manga. (At the time, any manga that wasn't Dragon Ball had 'rare Western representation,' before the Barnes-&-Noble types caught on …