Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, whatever I feel like talking about, no matter how random or trivial or rambling. They’ll make appearances whenever I feel like it, but it’ll always be a Sunday.
No AI was used in the creation of this blog post. I have been using em-dashes since high school, and I’ll be damned if I let either the plagiarism machine or terminally online witch hunters take them away from me. Also, any art is by either real people or myself (which you will easily spot cuz it’ll look like trash).
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There are only a handful of things that I’d think of as “end of an era” signifiers for me. Most are major historical events, things like the fall of the Berlin Wall or 9/11 where you just knew that going forward things were going to be VERY different. But there are always smaller examples, ones that affect a niche area but do so in a way that will leave ripples within that niche for years. Personal examples for me are Sega stopping its hardware production, Y100 abruptly being replaced, and Cartoon Network introducing Adult Swim.
Marvel Comics moving out of New York City definitely qualifies as an “end of an era”.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, whatever I feel like talking about, no matter how random or trivial or rambling. They’ll make appearances whenever I feel like it, but it’ll always be a Sunday.
No AI was used in the creation of this blog post. I have been using em-dashes since high school, and I’ll be damned if I let either the plagiarism machine or terminally online witch hunters take them away from me. Also, any art is by either real people or myself (which you will easily spot cuz it’ll look like trash).
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There were two recent announcements of new projects, two things that by all historical evidence & logic should excite me. But instead, I’m not just disinterested, I’m actively off–put from them. I kinda want to talk about why.
First up, there’s this:
Those familiar with me should be able to spot exactly where this is going.
Now, as a concept, a documentary on the history of Cartoon Network and its various eras SHOULD be something that I’d like. But we’re in an era where CN itself is a shambling undead husk kept alive solely to prop up the parasitic late-night block (that begins roughly around suppertime & runs until the start of the workday). Where the guy in charge of the network has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t care about anything that isn’t connected to Adult Swim in some way. And given how much I utterly despise Adult Swim outside of a handful of projects - and I mean DESPISE, from the Reddit bros that run the block to the weird cultishness that pervades its fanbase, especially the Toonami wing - you can probably guess how I feel about him.
At least I’m not alone in being disappointed by this, as Jeff Harris has similar and more eloquently phrased sentiments to my own regarding this documentary series, and I’ve seen a few people online that also expect this to be awful. One person said it’ll be an episode & a half about CN and then three & a half about how great Adult Swim/Toonami is. They’re probably being generous with that half-episode for CN. There COULD be a good “history of Cartoon Network” series - hell, I’ve been on the record saying that there could be a whole TV show in the vein of those “The Food/Toys That Made America” shows about the history of American animation that would be successful (it would also be a rights clearance nightmare). But for the CN one to be good, that would require people who actually care about animation history, and no one in CN’s corporate suite cares about anything not firmly aimed at the most annoying dudes on the internet.
The other recent announcement is that my other favorite superhero team, the Legion of Super-Heroes, is getting a new title. The last one came out during my decade-long break from comics, and it was just as well, since the main impression seemed to be that it was a tedious run. Bendis was more interested in doing stories about the United Planets & its politics than the team, and while lots of people liked Sook’s art, I found too many of the designs to be so wholly detached from the character they were applied to that I half-wondered if he was cleaning out his old designs. Big buff Matter-Eater Lad with a Hogan mustache? The White Witch wearing weirdly snot-colored armor? I get wanting to give the characters more unique silhouettes (which the LOSH has struggled with at times due to sheer cast volume), but it wound up making them feel less like a teenage club & more like a generic space team. And given how I have been thoroughly driven away from the X-books while simultaneously deciding to return to comics, you’d think I’d be interested.
Please go back & read the opening paragraph of this section if you’re still thinking that.
First, lemme show you the very first picture that I saw of this new title:
Starring Michael J Fox as Not-Appearing-In-This-Issue Lad!
Is it nice that they’re doing a tribute to Michael J Fox & Back to the Future? Yes. Is this the best way to announce that there’s a new Legion title coming out? Well… given how they’re shoved into the background in favor of Superman and not doing anything except posing for a photoshoot, not really.
And that brings me to the actual first issue cover and my next complaint. I DO NOT like this art.
Well… at least Matter-Eater Lad is gonna be there, eating matter as is his wont.
First off, let’s start with the overall designs. While I appreciate that the artist has kept the traditional color palettes for the characters so they’re more easily identifiable (which is already a step above Sook), the designs themselves are… oof. Most of the guys have some variation of that godawful “broccoli hair” style that, aesthetics aside, will instantly date this like Grell’s 70s coiffures date his run. The outfits themselves are weird; there’s no reason for Saturn Girl to have a random loincloth or for the pops of random added colors to Triplicate Girl & Cosmic Boy’s outfits that are more distracting than interesting. I’m not sure who the dude in the mid-ground is supposed to be (my best guesses are either Mekt Ranzz or Element Lad), but I am very distracted by how he appears to be *shudder* mogging. I know they’re supposed to be teenagers, but why do the guys all look like different stripes of the twink rainbow? Why does Matter-Eater Lad look like he’s sporting the short haircut that Post-Zero Hour Triad had? Why is there an electro-bike doing an Akira slide randomly in the corner, and if Garth is in the foreground, who is driving that? Why is that bike the only dynamic action on the cover? Why is Robin there? Why does it appear that Mano, the Persuader, and the Dominators were thrown into a blender for the villains, and why does their leader have angel wings? These aren’t questions borne of intrigue (except maybe the Robin one); they’re questions borne of tilting my head at the picture like a confused dog and going “... buy WHY?”
Dramatic recreation of my reaction.
Also, I don’t wanna hear anyone ever rag on the Five Years Later jacket designs again. Between this book giving either this or a mis-matched cape to the team members and the newly announced Titans book having their cast wearing similar short & puffy jackets, those suckers are making a comeback, which I’m guessing is spurred by something on TikTok. Speaking of, both Legion cover images look less like a superteam going into action and more like influencers posing for the camera. Having characters looking at the viewer as though they’re looking at the photographer or looking in completely different directions instead of at a shared threat or goal doesn’t work for me. In the first cover, they aren’t looking at the guys in the foreground, they’re just posing and looking past them, so it’s not just that one. It all feels very “how do you do fellow kids”, like it’s desperately trying to appeal to either actual teenagers or the chunk of the market that tries to be down with them at all costs. And lemme tell you, from experience, they aren’t BUYING those comics. You KNOW where they’re getting them. So they aren’t gonna be giving you money.
Part of me wants this title to be good. The writer is a workhorse guy who has stated that he is using the Post Zero Hour Legion as his inspiration, and as someone who got into the Legion via that era, seeing them get some actual love even by proxy is overdue. The plot is similar to other eras I liked, in that the Legion are a social/rebellion movement fighting against a corrupt ruling force. But I just CAN’T with this art. It feels like it wants The Kids online to love it and make it go viral cuz it’s so omg hashtag relatable. Remember the last title that tried to do that? Remember how it involved a meet-cute in the middle of a school shooting? Remember how it ended with the lead character trying to hug it out with a murderous super-dictator? Remember how the creator threw a fit when The Kids pointed out how corny & try-hard it all was? I REALLY don’t wanna see that happen with the Legion.
You know how to make the Legion appeal to a new audience? Tell good stories with them. That’s what hooked teenaged me with the Post Zero Hour iteration. That’s why so many younger readers go to the scan sites, because the good stories that hook them are out of print. It’s not cuz they’re about characters rocking the latest styles available on TikTok Shop while sucking their cheeks in to make their cheekbones look bad.
Honestly, both of these feel like a reminder that for every old favorite thing that I get to revisit & enjoy with new entries, there are two that are getting just the absolute worst treatment. For every Walpurgisnacht Rising that makes me psyched to see where things go next while returning to familiar fictional grounds, there are at least two things that make me want to retreat into nostalgia. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the majority of the latter are from comics or animation. Something about the modern internet scene around those two mediums is especially odious right now. From fanbases trying to tear down every single animated “pilot” in a particularly weird variation on the “crabs in a bucket” effect to comics pros not only catering only to whatever is requested by their social media venue of choice but also acting as UNprofessional as humanly possible to better seal those parasocial bonds, those mediums are in a dire place. And both have made it impossible to just say “this isn’t good” or “I don’t like this” without it being twisted into a moral judgment or ideological argument, so you learn to just disengage.
Maybe it’s better to just let my own memories of these things be. To remember the Cartoon Network that made gentle jokes about niche programs for their bumpers, taught a little bit of animation history with Toonheads, and didn’t have a kudzu-esque overnight block run by a particularly odious gaggle of fratboys. To remember the Legion being a particularly unique superteam that tries its hardest to be timeless while letting its characters grow & change like people should. To just… enjoy these things instead of being reminded that I no longer can.
It sucks to “just enjoy things” quietly, like so many people say to do, since shared enjoyment of something IS a major social connector. So I keep looking, hoping that these things will improve. And I keep being disappointed. So as usual, I just wanna vent.
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There’s nothing like a look back at niche internet history to pique my interest, and this one was a particularly hilarious example of a niche internet historical event. Remember when a gaming hub site tried to determine the ultimate iconic gaming character and wound up choosing… an L-shaped Tetris block?
I personally would have voted for the "long vertical line" cuz of its combo creation potential.
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Lightning-squared round! Because those lightning beasts of Korbal have been busy lately.
I never liked RWBY, even after trying to like it. But I’ll be the first to say it was probably the ancestor of the current indie animation boom online. So it makes sense that Viz is giving them a new season to ride that tide. I won’t be watching it, but it’s still a make-sense revival.
Dynamite isn’t gonna do more Jonny Quest comics, are they? Sigh… of course…
If you’re gonna do a modern “spin” on I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, make sure that the audience you’re doing it for can handle downer endings. Cuz right now, we’re seeing what happens when you do one for an audience that absolutely cannot.
Nick Knacks got to the first of the original Nicktoons, which is Doug, and I am legitimately shocked that Pop Arena didn’t harp on the creator being a born-again Christian. Probably cuz it’s a work he actually liked, so he was willing to let it slide.
That Legion cover does bring up a good question - why hasn’t there been an official crossover between Back To The Future & the Legion yet? That kind of nostalgia crossover is catnip to the direct market.
Now feels like a good time to recommend Teenagers from The Future, an excellent series of essays on different eras, characters, & audiences surrounding the Legion. Make sure it’s the 2011 edition, since that has more entries and some revisions/additions to existing ones that were absent in the original publication.
I don’t want to spoil Exedra Quest part 1 chapter 1 for anyone who hasn’t played it yet, but they absolutely NEED to make that variation of Sayaka playable at some point. I’d be shocked if they didn’t, seeing as how she has her own model & all, but you never know.
Uma update: I finally got a completed Career to break into A rank for the first time… and it’s swimsuit variant Golshi. Because OF COURSE it’s her.
Kinda weird that both of my subscription crochet boxes are at points where both have me doing the same kind of ornamental stitch. That definitely wasn’t planned.
We’re a month & a half away from Walpurgishnacht Rising coming out, I have zero idea how I’ll be able to see it at all (let alone get a hard copy to own that isn’t charging the usual cartoonish Aniplex prices), but I am already obsessed with Selema Terez. I just like highly-themed magical girls.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, whatever I feel like talking about, no matter how random or trivial or rambling. They’ll make appearances whenever I feel like it, but it’ll always be a Sunday.
No AI was used in the creation of this blog post. I have been using em-dashes since high school, and I’ll be damned if I let either the plagiarism machine or terminally online witch hunters take them away from me. Also, any art is by either real people or myself (which you will easily spot cuz it’ll look like trash).
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Owen Hart would have been 60 this year.
Wait, let me rephrase that: Owen Hart SHOULD have been 60 this year.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, whatever I feel like talking about, no matter how random or trivial or rambling. They’ll make appearances whenever I feel like it, but it’ll always be a Sunday.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, none of which really warrant a full post, that have popped into my head over the course of the past week. They may or may not be regular weekly posts.
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Man, having a job that actually involves doing engaging work and being around other people really keeps you from getting too absorbed in your own thoughts. That's definitely a benefit, even if it comes with the downside of commuting on a known hell road twice a day. But there is another downside, and it's this - it doesn't let me get so bored & isolated that I start to think of topics for this blog.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, none of which really warrant a full post, that have popped into my head over the course of the past week. They may or may not be regular weekly posts.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, none of which really warrant a full post, that have popped into my head over the course of the past week. They may or may not be regular weekly posts.
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I’ve been threatening y’all with more nerd shit rants instead of general life stuff. So consider yourself warned, we’re gonna be talking about one of my big five influences, the 90s Jonny Quest reboot series.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, none of which really warrant a full post, that have popped into my head over the course of the past week. They may or may not be regular weekly posts.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, none of which really warrant a full post, that have popped into my head over the course of the past week. They may or may not be regular weekly posts.
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Back in college, in what would eventually become the breakdown year, there was a person who closed out the fall semester by decorating her dorm room door with wrapping paper. It was rather plain paper, so she had written on it, “A long December, and there’s reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last.” Hopefully you get the song reference. Even then, it felt rather… teen-angsty, and come spring & the breakdown, it felt downright mocking.
But damn if it hasn’t become a MOOD in adulthood. And somehow, it’s become more mocking than it was when I was scream-crying in a dorm room corner.
I genuinely can’t think of a time when I’ve looked back on a year and thought that it had been a good year. But 2025 has been an exceptionally bad year. It was a year where people were endlessly disappointing, and every bit of brightness that could possibly bring me a shred of joy was dimmed by overwhelming forces around it. This was the year of finally going cold turkey on social media, of losing therapists through no fault of my own, and of feeling like I can never just do my job & always have to be on alert. This was the year where, as much as I want to share my original fiction, I realized that no one really wants to bother with it, so there’s zero real point in sharing it. The year where moral hypocrisy & self-diagnosis combined to reach a breaking point. The year where everything cost more while offering less, often without giving you a heads-up first. The year where MY FAVORITE FUCKING STORE CLOSED, and absolutely nothing has been able to fill that void, only making the absence hurt more.
No Sunday Sampler this week. A quick glance at a calendar should show why that is.
Working on doing a end-of-year review of highs & lows to go up on the 3rd. The way this year has gone, I don't trust it not to try for one more sucker punch before its exit, so I better give it a buffer.
Hopefully I'll see you then. And hoping 2026 is at least a tiny bit better.
Yeah, sorry, having another skip week. Cleaning, wrapping, figuring out why stuff that should have shipped by now hasn't, entertaining a person who refuses to do anything to treat their depression besides rely on me to entertain them...
Christmas kinda sucks once you're an adult, not gonna lie.
Probably won't have anything ready till the new year. So take care of yourselves till then.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, none of which really warrant a full post, that have popped into my head over the course of the past week. They may or may not be regular weekly posts.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, none of which really warrant a full post, that have popped into my head over the course of the past week. They may or may not be regular weekly posts.
Yep, this week is a skip week, mostly just because this is entirely dedicated to doing decorations. At two houses. Along with the usual weekend activities. One of said houses will involve decorating with cats.
This would be one of the better possible scenarios.
So "rest" is kinda relative. See y'all next Sunday with something more substantial.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, none of which really warrant a full post, that have popped into my head over the course of the past week. They may or may not be regular weekly posts.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, none of which really warrant a full post, that have popped into my head over the course of the past week. They may or may not be regular weekly posts.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, none of which really warrant a full post, that have popped into my head over the course of the past week. They may or may not be regular weekly posts.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, none of which really warrant a full post, that have popped into my head over the course of the past week. They may or may not be regular weekly posts.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, none of which really warrant a full post, that have popped into my head over the course of the past week. They may or may not be regular weekly posts.
Hey, you know that part of the Sunday Sampler intro where I say that it may or may not be a regular weekly post?
This week is going to be one of the "may not" weeks. Not much to say that isn't strictly for the lightning-squared round, but to make up for it, I'm going to have a BEAST of a Sampler for Ace Week. And if you know me, you can probably guess the tone.
Art by sirompp from Tumblr, at least according to reverse image search.
Enjoy the break from my nonsense and see you on the 19th.
