*One of the things I both hate and love about anime is the character archetypes they use. In virtually all anime you have your annoying/whiney female, your over-dramatic reactions to good/bad news, your former evil character seeking redemption, etc…

Sometimes this is annoying; sometimes it’s kind of humorous. But I think this is a relatively unique trait to Japanese work. Yes, I realize that we have our own stereotypical characters. But it just seems like these character archetypes are in EVERY anime/manga that gets released. Even in the more serious shows like Cowboy Bebop. Whereas, you can’t find every basic type of character in an American show/comic book.

I don’t know if this is good or bad, it’s just different.

*Cartoon Network must have about the worse website I’ve seen in years. It is virtually impossible to get it to display a page with any reasonable speed. And I’m on a DSL connection! If you want pretty graphics and tons of pictures, fine. Just make sure the stupid page loads first!

*So Smallville is poised to head into it’s fifth season. It’s hard to believe that show’s been on that long actually. I used to watch it regularly in the first two seasons. But I noticed that they were slowly shifting away from a superhero story about a boy growing up, to a teen drama. And then when they canned Pete, that was the final nail in the coffin – full fledged teen drama.

I think Smallville still has its good moments, and every so often I’ll catch an episode or two. But I just can’t stomach all of that teen angst.

*I do love the way they make subtle references to the Superman legacy. In one episode, Lana tells Clark that he “looks good in blue.” I think that’s brilliant writing. It’s a subtle nod to what will become Clark’s legacy, while at the same time it’s a subtle use of foreshadowing.

*Decline of civilization example #4,102: “Batman Begins 400 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup race” on June 19th.

Sheesh, I don’t know if I need to make a joke about movie promotion gone awry, or the horrible cash pandering of NASCAR. On second thought, I think I’m too depressed to do either now…

*So is it me, or do there seem to be a lot of characters being killed recently? It seems like every title I’m opening up or every TV show I’m watching a character is being killed. I don’t want to spoil anything, because a lot of these characters have only recently been killed. But I think this is something I’m going to return to in a few weeks. Or do you guys think I’m totally off base on this?

*Apparently the “big news” is DC’s new logo. I’m not really sure what I think about it all. I personally like the look of the logo better, but is it going to do anything for the company? Are sales going to increase because of it? I doubt it. I can’t imagine ever hearing someone at my local shop saying, “boy I was going to pick up this issue of ‘X-men: Yet another book’, but that DC logo is so hot I think I’ll have to buy nothing but DC now.”

I realize that’s an exaggeration, but what was DC really trying to accomplish? Maybe I just don’t get it. Personally unless there is some tangible benefit to the switch, I think DC should have stuck with Tradition. After all, it’s not like their old logo was bad or anything.

*Well I finished the Green Lantern: Rebirth saga the other day. And I have to say I enjoyed it. I think it was a reasonably believable (in a way that only comic books can be) way to bring back Hal Jordan. But was anyone else skeptical that he could sucker punch Batman? I mean, it’s Batman, how do you sucker punch Batman?

*I also finished Phoenix: Endsong this week. Let me start off by saying that the you learn the meaning of the word “Endsong” in this book. Let me also say, it made the meaning of the word lame. It was one of those “too cute by half” moments. Sure I get the fact that the warrior “Endsong” is a tribute to those about to fall in battle, and that’s ultimately what happened to Jean, but still, it just made it cheesy.

Otherwise, the book was just all right. It wasn’t awful, but it certainly wasn’t good. And it seems like we just had a 6-part story that could have been something special, and instead, returns everything to the exact status quo at the end. Well almost.

*If you want to compare Green Lantern: Rebirth with Phoenix: Endsong, it’s definitely another victory for DC. After finishing GL: Rebirth you get the distinct sense that the DC Universe just changed in a major way. Like you just read something that was of profound importance to the story of many characters. With Endsong you get the distinct sense of “eh, whatever.”

*Well I guess that about sums things up for the week. But before we go, one quick questions for you guys out there, am I the only one who’s stack of unread comics keeps piling up? Or does that seem to happen to everyone?

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