Sorry for the silence...we're recovering.

Various things have happened, folks. First and foremost, the loss of Richie Hass. Second, work, flu and other things have been nagging at me recently. Third, one of the computers I use to put together Cartoon Geeks got a severe Trojan Horse, and I'm trying to get it going again...having reinstalled Windows and a ton of software, but not certain that it's clean yet.

However, we are recovering. Slowly but surely. And this non-fancy post talks about some of the things we have been talking about.

Justice League: The New Frontier. When we get the Cartoon Geeks podcast going again, I hope to present some audio cuts from this show. It is, quite literally, the best thing DC Animation has produced since Justice League Unlimited went off the air. Although it does have a historical slant that wasn't present in the 1960's, when the "Silver Age" DC heroes first appeared, it has the same feel and excitement that first got us buying comics back then.

If you can rent it or buy it (probably the former rather than the latter these days) and get it in the two-disk "deluxe" edition, check out all the extras. The single disk talks about the various DC heroes that appeared in the presentation. The extras disk talks about the villains, with many DC writers and editors discussing the bad guys in detail. Even Stan Lee (you can't keep that guy from showing up, even in his former Distinguished Competition's animated movies).

The Spectacular Spider-Man. As Dr. Toon said on our last podcast, there is a new Spidey in town. It's a kind of "Ultimate" Spider-Man, in the comic book sense; it shows Peter in high school, pre-Mary Jane, palling around with Gwen Stacy (God rest her soul) redesigned as a bespeckled science geek! Just like The Batman, which has just ended its run, this show gives a chance to explain the Spidey heroes to an audience too young to have gotten into the complicated continuity of the comics. So far it looks good; I still want to give it a little time, though. The new theme song is...eh.

DC Countdown. Continuing the gimmick of DC's 52, this countdown is leading up to something called "Final Crisis." Or, as I think William Burroughs once said, "another twilight of your tired gods." These manufactured apocalypses are beginning to be parodies of one another, all attempts to get people to buy more comics. Meanwhile, some good series like Fables and Fallen Angel just keep churning out good, involving stories each month without the need for rattling everyone's cages regularly.

Pendant Audio. I've recently been listening to the "fan fiction" done as radio shows, with many series uploaded once a month at http://www.pendantaudio.com - shows starring Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and my personal favorite Supergirl. These shows are about five to six years previous to current DC Comics continuity, and are taking some interesting variations of the characters. I'm hoping to approach some people from Pendant to do Skype interviews in the near future. For something done for free (to avoid getting sued by DC) these shows are of remarkably good quality. Not to mention their "audio movies" of Indiana Jones and James Bond - two shows set decades apart, with the same female villainess!

I hope to post more often here, folks, but you know the place that's paved with good intentions...