Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin
Quicker than quick, stronger than strong since 1969
Still in kind of a low content mode here at the site, but I’ll be checking in with a longer-ish post tomorrow about a certain free funnybook event that may be happening this weekend.
In the meantime, here’s pal Dave dressed as his favorite comic book character.
…Dino #10 (June 1975):
In other news:
Johanna’s long-running site Comics Worth Reading recently had some behind-the-scenes tech trouble, resulting in a corrupted database and years of lost posts. She’s going through and restoring some of the older reviews as she’s able to extract them, but…man, talk about a nightmare. My most empathetic thoughts are sent her way as she deals with this problem.
While this can be a drag, suddenly losing all that work built up over a decade or more, on the other hand I can see where it can almost be…liberating, in a sense. A lot of my posts, once you go back far enough, are so link-rotted or just generally awful that I’d almost prefer you didn’t go back and just read each and every post I’d made. There are lots of links to Haloscan comments that all went away went Haloscan vanished. There are interlinks between my posts that go to the old Blogger version of my site, which I still maintain copies of on my server just to that any old outside links to those old versions of my posts won’t be dead ones. Basically that means for entries from 2003 ’til whenever it was I switched over to WordPress — in 2010 or so — there are effectively two versions of my site here (though I’ve blocked the old Blogger pages from indexing, which should reduce any Googling confusion). Anyway, it’s a mess.
I’ve said before I’d almost want to start a Progressive Ruin 3.0 (2.0 being this site, 1.0 being the site I talk about in my first anniversary post), where I could just begin completely anew, and leave this site as a frozen archive for what has gone before. Or, I could bring over all the best posts from this site, leaving behind the worst ones, and retool the posts slightly so that they are less dependent on off-site links.
But that sounds like a mess, too. What I have been doing, on and off over the years, is that if I link to an older pre-Wordpress post in a newer post, I’ll go back and fiddle with that old post so dead links are either removed or noted as such, or any in-site links are corrected to the modern WordPress site rather than the archived Blogger pages. I haven’t been consistent about it (like in that first anniversary post I just linked to), but at least I try. At the very least I keep checking my first post to make sure it goes where I want it to go.
Ultimately, if I plan on keeping this site around for a while, I’m probably just going to have to bite the bullet and fix each post individually…or somehow program something into the site so that if you access a page here older than, say, 2010, something pops up that says “Abandon hope all ye who enter here” or, you know, something similar.
Anyway, again, my sympathies to Johanna, mixed with a little “there but for the grace of God.” Should probably look into backing up my WordPress database.
In other news:
And as I noted on the Twitterers, I would like the first season to be an adaptation of Metamorphosis Odyssey (the Epic Illustrated serialized series that introduced Vanth Dreadstar) if only to enjoy the television viewing public’s almost inevitable reaction of “…what did I just watch?”
I hope at the very least we get out of this, if not new Dreadstar comics, then relatively inexpensive and complete reprints of the older comics. There aren’t really that many issues: 64 in the original comic series, plus 6 in the follow-up mini from Malibu, and all the Epic Illustrated stuff plus the two graphic novels fit into that one hardcover from a few years back. Oh, and that cameo in ‘Breed III as well. And that First Comics crossover thing. …And I’m probably missing something else, but honestly, that’s not a whole lot. Let’s get some books of these things, even if you have to slap “FROM THE CREATOR OF THANOS” across the tops of the covers.
…or “no content mode,” as this site sort of took a vacation after last Wednesday, due to my recovering from a chest cold only to go full bore into a nasty headcold I’m still recovering from. And, as it turns out, when you own your own business and you’re the only employee, you don’t get a day off to shake off the sniffles. Ah, well, “as a wise man once said” an’ all that.
To follow up on my last post, all those Groots that once danced their little hearts out in my shop are now scattered to the four winds. I knew Groot was fairly beloved in my area, judging by the mostly positive reaction to that giant cardboard standee of Groot in my window, but it was still pretty shocking how quickly the Dancing Groot toy hightailed it out of here. And despite my initial trepidation, the demo-ing of Dancing Groots did not drive me crazy, possibly due to the brevity of their presence, but several customers would push the demo button and immediately apologize to me, figuring I was sick of listening to that clip of “I Want You Back.” Honestly, it didn’t bother me, though I was quick to remind folks that pushing the button again didn’t stop the clip, but rather, extended the play.
Also, the melodious strains of the Jackson 5 have been haunting me in my dreams, but perhaps that is an unrelated issue. Not unrelated, however, is this amusing image contributed by reader Brian, combining our favorite ambulatory plantlife that isn’t Swamp Thing with one of our favorite Lois Lane covers.
Another little adventure I undertook this weekend was making a quick trip to Los Angeles to the studio of famed artist Coop to acquire a largish collection of comics he was looking to get out of his way. I probably could have just stayed there all day, looking at all the neat things he had tucked away in all corners of his workspace. And Coop himself is a swell guy…I recommend Coop to all my friends and family. Here is some photo evidence of the gentleman artist tolerating my proximity.
Speaking of artists and their endeavors, there’s another Kickstarter I’d like to promote…it’s already met its funding goal, but you may still be interested in getting a copy of Death Saves, a comics anthology about characters in role-playing games and how they met their respective demises. I’m specifically recommending it due to a story written by blogging-and-birthday-brother Andrew Weiss and illustrated by longtime ProgRuin pal Matthew Digges. So contribute already!
Remember the last Kickstarter I recommended to you guys? It just wrapped up, making over three times its goal! I’m pretty sure that was all thanks to me, so let’s try to do the same for Death Saves, too!
…so while I have a free moment, let me link you to the very-correctly titled “Greatest Nancy Comic Strip Paper Dolls Ever Made” (using some scans I made (gulp) nearly eight years ago for this post).
Print ’em bigger, you’ve got hats.
Speaking of paper dolls, I helped Bully, the Little Stuffed with Paper, Maybe, Doll Bull, with the last post of his Paper Doll Month.
The End of Civilization post should be up tomorrow, but in the meantime, please enjoy this, the fifth anniversary installment of Nobody’s Favorites by pal Andrew, discussing a certain feathered hero of some note. (I will note that this series featuring the character is still a favorite of mine, and still holds up today…if only they’d stuck with that instead of endless rebooting.)
And speaking of pal Andrew, his other ongoing project You Chose Wrong (celebrating the tragic endings of Choose Your Own Adventure books and similar book series) recently featured one of my submissions taken from a book I’ve previously discussed.
By the way, in case you were wondering how the Batman Day event went at our shop…it went swell. Gave away lots of free comics and masks, had a successful sale on Batman comics and merchandise, got to see a very happy four-year-old girl in her Batman muscle costume, and we had this mysterious gentleman running about the store most of the day:
Pal Dave wrote this comic.
Pal Andrew is up to something.
Coby and his five-year-old son watch the 1978 Superman movie.
I enjoyed Babylon 5, though I haven’t rewatched the series since giving the DVD sets (and associated spin-offs) a once-through as I acquired them. It was an interesting experiment in long-form storytelling with the constraints of the vagaries of television production, it gave us the fascinating crisscrossing story arcs of Londo and G’Kar, and it brought us Walter Koenig in a great role that made most folks come to say “Chekov who?” It wasn’t perfect, but what in this fallen world is; I probably never need to hear the phrase “with all due respect” ever again, for example. But there was certainly more to enjoy than to not enjoy, and the occasional (“occasional?”) bit of labored dialogue and rough-edged acting isn’t that difficult to endure given the overall success of the venture.
Hey, I liked it, and I look forward to enjoying Siskoid’s review of the series.
Andrew is also relaunching his Ultimate Powers Jam, in which he rolls up characters using the Marvel Super Heroes role playing game, and passes along the results to you to flesh out the character and do with what you will. A sample, if you will.
