A Slightly Serious Thing

As I continue in my life, I have found myself in surprisingly new places and debates. I've never really struggled with certain topics. I'm sure others can relate to this notion of naturally deciding certain things while others struggle with it or automatically make the opposite decision. It's not a matter of being right or wrong, but simply having different priorities, being a different human being, etc. It's terribly strange when you catch yourself suddenly thinking about things you never really considered doing before.

Sort of like when you're small and stupid and in grade school and you didn't like the other gender for no apparent reason so you made up stereotypical reasons to not like them, and then suddenly, they're really attractive. Then, you flinch because you just caught yourself doing the unspeakable horror of liking them. It's a bit like that. Except without the hormones and such and so so much cleaner.

My particular thing is with the idea of "service."

"But Frugal Fan, what do you mean by 'service'? Do you mean service or service?"

If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, then probably no on both counts. While I am not enthused over the idea of working in the food industry, I wouldn't say no to it if offered a job. On the other count, I'm just not that kind of girl.

What I mean is charity, doing good works, buying Heaven Points via blood and sweat, and all that other kumbaya... stuff. Despite my personal beliefs, I've never really had an urge to do it. I just didn't feel like it was literally for me. Seriously here. I'm not using the word "literally" figuratively, which is really weird. If you think about it, how ironic that people seem to do that nowadays. Sometimes I can hear Baby English Language cry at night though it's hard to tell. Baby [Marvel] Continuity and all of them sort of sound the same. But back on topic, I seriously felt that it wasn't my place to do it. I wasn't the right person for that sort of thing so I passed on the youth mission events and the like. Now... Gosh, now I feel like I have to do something. Which is pretty novel considering how lazy I am. I barely post here. Heck, I barely finish my posts. You don't want to look at my drafts folder. It's kind of embarrassing. I'm not going to even get started on my e-mail inboxes.

So yeah. Obligatory plug here now.

I've gotten really interested in religious pluralism and the group IFYC, the InterFaith Youth Core (which I really feel like should be InterFaith Youth Corps, which sounds exactly the same and makes a bit more sense to me, but I guess it was a too militant word to use for a peace/human decency movement). I believe in this because I really do think that this could be THE global movement that promoted BASIC HUMAN DECENCY.

Imagine that. A movement that encourages people to have and use common sense dictated decency. It's sort of unimaginable like the idea of petitioning for a Golden Rule Act to make "Don't do anything you don't want done to you" a law. It's a nice thing, but kind of unimaginable as a serious movement. But this time, it is a serious movement.

Instead of having tolerance of other people's differences from yourself be you ignoring those differences and tunnel-visioning the usually superficial similarities, there would be a dialogue about it. You would work with people that might be different from you to help people that are probably different from you. It encourages you to be informed and knowledgeable about your faith or belief system or whatever so you can actually have an intelligible discussion about it and what exactly you believe.

GASP. Research? Learn? Too much to ask for people, right?

GACK to that. I hope not or else my pessimism about the human race is not dark enough apparently.

Also, go visit Kiva. It's a good thing.

Hopefully I'll elaborate more on how it is a good thing.

Later, peeps.

Sincerely,

Frugal Fan

Dollhouse Premiere

Let's just cut to the chase and make one point clear: Joss Whedon's Dollhouse is definitely worth faithfully watching and getting excited over. 

So far, I'm enjoying it more than Heroes, which for some mysterious reason is set out to break my heart, and Dollhouse has had only one episode thus far. Hopefully, it will have at least a complete season, unlike another amazing show. I was excited about this show ever since I heard about it a few weeks ago. Naturally, I went onto Hulu.com to see what they had on the show. 

I was very pleased and hopeful about the premiere. It looked like it was going to be of the same calibur as beloved Firefly, which I hold to be Whedon's best writing thus far. Another aspect of my life that made me have high expectations of Dollhouse was my love for the slightly obscure manga series, DOLL by Misukazu Mihara. (Hey, if it managed to get published in the US in the first place, it's only slightly obscure...)  

So what else is there to say outside of my inital verdict? 

I wasn't amazed. For whatever reason, I didn't feel completely pulled into this world or especially gripped with wide-eyed ecstasy like I had hoped. My biggest compliant was that I wasn't completely blown-away by the premiere. Of course, that doesn't change the fact Dollhouse is most likely one of the best shows on television this year. 

If you have no idea about what Dollhouse is or who Joss Whedon is, here's the short version. Feel free to go to the WhedonWiki. 

Joss Whedon has been hailed as one of television's greatest writers in our generation. He practically has an entire sub-culture dedicated to him and his works like Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog (which is astoundingly good and on Hulu.com), the resulting Dark Horse comic book series that continue each respective series as well as probably many other things that other Whedon fans would be more than happy to tell you about.  A successful writer/director/producer Joss Whedon is known for great shows with snappy dialogue and addictive stories. Any project that has Whedon's name on it gets some amount of buzz on the 'Net as well as a small following, just to see what will happen.  

Dollhouse is the Whedon's return to television since the cancellation of Firefly. Eliza Dushku plays centeral character Echo, an "Active" in the Dollhouse operations. An Active is an agent of the thus-far mysterious organization that has her (or his!) memory and personality "scrubbed" to be replaced by another persona made by Topher and the other scientists. They're basically rented out to billionaire clients to be whatever the clients desires. Naturally, "perfect lover" does come up in the premiere, but it seems that the Dollhouse services more than just fetishes when Echo is programed to be a calculating kidnap negoiator in order to rescue a client's daughter. Because Actives are human beings rather than android or robots, it brings an interesting moral dilemma to the show. At the beginning of the show, we see the girl who we come to know as Echo talking to Adelle DeWitt, the apparent master-adminstrator of the Dollhouse. Echo's life has gone awry and DeWitt offers the chance for a "clean slate." Echo's reply my favorite line in the premiere. 

"You ever tried to clean an actual slate? You always see what was on it before."

Spoiler: This appears to be the premise of Echo's character - the slate that couldn't be completely cleaned, though the premiere seems to give little evidence of this BUT all the previews seem to point to this idea.  

There are murmurings that the original script for Dollhouse was scrapped/revised with charactes and subplots removed from the original idea in order to put in more action, but Whedon appears to be quite happy with the result and to be frank, so am I. Of course, I would have loved weaving in and out of different stories or a bigger cast, making it an ensemble show, but it looks so great so far that I'm hoping for more of the same as the season goes on. 

Happy watching! 

- Frugal Fan

The Twilight Saga - Yes, I Went There and was Still Late for the Party

Let me put up a few facts.

1. I have never read the Twilight Saga.
2. I have read Gothic Romance novels many times before.
3. I have read many vampire novels that involved romance.
4. I'm not a big fan of the romance genre in general, but I have read a few.
5. I am surrounded by Twilight fanatics that love the series so much that they can't understand why I don't want to read it.
6. I educated myself through the enlightening grace of St. Wikipedia on the basic plot of the Twilight Saga so I could at least say I know what it is about.
7. I have no desire to ever read the Twilight Saga short of being paid cash for it.


In my little corner of the Internet, there is a lot of conflicting opinions about the series. I dare not go to forums, but just reading a couple of humorous LiveJournal Twilight re-writes, I could tell that those that would follow Meyers, the author of Twilight for those playing the home game, to the ends of the earth are a fandom horde to be reckoned with if only by sheer size and tenacity. There is little room to argue with them and they don't seem to take any criticism of the series very well. I call them Twilight Zombies if only for the mental imagery.

A Twilight Zombie won't ever admit or agree to a thought that there is anything wrong with the saga. A Twilight FAN is able to reason out why someone wouldn't be inclined to like it or even read it. You can have conversations, arguments and even debates with fans, no matter how zealous. Zombies are out to eat your brains.

A lot of the people that I like and respect online, certain bloggers, web comic-ers, and the rest, not only think that Twilight isn't worth reading, but that it can be downright detrimental to young girls by picturing Edward, the main male protagonist, as their ideal boyfriend/husband. I have even heard of essays being written on how the relationship between Bella and Edward is a perfect example of an abusive relationship. However, the fact that close friends repeatedly tell me it's not what I think it is and that it is a fantastic series to be read multiple times makes me wonder if I am judging Twilight a little too harshly with insufficient evidence. After all, I wouldn't want my favorite series to be bashed without being read.

But then again, I don't know their tastes in literature very well and most of the Twilight fan friends I have haven't ever read anything involving vampires before or have never read romance in their life (ie: boys). So, I read the Wikipedia entries, the regular one and not the specialized Twilight Wiki (since it kind of scared me and I don't know why), in order to educate myself.

It sounded AWFULLY familiar.

A few years ago, I read "The Crimson Trilogy" - Crimson Kiss, Crimson Night, and Crimson Shadows - by Trisha Baker because the light of my life wanted me to read it since she like it so much. I read it and it was not bad. I wasn't into erotic fiction then so the sex kind of turned me off the first time through. The second time I read it I thought it was kind hot. The plot wasn't bad and all the characters were well-developed. The traditional vampire mythos was tweaked ever so slightly and for the better of the story. Everything made sense AND it was interesting since it wasn't a straight up "true love" story but rather a struggle between a possessive, all consuming love and trying to be true to one's self while free from a love that helped defined who one was. It was dark. It was sexy. I really enjoyed it.

The overall romantic plot line is TERRIBLY similar to Twilight and the Crimson Trilogy was published back in 2001. (Who would have ever thought that would sound so long ago?) From what I can tell, Twilight is a kid-friendly, watered down dopple-ganger of the Crimson Trilogy with extra sprinklings of true love so that any sort of negative aspect of Bella's and Edward's relationship is excused. Oh, and Twilight has werewolves. The Crimson Trilogy doesn't.

Granted, any romance involving vampires is going to have similar plot points because we can't help ourselves. It's vampires. They're hot and fight scenes are sexy. Fight scenes with vampires are hot and sexy.

I know tons of people have ranted about this already and claim that "Breaking Dawn" ruined the Twilight Saga for them, but really, the freaking plot summary confused me.

Magical tampon-related pregnancy realization scene? Okay, I'm confused, but maybe I just need to read it in context.

Coming to term in a MONTH? Um, excuse me? How is that... WHY would you do that? Seriously! Nine months isn't good enough for writers anymore? What's the purpose of having her give birth in a month? Is there some time-sensitive plot device that I'm missing that requires the baby to come in a month after the honeymoon?

The birth breaks Bella's bones? Do you know how hard it is to break someone's bones? Internal bleeding not dramatic enough?

Then of course, the daughter-and-mom's-ex part. Is Wikipedia leading me astray by making me think that at the birth Jacob, the werewolf ex, "found his soul mate" in her? Either way, it's extremely creepy, nonsensical and awkward until the daughter hits puberty and even then it's still a bit creepy.

This plot point bothers me the most in "Breaking Dawn." The plot twist of the daughter and the mom's ex-boyfriend getting together, is kind of a rarity and both Twilight and the Crimson Trilogy share that plot twist in their final books. It makes me wonder things that Twilight Zombies would eat my brains over. Am I calling plagiarism? NO. I just don't think Twilight is as original as people would like to think it is. I was okay with it in "Crimson Shadows" but as a writer and a reader, I take issue with the idea.

I don't care for it mostly because it's kind of creepy for a lot of reasons that are difficult to put into words. When I try to figure it out, I find myself thinking how much it's like trying to argue on why incest is just plain icky without using The Bible. I personally would have a hard time getting over the idea of "Huh. The person I'm having sex with could have been my dad," in the dating-mom's-ex scenario.

But Frugal Fan! You were okay with that kind of pairing in "Crimson Shadows"!

Yes, I was okay with it to a degree because it made sense. The daughter was more than old enough to be in an romantically intimate relationship. She had dated before starting to see her mom's ex. She had sex before sleeping with her mom's ex. She knew what she wanted and had the ability to recognize what was and was not a healthy relationship. The daughter struggled with the idea, but realized that it was right for her. She also knew it would be awkward to tell her parents, but she was willing to deal with the consequences by sticking around and telling her parents in person. Mom's ex had enough time to finally get over Mom and didn't insist on seeing the daughter romantically ever. If anything, he helped raised her and struggled with the idea of having that become a romantic relationship because it was his oldest friend's daughter. They found out they were perfect for each other and decided to try to work things out because it's awkward. Mom was initially not okay with this relationship. In fact, both parents were down right murderous about it, but the couple managed to convince them to at least tolerate it.

SEE? It's almost a conflict within itself and a resolution because we can't have characters we like go on in life without true love. Sarcasm aside, as a reader, it's nice to know that this person you've come to know and like gets some love after being tossed aside, but there has to be better ways of doing it. Sadly though, that is in a perfect world. You'll be hard pressed to find a way to make both sides of the pairing emotionally significant to the reader without introducing some random character for no other reason outside of romance and who likes that?


It seems to me one of Meyers' big points is that she's so original with her vampires and the story. It's not. There is no "unlikely couple" here. The pairing of "predator and prey" has been DONE. It's an entire genre. It's called Gothic Romance. There are two basic criterion: It has vampires or other supernatural spookiness ergo it is Gothic. A character or characters want to have sex with each other so it's Romance. Gothic. Romance. Gothic Romance. Got it? Good.

But Frugal Fan! Twilight is SO MUCH MORE THAN VAMPIRES. IT'S NOT ABOUT VAMPIRES.

I am really tired of hearing that statement. Just because you say it over and over doesn't make it true. If it's not about vampires, why couldn't Meyers write a straight up romance and be done with it? There has to be some sort of significant to the vampires or else she wouldn't have put it in there. If it's for flash and bang, smoke and mirrors, freaking sprinkles and whipped cream, then she's using that plot device wrong. Yes, vampires are plot devices. I can't see how you can argue that they're NOT. They're a plot generator since they can live forever and have built in conflicts like being hunted by humans, hunted by other supernatural things etc.

What really bothers me about the overall Saga is that Bella is basically the most Mary Sue character I have ever heard of being published outside of the original Lt. Mary Sue from "A Trekkie's Tale" by Paula Smith. Whenever I put anything on the Internet, much less something actually put to print to be sold for real money, I have to angst and worry and fret on whether or not my characters are developed enough or if a plot device is contrived or a million other worries. Why do I do this? Because, I know that the kind of reader I want will tell me that I'm doing something wrong and will expect me to correct it. Maybe I am a bit overzealous over this, but I really want readers that have a low-tolerance for bad writing and Twilight just waltzes in with Bella, the most "Mary Sue" Mary Sue character in a long time, and the demographics just eat her up! I think I have a right to be a little frustrated, much like I was with "The DaVinci Code" which now I may write about since criticisms on the writing of Best Sellers apparently needs to be said.

I guess my point is I don't think Meyers did that good of a job and that's just judging from the plot by itself much less the actual writing. I don't know enough to say it's a danger like some people claim, but it just doesn't seem like a book that deserves all the attention it gets.

Is there a place of brain candy and fluff writing? Of course! I don't expect every novel that's ever published to be thought-provoking, awe-inspiring and many other hyphenated adjectives, but I want it to be at least well written.

Heroes - Well, Crap...

So I was minding my own business and logging onto AIM and, of course, the AIM dashboard decides to pop up in my Firefox window. I glance at it before I move my cursor to close the tab and notice there's a Heroes news line.

How could I resist?

About a third into the interview, I fell in love with Brea aka Daphne aka Speedster (they really couldn't think of a better alias? For shame, Heroes writers, for shame.) aka Hiro's rival/Catwoman. It was one of those moments of, "Wow! This person involved in something I love sincerely cares about the project for the same reasons I do!" And yes, the phrase, "ONE OF US," did come to mind. I mean, she cited the Flash! The interviewer didn't even have to bring it up!

SHE WENT TO COMIC CON FOR THE COMICS. Just like the rest of us. (I wonder what panels she goes to...)

So why does the title say "Well, Crap..."? Remember my fears from the premier episodes? Yeah, Love Interest #3, coming right up. It's just... BOTHERSOME. Sure, it's great that Hiro gets a love interest, but does he need his heartbroken by the end of every season? A heartbreak that he doesn't even seem to remember? Granted, Angsty-Hiro can be horrible for the series and can easily go so very badly, but the plot holes bother me more.

He's a caring, loving person. It doesn't make sense that he just forgets these women he falls in love with. If there's a flaw in my logic, Internet Land, please tell me. I really don't want to watch in dread.

Signed, for better or for worse,
Frugal Fan

The SPOILERIFIC Heroes Season 3 Premiere Reaction

If you haven't seen Heroes, you're missing out. To sum up the premise, it's a soft-core X-Men brought to a familiar modern world where it's only a few dozen rather than hundreds that are "Special." Season One - Genesis is where our intrepid cast is introduced one by one and discover their powers. Naturally, no one knows how the hell to use them or how they came to get them in the first place, which gives the show a nice human touch. Mohinder Suresh, genetist and the only main character without a power, is on a quest to gain his father's post-humos's respect and to find out more about these special individuals his father studied and theorized, causing him to fall out of favor with the scientisfic community.

Season Two - Evolutions. Not a horrible season. Was it as good as Season One? Probably not, but Season One had novelty on its side and it MILKED it. I watched, I loved and I am addicted. I dragged through Season Two in hopes of finding the Heroes goodness that I desired and I got it. Only in bits and pieces scattered throughout. When I look at the bandwagon, I think some people jumped ship.

I keep watching because for every disapointment, I get two pleasant surprises that I love. So here we go. Season Three, originally entitled Exodus, but due to a story adjustment, the title was changed to Villians, which can only mean badassry is afoot. Right?

Did you see it? I did. At least two thirds of the premiere. I'm hoping that NBC will once again will have Heroes in streaming video online so that we don't have to be pirates in order to get our fix.

As the title suggests, this is SPOILERIFIC, unforgivably revealing on everything on the two episode premiere.

I loved it. I hated it. I really wanted some private time after some parts. I still am not happy with Peter. Perhaps I'm going about this the wrong way...

Here is a brief list of hopes I had for the Heroes series from the last two season:

1. We find out what the hell Angela's power is.
2. More George Takei... Please? Pretty please? We could get some sweaty basketball players if that's what he really wants.
3. Peter stops being stupid.
4. Find out what happened to Catlin from Season 2. Plot hole much?
5. Does or does not the entire original group of "heroes" that formed the company have powers? Seriously. Evidence please.
6. Just have Maya die please... She was half the reason why Season 2 was such a disappointment in some ways.
7. Speedster nemesis for Hiro - please don't make me want to stab my eyes out.
8. Really now, NBC, is the online comic EVER going to affect the TV show? I need to know if my readership MEANS something! Not to mention the Elle story arcs were really good. I want that to show up in the series somehow.
9. Peter stops being stupid.
10. Mohinder stops being stupid at critical plot points.
11. Parkman doesn't become the universe's bitch again. It was getting really annoying that he was so continuously bitch slapped over and over again. When he finally managed to plant thoughts into other people, he had BAMF potential. Matt Parkman had a chance to shine. It can easily be all taken away.
12. Comercials, trailers and sneak peaks stop ruining the best plot twists. Really. Remember Season Two comerical? SHOWING Sylar was still alive? Yeah, best plot twist of the season and they ruin it.
13. Peter STOPS BEING A DUMBASS.

Okay, maybe I'm being a little harsh on Peter, but it seems like the conflict half the time for the past two seasons is "Peter did something dumb and now we have to fix it." Now with season three, the conflict really is "Peter did something dumb and now we have to fix it."

Fortunately, this means lots of Angela Petrelli screen time.

As you can tell, I really adore Angela. Why? For me it seems like, why not? She's well written, strong and a complete and utter BAMF. Did I mention well written? All of her dialogue is extremely well done and Cristine Rose does an amazing job executing. Since I was denied Malcolm McDowell, who was simply stunning in Season One, Angela playing a much larger role would do just fine.

But, oh! Dear, sweet Heroes writers! Have you been reading my diary? Angela taking over the company and Linderman possibly for entirely another season? I think I might just swoon... or simply nerdgasm all night over it.

And guess who is my favorite main charater? Hiro Nakamura, of course. How can anyone not love him? After watching the second half of "Second Coming" though, I realized something - Hiro doesn't keep any character development he gets.

No, seriously and it scares the living bejeesus out of me. Hiro was bascialy the reason I watched the first half of Season One and now the possibility that his writing may be completely shallow with no intention of growth really bothers me. That's what bad writing does. It bothers people. You have Love Interest #1 in Season One, Charlie. Who can forget Charlie? It was a really powerful and it made you really feel for Hiro as he struggled with his first true love and loss. Also as a bonus, the writers were really careful about Hiro mourning and made it believable. (At least, I wanted to believe. I'll just have to rewatch Season One... to make sure. Yeah... because I'm not one of those obsessive creepy fans. Nope, not me.)

Season Two. Love Interest #2. Does he reflect on Charlie at all as he falls in love with Yaeko? Not that we know of. Was this a bad subplot? Hell, no. They handled it well, made the transistion logical and tied it into the main plot is a plausible way. I honestly don't know why people complained about the pacing in Hiro's journey in Feudal Japan. There were much more grievous pacing problems (as well as some questionable writing choices) in Season Two. I suppose a quicker return of Hiro to the present might have helped fans cope with the Wonder Plage Twins journey to America with their wacky sidekick, Sylar.

Back to the point, with the beginning of Season Three, he's back to Season One, happy, nerdy Hiro. Granted, we love happy, nerdy Hiro with wacky sidekick Ando. But, is this a good thing? It's like they're resetting Hiro every season, scared that if he has any lasting character development that we'll dash off into the night like skiddish deer. And, are they seriously going to set up Batman/Catwoman parrelles for Hiro and the speedster? Like, romance? Is this the beginning of Love Interest #3?

I kind of hope not since I might end up tying myself to four horses and have them run in opposite directions. Unless the writers surprise me, which they have done before.

Last couple minutes of "Butterfly Effect."

You know what I'm talking about.

As always, yours truly,
Frugal Fan

PS: I almost forgot. What is with the blantant X-Men and 4400 plot points? I appreciate a writing staff that's are all nerds like the rest of us, but really did they think we wouldn't notice? I like nods. I give anything extra kudos when they have nods because it's nice to know that there are others that are just in love with certain fandoms as much as I am. But, there is a differnce between a nod and a being a weasal and failing at the sneaky. Nods are little snippets for people to find like Easter Eggs on DVDs or ... real Easter Eggs. You're a weasal that fails at subtlty when it's your main plot. Future Peter - Bishop much? Anyone can have powers/become special? I believe that was the second half of the 4400 series. It's even a sryinge again. Granted, I don't know what else it would be other than a sryinge, but I don't know how to feel about having it be a major visual for the plot like the Issac paintings or the reoccuring symbol that has manifested into its new earth-shattering form for Season Three. Nathan comes back from the dead and has a message from God? Jordan Collier, 4400 - Season Four.

Of course, this isn't really anything too new for Heroes. Season One was basically the plot for Watchmen by Alan Moore, but really, that was more of an adaptation than incompetent ninja weasal work. Not to mention, Heroes in a lot of ways IS the love-child of 4400 and X-Men.

Oh, and Suresh is Spider-Man now. I knew that I should have been excited, but I wasn't. The more I saw that he was like Spider-Man (I mean he even did the crawl up the wall thing with almost the exact same angle shot that the movies love so much.) the more I thought, "Man, that's a dissapointment." Whenever it comes to something The [Insert Adjective] Spider-Man related, even in the most remote sense, somewhere in my brain a little voice says, "Quesade makes Baby Continuity cry." If you don't know what I'm talking about, I feel cold and alone on the Internet. I don't even really read Marvel and I know about that.

Am I being unreasonably harsh? Maybe. There were only so many ways the series could go and do it well so maybe this plot won't fall flat on its face or feel redundant to us that know our comic book lore.

I intend to watch Villians faithfully, hoping for the best, but keeping my expectations low. Care to join me?

NEWSFLASH! $3 Sale at Top Shelf Productions!

That's right! Usually, I wouldn't entertain the thought of promoting retailers without having personal experience with them, but Top Shelf Productions not only looks top notch, has a variety of interesting titles, many, many talented comic creators and a time sensitive $3 Sale on certain items (a lot more than you'd think) as well as discounted prices on most of their stock. If you like graphic novels and feel like reading something that has some weight to it, definitely look at their titles.

This is the first time I've really looked at Top Shelf, but for a small production like them puts out a lot of really fantastic stuff, stuff that everyone should read at least once. The renown Bellen creator puts up his graphic essays here. This is where Comic-Con praised Blankets by Craig Thomson was published. (I've read Blankets personally and love it. It's definitely worth a read.) Alan Moore, whether you love or hate him, you must admit he is a good writer, also has works from here.

If anything, look through their inventory. It's some good reading just waiting for you.

And there's more! Top Shelf 2.0 is their personal online comics page, promising a new story EVERY WEEK DAY. A comic-du-jour from quality creators that have been around the block, know what they're doing and (basically) a good story garrunteed. How great is that?

Page and Screen: Joe Loves Crappy Movies

Webcomic - Joe Loves Crappy Movies
By: Joesph Dunn
Started: April 4, 2005
Updates: Weekly

God, I haven't done much on here for a while. To make up for it, I present Joe Loves Crappy Movies who is much more diligent than I am. (Please don't leave me.)

JLCM is not only a simple comic with very good sense of humor, but also weekly movie reviews. Now why would I review/highlight another movie reviewer?

Because he's damn good at what he does. His reviews are balanced and completely reasonable. Right from the start, he makes an effort to make readers realize that he isn't telling him what to see and what not to see, but rather voice his opinion and give readers the opportunity the same. As a bonus, he reads other reviews and calls them out when they're being unreasonable. He has a good rating system in place and my journey through his archives has brought me to the conclusion he's willing to learn and redo his methods in order to present the best product. Which is fantastic.

I haven't thoroughly check through his forums yet, but it looks like exactly the kind of people he was appealing to - people that can think for themselves and not take the world seriously all the time.

Do you know what else makes JLCM very awesome? It hosts four other comics done by Irvsher Fabor - Fish Tank Tango, Kevin Gleason - Retail Rage and Philip Chan collaborating with Joe Dunn - Matriculated, and another Joe Dunn production - Free Lunch: Fred the Food Critic. Once I get the chance, I'll most likely write up a shoutout for these as well.

Cheers, Internet!

Yours Truly,
Frugal Fan

PS: The vote incentives are completely worth it with a forum thread showcasing past incentives as well.