Started: The New Teen Titans Volume Five by Marv Wolfman and George Perez

Check out this book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4ft0B6Z

(This is an Amazon Associate's link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

Avengers: No Surrender: Book Review

(Book Review--Marvel Comics)

Started: December 20, 2024

(This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.) 

Avengers: No Surrender: Book Review

Check out this book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4iXbK38

(This is an Amazon associate's link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

2nd Maccabees (The Jerusalem Bible): Book Discussion

(Book Review--The Bible, Religion, The Classics, Blogging the Canon) 

Part of my project to read through the Bible.  

(As noted in the video, because this book is not part of the Protestant Bible, this is my first time reading through this book.  So, according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.) 

2nd Maccabees (The Jerusalem Bible): Book Discussion

I explain about my background with the Bible and my reasons for doing this read-through in this blog post here: https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-book-of-genesis-from-jerusalem-bible.html

The version of 2nd Maccabees I read was from The Jerusalem Bible: Reader's Edition.  Check it out on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4fbgM92

(This is an Amazon Associate's link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

Started: Avengers: No Surrender

Check out this book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4iXbK38

(This is an Amazon associate's link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

Bone: More Tall Tales by Jeff Smith with Tom Sniegoski: Book Review

(Book Review--Comic Books)

Started: December 17, 2024

(This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.) 

Bone: More Tall Tales by Jeff Smith with Tom Sniegoski: Book Review

My review of Bone: The Complete Cartoon Epic: https://youtu.be/gjWmm9UoSDo

Check out this book on Amazon.com: https://amzn.to/49GCTTI

(This is an Amazon associate's link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

I'm a few days late posting this, but on Monday, Mike Duncan posted this on Twitter:

Big announcement at the beginning of this weeks episode for all you Revolutions podcast fans

— Mike Duncan (@mikeduncan) December 16, 2024

And if you listen to the first 2 minutes of the episode below, you can hear what it is.

...if you didn't listen, basically Mike Duncan is announcing that he's now coming back to do more seasons of Revolutions.

This isn't a complete surprise.  Mike Duncan had always left open the possibility of coming back to do more episodes.  In 2022, someone had asked him about doing the Spanish Civil War, and Mike Duncan said on Twitter, "No, but also...yes.  Revolutions is ending with Russia. But the model is such that in five or ten years I can always just up and decide to do another series. And Spanish Civil War is high on that list."  (Those tweets are no longer available because Mike Duncan periodically deletes all his old Tweets.  But I had saved them in an old blogpost.)

Based on that old Tweet, I had been expecting that Mike Duncan would come back to do an odd season here or there in between his other projects.  But I am very pleasantly surprised to hear that he's coming back to do the series full time.

The revolutions that Mike Duncan mentions specifically in this latest episode are Ireland, Algeria, Cuba and Iran, so presumably those are the ones that are in his mind right now.  I'm also hopeful that he'll cover many more: Turkey, the Spanish Civil War, The Chinese Revolution, Vietnam, etc.  But we'll see.  Mike Duncan will ultimately do what he wants to do.

(I always find it a bit funny when people get on Twitter or go in the comments and insist that Mike Duncan cover this or that revolution.  Fans can get so entitled sometimes.  I guess that's the Internet for you.)

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As much as this is good news, it does throw a monkey wrench into my neat little plan to listen to the Revolutions Podcast straight through one or two times and then to do a review of the whole series. 

But then, that's podcasting for you.  Many podcasts don't have a neat end point--they just keep going indefinitely.  And I've reviewed many podcasts and Youtube series on this blog that were ongoing at the time I reviewed them (e.g. here, here, here, here).

So here's what I'll do: I'll continue my project of listening to the entire Revolutions Podcast all the way through. (I'll probably listen through twice.)  This will include any new episodes that come out between now and when I finish the project.  Then, I'll give a general review of the whole podcast at the state it is when I finish listening to everything.

Then, I might come back to do in-depth listenings of later seasons, and post separate mini-reviews of them, the way I did with the first 10 seasons.  But I'll do this in between checking out other podcasts I am interested in.

I reserve the right to skip over any seasons of Revolutions Podcast I'm not particularly interested in (e.g. Mike Duncan's 12 episode appendix at the end of season 10, and Mike Duncan's fictional Martian Revolution).   I'll listen to them when I do my run-through of the whole series, but I won't do separate reviews of them.

**********************************************

In the interim, when it looked like Mike Duncan had finished the Revolutions Podcast, another podcaster had stepped in to fill in the gap with 20th Century Revolutions.

As he states in his first episode, he is explicitly influenced by Mike Duncan, and planning to pick up where Mike Duncan left off.

I've not made a project of listening to his podcast thoroughly (because I'm still busy finishing up Revolutions), but I've dipped in and out of a few episodes, and it sounds like he's doing really good work on this.  I've been planning on doing his podcast after I finally finish up with Mike Duncan's Revolutions.

His analytics on Youtube are really low at the moment (only a few subscribers, barely any views on each episode), so I hope he doesn't get discouraged and quit.  

A few weeks ago, I commented on one of his episodes:

It's a pity these videos don't have more views.  You're doing good work here.  I think a lot of podcasts just take time to find their audience.  Keep at it, and I'm sure you'll connect with your audience eventually.  It may take them some time to find you, but I think they'll find you eventually.

...I meant it as supportive and hopefully he took it that way.  (He never responded, and I'm not sure whether or not he appreciated the comment. I hope he didn't feel like I was rubbing salt into the wound by drawing attention to his low numbers.)  

I also have no idea what his analytics are on other platforms.  To be fair, a lot of podcasts do really low numbers on the Youtube platform (Mike Duncan included), but presumably they have better statistics on Podcasting apps.

Anyway, I have no idea how this guy feels about Mike Duncan coming back in to cover the same field he's currently covering.  Hopefully he doesn't give up.  (It'd be really great to have both of them cover the same subject area.  Then we can have 2 perspectives.)

You can show support for 20th Century Revolutions by doing all the usual social media things: subscribing, liking their videos, etc.

The website is here, Youtube channel here, patreon here.

Masters of the Universe: Revelation: Series Review

(TV Show Review)

Started: December 07, 2024

This is my first time reviewing this series, so according to my new rules, I am doing this as a video only review.

Prologue to Masters of the Universe: Revelation review--Reminiscing about Masters of the Universe

As I state in the video, my original intention was to have this video be a little bit about my thoughts on the Masters of the Universe franchise, but mostly about Masters of the Universe: Revelation.  But I ended up talking for so long about my thoughts on the franchise, that it just ended up that this video was all reminiscing about the franchise.  The next video, then, will be my review of  Masters of the Universe: Revelation 

In the video, I mention seeing in toy stores animals that turn into rocks that were released as Master of the Universe toys.  For more information about them, see here: https://youtu.be/Va_jgg4MddM?si=tdkEFqcKrHBxEl8h

See also: https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2024/12/meteorbs-interesting-random-facts-since.html

and https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2024/12/as-you-might-have-seen-from-my-started.html

Article about The Dark Age of Animation: https://www.librarypoint.org/blogs/post/the-dark-age-of-animation/

Masters of the Universe: Revelation Part 1 (Episodes 1-5): Review

Links to things mentioned:

* The Avclub review (one of several reviews which claimed this was a direct continuation of the original series): https://www.pluggedin.com/tv-reviews/masters-of-the-universe-revelation/

* The video by Midnight's Edge video about how this series is not an actual sequel to the original series, because they don't own the rights to the original series: https://youtu.be/G9SJ2Yp84Lo?si=uiHsGZ8Yc-3VP072

* The Movie Bob video: https://youtu.be/-TES4G_7gyw?si=n8NPOZM7hbFI2-aU

* My review of "Happy Birthday Roboto": https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2024/12/as-you-might-have-seen-from-my-started.html

Masters of the Universe: Revelation Part 2 (Episodes 6-10): Review

Playlist HERE: 

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Check out He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: The Complete Original Series [DVD] on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/41tJoHd  

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: the Complete Series Remake DVD: https://amzn.to/3DkMljo

Watch He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002): https://amzn.to/3BqFd4x

(These are Amazon Associate's links.  If you buy anything through these links, I get a commission.)