Godzilla & Criterion - The Monster vs. The Premier Boutique Label

The Criterion Collection is a well-known boutique distributor of aesthetically-interesting films on physical media. The company releases films that have had some significant artistic or cultural merit and has released well-over 1,000 films on disc. Its releases span the world's cinema, it has distributed films from every civilized continent on the planet. Japanese films are no exception and of course the biggest cultural icon that Japanese live-action cinema is Godzilla. Even if you may debate the artistic merits of the Godzilla films, they indisputably have had a significant cultural impact over the last 71 years. Criterion has released films in the Godzilla series on four separate occasions. In this blog article we will take the deepest dive into its releases, both the positives and negatives.

Tandy 1000 EX & HX vs. Color Computer 3 vs. Commodore 128 vs. Apple IIc - Which is the Better All-in-One?

In the calendar year of 1986 Tandy introduced two all-in-one computers, the Tandy 1000 EX and the Tandy Color Computer 3. Both were competitively priced at $799.00 and $219.95, respectively. At first the budget-conscious consumer may have chosen the CoCo 3 over the EX. By the next year the price of the EX had dropped by $100 while the Tandy 1000 HX took its prior price. At the same time the CoCo 3 dropped in price by $20, where it would stay until it was discontinued in 1990. The HX would displace the EX and eventually fall to $699 before it was also discontinued in 1990. In this article we will compare the features of these all-in-ones feature by feature and try to determine which would have really been the better purchase.

The 1977 Trinity - Which Computer is the Best Buy?

The 1977 Trinity, Courtesy of Wikipedia, Image by Timothy Colegrove

Consider that you have been transported back in time to the heady and hot summer of 1977. You are wanting one of these new "personal computers" that you see advertised in Popular Mechanics and Byte Magazine. Maybe you've seen an ad from Radio Shack. Perhaps you saw a flyer from that pocket calculator company called Commodore. Or you are a hobbyist frustrated with time sharing on the local college's PDP-10 and want a microcomputer of your very own. After you've seen Star Wars for the third time, you want to be part of the computer age. You have three choices, which will you chose? Let's break down the Apple II, Tandy Radio Shack TSR-80 and the Commodore PET 2001 and see how they might factor into a buyer's decision.

Is the Original Tandy Color Computer Worth your Gaming Time?

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Tandy Corporation's first home computer was the TRS-80, released in 1977. The TRS-80 was fairly affordably priced for its time but limited to monochrome text and extremely blocky semigraphics. 1979 saw the release of the TRS-80 Model II, a business machine with an 8" floppy disk drive incompatible with the previous computer or the budget of a middle-class family. With color computer systems like the Atari 400 and TI-99/4 being released in the late 1970s, Tandy realized that if it wanted to have any chance of capturing the growing home market for personal computers, it would need to offer a low-cost model with colorful graphics and a family-friendly appeal. Fortunately it had an ace up its sleeve in the form of the thousands of Radio Shack company and franchise stores dispersed across the United States and Canada that could sell a lower cost computer. That computer turned out to be the TRS-80 Color Computer, released in 1980. Having recently acquired one, let me go over some of its features and quirks.

Comparison of Comic Book Reproduction Editions - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 vs. Cerebus #1

As regular readers of this blog should no doubt be aware of by now, I have had a resurgent interest in comic books. There is nothing quite like holding and reading stapled pieces of folded paper together that tell a story with pictures and word balloons. Recently I have discussed both the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Cerebus the Aardvark. Now let's compare a pair of recent authorized reproduction editions of the first issue of each series.

Cerebus the Aardvark Early Issues and Reprints

Since I have gone through the early years of TMNT I thought I would touch upon some highlights of one of the comics which inspired TMNT, Cerebus the Aardvark. Cerebus was created by one David Victor Sim with issue #1 premiering in December, 1977. The book ended with issue #300 in March, 2004. The comic was self-published and Dave Sim set up his own company, Aardvark-Vanaheim, to publish the comic. This blog entry will devote itself to distinguishing features made through the end of the main series. Another blog entry may look into similar features after that period.

TMNT Early Issues and Reprintings in Depth Part III of III

Having posted the first and second part of my in depth review of the early issues and reprints of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we come to the final chapter, covering the years 1988 & 1989. These are years of great success and the beginnings of the first "turtle mania" phenomenon which will last the next five years. But at what price came fame and fortune? Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird and Mirage Studios would, as we will see, struggle with the demands that popular culture will place on an independent "alternative" comic:

TMNT Early Issues and Reprintings in Depth Part II of III

In Part II of my series on the early TMNT issues and reprints, we enter into Mirage Studios' years of expansion. While Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were responsible for all of Mirage's 1984 and much of its 1985 output, in 1986 not only do they publish new, non-TMNT books but also take on new, young and talented artists to contribute to TMNT.  These years will lay the groundwork for the huge success of the TMNT as a licensed property, and it is documented in the pages of the TMNT comic book. Let's see how: