space age robot

[davemerrill]

New post about whatever happened to a remake of an old anime show, at Let's Anime!

http://letsanime.blogspot.com/

Also, fans of the parody dubbing scene of the '90s will be intrigued as Sherbert Productions returns to set the record straight in the comments of my Livejournal from last January!

http://davemerrill.livejournal.com/475053.html

And what have we been up to this weekend? Saturday was the pulp show down at the Toronto Public Library, so we trotted on over there and checked it out. I got some old pulps for cheap, had my sense of outrage given a good workout at some of the prices - Item: Set of 8, mass market paperbacks circa 1981, the Family D'Lambert series by Stephen Goldin based on manuscripts or notes or grocery lists of E.E. "Doc" Smith - price, $100. That's right, a hundred smackers for fake "Doc" Smith paperbacks from the 80s, seen in the Goodwill for fifty cents each. Most of the dealers were cranky, no-change-havin' motherscratchers who were more than willing to try and sell me Ace doubles for seventeen bucks. Not today, pal. The pulps I did get weren't in great shape, but they have nutty illustrations, which is all I'm buying them for. I also got a late 70s kook paperback entitled BEYOND STAR WARS, a ersatz Velikovsky trying to shoehorn myths and legends into scientific fact, bookended with references to The Force in order to tie it into the popular film. Essential for your fake Star Wars collection AND fills in those holes in your UFO kook-book shelf! Later that evening we saw SPEED RACER, which I enjoyed very much, probably more than I should have. The Scotiabank was just about empty; their debit/credit card machines weren't working so every transaction was CASH ONLY. It's like going back to the stone age! Bad for them but I like seeing movies in non-crowded theaters.

Today we went drapes shopping, saw some awesome fabric printed with 40s teen characters emoting badly translated English (hint: to denote "love", don't use the heart that has a knife through it), got some Italian for an early dinner, and now it's laundry time. Kind of rainy out there today.

Next week I have to drop some discs off at City TV, got to get a haircut, buy some cel paint, get ready for Anime North - it's coming down fast!

Comments

[wednesday]

Wow. That thing went from "but I said THIS!" to spelling pedantry in very few moves.

[dwinghy.livejournal.com]

Guys who make anime parody videos being pedantic? Say it ain't so!

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

I think what gets me is the attitude that "Well after 11 years I'm glad you're still ragging on Sherbert Productions!" Um, no, mentioning you once in 11 years is not "still ragging". I find it hard to work up strong emotions one way or another about decades-old anime parody dubs I've never seen, made by people I don't know.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

I have, or had, one of those awful, horrible D'Lambert books somewhere around here.

I also have Triplanetary.

I like the D'Lambert book far better than Triplanetary.

(In much the same way that I like an allergy sinus headache better than having my fingers slammed in a door, but I do prefer the one to the other.)

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

I've seen the D'Lambert books around and have been curious about them, but not $100 curious.

To be honest if the guy had had the three David Kyle Lensman books for, say, fifty bucks, THAT would have been tempting, because I NEVER see those for sale. I see the D'Lambert books pretty much all the time for a buck or two.

Again, I say TRIPLANETARY is probably the weakest of the lot; you're better off with GALACTIC PATROL or GRAY LENSMAN.

[animejump.livejournal.com]

Really? Shit, I'm pretty sure I own the David Kyle paperback of DRAGON LENSMAN. I didn't find his Tregonsee book, though.

They weren't altogether too bad, those books. Was there a third? Who was it about, Van Buskirk?

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

I think that third book was about the Quadro Gang wearing custom satin baseball jackets. No, wait....

His third Lensman book was about Nadreck of Palain Seven! I bet that one just flew off the shelves. Seriously though, David Kyle is a really nice guy and I heard good things about those books.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

http://www.redjacketpress.com/index.html

Scroll down for the Kyle books, they've got sweet covers.

[animejump.livejournal.com]

Well, so much for the David Kyle books being hard to find then, eh? $47.85 for all three, plus shipping, direct from the publisher. If you want to be a cheap bastard, half.com has 'em for about $9 each. Man, those covers are great.

I didn't notice this before, but it looks like there are also high-quality reprints of the Skylark books coming out (first two are out now-- much less impressive covers, though). I'm tempted, my early-80s Berkeley paperbacks are beat to shit, and I never did sniff out Skylark DuQuense.

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

I'm not the only one who heard the distinct tones of 'Comic book shop guy' in all that, am I?

"we did NOT have FOUR jackets, there was only ONE jacket and I was wearing it! The other three had TEE Shirts and if you could not remember that then you, sir, are a fool! Good Day!"

Yeesh.

As to the Faux Smith books, I honestly can't recall if I got them all. Didn't they have illos by Howard Chaykin on the covers?

[goofyrobo.livejournal.com]

HHaha, I haven't read wank like that since well, 1997...^^

[hipsterdad.livejournal.com]

Jesus!! It was your week for Livejournal drama, evidently.

[hooverdam.livejournal.com]

Also, fans of the parody dubbing scene of the '90s will be intrigued as Sherbert Productions returns to set the record straight in the comments of my Livejournal from last January!

jesus CHRIST

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

They are coming out of the darkness to confirm all our 11-year old impressions about their character, if not the exact number of satin baseball jackets.

[efathefinger.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I think the JACO group was about just as bad, and there was just no way we could afford satin jackets.
I think most of us are better now.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

At the risk of dredging up painful memories, I will say at least Sherbert never published a fanzine dedicated to a moment-by-moment account of their experiences at an anime con, including - yes! - the stalking. Because that was something special.

[efathefinger.livejournal.com]

What, socially disfunctional people having difficulty expressing themselves in a non-creepy way? I'm not sure I remember the details, but I'm pretty sure that eventually everybody grew up and lived somewhat less weird lives.
Normal people were hard to find back then. One of my favorites (not JACO, but might as have been)
http://www.wampner.org/awa3/1_098_315_22_800.jpg

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Ya know, I bet the deal with the satin jacket went something like this...

"Hey, I got an idea! let's all get satin baseball jackets with this logo on it! we can pool our money and it'll be COOL!"

"YEAH! We'll be king of the cons! OK, here's mine!" x3

"Well, we didn't have enough to get 4 jackets now, I just got the one and we'll get more money together later, I promise...but here's some T-shirts so we're all the same, right?"

(can you tell I've seen the 'you guys pay for my stuff' gag before?)

Hey Dave - Thought the Horse Was Dead...Guess Not

[(Anonymous)]

"They are coming out of the darkness to confirm all our 11-year old impressions about their character, if not the exact number of satin baseball jackets." - davemerrill

Hi Dave - Phillip Sral of Sherbert Productions again. Nice to see that you've stopped getting personal after your post of:

"You know, I already apologized for my faulty memory and the insulting tone of my 11-year old impressions. If you guys want to continue to beat this dead horse, fine, but please realize that at this point you're complaining about something that's already been resolved, as far as I'm concerned."

Funny thing is - I found that post of yours quite by accident as I was looking to see if any old listing of the Sherbet website still existed as I prepped to put it back up. The last post before that was nearly 4 months old; yep you and Matt replied within a few hours. What? Are you guys still so full of yourselves that you check 4 month old blog threads (or worse get every reply auto e-mailed to you; and hell, Matt even posts anonymously) - yet you make comments regarding the size of our egos like:

"but those Sherbert guys were too full of themselves."

Kind of the Pot calling the Kettle Black, eh?

Hell, Matt goes on a tirade about my misspelling "Corn" as "Corne" - and then he tries to tell us how to spell "Sherbet" (not part of our name as was shown); then you chime in with:

"So who exactly is trying to "make" you do anything? Jesus, call it whatever you want! Throw some Z's in there if it makes you feel better."

My point? I just find it interesting when you talk about us saying:

"They are coming out of the darkness to confirm all our 11-year old impressions about their character, if not the exact number of satin baseball jackets."

Yet seem oblivious to the fact that you and Matt returned to a 4 month old blog within just a few hours of my new post. Just What does that say about your character when you deride us for spelling mistakes; yet seem to think that someone else misspelling "Corn Pone" as "Corne Pone" is a major affront?

Again, we never did any personal attacks regarding your character like say, calling you all a bunch of self-obsessed retard rednecks from the deep south, or something like that.

But, I do stand by my recollection of events regarding the panel. We were in fact contacted by Ryan and offered a spot on that panel; (and hell, I didn't even know you guys were running AWA until I got that e-mail from Ryan; and didn't even realize he was part of your CPF group until someone in our group mentioned it to me.) We were initially invited to show our "Ninja Team Gatchaman: 7-Zark-7 Must Die!" and "Ninja Team Gatchaman: Bring Me The Head of Sandy Frank!" (No, we didn't 'beg' or initiate the e-mail contact) at the "GatchaCon" program held at the AWA 1997 Con. I thought they were affiliated with AWA, but if not, my mistake; but that's also why we turned down Ryan's offer of time in the main video room opposite the Cos-Play because we wanted to attend the Cos-Play as well.

As for Matt's assertion that:

"At no point in that panel-and I WAS on it-did we ever tell you "this is our panel," because we had always shared the parody panel with other groups since A-Kon had started. I remember it as the panel where you guys never said very much and didn't seem very enthusiastic about talking about your own work. Hence, we did a great deal of the talking."

1) I don't know what A-Kon has to do with any of this as this was at AWA.

2) We were actually quite interested in talking about our stuff; but couldn't get a word in much since Matt and the others never bothered to stop talking about themselves, even when an audience member had a question.

BTW - I do realize that after this post, I'm sure a few people will continue with the "OMG! These geeks just won't shut up..." But hey, I wasn't the one who said:

"If you guys want to continue to beat this dead horse, fine, but please realize that at this point you're complaining about something that's already been resolved, as far as I'm concerned."

But, I suppose there must be a desperate need for glue in Atlanta, since you Dave, seem to be the one who won't let this poor dead horse rest in peace.

Re: Hey Dave - Thought the Horse Was Dead...Guess Not

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

(a) LiveJournal has a neat little thing where, when you log it, it shows you the newest comments, which is how I saw that an old post had new comments.

(b) I don't live in Atlanta.

(c) Do you realize that cataloging the wrongs done unto you and nit-pickingly setting the record straight about what happened at a panel at a convention eleven years ago... this is what I'm talking about when I say you're confirming my initial impressions? Not that I'm not flattered to be the flashpoint for a decade's worth of pent-up hostility, but there MUST be more important things to tackle out there.

I know the fantasy of me and Matt and CB and whoever engaging on a years-long "insult Sherbert" campaign is an attractive scenario. But the fact is, as I said earlier, I mentioned you once in 11 years, which I think is pretty appropriate for a dubbing group I don't know personally and whose work I haven't seen.

To be honest, if I hadn't reprinted that article from the "Anime Hell" blog - which was in turn a re-purposing of an article I wrote back in 1999 - the subject of anime parody dubbing would not have even come near to impinging upon my conciousness.

I must say it's been an interesting discussion; ranging from 'who's fat' to pedantic arguments about proper spelling to whether or not Corn Pone Flicks ever got a cease and desist letter to who said what at which convention sometime eleven years ago. Who knows what new and exciting revelations are to come?

Re: Hey Dave - Thought the Horse Was Dead...Guess Not

[(Anonymous)]

Matt Murray

I like his definition of "anonymous," which now includes situations in which the person signs his name at the top. Kind of-exactly-the same way he does. No, I didn't start up an account with LJ just to shoulder my way into someone else's conversation and complain at them. Maybe Mr. Jones should keep up his new journal, so he can measure just how much we never bother intruding on his conversations.

Heck, maybe we did talk right over them at AWA...SOMETHING, after all, has blotted all memory of their ever being there at all from my mind. I remember one entire occasion of sharing a panel with Sherbert, at A-Kon 1996, which unequivocally was the one where we dicussed the whole "lawyer" non-incident. The one whole panel I did at AWA in '97 was the amateur film festival-which, in point of fact, WAS our panel.

I'll offer a cash reward to anyone who can find where I said the misspelling of our name was a "major affront," when I actually just found it to be kind of dumb.

Re: Hey Dave - Thought the Horse Was Dead...Guess Not

[dwinghy.livejournal.com]

DUDE-- go back to Usenet. You're keeping this shit alive by responding LINE BY LINE FOR FUCKS SAKE to everything Dave says, and throwing responses to Matt in to comments to Dave, which makes no fucking sense.
In case you haven't noticed, people are laughing at you. Yeah, YOU. Not Dave or Matt or Corney Poney Flickys. You and your stupid satin jackets, which seem to be such a source of shame for you that you can't stop crying whenever someone so much as mentions them.

PS SATIN JACKETS.

Re: Hey Dave - Thought the Horse Was Dead...Guess Not

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Yay! Teh Drama Continues!

:: goes to nuke up some Paul Newman popcorn::

Re: Hey Dave - Thought the Horse Was Dead...Guess Not

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

I was saying I should really start charging for this.

Re: Hey Dave - Thought the Horse Was Dead...Guess Not

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

I note with amusement there's been no clarification or shirt-rending about my comments how I suspect the SATIN JACKET came into being...i.e. the old 'you guys pay for my stuff' gag.

Also they have no idea I was the instigator for the Gatchacon thing at AWA, based on off-hand mentions of AWA on the old Gatchaman mailing list and how cool it would be to have a get-together, another case of "you mean regular people can do such things?!" I was happy to have something to do with.

S*A*T*I*N* J*A*C*K*E*T*S*

(I shouldn't be so harsh on that except for the humor value of poking things with a stick. Once I wanted 'Telephone Pole Gang' happi coats for my friends to wear around at a con and be cooler than cool because who the hell would get Perfectual Earth Defense Force gags?)

Re: Hey Dave - Thought the Horse Was Dead...Guess Not

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

I never could get that same crew of people together to do any more Gatchaman programming at AWA. It seemed to go pretty well for what it was, and it was a good use of the space. I loved the staff at the Century Center, but it was strangely designed and had a lot of meeting rooms that were oddly-shaped. The Gatchaman room was this skinny oblong sort of room off the main hall, you couldn't really use it for anything but really focussed programming. Still, if I had to run a convention that got 750-1250 attendees, the Century Center would be the place to do it.

Steve, what was the second AWA you came to? Was it 4 or 5 or 6 or what?

Re: Hey Dave - Thought the Horse Was Dead...Guess Not

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Wow...now you're asking tough questions!

Let's see...I've got program books for AWA 1-5, but I'm pretty sure there was one of those I didn't attend and you sent me the books for friendship's sake.

Were I a betting man, I would guess...wait! badges! I think I have all my badges!

::rummage rummage rummage::

Well, that's odd. I can only find my badges for AWA 1(I think. big B&W badge with Prince Planet on it) and 5. I *know* I was at 3 and 4...

Can't imagine where the other badges are, all my A-Kon and ACen badges are here...

[tohoscope.livejournal.com]

$17 for Ace Doubles??? What, were they gold plated or something? The most I've ever paid for an Ace Double was maybe $5 if I really really wanted the book. But $17?

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

It was DR. FUTURITY and THE UNTELEPORTED MAN... in pretty good shape, too. But not worth $17. I would have gone $7, which is what the cryptic markings on the inside seemed to indicate. I might even have gone $10. But the dealer was so dismissive- I had to interrupt his vitally important conversation with somebody to get a price - that I just let it lie and went on about my bidness. I'll find it again for two bucks somewhere down the line.