Monday, July 4, 2011

Barbi Twins Adventures #1 (Plus Dancing!)



"Adventures" is too strong a word. "Stumbles into nonsense" would be more accurate.




And, of course, as a bonus since I have nothing to offer for the holiday, enjoy America's independence with our freedom to dance with the TGWTG Year 3 Dance Spectacular!



...and of course, don't forget to check out the commentaries in the next post below!

102 comments:

Razorvine said...

First off, just wanted to say again, how nice it was to meet you at CONvergence. Even though I lost my cool and was shaking in my x-ray specs and lab coat LOL.

Anyway, about the comic, I also agree it would have been much better if it had been about the Barbie dolls and not these vapid models.

This comic was all over the place in its story. It was practically schizophrenic.

So does that Razor character have her own series? Is she actually like, supposed to be important enough to warrant mention on the cover in order to draw people in?

NO!!! Harvey!!!

Mountain King said...

At two minutes in I decided to reach for the whiskey. This was going to be a bad one. Whenever you have to defend your feminist views ("hey women are people too, imagine that!") I just know things are going to get… nasty

Oh and dragons with glasses instantly makes this a good comic, it's going to take something epic in stupidity to ruin this. Namely the lead heroines, but even they are overshadowed by this plot. There were so many mistakes, pointlessness and out right wrongness on every page.

This thing was so bad I almost gave up on the review. I can see why you gave it that introduction.

To round it off the art was so out of context I almost got whiplash. It was passable, but bloody hell. A little bit of consistency would have gone a long way. Hell the Barbi's faces, figures and, as you pointed out, their costumes changed almost from panel to panel without rhyme or reason.

This was simply written for, as you put it, T&A. If I wanted that I'd buy any one of a number of porn comics I've seen kicking about at the back of bargain bins.

Stupid, awful, pointless and somehow painful. Not as bad a comic as, say, Cry For Justice or Batman Fortunate Son. But most of the pain of those comes from continuity. Not the 'Why the hell was this made" this shares with Bimbo's in Time.

You know I'm beginning to think that women, in comic books at least, aren't people. I mean looking purely at the evidence provided they can't be. Their spines are made of rubber, their waist taken from a mutated wasp and their brains… missing and not needed.

Still any review that has a beast wars clip of megaton's infamous "yessSS" is automatically one of your best! Now if only you could fins a Beast Wars comic...

Thomas

Kyu said...

Harvey, nooooooo!

Geez, the Entity got another one? At this rate, there won't be any characters left. And 90's Kid is just becoming more and more suspicous to me...

Anonymous said...

Would you'd rather read a comic about Razor running around killling mobsters in her nightcatish outfit? I'd say yes

Also

YOU SOB, NOT HARVEY!

Yogurt said...

Bimbos in time at least had a plot. This was just...this was....I don't know what the fuck this was.

art.the.nerd said...

Linkara, you're trying to apply logic to what was clearly a tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top Wally Wood-style cheesecake story. It's like complaining that Rebecca Black's "Friday" is not as good as "Putting on the Ritz". You're using a howitzer to smash a flea.

By the way, I think Female Two-Face's name is Betty Blow Dried.

P.S. I thought the "Barbi-cued" joke was pretty good.

Jarkes said...

NO, NOT HARVEY TOO! *sob* WHY, CRUEL WORLD, WHY?

...In regards to the review, I loved the Beast Wars clip. That's my favorite Transformers series. What's yours?

TheUberNerdyKid said...

Aha! When Female Two-Face said "You Infernal Barbi Twins, she actually said Barbi Twits! Hooray for unnecessarily correcting people!

Jaebird said...

I had to stop the video and say how awesome it was to see Beast Wars Megatron, again.

Armor Kabuto said...

All glory to Hefkara!

Also, I actually remember when this thing was being offered. God I feel old now...

Ringadon said...

beast wars reference for the win!!!

David 2 said...

Thank you for clarifying your earlier thoughts on women in comics.

Good review, and now I guess 90's Kid will be bummed out for not doing karaoke.

BTW, superb job with Suburban Knights.

Anonymous said...

There seems to be a lot of video glitches for me for some reason. Aside from that, good review so far.

Werezilla said...

I actually saw the Beast Wars Megatron reference coming, also considering how you lost the Ninja Style Dancer you think you would have installed better security to make sure another character wouldn't be taken by the entity.

BooRat said...

Wow! Great and Funny review! I actually came into this review thinking this was about the dolls too. I didn't know about there actually being real Barbi Twins.
You know this comic or the leads in it reminds me of a dumb blond joke. It goes a little sometihng like this, "A blond wanted to kill her self so she bought a gun. She went into her bedroom and setd down on her bed and put the gun up to her chest, but thought, 'Oh no I can't shoot myself in the chest. I spent too much on my boob job.' So, she then aimed the gun at her head, but then thought, 'Oh no I can't shoot myself in the face I spent too much on plastic surgery and I just had my hair done and I want an open casket.' So, she put the gun up to her ear hoping to shoot threw her eardrum and not effecting the appearince of her head. But, again she thought, 'Oh no this'll be really loud.' So, she put one of her fingers in her other ear and pulled the trigger and blew her finger off!"
That wa probaly funnier than the entirity of that comic and it's jokes.
I do like the credit art that was done you you as a Hugh Hefner style character.
So, I got one question for you Linkara. Will you read and review a comic of that Razor character if one excist(I don't know if one does but from that cover comment it sounds like she's from another series or has hr own title omewhere)?

I haven't watched the 2nd video yet but I will and comment afterwards.

Kimarous said...

The bespectacled Western-style dragon made me think of the Bookwyrm from "Mixed Up Fairy Tales"...

Yeah, if you want to see the "mildly ditzy girls as super-spies" thing does well, check out Totally Spies.

Jesse said...

So... did the Barbi Twins actually save that agent that they replaced in the battle arena?

Thanks for filling us in on the feminist stuff. All we ever see are horrible caricatures of feminism in the media (mostly) and hearing a bit about how feminism actual is was a welcome. What DO feminist think of porn anyways?

Damn that entity! First it got Ninja Style Dancer and not it has Harvey! Who's going to make everything he says sound cool now? I don't think you're budget is big enough for Sean Connery.

SolarisPrime said...

Absolutely Definately MissingNO. The clues have become too obvious,at this point. It is soooo clearly MissingNO - at least, unless you pull a really fast one, which would be total bullshit. At any rate, Harvey was playing a video game and is evidently familiar with them, perhaps moreso than the Linkara character - he would, as would any of your viewers paying enough attention, easily recognize the Entity's true identity.

Oh, and the direct upload looks and plays fine for me, plus it can be watched on an iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. THAT is awesome.

Jer Alford said...

The Barbi Twins also did a crossover with Zen: Intergalactic Ninja.

Volvagia said...

Flea? I don't know if I'd say that. Even if you view it as tongue in cheek it's still bad. If you accept ASSBAR as tongue in cheek, i'd say it's decent but there's still 1. The problem of marketing it as a serious Batman story, which flares up fans sensors when no way should someone be treating it seriously, 2. Tied in with the mis-marketing, there's the repetitive dialogue (repeating words and phrases makes sense in comedies like The Big Lebowski or Dr. Strangelove, but in straight action films or thrillers, repeated dialogue is just silly) and 3. The overall psychotic nature of Frank's Batman, aka Crazy Steve, especially when levelled against, oh, I don't know, The Nextwave Squad (Elsa, Aaron, Tabby, Monica and The Captain). What's intended as "funny" becomes disturbing rather quickly if the character remains static or has an iconography working against them. It's why superhero parody hasn't exactly been popular. The fans love it, but the outsider's idea of good superhero parody is Megamind. Not that Megamind is one of the worst movies ever made, but there's a VERY narrow scope to it with 70-80% of the jokes targeted at the Superman mythos. (And the total number of characters amounting to, really, five.) Except for one joke (the Donkey Kong stage), every other joke is character based. Also, a last criticism: Metro Man faked his death!? To an outsider, that seems plausible. To anyone who knows how comic books work, it seems lazy, an excuse to dodge writing a reason for his resurrection.

Robert 'Staredcraft' Willing said...

Linkara I gotta ask, Harvy's knowledge of what was in teh book, is this based on something we've seen involving him in past apperances? (IE things he's mentioned about himself) I ask because I like looking for clues in past episodes.

BooRat said...

on Dancing video thing I was especting to see some one doing Thriller for some reason.
"Hey, let me see your legs I need to adjust the whiting"

Also, something I forgot to say on my 1st comment about the Barbi Twin comic review- Feminism? Oh, when will you humans learn that you all are equally infurior to Machines!

Titania Bird said...

I thought I could not possibly like you any more, Linkara. And then you broke out a clip of Beast-era Megatron.

That being said, Harvey Finevoice's disappearance is now the second most depressing thing I've seen this weekend. I let out a huge NOOOOOOOOO when the Entity got to him.

Mario Di Giacomo said...

wow, it's like someone heard about Adam Warren's Dirty Pair and COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT!

FugueforFrog said...

So Harvey knows something we don't about the Entity...too bad we won't know what it is until the big finish.

As for the Barbi Twins...who in their right minds would give them a comic in the first place? That's all I really got considering that there wasn't much to work with this time.

Killthenrun1 said...

I think that could very well be the worst comic you have reviewed ever! Even with you reviewing i think i lost the will to live halfway through. Why did you not burn that book straight to hell?

Anonymous said...

I just noticed Harvey looks an awful lot like Cole Phelps from L.A. Noire.

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"Linkara I gotta ask, Harvy's knowledge of what was in teh book, is this based on something we've seen involving him in past apperances? (IE things he's mentioned about himself) I ask because I like looking for clues in past episodes."

It's something IMPLIED by a remark he's made in the past, but never fully confirmed. There would have been more confirmation in the Ewoks #9 review of it, but the line got cut for time.

SlyDante said...

You know, when I first saw this on the schedule, I thought "Huh, must be about the dolls, I guess that's a typo."

And in the end, just like you, I wish it HAD been about the dolls. It would've been less shallow & annoying.

Also, you need to the destroy the Entity more than ever now, if only to hopefully save Ninja-Style Dancer & Harvey Finevoice.

All in all, another kickass (& lengthy, love a good 20+ minute one) review from the master! ^_^

Jigglysaint said...

Did Linkara just drive-by Tiff me? Seriously, it's bad enough I can't stop thinking about her(a girl named Tiffany), but now the internet has to mock my crush too? And yes, I do want to see a rocked out version of Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Otherwise, great review. Of course I was wondering if perhaps the entire stupidity and vapidness of the characters were cracked up just for laughs. I'd hate to think that it was all played seriously.

Anonymous said...

Seriously? You're complaining that fictional characters which do not exist don't have the free will to agree to the things they do in their stories?

That cannot possibly be your real viewpoint. It is far too nonsensical to be your real viewpoint.

You complain when a fake person is sexually objectified but not when a REAL person is? Do you, perchance, not know the definition of the term "sexual objectification"? Because whether a porn actress agrees to it or not she's still being sexually objectified. You can't have it both ways. Either you're against sexual objectification or you're not.

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"You complain when a fake person is sexually objectified but not when a REAL person is? Do you, perchance, not know the definition of the term "sexual objectification"? Because whether a porn actress agrees to it or not she's still being sexually objectified. You can't have it both ways. Either you're against sexual objectification or you're not. "

Welcome to the wonderful world of feminism, where there are different points of view on this. Some believe that voluntary pornography is a valid career choice for a woman to choose to do with her body. Other say that it's a great idea, but too much of it focuses on Male Gaze and therefore becomes exploitative and objectification. Still others believe ALL pornography is objectification and wrong.

All points of view are allowed to be discussed and are all equally valid beliefs to hold.

Jyger85 said...

20:56 I would just like to say I TOTALLY called that just as it was happening.

Good grief this comic sucked, and this coming from a guy that had not one but two copies of Superman Meets The Quik Bunny as a kid!

...No! It's got Harvey. It's picking them off one by one-... ... ...But there's one that it's been clearly avoiding! O_O

Jarkes said...

"That being said, Harvey Finevoice's disappearance is now the second most depressing thing I've seen this weekend. I let out a huge NOOOOOOOOO when the Entity got to him."

Second most depressing? What was the first most depressing? Ma-Ti's death scene and funeral in Suburban Knights?

"wow, it's like someone heard about Adam Warren's Dirty Pair and COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT!"

...What the front-end loader does that mean? And what does it have to do with this review?

"It's something IMPLIED by a remark he's made in the past, but never fully confirmed. There would have been more confirmation in the Ewoks #9 review of it, but the line got cut for time."

...Seeing as how I really got into your show near the end of the Lord Vyce arc (right at the beginning of Cry for Justice, in fact), I have no idea what you're talking about. Could you please explain?

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"...Seeing as how I really got into your show near the end of the Lord Vyce arc (right at the beginning of Cry for Justice, in fact), I have no idea what you're talking about. Could you please explain?"

Just what I said. XD I can't say for certain what I'm referring to or people would figure it all out.

deuxhero said...

Demon riding a phallic symbol is actually not dumb, oddly for this comic. That's Astaroth, Prince of Hell's shtick (see Wikipedia)

KaiKasparek said...

I liked it better when the title card and credits had separate songs.

Jo said...

I'm so bad, but I love if when you get good and mad at a comic. It just makes the entire thing more entertaining.

Love the dance video--though I wish we'd seen more of your mad dance skills. The one little hallway clip we got looked awesome. Certainly more than the extended stuff at the beginning. Would have much rather have seen more of you than Angry Joe flailing his arms about.

And OMG, Harvey. He's like the right hand man! Whatever will happen now?

And I agree with the commenter who wants to see a rocked-out version of Breakfast at Tiffany's. That would just be amazing.

Lotus Prince said...

Oh man, I loved the Deathstalker 3 MST3K clip. THIS SHALL BE A TERRIBLE YEAR...FOR OATS.



Also, when the comic revealed Female Two Face, it said "Gasp! It's...it's..." and then she announced her name. Who gasped? The freaking narrator? It was in a speech bubble but with no indicator as to who was speaking. Is the comic speaking for US?

xpetsy said...

Watching the second video with the dance special.. I can only wish that the 4 year anniversary special is going to be a dance / song musical. It's not like the TGWTG crew are unfamiliar with singing anyway?

PS. I thought Barbi-cued was funny too. :)

TimeTravelerJessica said...

Harvey Finevoice no!

Ugo Strange said...

HARVEY NOOOOO!!!

Kevin "Jester" McGill said...

Is it just me or did the panels blur, making it hard to read the text in the speech bubbles and some times see the image?

Des Shinta said...

Wow, did the later half of that comic remind me of the Totally Spies series. Except once you got past the absurdness of valley Girls becoming secret agents, THAT series was better written and respected Women in it, albeit with the occasional shallow characterization. Come to think of it, When was this made, exactly?

Anonymous said...

I really enjoy seeing Avery Brooks in anything. Thanks for that.

Anonymous said...

I liked the use of the "Allow me to present: man not caring!" clip and the "This has been a test of the 'desperate for anything resembling a joke' system!" comment. lol

Cyndy Cooper said...

Noooo! He was my favorite alternate Linkara!!!

Anonymous said...

This was the one I wasn't sure how you'd be able to show with hat I understand of Blip's rules on what can and can't be shown in a vid. That said, since they didn't go in that direction, the point is moot.

The Comic: Ugh, what a mess, in terms of both story and artwork. A little consistency would have been nice. And the pun... I usually like Liz's, even if they are groaners, but that was terrible.

Your Arc: ...And another one bites the dust... Linksano, Ninja Style Dancer, Harvey... Who's next, I wonder...

Fiery Little One

Nihil said...

The Entity is Slender man! The static! The spacial distortions? The crazy writing? Slendery death approaches you! Or Cthulhu. It could be either one.

Great review as always Linkara.

Catboyjeremie said...

That was just awful and its one of the few comics that made me drop my jaws in shock and disgust. This is so awful and offensive in different ways and even the bad puns (I love bad puns) annoyed me.

I was actually pondering about your feminism view earlier after reading a article that mentioned that. I guess it turned out to be a big coincidence when I first heard talking about it.

While comics like these are definitely sexist, I wonder about your view on hentai that follows a source meaning that a established character basically tends to go out of character and all that sort of stuff.

Kari said...

I may be wrong, (but i don't think I am) I was watching pretty closely, trying to keep track of which twin is which. Shane was the one with her hair up- MOST OF THE TIME. I could swear they switched it at least once.

Anonymous said...

Wow, This one seemed as if it gave you a hard time.

While I disagree with your feminist views you do present them well and rationally. I won't go about it or start a debate in your comments though.

Couple of jokes you missed. One would be a Simpsons reference of To Be Continued. "Chief Wigam P.I. to be continued right now!"

The other is already been mentioned. Totally spies, where 3 teenage girls are super spies. One is a vacuous bimbo, one is a clubsy martial artists, and one is a super genius. 2 of them have no business being on a spy mission. The B plot usually involves something to do with the bimbos boyfriend of the week despite the fate of the world being at stake, and each episode usually has some sort of softcore fetish, being tied up, turned into furries, ect.

-Sabre

Austen said...

I think something's wrong with your video encoder. I've watched the video twice now, and several times throughout the video there's this weird blocking issue where sections of the image wildly distort into static before correcting themselves. I haven't seen this on any of your previous videos, so you might want to look into that.

E. Wilson said...

"Welcome to the wonderful world of feminism, where there are different points of view on this. "

Quoted for extreme truth. In an intro to feminist lit course I took a couple years ago, some of our background reading noted that depending on how you defined an "theory", there are about twenty-seven distinct feminist theories. It's a very complicated field of study.

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"I think something's wrong with your video encoder. I've watched the video twice now, and several times throughout the video there's this weird blocking issue where sections of the image wildly distort into static before correcting themselves. I haven't seen this on any of your previous videos, so you might want to look into that."

Look at your flash settings and switch hardware acceleration off and on, or just switch it on if it isn't already.

Anonymous said...

HARVEY NOOOO! Alright entity, you crossed the line! Your umm....behind is grass...does it even have a behind?

Anonymous said...

Was it just my computer, or was there some weird glitching going on during the review where the comic would suddenly get all zebra stripey?

Jarkes said...

So, anyway, on a note unrelated to this video: I've been watching old Power Rangers again, courtesy of Netflix Instant, and I noticed that, in the early episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 1, Goldar's voice sounded a little different. A bit more sinister and... growling. I'm surprised you didn't touch on that in your History of Power Rangers videos... I presume you did notice it, though.

HWalsh said...

Linkara I am a little shocked that you missed (or didn't comment on) some of the bad art continuity mistakes in this particular book.

Using your video's timestamps for these references:

At 5:33 to 5:45 you show the Barbi Twins (ugh) heading to their chopper (surprised there was no Arnold reference there) and there is an art continuity error.

On one panel, while they are on the phone, they have "bands" around their ankles attached to their heels. These bands disappear in the following panel where they are now wearing normal heels. These are on the same PAGE for cripes sake.

Again on panel at 6:02 and the panel shown in the upper left at 6:21 in the review this same mistake happens again, with the ankle bands still missing.

In the scene following the helicopter explosion (11:48) the bands are back... And the shoes have changed color as well as style...

Once more (at 12:44) their shoes change again. They now have while heels on without ankle bands. This, however can be explained by them being in their "battle outfits" I guess.

Now I know I am obsessing about this. I know it is shoes and this is not something a heterosexual male who doesn't have a foot fetish should focus on... However it just stood out to me...

If you are going to make a comic focused on fashion models then the clothes that they were wearing should be consistent. Though maybe that is asking too much from this comic. Maybe I am just over-analyzing it...

Oh wait... I'm a comic book nerd. It is my job to over-analyze things! So... No! No I will not accept these mistakes.

teh crazydude said...

i thought this was supposed to be part 2 of that emeniem/punisher crossover...
i was looking forward to hearing "previously on 'atop the fourth wall'"
what gives?

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"i thought this was supposed to be part 2 of that emeniem/punisher crossover...
i was looking forward to hearing "previously on 'atop the fourth wall'"
what gives?"

If you look back at the last "Odds and Ends" post, you'll see that I reworked the schedule upon discovering that there ISN'T an Eminem/Punisher #2 like I thought there was. You'll be getting the Previously On segment in a few weeks, just be patient.

Niceguy64 said...

As someone who's been judgmental of your post credit shorts in the past I'm really quite impressed with some of the more recent story-line stuff. To be specific I find the simple scenes of you just talking with Liz or some other character very compelling and simple while implying something more grandiose without showing it. I suppose the points where I lost interest in the shorts before was in the use of cgi effects, while I can't blame you for lack of quality as your budget is limited, I will commend you for working within certain constraints as of recently. I don't think that special effects, action scenes, and such make your work compelling as much as having an suspenseful plot with compelling performances.

To some things up, Bravo Louis you've impressed me and I cant wait to see whats next!

Dr. Ivo Robotnik said...

And now, my take on Linkara's "three questions."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxinbdstQwk

Anonymous said...

NOOOOO1!!!! Not Harvey Finevoice!!! :(

Man, I am so excited for when this arc concludes!! :D Linkara, you should take all the story parts some time and put them together for a DVD or something. >XD

Anonymous said...

"You complain when a fake person is sexually objectified but not when a REAL person is? Do you, perchance, not know the definition of the term "sexual objectification"? Because whether a porn actress agrees to it or not she's still being sexually objectified. You can't have it both ways. Either you're against sexual objectification or you're not. "

Excuse me, but that's incredibly narrow-minded. Sexual objectification is bad in a story because it's a cheap, offensive, unnecessary, plot-unrelated, sleazy way to try to get more readers while trampling things like characterization, narrative logic, atmosphere, plot-appropriate emotional torque, and suspension of disbelief/reader absorption in the fictional universe if those things interfere with T&A.

Sexual objectification in pornography on the other hand, is the entire frickin' point of pornography — to titillate the viewer with undisguised sexuality to give them pleasure. Porn that has plot just for the sake of situational convenience and a story with a plot that has T&A gratuitously shoved into it are entirely different things.

Shaolin Dave said...

I remember "Razor". I think I still have some of her comics in my closet. Some were okay, some sucked, I remember reading they were going to make a movie about her around 1998 but never heard about it again.

shikome kido mi said...

Wait, what? Why not just leave them to die in acid?
How does getting a virtual world overlaid over your perceptions save you from falling and transport you to your house, anyway.
Why start introducing all the spy stuff BEFORE establishing they're spies and then waiting pages to explain it?
Heck the drawn twins don't even really resemble that picture of them you showed, which defeats the point of featuring people famous for their appearance.
I... there were more questions but my brain can't contain all this stupid at once.
Plus all the other stuff you mentioned.
Also, it rather looked like that wrist blaster shot Dr. Evil.
To cut it a tiny shred of credit, maybe Razor really is bulletproof? She is a comic book character we know nothing about after all. Once again the murderous madwoman manages to be best part, not by being good just by not being as horrible.
The Entity epilogues excel lately, too.

shikome kido mi said...

Well, one Anonymous response seems to have already covered most of why the anonymous post about sexual objectification is wrong but now I will nitpick general logic points, because I apparently have some kind of obsessive disorder.
Namely, "you can't have it both ways". Yes, yes you can. If you say something is wrong under circumstance A but not circumstance B, that is entirely possible unless it is proved that circumstance A and circumstance B are really the same.
You can argue that it's the wrong place to draw the line but saying someone can't draw a line at all is silly. Next thing you'll be telling me I can't say it's okay to sometimes kill fictional characters but wrong to kill real people because THAT'S having it both ways.
Now, if you want to say he has it backwards, say Linkara has it backwards, not nonsense that just hurts your point.
Mind you, I disagree with said point because 'whether a porn actress agrees to it or not' actually does matter. Consent is a big deal in ethical debates.
Plus, there's the well-worded statment about how stories should try to be good stories and leave porn for porn that someone else already said.

Anonymous said...

Not sure if anyone else noticed this, but at about the 21 minute seven second mark, he says "the three women" even though he's talking about the twins. Anyone else catch that?

Volvagia said...

I think he said Mid-late 90s. On sexism (though Dave Sim's sexism is way different than what Lewis usually attacks), one thing I'd love to see him eventually cover would be a Cerebus issue anywhere from #187-300. Because, you know, this is where Bad Comics Burn.

Jarkes said...

Hey, random question: What, in your opinion, is the absolute worst episode of the entire DC Animated Universe? It can be from any of the series, including Static Shock and The Zeta Project.

Harleykinz said...

By any chance have you ever had any experience in ice skating, Lewis? Looked like a nice little single axel you did there in the dance video to me. ^_^

D said...

Personally, I'd like to see how you can turn Breakfast at Tiffany's into an epic rock song.

Anonymous said...

NOOOOOO Not Harvey Finevoice! He was my favorite character!! :'(

Anonymous said...

SWEET TIDDLY WINKS A COMIC BASED ON A LITTLE GIRL'S TOYLINE IS CRAAPY? OH MY BIG TITTIED'S STARS AND GARTERBELTS!!! This is a completely unprecedented occasion. Why, I had believed with all my heart that this would be on of the finest examples of the visual medium, up there with Maus and A contract with God. Alsas, this was not to be. Thank you Linkara, for finding this out for me so I do not have to suffer reading such a horrible comic. You are truly some sort of God-Jesus wanderer, a wonderous wunderkind of comic-dom. My goodness gracious your ability to review comics makes you the Internet's Ben Lyons of the comc world. Why Roger Ebert's jaw dropped at the concision of your skill and massive, throbbing ability. Yours is like a fine, dark skinned woman,coming to one after a night of debauchery and hallucinogenic drugs. Her straddling vibrato. Alas I am saying too much, I am rubbing your reddened rashed rhubarb perhaps too much. Now, now don't be humble you Mighty Morphin Power reviewer from the alien planet of aquitar. You re surely the tits.

btw what are some good comics to read besides Birds of Play and 52?

Lewis Lovhaug said...

Well, my dear Anonymous friend, what I would recommend to you to do is to actually watch the video, because this comic has nothing to do with the dolls and it's made very clear in the introduction that this has nothing to do with Barbie Dolls. And, in fact, just going by the lack of an "E" in the name of the comic that would be enough for one to tilt their head and think, "Wait, maybe this has nothing to do with the dolls."

Just sayin'.

The Letter M said...

Is the Entity saying something before it laughs or is it just making nonsense sounds? Because it sounds like it said "human".

Ming said...

Great review on a bad comic. I can't believe they actually thought of this.

Great, first Dr. Linksano, then the Ninja-Style Dancer, and now Harvey Finevoice. Why do I get the feeling that 90s Kid and Lt. Munro will be next? It's like the show's side characters are being purged . . .

Volvagia said...

Considering this show, I'd say a Battle Royale with Cheese trope is in the making.

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...

SWEET TIDDLY WINKS A COMIC BASED ON A LITTLE GIRL'S TOYLINE IS CRAAPY? OH MY BIG TITTIED'S STARS AND GARTERBELTS!!! This is a completely unprecedented occasion. Why, I had believed with all my heart that this would be on of the finest examples of the visual medium, up there with Maus and A contract with God. Alsas, this was not to be. Thank you Linkara, for finding this out for me so I do not have to suffer reading such a horrible comic. You are truly some sort of God-Jesus wanderer, a wonderous wunderkind of comic-dom. My goodness gracious your ability to review comics makes you the Internet's Ben Lyons of the comc world. Why Roger Ebert's jaw dropped at the concision of your skill and massive, throbbing ability. Yours is like a fine, dark skinned woman,coming to one after a night of debauchery and hallucinogenic drugs. Her straddling vibrato. Alas I am saying too much, I am rubbing your reddened rashed rhubarb perhaps too much. Now, now don't be humble you Mighty Morphin Power reviewer from the alien planet of aquitar. You re surely the tits."

-clears throat-
Fail.

The Lord of Ábrocen Landmearca said...

THERE! I DID IT! It's TAKEN ME SINCE JANUARY BUT I HAVE FINALLY WATCHED EVERY COMIC REVIEW YOU HAVE EVER DON LINKARA!

Bravo, sir, you've done a very good job. It took me a while to get through them all - I can't spend ALL my time watching comic videos. Actually my task was made a lot easier by blip deciding to stop airing ads before every video- it made archive watching really hard when you had to put with the SAME 30 second commercial over and over and over ARRRRGH! Now it just plays at the end, which i hope is permanent.

Anyways, bravo, what I great show. Don't knock yourself about not doing good commentaries- you sound your most natural and honest in those things. As i said in an e-mail ,I demand more of liz'a videos fighting against heteronormative values! More Liz I say!

Ponies rule.

lollypopalopicus said...

When I first went out to get a laptop, I said the first thing I would do is watch Linkara. I just did and once again Linkara has out done himself!

Anonymous said...

One Anon brought up totally spies, which is ridiculous. I hate that show for being boring but most of the things it does are completely innocent and believing the internet's jokes is a surefire sign this guy or gal doesn't think for himself. All the characters are supra human athletes on that show for no apparent reason, and most of the things that happen are things that have always happend on children's show.


A different Anon said that there's something wrong with a comic concentrating on titilating the viewer but its okay in porn... and that's also just flat out wrong.

There's plenty of things that don't set out to be porn but do set out to be titillating. Look up the comic My Balls, or yuri 100 shiki. Or any dozen of comics. character designs can take attractiveness and sexiness into account without creating a vapid character(look up a comic called Fairy Tail).

That aside, comics get a bad rap despite the fact that heroine costumes and art match men's for the most part up until the 90s, and then they went back to being even around 2000s. For any wonder woman, there was a namor. Some of the more recent comics still tend to make women's breast overly large and thats weird but that's still recent, things weren't so ridiculous before and it doesn't happend as often as linkara might accidentally leads you to believe since he focuses on bad comics

Anonymous said...

hey linkara i found a cool song on youtube that you might like. It is a 8-bit recreation of the music from wrath of khan it is titled: battle in the mutara neblua 8-bit.

look it up it is awsome.

Anonymous said...

"SWEET TIDDLY WINKS A COMIC BASED ON A LITTLE GIRL'S TOYLINE IS CRAAPY? OH MY BIG TITTIED'S STARS AND GARTERBELTS!!! "


... Lewis, you should frame this comment.


It's freakin' marvelous. I've never seen someone screw the pooch quite this hard. It's, like, the horseshit to beat.

EinWolf said...

Okay, I deffinately need to make Lady Croc-Face one of my Nemesises in Champions Online. It makes me a little bit sad that you didn't referance Totally Spies in the review though. But then, I honestly don't know if you watch much cartoons at all in the first place.

As for the whole sexual objectification thing, I agree with you. This was stupid. I honestly don't mind the always cocked hips or boob windows in spandex (provided it's a character that has a reason to not need armor.) Sexy for the sake of sexy isn't generally something I mind. But when it's stupid and talks down to the audience or is overtly crude, I take offense. Black Canary in her corset and fishnets is fine with me, but the constant men's bathroom scribble humor in this (comic) was really just irritating.

Anonymous said...

I have to admit that I find it confusing that you have a bigger issue with the degradation of fictional characters over that of actual women degrading themselves...kind of strange.

Anonymous said...

You know, ranting about how much the DC Reboot sucks is a bit hypocritical if you are going to buy ALL of the relaunched titles. Especially if you say that it will fail to draw in new readers...which it just did, since i doubt you would have bought every DC title that month if the relaunch didn't happen

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"You know, ranting about how much the DC Reboot sucks is a bit hypocritical if you are going to buy ALL of the relaunched titles. Especially if you say that it will fail to draw in new readers...which it just did, since i doubt you would have bought every DC title that month if the relaunch didn't happen"

I'm going to buy all of the FIRST issues. I will not be continuing to buy them. I will be doing so for two reasons:

-They've shuffled around almost every single creative team and are starting new books that could very well be damn good. I want to know if there's anything good out there that I should be paying attention to.
-I'm going to be doing videos giving recommendations to people and giving my thoughts on the matter.

As I've stated before, I freely admit that this whole thing could turn out to be the smartest damn thing DC ever did. We'll only know if we buy them, read them, and evaluate them. I could end up hating every single one of the books coming out. I could end up LIKING every single book. I'm not going to know until I buy them and find out. And I'll save other people's wallets from having to do the same by giving my own recommendations.

My point is - fine, they want to pull this huge-ass relaunch to get new readers? Okie dokie, I'll give it a shot and I'll help others give it a shot. The burden is on DC to make me WANT to keep reading all these books, which I sincerely doubt they'll succeed at.

Lewis Lovhaug said...

Also, perhaps you should be commenting on the correct video if you're going to be doing this - I don't mention the DC relaunch in the Barbi Twins Adventures review - I do so in the Rise of Arsenal video.

Katherine said...

How sad it is that Razor, a bloodthirsty assassin who only shows up in a cameo at the end, and the dragon with the inexplicable glasses are far more interesting than the two shallow idiots who are supposed to be our protagonists. Did the writers just think that it would be funny to center a whole story on two morons, like in “Dumb and Dumber?” But of course, the difference there is that the characters of “Dumb and Dumber” (as far as I know) weren’t meant to be viewed as sexy and weren’t given important jobs like these two twits are.

I really liked your rant in the beginning, by the way. I often hear people try to excuse the objectification of female characters by claiming that they just like to wear skimpy clothes, honest, because they’re “comfortable in their skin.” No. They are *your* characters. If your character is the type of person who likes to wear next to nothing, that’s because *you* wrote her as that kind of person. And you know what? Maybe that excuse can work when it fits that particular character’s personality and when her revealing clothes aren’t constantly emphasized in order to provide sexual titillation, but it sure doesn’t fly when you’re writing about Athena – the goddess of *war*, for heaven’s sake – and her hospital gown conveniently happens to be short enough that her bare rear is clearly visible. That sort of ridiculousness should be reserved for porn, not for mainstream comics that want to be taken seriously.

I know that people have already brought up “Totally Spies” here, so let me just say this: yes, one of the girls was an airhead at times, but at least the girls were competent and actually got the job done (usually through the convenience of having whatever gadgets they happened to get in the episode, true, but that tends to be a pattern in spy shows).

Chris said...

As a collector of Razor comics, I'm wondering if my obsessive compulsive nature will force me to buy this comic.... ::shudders::

Anonymous said...

I remember seeing a Barbi Twins photo calendar years ago.
They made Power Girl look flat-chested. *literally* the size of watermelons (and I know what 'literally' means).
It was grotesque.

"he says "the three women" even though he's talking about the twins. Anyone else catch that?"

I did, then I looked again and saw the barely-noticeable Razor in the scene. He was talking about three.
I've got a Razor / Warrior Nun Areala comic...

Nitpick:
The Arena music is by Gerald Fried alone. The cause of the confusion is that the CD has music from 'Amok Time' by Fried, and from 'The Doomsday Machine' by Sol Kaplan (the CD is sitting next to me as I type).
You have to read the liner notes to figure that out, though.
What, you think I'd want to talk about the comic?

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"The Arena music is by Gerald Fried alone. The cause of the confusion is that the CD has music from 'Amok Time' by Fried, and from 'The Doomsday Machine' by Sol Kaplan (the CD is sitting next to me as I type).
You have to read the liner notes to figure that out, though."

Aaah, my mistake. It lists both of them as the composer when I ripped the CD.

Anonymous said...

"Aaah, my mistake. It lists both of them as the composer when I ripped the CD."

Yeah, I thought that's what must've happened. iTunes isn't always... accurate. (You should see the cover it gave me for the X-Files movie CD.)

btw, I think I noticed that the twins in the comic called the secret agent "Ja-" (I think). He's probably meant to be a copyright-safe James Bond.

Bob said...

You said the Barbi Twins are now animal activists and before that they were in Playboy. It occurs to me lots of animal activist content has to do with sex for some strange reason. You know, like the ones where celebs rather go naked than wear fur and how many PETA ads try to lure you in by showing you boobs promising you that if you click there will be "shocking content" only to find out it's a video telling you how you are the worst example of what humanity has to offer because you eat meat (which anyway, vegetarianism is only possible today because some people live in rich cultures with easy access to fruits and vegetables).

I know I'm not really commenting on the quality of the video itself (they're pretty much always great, you know that), but I immediately thought of that strange link between sex and particularly PETA in your intro.

Anonymous said...

So, wait... porn that an actress had to act in is okay, but porn which was hand-drawn by an artist is not-okay?

What if I draw a few panels at the beginning of the strip in which an "actress" gives her consent, and then assumes the role of a "porn star" for the remainder of the comic? Does that make it right?

What if I don't actually draw a comic but instead just use my imagination, isn't that just as bad as drawing a comic? After all, I'm still creating a fictional character, and that fictional character still has no free will.

Now, I don't want you to think I'm setting you up as a Straw Man, so I want to give you the opprotunity to please clarify something for me: Are you suggesting that we should ban porn comics in order to protect the rights of these fictional characters? Or are you just saying that they're in bad taste?

I find it hard to accept the idea that a fictional sex act could ever be worse than a filmed sex act. For the simple and obvious reason that the fictional sex act DID NOT HAPPEN. EVER.

Agree or disagree?

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"So, wait... porn that an actress had to act in is okay, but porn which was hand-drawn by an artist is not-okay?"

No, they're both okay.

What I'm trying to say in it is that often creators will come up with a look for a character, a skimpy design for an outfit that is not practical and exists purely as fanservice and then will come up with a story justification later. That in itself is not necessarily wrong, either, but it happens often when it comes to women getting designed to be attractive or "sexy" first and not letting the character, as their backstory and characterization, dictate how they dress.

And as for the topic of sexuality in comics, of course sex acts can be depicted in comics, but there's sex that comes naturally as a result of story and then there's "Why the hell did Wolverine just interrupt the plot so he could tell us about how he banged the Scarlet Witch's mom?"

Anonymous said...

Oh, okay. That, I can get behind.

I agree that Wolverine having sex randomly just to make the comic more "edgy" or add sex appeal to it would suck.

Mind you, I don't think that's what's happening in the case of the Barbi Twins. Instead, I think they tried to adopt a porn centerfold to comic book format as an arbitrary cash-grab.

Which... might have worked? I guess? If the art had been good and the comic had featured nudity, and had been marketed through Playboy's distribution channels. The story probably still wouldn't have been great, but it *might* have had some value as softcore porn, and could have sold well enough to justify more than one issue.

But instead, they decided for no apparent reason to just inject the Barbi Twins into superhero and sci-fi genre settings.

The writer didn't seem to have a plan for marrying the two concepts. Instead, he just attached the most stereotypical traits he could think of to the iconic playboy models and started throwing random comic book cliches at them while making incredibly lame jokes.

Anonymous said...

My problem with the book is that I'm not even sure what the demographic is. I can't tell of it was intended for girls who wanted to be both pretty and kick-butt (you know, like the horror that is Bard Wire) or young boys who want to see hot chicks do awesome things.

Anonymous said...

Blow dried? *face palm* Oh sweet merciful crap

Anonymous said...

There's little point in looking for consistency or reason in the second part of the first story. Did you miss what it said on the chemical vats?

ACID.

Perfectly legit as one of them referred to the adventure as to a "trip"