Obscure Adventures in Geek and Nerd Culture

We have no idea that Kenya Boy has inspired 3 video games, two movies (live action and animation), a manga with 2 runs, a monthly retelling for similar audiences, a short lived Kamishibai style collab, and a live action tv show.  And now for something different! A revised backstory for Zega will unfortunately involve his wife dying of tuberculosis (after all, even though it's native to Africa, it still has shaped human history, but who cares) before Zega himself got raped by his superior (and almost dying because of it). Even sadder was that he surely was pelted on by most people in his village within every frigging whim possible. Zega also seems to be one of a few surviving seniors in a Kenyan Maasai village, since the typical life expectancy of a Maasai person is currently a somewhat measly 55-60 years old (an improvement with somehow more varied diets and slightly more vaccines in comparison to decades ago when it was a measlier 41-45 years old), partly due to both a relatively ...

The Ultus series is very creative for featuring a massive cast of cryptids, monsters and creatures alike, such as northern lions, Diehl’s gorillas and, oh my god, inaccurate prehistoric creatures. Then again, it should be noted that in its original time period, even a bunch of mythical West-Central African creatures, like the Dodu (Doduo) and the Bung Bung, were barely even noticed outside their now independent countries of origin, apart from gossipy tall tales made by fucked up explorers about them and all that.  Some of my favourite creatures who appear in my dreams are furry giant apemen (apish men) called Dodus (Doduos). They, though still dangerous, do have a rather unfair rap, which is mainly thanks to primate poachers (regardless of ethnicity) misappropriating them a lot. That said, they might’ve begun their cultural lives as simply wild jungle bogeymen that scare not only gorillas and chimps but also young children, before being labelled misleadingly as ‘cryptids’ decades ...

There will be a plausible 2d/3d animated adaptation of Roberto Renzi and Augusto Pedrazza’s Akim. It’s going to be made by Tezuka Productions and Ark Given that the comic book continuities of Akim are quite inconsistent thanks to being written and drawn by various cartoonists mainly in Western European countries, it’s for the best that such an adaptation will be a seasonal anthology. To make an impact on the world of online tv outside of Western Europe, it’ll also have more drama than even Jungle Emperor Leo can handle!  Season 1 has a North Carolingian character based on early illustrations of his otherwise British comic book counterpart. Unlike said comic book Jim Rank, his hair and eyes are both brownish, and he clearly is mixed race. A Coastal Deep South version of Rita Turner is going to be rather less ‘stay in the kitchen’ and more like a mishmash of Spider Gwen and Jane Parker. They have two adoptive kids instead of just one. As a young schoolboy coming to Tigora (basically ...

I can’t help but harp about the historical importance of Dawson’s Creek’s unintended magical realism, because my dad used to watch that hugely popular show. Both the classic show and Young Americans do not need a sequel either for both legal and budget reasons. However, indirect and mostly seemingly unrelated prequels are probably going to be better than a sequel to both as a result.  Strangely enough, the best candidate for a Dawson’s Creek prequel is a future anglophone adaptation of a popular Mexican comic book classic named Rubi, about a hellishly beautiful woman prowling her way through the urban jungle.   I may not have read the Rubi comic books yet, but there are at least two comic book versions of Rubi, one from the 1960s which spawned both a campy telenovela and a movie, and another one from the early 1980s which remains better known for a slick telenovela and comic combo, a rather adult Teleserye drama, two 2010s comic retellings and a rather gross time travelling te...

The final Ultus books are not to be expected until someone like me will make it with either estate’s permission.  Ultus is a historically important character in both Spanish literature and comics whose story appearances haven’t been fully reprinted and completed in book form for decades.  His backstory will be revealed in stark detail, so it may turn out that he was a bureaucrat’s half-Romani (Calo) grandson stranded in the Nigerian/Cameroonian border following his mum and dad’s assassination by pirates. Also in the sequels set after both the future editions of Ultus El Invencible and Ultus El Misterioso, his romance also becomes a lot more nuanced as the story becomes a more Afro-fantasy driven one, in which he will meet a local Cameroonian woman and both will slowly fall in love with each other even in spite of their differences. 

In 2026, a canon bible for Ki-Gor and his ilk will change their shared franchise's history forever.  Ki-Gor is canonically a cyan-eyed Irish blonde who has the surname of Kildare. His hair has been bleached by the sun while his skin is still bronzed in moderation, since the dangers of UV rays have become more understood than before. His birth parents, including his dad from a nouveau riche household, were likely killed by a particularly horrid form of corruption when he was a young boy, thus he was taken in by bandits who trained him to become a badass. His foster dad is now a shaman who lives with the creatures next to his hut.  Helene Carmen is a chubby ginger (mind you, her hair indeed is ginger, but of a more titian sort) who doesn't have the proficiency of a true aviatrix. Nonetheless, she is a badass and will strip off her military clothing when needed, turning into a scantily clothed adventurer.  George Spelling was from a town near Chicago, but has escaped the rel...

The Hanatari or Hanagatari (the best known Emonogatari style, created by Sōji Yamakawa himself) (ハナガタリ) (ハナタリ) is one of the mediums responsible for the relevance of the various kinds of manga and light novels around the world, alongside both the more traditional styles and the text comics which inspired it.  The Hanagatari is rather different from most other Emonogatari styles in which its (more often compressed) artworks bloom in different but equally crazy directions, not unlike various unconventional kinds of picture books for both adults and children, hence the name, which is why it’s long been disguised in many formats, such as a short paperback novel, a text comic epic and etcetera (it’s complicated).  Stories in the Hanagatari style may come into books with as many as 350 pages in the Japanese language and 280 pages in English and other languages. It can still be compatible with both light novels and manga, but will remain its own thing even outside of Japan.