Black Panther: The Animated Series

BET announced today that they have partnered with Marvel Comics to create an animated series for the Black Panther. I have so many problems with this.

Yes, I know another comic legend is getting his own animated series, which is always cool. Then again, I also believe that this is a character that is not as widely popular as he should be and may not have that much of a huge following to have an animated series, but clearly BET believes it should be one.

It’s also pretty obvious why BET picked this character, because it ain’t about popularity. Reginald Hudlin is the Head of Entertainment at BET and he’s also the current writer for the Black Panther. Not hard to figure out. It may have changed my original thought that he was picked because of his color. It’s not shocking since it is BET and all, but I still feel that in the back of my mind.

And really, an animated series on BET? Are you kidding me? They’ve been struggling for years with bad programming and it's so horrible. Remember the BET broadcast premiere of State Property 2 a few months back? A large majority of their current programming is a mirror image of what’s out on MTV – just black. (i.e., The Hills and it’s BET counterpart Baldwin Hills, TRL and 106th & Park, etc.) This includes reruns of older shows that are now off the air. I think an animated series that’s not urban, may fail.

BET is aimed totally at younger, black audiences. It might be a hard sell to get 13-20 year olds, who may not be into comic books to get into this. Since it’s in primetime, it would have to be gritty and dark, not a G/PG version of it. And since he’s not everywhere like Wolverine, who will really know him besides the ones who read the book or people that deep into comic books? I think it might get lost on this channel. If it were on FOX, I can see it happening or even the Cartoon Network, considering they always do comic related cartoons. But BET is ghetto!

Based on their audience, my fear is that they will “thug out” or urbanize the character, transporting him from his African kingdom of Wakanda and placing him to fight evil doers in some urban city a la Batman. It has been done before and I don’t see why it won’t be done again. They’ll do anything to make him more relevant, including holding two guns and somehow incorporating massive amounts of gold into his costume. It’s what I am afraid of given what BET is, however who’s to say that won’t happen. It may not. I’m hoping it won’t. Let's pray to every comic book god we have.

The Pope Wears Prada

So I've been hearing a lot about out new Pope lately. The stories about him being a Nazi at one point in time, allowing the conversion of an Islamic to the Catholic faith and most recently his style of dress. He's been seen wearing Gucci sunglasses, a white, specially engraved iPod and some shoes given to him by GEOX. And there are a few companies trying to be the ones responsible for the new Popemobile, BMW donated a bulletproof X5 SUV to him this past October, but he hasn't used it yet.


So fashion wise, this new Pope is keeping up the times by not wearing brown shoes like the last pope, but some bright, ruby red, Dorothy Gale shoes. When I first saw the image of him stepping off a plane, I was like, are you for real?

Yes, his grace is wearing handmade loafers crafted from an "Italian shoemaker", although I don't know which one yet. Some say it's in honor of the many years he wore red as a cardinal. Bullshit, he's from Italy, he might as well throw on a pair of shoes from Cavalli, since he's in one of the top fashion captials of the world. I did some research and the papal show has been red at times, but not since like 1969. It was such a throwback.

Oh Pope Benedict, you're so Miranda Priestly right now and you kinda actually look like Meryl Streep too. I am just happy he's into fashion and not little boys.

I know -- I'm going to hell

Is it too late to write my Congressman?

Yes, I get that she’s this multi-platinum singer and she’s set and surpassed all types of records for a female contemporary music artist, but something has to be done to stop Mariah Carey from taking over the world like those aliens in Independence Day, of which I don’t think even the likes of Will Smith can save us.

Her first conquest was the internet. Mariah’s new album is called E=MC2, that’s only for the people who’ve been living under rocks or living in Pakistan these last few months. If you haven’t noticed yet, she’s strategically trying to ruin young, developing scientific minds all over the world by replacing Einstein’s Theory of Relativity with her new album name. Go ahead I dare you to look it up in Google. She’s the second result. In Yahoo, Einstein is not even suggested as a search term, she is. Junior High School science projects are now in shambles.

As my boyfriend loves to point out in nearly every conversation that has nothing to do with Mariah Carey, she’s got a new movie coming out at the end of the month, that’s premiering at the Tribecca Film Festival, which he just scored a ticket for. So not only did she have an album drop today, but she’s causing people to now drop $15 bucks to see a movie, she’s co-starring in.

To make matters even worse, MariahDaily.com, which is the equivalent of an Al Qaeda Yahoo portal, spoke about something happening in NYC in honor (aka horror) for the premiere of the movie Tennessee. Apparently, for the entire weekend of April 25th, The Empire State building will be lit in Mimi’s new album colors of Purple, Pink and White. Yeah, what the fuck?!

It is to my knowledge that Mariah has started her campaign to completely take over the world, building her army of Auto-skanks each step of the way. Her next conquest was the owners of the Empire State Building. I have never known any artist, musical or otherwise to change/enhance a monument to promote themselves. Shameless, I think not. She’s becoming a world power people and she has to be toppled.

Mariah has to be stopped now! So I’m asking, is it still too late to write my Congressman about this? Can I picket outside of the Empire State Building when it lights up? Do I have to go down on Gov. Patterson to veto this? This is ridiculous!