“On Earth today, it’s Thanksgiving. If the crew has to eat meatloaf, I want it to look like turkey. And if they have to listen to a podcast, I want it to be Monkeys Took My Jetpack!”
–Capt. James T. Kirk … sort of.

This issue comes in a bit short, but goes out no less enjoyable for it. It’s got everything you’ve come to expect from the Jetpackless–humor, action, compelling characters, a great game, and so much more!

It’s our third and final session (so far) of the Cartoon Action Hour: Season 3 series, Wasteland 2010.

Our cast includes:

BlindGeek: GM
Josh: Zolgar
Moondog: Lady Mistra
Trilobite: Bogg

I can’t say enough great things about Spectrum Games in general, and Cartoon Action Hour in particular. Even if this series doesn’t strike your fancy, there are many published series to pick from, and the rules provide detailed, in-depth guidelines for creating your own. If you have a nostalgic bone in your body, you can’t go wrong by picking up this game! We will be coming back to this game, possibly even this series, at some point.

So with that, whether you “officially” celebrate Thanksgiving today as we do in the States, it’s never a bad idea to take stock of what one has to be thankful for in life. I know I speak for all of us here at MTMJ when I say we are so thankful for you, our listeners. Whether you give us feedback on our Facebook page, or whether you are part of the silent masses–or even the silent few–we appreciate each and every one of you. As someone who subscribes to many podcasts myself, I recognize how time-consuming it can be to listen to all of them. The fact that you choose to devote your time to our friendly little AP podcast is never unnoticed, or taken for granted. Thank you so very much.

Oh, one more thang before I close this entry. It is with heavy hearts that we of MTMJ acknowledge the passing of the great Stan Lee. Any and all knowledge I have of comic books is owed to Stan Lee. It’s no accident that I tend to model my writing style after his, at least in some part. I prefer to think of it as homage rather than imitation, but I’ll let others make their judgment. I’ve been a Marvelite through-and-through since I was a kid. As of this writing, there’s no consistent and/or reliable method for the blind to enjoy comic books, so I got started watching the 1968 Spider-Man cartoon. When I eventually learned to use a machine called an Optacon which allowed me to read print, one of the first things I did was pick up a comic book. I even remember what my very first book was: Marvel Team-Up: Spider-Man with Cloak and Dagger. Because the machine just provided me with tactile representations of shapes and left interpretation up to me, I was able to feel the way comics are laid out; the way speech bubbles and thought bubbles felt; the weird letter-outlines used for writing sound effects like WHAM!, BAMF!, and SNIKT!. While I couldn’t tell what the illustrations were, I still did my best to follow the stories. As wonderful as current OCR technology is, I still miss the hell out of the Optacon. OCR doesn’t handle comics well at all. Still, I loved reading comic books while it lasted, and I have Stan Lee to thank for that, and so much more. We will be paying tribute to Stan with our next several issues, so I hope you’re in the mood for some superheroics, cuz we’re gonna be delivering in spades!!.

And with that, go forth…

…and enjoy!