Star Wars Day is actually May 25, not May 4.
‘Rogue One: The Andor Cut’ sets out to re-envision ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ as the finale and epilogue of the Andor series, as if it had been made afterwards.
Gwen Stacy’s “Killer”
Very few comic book Silver Age professionals survive, and even the ranks of the Bronze Age creators are thinning. One of them was Gerry Conway, a writer whose work, frankly, didn’t do much for me.
Conway wrote the Spider-Man story where he killed off Gwen Stacy. The earlier death of Gwen’s father, Captain Stacy, worked well, as scripted by Stan.
But for me, writing Gwen out of the series made as much sense as Betty disappearing from Archie comics. The move came across like a gratuitous fanboy idea, intended for shock value. There were other, better, ways the love triangle with Mary Jane could have been resolved.
But I was cool to Conway’s writing pretty much from the outset, before that one notorious Spidey story. I wasn’t big on Len Wein or Marv Wolfman either. For me, their comics were a step down from those written by Stan, Roy, Steranko, Gary Friedrich, and Denny O’Neil, among others. Perhaps it was because I was older and better able to consider things more critically.
Soon after Gwen was killed off Gerry introduced the Punisher, a truly sadistic character. It took a long time for me to appreciate the character, and that was only on TV, not in the comics.
Nothing Up My Sleeve
For my final trick this week, I’ll give network printing a try. I’m on the porch, and I want a direct network connection from my Snapdragon/Windows 11 laptop to the Epson ET-2985 downstairs in the office. Without it being a shared device within the Windows laptop that has a USB connection to the printer.
That seemed to work. Is the printer available within the free imaging software I like to use?
Yes it is! Now I’ll scurry down to the office and see if the picture printed.
It did. Success!
Remaining Calm and Carrying On
This blogaroo will turn 20 on September 5. I’d been thinking about calling it quits then, but I’ve decided to keep going until Trump is out of office. Whether or not he has served out his full second term.
Shared with you by a Times subscriber
Over at News From Mark Evanier, he’s been talking about the soon to end Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
The New York Times — for those of you who can pass beyond its paywall — has an interview with David Letterman about the end of The Late Show and this essay by critic Jason Zinoman about what it all means to us.
A NYTimes subscription comes with ten paywall-free links to share within each $30 4-week billing cycle.
Here’s the Letterman interview:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/arts/television/david-letterman-stephen-colbert-the-late-show-cbs.html?unlocked_article_code=1.g1A.9HWa.Q4Wa9-umbW4Q&smid=url-share
The Zinoman essay:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/arts/television/stephen-colbert-the-late-show-carson-letterman-leno.html?unlocked_article_code=1.g1A.SPFI.jUV67jIQBu1P&smid=url-share
Scan-dalous!
I could never deny being an obsessive fiddler with settings. I’m playing with every possible way of adjusting the Epson scanner. The automatic setting does some things almost as well as the Canon did.
The processing on this scan is bright and de-screened, while effectively reducing the yellowing of the paper. The problem is a sharpening filter was added, and I really dislike that.
Enlarge this image and you can see there are ridges around everything, including the lettering. If I could disable that, I’d be pleased with this quality. Yeah, I know. Picky, picky, picky.
This is how it looks with only de-screening.
