Have you had any formal art training?

The long-lost and infamous '501' jeans commercial from 1991 directed by Spike Lee and featuring Rob Liefeld.



Don't get me started.

Important. Go read.

Click the picture for an important story from Bully's Pal, John DiBello.

It was only until recently that news organizations stopped referring to Comic-Con attendees as weird, virginal losers who liked nothing more than dressing up like the characters from their favorite Japanese cartoon. The local coverage of the Con recognized that it was no longer just about buying the first appearance of Green Lantern, Hammer film festivals and getting a sketch from an artist. The SDCC is now a major media event. Yes, there was the usual story about people dressing up as Storm Troopers from Star Wars, Slave-Girl Princess Leia and Spider-Man but the news is visual and any reporter that failed to mention or display them would be remiss in their duties.

Not that Mr. DiBello described goings on equal to the Tailhook Scandal, and convention attendees everywhere usually have a habit of going a bit wild. Still, this isn't Spring Break in Florida. It's behavior resulting from the mentality of "if a woman dresses like that, she's asking for it." The actions of a few ignorant jerks that was reported by Mr. DiBello and observed by others would have resulted in police involvement and arrests had the same activity taken place on the street, in a mall or on the beach.

I'm giving my support to those calling for improved security, policy and procedures so the next Con can be enjoyed by everyone.

Inconceivable!

As I write this I'm too flabbergasted to be furious. After a little while I'll come out of shock and then get angry and then probably ill, if my previous reactions to this situation are any indication to what my immediate future holds.

I never went into detail much (preferring to be comical about a serious situation) but I left Maryland, fled really, a year and change ago for California. I grew up in San Diego. I left a wife and child behind in Maryland for a number of months while I sought new employment and a place to live.

In Maryland I had a pretty good job and a pretty good life. I wasn't crazy about the people but the area was nice. That life fell apart as a pay error that initially shorted me a few hundred dollars snowballed from a simple accounting error into a series of horrible events that set me back decades. If I had known what would have happened when I sent in the pay error request to be compensated for a couple days of work I would have let it go. The simple error and the attempts of the payroll department to pay me about two hundred dollars turned into not being compensated the following weeks for over a thousand bucks. Then many screw ups later, many thousands of dollars.

What happened was: Back pay via payroll checks were issued to me which I deposited. Accounting then canceled the checks because they thought I was issued them erroneously. They did not tell me they placed a stop payment on the checks. I incurred a lot of returned check fees. Rent payments, utilities, car payments were all returned as insufficient. Then that problem was fixed. Then electronic deposits to my account were made. Then once again without bothering to inform me, the electronic deposits were reversed after I had paid all my outstanding bills. I then went weeks without being paid, was paid back, then wasn't paid again. This occurred again and again. The Union backed me up and ordered the company to pay me. The company agreed and then continued to screw up. Eventually I was given a $50 gift card for my troubles. I was informed I was being sent all my back pay (but would not be compensated for all the related late fees, overdraft fees, court costs and etc.) by express courier. I was even given check numbers. The expected package never arrived and I discovered I was given bogus tracking numbers by the accountants. The checks were never printed. I had enough and I gave notice.

In just a few months the late fees, court-related costs and compounded errors escalated to a point where I lost everything. Already halved by paying my wife's medical fees for things not covered by insurance, our savings were wiped out. The new job I secured after I left the old one didn't bring funds in quickly enough as I was being paid bi-weekly instead of weekly. Right then timing was everything. For example, If I owed the bank $600 by the end of the week or I lose a car to repossession, then payroll would screw it up give me only $100 of a promised $2500. Eventually, not having thousands of dollars available to keep the wolves from the door I was forced to abandon everything and move back to California with a suitcase and $150 in my pocket. It has taken us nearly two years to financially break even from the mess we were in and we still can't buy anything with a check or credit card because my former employer refused to acknowledge they caused my accounts to be overdrawn by wrongly placing stop payments on checks and reversing electronic deposits. The emotional wreck of my family life is still healing even though we have been reunited for over a year.

This is all fall out from a formerly good company which after a famous buyout and merger fell apart organizationally. Employees who had been with the company for decades were discarded in favor of the new companies' young and poorly-trained managers. After only a short conversation with any Manager one could easily determine who had been with the old company and who had been brought in from the parent company. A manager could usually be picked out as a new import because they were the ones shrilly berating employees in public. Many of the Managers were former residents of a cubicle farm who were transferred to the new division after taking a class in retail management and then were placed in charge.

After the merger a nationwide training division, payroll department and printing service was shut down as too expensive and everything was outsourced. Advertisements were routinely misprinted. Pricing was chaotic and riddled with errors. And apparently, the new Accounting and Payroll service was outsourced to a team of dyslexic gerbils who operated out of Afghanistan. I speculate this is what happened because only brainless rodents with difficulty in interpreting a second language because of a reading disability could be so ridiculously incompetent. In less than a year after the merger a large and successful company was destroyed and made marginal. Some say it was on purpose so it could be torn apart and the pieces sold off for profit.

Now what has got me all dizzy from reliving the nightmare is that the same accounting office which I unsuccessfully argued with for over two years to get what was was owed...

This office I talked to on a nearly daily basis and then several times a week for a year (at about 3 hours per conversation, because each call was like the very first and no one, including the accountant I had spoken to several times that week, knew or remembered anything)...

This accounting department which was completely incapable of compensating me for the work I did, plus compounded in a most ridiculous fashion with error after error after error which I would suspect were intentional acts specifically planned to destroy my life if not for the daily evidence that everyone involved in the company from the bottom up were all comically inept...

This is the same accounting department which previously had no record of paying me, agreed they owed me money, yet dissembled, denied and ignored me...

This office contacted me yesterday by letter and disclosed that I had "several unclaimed payroll checks" in their office. I was informed in the letter that my money has been sitting in their accounts with funds owed me from the beginning of July to December 2006. The letter also tells me If I do not respond and claim the money owed me within 30 days the funds would then be presumed abandoned and turned over to the State Treasurer.

I'm sending the response today overnight via FedEx. Believe me, these tracking numbers will not be in the least bit bogus.

Inconceivable.

He's prepared for any Jazz emergency

Roland Kirk as photographed by Jan Persson.

From Down Beat magazine (August 21, 1969).

It's a case of too much pin-up girl

Not much plot, yet nonetheless a riveting read. From Picture News #3 (March 1946).

4 out of 5 Drunken European Prostitutes prefer Gillette!

For their men, that is.

From Astounding Science Fiction (April 1943).

Where's my jump-belt?

Click the picture to jump to the story!

One of the first Science Fiction stories (albeit pro-authority) I ever read. Story has a great line for the subtext I was too young to get back in '65: "Jumping with a girl doesn't sound like much fun."

From Magnus, Robot Fighter (Gold Key Comics, August 1965).

They drove their fields of force against the fivefold bars

From The Skylark of Valeron, Astounding Stories (January 1935). Story by Edward E. Smith with art by Elliot Dold.

The doors of vast airlocks opened

From The Skylark of Valeron, Astounding Stories (January 1935). Story by Edward E. Smith with art by Elliot Dold.

You have become a demigod!

From Mind Over Matter. Astounding Stories, January 1935. Story by Raymond Z. Gallum with art by M. Marchioni.

Exclusive preview of the new on-going Mary Marvel series spun out of FINAL CRISIS!

The radical change in the characterization of Mary Marvel in Final Crisis #3 is probably temporary and I think she will she'll be a hero again, however flawed. But Morrison likes screwing with reader's minds so Mary's new personality could very well be as permanent as it gets in comic books. Still, once Mary was spiritually corrupted it can't be undone and she is going to be changed forever by the experience. "Our" sweet little heroine is gone forever.

I'm liking Final Crisis so far. It's coming together nicely.

Original cover of Mary Marvel #1 (December 1945) for comparison here.

Uzza, uzza, uzza

From Astounding Stories, Flight on Titan. Story by Stanley G. Weinbaum. Art by M. Marchioni. (January 1935).

Futura - Chapter 6

Some newsstand silliness graces the cover of Planet Comics #48 (May 1947). For a comic book that featured scantily-clad men and women in every story the cover features a giant sexless robot with the crotch area obscured by a cloud. The theory being that parents may not pay attention to the interior art if the exterior image is deemed harmless enough at first glance.

This kind of bait-and-switch was a specialty of comic books of the era as they tried to gain a market share wracked by the decline of the pulps. Decades before comic books were attacked by the public and politicians as being unwholesome the pulp magazines suffered a similar trial. Declared obscene, many pulp titles were forced to be hidden behind the newsstand counters. Public pressure was mounting to shut down the publishers of the racy and violent magazines, even though it was primarily the adult audience of working joes and soldiers that purchased the books and not children.

Eventually the campaign for decency, poor products and a saturated and changing market forced most of the pulp magazines to fold or evolve into mainstream magazines. In some ways the pulps were sabotaged from within. Like in the modern era of comic books, publishers desperate for a dwindling market share resorted to gimmicks to increase or stabilize plummeting sales. For the pulps, titillation and cheesecake, if not outright pornography, were utilized to interest readers and boost. Something similar could be observed in the comic books of the 1990s. Both eras enjoyed a brief surge in sales followed by a devastating collapse, if for different reasons.

Sabotage is the theme for Chapter 6 of the Futura saga. But where the pulp and comic book markets sabotaged themselves, Futura projects her struggle outwards and engages in attacks on the infrastructure of the Brain-Men!

This is also the second chapter where disguise and transformation plays a major role in the fight against the tyrants. Hiding a powerful bomb in a log, Futura gambles that she can enter the stronghold of the tyrants unobserved, destroying their power station and laboratories in one massive strike. While evenst do not go all according to plan Futura does eventually succeed after a fashion. Adopting another identity also saves the day as Futura enters the fortress of the Brain Men, setting the scene for adventures to come.

Enjoy!

Mistress of the Blue Bolts

This would be a cool pattern for a stained glass window in my home.

Valdina, Mistress of the Blue Bolts from Star Pirates, Planet Comics #48 (May 1947).

Futura Chapter 6 tomorrow!

Tom Tyler as Captain Marvel

Hobo in La Jolla - Supervillain Update

This is Cliff.

Say "Hi" to Cliff everyone!

I know his name because last month Cliff, in a drunken tantrum, shortly after being ejected from an adjacent property by the police for throwing a drunken tantrum*, randomly attacked and vandalized a car in the parking lot.

My car.

Cliff went to jail for the act but now he is once again free and wandering around the area having more drunken tantrums. He seems to have some problem with the concept of staying off staying off the property and keeping away from the customers, so I foresee more legal problems for Cliff in the near future.

I'm thinking of getting Cliff registered with the Guild of Calamitous Intent. Cliff easily qualifies as a supervillain. A semi-normal person until he drinks his special chemical formula, Cliff transforms into a feral, screaming psycho who engages in random property damage and mayhem which continues until a specialized team of heroes takes him out of action with their high-tech weapons and tactics. That's classic comic book stuff. Cliff also has the identity-concealing costume down, but he needs a proper supervillain moniker. Perhaps something like The Rampaging Imbiber or The Screaming Jerk-Face.

* Or as the police officer called it, "Acting like Cliff".

It's called "Puberty"

"...And don't wear a bra!"

Gothic Tales of Love #2 (Marvel, June 1975).

Dire Panda

Like many other comic book fans I've been for a few years semi-actively seeking out a copy of Heroic Comics #35 (1946) for the lead story Facing Death in a Panda's Mouth. Seen by few and existing only as rumor in comic geek circles the unlikely cover of Heroic Comics depicts a hunter being menaced by an improbably huge panda with vampire tendencies. But can the story possibly meet the promise of the cover?

Yes and no.

Thanks to the recent Comic-Con and a friend I finally got hold of a copy. The story, while simple, is as goofy, stupid and awesome as I anticipated. The art is serviceable and at times hilarious as the Dire Panda appears to have been modeled variously after a wolverine or a family pet. Looking at this story I speculate the artist propped up his daughter's gerbil and posed it for some model reference.

Of course, the giant predatory monster in the comic book doesn't exist in reality. Yet as anyone who can watch a YouTube clip knows, pandas are not the cuddly, sensitive Gandhi-like critters at one with the Universe that has been the mainstay of children's entertainment and education for uncounted years. They are big and strong animals with teeth that will tear your arm off. Pandas, though, are one of the few animals in the world that can still elicit a reaction of "Aw, cute!" from witnesses even as it is ripping deep into your face with its claws.

Note: Story contains some ethnically derogatory terms.

Enjoy!

Revenge is a Smoothie best served cold

A few days ago I'm at the local Coffee Bean Barn adjacent to my favorite book store (just missing Bully in person by a few hours, darn it!). It's hot outside so I order the new Mango Banana Smoothie they are just putting out on the market. The conversation goes something like this:

Me: "Let's try the venti Mango-Banana Smoothie, please."

Perky Barista: Okay! Would you like some 'Energy' with that?

Me: 'Energy'?

Perky Barista: Sure! 'Energy'!

Me: Well, if you are all out of 'Magic Rainbow Sparkle Dust', sure. I'll try some 'Energy'.

Not-So-Perky-Anymore Barista: Allright. That'll be $6.95.

After my drink is done I realize that I broke one of the cardinal rules of survival in a modern society. The first rule is to never annoy people that handle your food or save your life. This means you never, ever mess with Cooks, Cops or the Fire Department. Not if you know what is good for you. There are a lot of crazies out there in the world and some of them have jobs and make it through stringent screening processes. Look at Congress. You'd think that would be common sense that everyone practices but take it from one currently in the service industry and former Law Enforcement, hardly anyone ever thinks about that.

So I'm in my car driving and realize the Barista exacted her revenge for my humorous smart-assery. The straw kept clogging on the banana chunks in the Smoothie forcing me to repeatedly clear the straw by blowing it clear. My enjoyment of the drink was ruined and I had to really work at drinking it, eventually giving up. You see, she gave me a skinny straw instead of the extra-wide one designed for the blended drinks.

I think I got off lucky.

Speculators

Here's the first one.