What's Distracting Patricia?

It's obvious...

It puts the lotion on it's skin and it clicks the link at Dave Ex Machina.


Tags: Meme comic books

Raggador Madness

I'm not one for drug humor because I find it a lower source for the funny than Power Girl's breasts and drugs are stupid, but sometimes a comic book image comes along that doesn't really lend itself to anything else.

Panel from Bullpen Bulletins feature, Strange Tales #139 (December 1965)

This pipe-like device might be a mailer for subscription comics so they don't get damaged when shipping. It might be a mailing tube, but it looks to me more like Doctor Strange is chilling in his Sanctum while conjuring a mystic portal to the Stash Dimension where he stores his party supplies.

I don't know what genius thought mailing precious comic books by tightly rolling them up was a good idea but it is stupid. It's just as stupid as when they used to mail them flat with just a band of paper around the middle of the book, leaving all the edges to get torn and messed up. Plus, you know all the mailmen were totally reading your Fantastic Four before you did which is wrong on many levels.


Tags: Doctor Strange Strange Tales Ditko Marvel Advertising Lowest Common Denominator

Grocery Store Artifact: Best innovation ever

This coding and product identification sticker that you can find on just about all the individual fruits and vegetables at your local grocery store has also been blessed with one of mankind's greatest innovations ever.

Until relatively recently, when you decided to enjoy a piece of fruit it was difficult to peel the annoying little label off the skin of your treat. Removing the non-tasty sticker used to mean scraping at it until it came off, usually in several tiny pieces. Often, you tore the skin of the food and usually got stinging acidic rind painfully wedged up under your fingernail. I hate that because it hurts.

Then a while ago somebody tweaked the design of the the stickers by the addition of a small, adhesive-free tab to the edge. This meant no longer did busy housewives mar their expensive silk-wraps and weirdos with repressed anger weren't pushed too damn far again for everyone's own good. Just bend the tab up, grab hold and pull. The sticker peels right off with no mess, no fuss and most importantly...no burning sensations. I hope whoever came up with that design change became insanely wealthy.

Tags: Grocery Store Artifact retail innovation advertising

Lois Lane, Bionic Woman

More proof of Lois Lane's stupidity.

While on a story, Lois talks a scientist into turning her into a bionic woman with enhanced senses and artificial limbs covered with plastic. She even had her brain replaced with electronics. Too bad for her the new software had as many bugs and glitches as the previous wetware did.

The reasoning behind Lois' willingness to undergo radical body transformation surgery (which takes place in just a few days) is that if she was no longer a vulnerable human being at the mercy of Superman's foes, then they could get married. Yeah, Lois, just because the media calls your boyfriend the "Man of Steel" doesn't mean he gets turned on by Robot Olive Oyl.

Somehow, the machined and forged metal starts spreading like an infection and transforms Lois into something resembling an alien from a 1930's SF pulp cover.

Superman Family #178 (Aug-Sept 1976)

In pursuing her story about a marauding alien robot speedster that resembles Pac-Man an intelligent spaceship offers Lois to return to human form and get this...she actually agonizes over her decision. If she turns human again she can't get married but as a cyborg she is too inhuman to feel love. By this point Superman had already agreed to marry her as a cyborg (out of pity or from being to horrified by Lois's insanity to say no) so Lois opted to be scienti-magically changed back to flesh and bone so as not to miss out on the physical parts of the relationship. Plus, you know that the second that Lois can't keep her man happy Lana Lang comes sniffing around ready to take her place.

Awful, awful story that was not readable by even the earnest-yet-goofy standards of the Silver Age. And this was published in 1976, one of the bestest decades for comic books ever. The only thing that would have made this story bearable is if Cyborg-Lois looked more like that new Cylon slinking around Battlestar Galactica.

Tags: Lois Lane DC Comics bionic Superman Family

EWWJO!: Threat Down

Even Stephen hates Jimmy. Good man.


From the Threat Down Generator via Pen-Elayne!

Tags: Stephen Colbert ThreatDown Jimmy Olsen

Friday Catblogging

A clever entry by Marrionette of Dance of the Puppets fame. Her idea is something I'd absolutely invest in short-term.

Shrödinger's Cat Toy

So as I understand it the thing about collectables is that you can't actually open the packaging to read the comic or play with the toy or whatever because if you did that then they are no longer in mint condition...more.

Tags: Catblogging

Everything's worse with Jimmy Olsen!

I don't mind impossible physics, unlikely coincidences and other scene devices in comic books, but I do want a little bit of story-telling logic. Just because it is a comic book doesn't mean it won't sell if the star isn't shown leaping buildings, y'know?

One of my pet peeves is when non-super characters clearly do super-duper things, like in this panel from Superman Family #191 (Sept-Oct 1978) featuring professional idiot Jimmy Olsen. I hate him so much.

A decidedly non-super Jimmy punches a villain so hard he doesn't just stumble and fall back, he is actually lifted off the ground to a height of about 6 feet. The villain (who's costume resembles that of Jimmy's bestest pal) flies back hard enough to smash his head through a death trap prison bubble that is filling with water without shredding the guy's face off or pulping the skull. Getting hit that hard would tear someone's head off...unless the costume was reinforced and armored somehow...but then how did Jimmy...No...I'm over-thinking this. It was just a bad story and lazy art.

So to recap, Jimmy's Non-Super Super Powers are:

• Super-Strength
• Super-Hit Someone And They Become Airborne And Accelerate At Right Angles punch
  
• Super-Give Someone The Power To Speak Clearly With Head Submerged Under Water
• Super-Charlie's Angels Wardrobe Wearing Ability
• Super-Calkboard Eraser Cleaning
  

Tags: Jimmy Olsen DC Comics Superman Family Grrrrr!

52, Week 18: The Marvel Age of Magic

- Panels from 52, Week #18 (Sept 6 2006)

Not to be snarky, but I see that in the concept of the Tenth Age of Magic that the DC of 2006 has finally caught up with Steve Ditko's early-1960's Marvel output.

Ok, a little snarky. This is obviously a hat tip to the master, Steve Ditko and his surreal dimensional landscapes. I'm not going to say DC is recycling old Marvel concepts until I see Dr. Fate throwing spells using the American Sign Language I Love You gesture.

That said, since being married to a person who is deaf, it's been 20 years since I could read anything featuring Doctor Strange without thinking that he's throwing mystic love-blast affirmations of affection everytime he fights a demonic entity.

- Original panel art from Strange Tales #139 (December 1965)

I sure am glad my wife doesn't read this.

Tags: ditko 52 dc marvel surreal Dr. Strange ASL

Why I Hate Roomates

While going through some treeware files I found this old photo of me in the barracks dorm room circa 1984 from when I was serving in the armed forces. That damn Prince poster on the wall is one of the primary reasons I hate having roommates and always will. You have no say in how they decorate, when and how often they shower and what they watch on TV. Plus, they steal your food and touch your stuff.

What's the point of roommates anyway? Sharing the expenses? Friendship? The dramatic belief that you may find ♥♥♥ True Love ♥♥♥ * via/through/because of/with your roommate like the characters in the plot of some zany film starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day? Pfft. Quit dropping cash on $500 sport shoes and pay the rent first and you can afford to live without sharing your space with a freakish retard. As for friendship, that's what dogs and the Internet is for. And if you are looking to scratch an itch or a find a soul mate quit fantasizing you live in a dramedy script and tear yourself away from the Idiot's Lantern and the computer long enough to feel sunshine on your face and get out there looking for some.

That poster is also why this photo was never put in the family photo albums and was instead thrown into a box of assorted junk papers for me to discover years later.

Man, I forgot I used to be hot!

Tags: Hotness, Awesome, Total Fox, Hey, Baby...Call Me, 1984, Family Photo Album

* "Mawige. Mawige is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawige, that bwessed awangement, that dweam wifin a dweam. And wuv, twu wuv, will fowow you foweva, So tweasure your wuv" - The Impressive Clergyman (Peter Cook in The Princess Bride)

Warholing the Invisible Woman

Warholing. Hey, I invented a verb!



Link to New Animated Fantastic Four Liveblogging & The Fainting

Tags: Fantastic Four, Marvel, Warhol, Sue Storm, Animation

Leave it to Pa Kent

...to having me now forever associate him with the image of a geriatric man using a sex toy. Comics Code Approved, indeed.

From Adventure Comics #236 (May 1957)

Tags: Pa Kent, Ewww, gross!

Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter: 1962-2006

So how many news reports, articles and blog entries will bear the title "Crikey!" this week?

I'd play Count the Crikeys but it seems a little mean and I'm not in the mood. Anyone who wants can count the cliche's themselves at the search-engine link above. Sorry, guys...but using the signature Steve Irwin catch-phrase as a headline is inapropriate humor at best and insulting at worst.

Obviously, the reader is being led by the writer to imagine that a hurt and surprised Crikey! was one of Irwin's last words after being mortally wounded by a stingray. Gallows humor, sure. Yet not professional.

I really wanted better from career and amateur journalists in announcing Steve Irwin's death by misadventure. Jerks.

Here's a link to a well-written New York Times article about Steve Irwin, the fatal incident and some back story: Australia’s ‘Crocodile Hunter’ Killed by Stingray.

This is how you do it. Please take notes.

Tags: Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter

Leave it to Ray Palmer

...to be the last guy in the DCU you'd expect to be stalked by Invisible Phantom Supergirl™.

What...was Bruce Wayne off-world or something?

Kara is sneaking into the boys locker room in Superman Family #220 (July 1982)


Tags: Supergirl, Ray (Atom) Palmer, Scary

You've come a long way, baby

Here are some screenshots from the new Fantastic Four craptoon in which Sue Storm bitches at everyone and then faints.

First, a downblouse for the boys!

"You think? You think?"

Nice pose. Who bends over 90 degrees at the waist with shoulders thrown back to scream at someone? You'd think that would compress the diaphragm and make shouting more difficult.

Sue is mature, strong, capable, a valued member of the team with years of combat experience dealing with all kinds of surreal and bizarre adventures behind her and yet...

(gasp) My baby brother...(gasp)...taken to...(gasp)...another galaxy!

Oh, lord. Here we go...
Poor, suffering Reed.

"Eeeeee-Ohhhhhhhhh!"

Yep. Not just Ugh...blacking out! or Ohhhh! They had Sue do the whole Eeeeeee-Ohhhhhhhh! thing. Should have let her fall, Reed.

Don't the various team members of the FF get kidnapped to other galaxies like every two weeks or something? Later, Sue wakes up she proceeds to rip everyone around her new ones for the rest of the show.

Link to New Animated Fantastic Four Liveblogging

Tags: Fantastic Four, Marvel, Animation, Bitch, bitch, bitch

Leave it to Supergirl

...to frighten more married men faithful than Basic Instinct.

"Or grind you to bloody paste in my hands. Whichever."

This sex-starved Maid of Steel is stalking you from Superman Family #220 (July 1982)

Tags: Supergirl, Scary

New Animated Fantastic Four liveblogging

8:00 pm: I was expecting crappy 70's style anime a la that awful Teen Titans Go! cartoon. Pleasantly surprised it isn't. Instead, it's in crappy 80's style anime. Thankfully, team isn't noob teens who do ULTIMATE EXTREEEEEEEEEME RADICAL STUFF. No origin or back story. The team is already established and of appropriate age. Since no one watched the FF movie viewers may be confused as to who the Fantastic Four are. Cool spinning holographic FF logo on top of the Baxter building. Like a big old bullseye.

8:04 pm: Show jumps right into it. Johnny Storm (Human Torch) blows up robot probes.

8:05 pm: "Hello, Johnny? Yeah, it's Macross. We'd like our haircut and jacket back."

8:05 1/2 pm: Johnny gets teleported away and Sue faints. SUE FAINTS! (paging Ragnell)

8:07 pm: Ad for new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys. The toys automatically grasp and throw pointy daggers at things, probably little sister's eyes. I want one. Possibly two.

8:10 pm: Ronan the Accuser transports all the FF into a huge arena for a trial. I learn that my inner voice has been mis-pronouncing the Kree homeworld all these years. It's "Hey-Lah" not "Hah-Lah". Sadly, Michael Dorn did not voice Ronan. Wow, Johnny is a jerk. He's on trial for destroying Kree probes sent to look at the FF. They consider it a terrorist act.

8:15 pm: Ben Grimm is from the street. He has a body like a brick wall. Therefore, some design genius decided that tagging him with graffitti by spray-painting the FF logo on his chest was clever. It is actually stupid. Also, symbol look suspiciously like the G4 gaming channel logo. Stealth brand placement?

8:21 pm: Johnny is sentenced to death and spiny robot tigers attack! Man, what is up with the Storm sibling's chins? They don't need flame or force field powers, they could just cut you with their dangerous pointy chins.

8:22 pm pm: FF smash the spiny robot tigers. The Supreme Intelligence shows up and is correctly depicted once again as the Kirbyesque computer program energy blob like I always knew he was and not that goopy biological entity he has been recently shown to be because artists hired after 1989 don't get it and respect the source material. Supreme gives Johnny amnesty. Ronan acts like a petulant child. The arena teleports away.

8:26: Johnny apologizes to everybody for being a "hot-head" Get it? *Yawn*. Show is over. I Think there was about 16 minutes of commercials, 14 minutes of show.

Whew! Glad that's over.

While invisi-surfing, Susan becomes overjoyed to discover she has a vagina.
Her teammates share her enthusiasm.

Link to The Fainting

Tags: Fantastic Four, Marvel, Liveblogging, Animation

Happy Birthday to Gene Colan, Master of Shadow

In recognition of Gene Colan's 80th Birthday, I'm presenting one of the reasons why he is my favorite comic book artist.

Daredevil #56 (Sept 1969)

He drew an invisible horse with the anatomy clearly defined by the use of light and shadow. Death's-Head was clearly a Scooby-Doo villain in that it was all special effects. He knew it, his victims knew it and Daredevil knew it. Gene Colan left no doubt that the bad guy of this story was not a supernatural creature but just an murderous bastard with a few clever tricks. Exactly the kind of creep that Daredevil should always fight. In drawing the Hollow Horse, lesser artists would have outlined the mount using dotted lines or drawn the rider as if it was riding only a skeleton, which for the story would have been artistically sloppy.

Not only did Gene Colan break from the Marvel style of emulating Kirby, he was one of the first to use rough pencils in mainstream comics as a way of story-telling, most notably in the Ragamuffins series for Eclipse comics.

From Eclipse, The Magazine #3 (Nov 1981)

All you comic noobs, treat yourself and read some Daredevil, Tomb of Dracula and Nathaniel Dusk. Let "Dr. Colan" heal the scars cut deep into a brain viciously wounded by the art-thugs of Liefeld, Ramos, Bachalo and pretty much anyone else who started working in comics in the 90's.

Other Colan entries *

Gene Colan and Motion

Groin Injury Saturday: Dracula

* Heh-heh

Wolverine, Kitty and Lex Luthor walk into a bar...

You all are probably familiar with this...

From X-Men #132 (April 1980)

And the recent Swipe/Homage...

From Astonishing X-Men #15 (August 2006)

Today, Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator sent me this panel:

From Superman/Batman #6 ( March 2004)

I wonder how many of these John Byrne-inspired panels there are out there in comic book land?

Thanks, Jon!

Tags: Comic Art Swipe, John Byrne, Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, Lex Luthor

Friday Catblogging

Hot wet young pussy

I know it's just a cat getting a bath and the joke is juvenile...but watch my hit stats rise!

Suckers!


Tags: Catblogging

9/11 Report - A Graphic Adaptation: One important funny book

When I initially heard that there would be a comic art adaptation of the events of 9/11 I was instantly skeptical, as I imagined that it was yet another cynical attempt to take money from the gullible by manipulation of emotion and patriotism. Then I read that the adaptation was going to be a summary of the report prepared by the 9/11 Commission so I ordered it right away.

While I'm not up to providing in-depth review let me just say this: This is one important funny book.

The 9/11 Report itself is a difficult read, couched in the usual government terminology. The report is not written at a 9th grade reading level and if you want to teach kids, young adults and easily-distracted adults about the Commission's findings then this book is a must.

For some baffling reason Stan Lee gets a bit of space on the back cover of the book. I guess if it looks like a comic book then they call up Stan. He praises the work and asserts that the adaptation "should be required reading in every home, school, and library." I agree that one if not several copies should be available to students and the public. Hopefully, schools and libraries won't allow the Wingnuts to censor or limit the exposure of it to people by requiring permission slips from a parent or guardian.

As far as I can tell the adaptation is free of editorializing. If one administration appears to have stumbled more than the other in dealing with Al Queda it is not a direct attack on that President or their organization by the report. If you want to get technical about it, every administration since 1920 has mishandled the Middle East. Given clarity of hindsight, it is...what it is.

That may not stop those with an agenda from attacking it as they did the original report. In fact, some attacks on the adaptation have already begun claiming it is variously official propaganda for one administration or conversely, an assault on same. I guess it depends on what side of the political fence you stand.

Sid Jacobson wrote the adaptation, distilling the text to a readable format from the Commission's report with a minimum of fictionalizing. Comic veteran Ernie Colon should be lauded for the amount of work he did illustrating over one hundred pages of the book. He was also professional and mature enough to keep the real-world graphic scenes of violence understated and not crib layouts from his work on Marvel's Damage Control series. There are a few scenes where the bad guys appear "Mwa-ha-ha-Evil" but given the medium it may be unavoidable. There are some familiar comic book sound effects thrown in and some dialogue that was created because there is no way of knowing what was actually said, but remains in the tone of the events. A few other panels show scenes of tragedy and if not for the knowledge that they are based on real events one could dismiss them as typical comic book illustrations and not taken seriously.

Pulitzer material? I don't know. This should definitely receive some sort of recognition but it is different than Maus, which is one of the few mainstream books in similar format that the public is familiar with.

You can find the adaptation from many sources on the net or at your local comic book store. You can also read the original 9-11 Report on line.


Tags: 9/11, Graphic Adaptation, Sid Jacobson, Ernie Colon, WTC