Flimsy Rationales

Golden Age Artist Spotlight -- Frank Frazetta -- UPDATED

2010-05-11T13:34:00.001-04:00

UPDATE: 5/11/10

The news regarding Frazetta's death hit the wires yesterday. Frazetta passed away at the age of 82. I was never very good at obituary-writing, but suffice to say that Frazetta was an artistic influence that cannot be overestimated. His work redefined several genres, including comics, paperbacks, and sword-and-sorcery, among others.

Here is a re-published interview with Gary Groth at The Comics Journal (originally conducted in 1994). It shows great insights into the man: Frank Frazetta Interview.

R.I.P.

Comic books were just an early part of his success, his breaking-in phase. Frazetta went on to become one of the most well-known fantasy artists of the twentieth century, illustrating beautiful painted book covers (famously for Robert E. Howard's "Conan" and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan and John Carter), album covers (for bands like Molly Hatchet and Nazareth), movie posters (including What's New, Pussycat, Mad Max, The Guantlet, and his cinematic collaboration with Ralph Bakshi, Fire and Ice), and comic strips, including Al Capp's Lil' Abner, Dan Barry's Flash Gordon, and Harvey Kurtzman's Little Annie Fanny in Playboy magazine.

Again, as heavily covered in the documentary, Frazetta was bigger than life. He was, and still is, tough as nails. This is a man, who after suffering a stroke and losing the ability to draw with his right hand, taught himself to draw with his left and continued to produce world-class art work. His kinetic, photo-realistic drawings of the human form grounded the often-far-flung fantasy genre, which in combination with the heightened availability of mass market paperbacks featuring his artwork, paved the way for an entire subgenre of art, allowing artists like Simon Bisley, Boris Vallejo, Jeff Jones and others to find success. Frazetta is a true American original, in a way that the simple, overused label cannot understate.

The trailer from Frank Frazetta: Painting with Fire, which plays occasionally on the movie channel IFC and is available on DVD:

"Frazetta: Painting With Fire" Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

Golden Age Artist Spotlight -- Sheldon Moldoff

2010-04-20T14:17:00.000-04:00

Sheldon "Shelly" Moldoff celebrated his 90th birthday last Wednesday. A living legacy, Moldoff has had an impact on comics that cannot be underestimated. Besides his obvious stylistic influences on characters like Hawkman, the golden age Green Lantern, and Batman, Moldoff also created a bevy of new characters like Poison Ivy, Ace the Bathound, Hawkgirl, The Black Pirate, and Moon Girl.

I will expand upon this blog post at a later time (I'm still reviewing some audio sources), and will discuss some rather controversial treatment of Moldoff by some legendary comic figures, but wanted to get both a placeholder and an exhibition of some of Moldoff's most distinctive covers (as well as a PSA and a Batman interior).

Golden Age Artist Spotlight -- Fred Guardineer

2010-03-31T17:17:00.003-04:00

"When I sat down to work at Chesler, I started with a blank piece of paper and did the whole bit: I penciled it and I lettered it and I inked the lettering and then I inked the pencil drawings and turned out the finished product. I know of no other way to work." -- Fred Guardineer (interviewed by Dylan Williams in Comics Journal #282)

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster are the names that come to mind when Action Comics #1 is discussed. For those not in the know, it's the historic issue featuring the very first appearance of Superman, and depending on who you talk to, also heralding the success of an entire medium. A recent on-line auction of a higher-grade copy of this issue went for a reported million dollar final gavel price. But Superman wasn't the only costumed hero making his debut in the first issue of Action.   There was also a tuxedoed magician-detective named Zatara with the ability to create magic by speaking commands backwards (it's probably more impressive displayed in print than in real life -- where it probably resembles a mentally ill person shouting gobbly-gook or a Baptist preacher speaking in tongues).  Fred Guardineer was the creator of this sartorially splendid magical crimefighter.   Zatara, while often on the periphery of D.C. Comics up through the decades following his debut, did outlive a good chunk of his golden age compatriots, finally meeting his demise in an issue of Swamp Thing (#50) in 1986.  His daughter Zatanna, famous for the fishnet stockings, continues his backwards-spoken-spell legacy in the Justice League and in her own set of solo series. But Zatara wasn't Guardineer's only magician-adventurer.  Zatara was merely the first, of many magic-spouting heroes, across numerous comic companies, most lost to the ages.

Guardineer was born in 1913, and grew up in Albany, New York. Guardineer became a rarity in that day and age, a college-educated comic artist, after graduating from Syracuse University in 1935, with a degree in fine arts. Like many other Syracuse grads, he continued to follow their nationally-recognized sports teams for the rest of his life, and bemoaned the lack of Orangemen lacrosse coverage when he relocated in his later years to California.    His first art job came about after he walked in off the street into the Harry 'A' Chesler offices and negotiated a pay rate of $15-$20 a week.   He drew for both the pulps and the comics, strip art in particular, both daily and Sundays on the Dan Hastings adventure strip from 1937 through 1938.   While at Chesler he was introduced to the equally talented Jack Cole, who he would later work with at Quality Comics, working for Busy Arnold.  He also appropriated one of his most valuable possessions at Chesler -- a drawing desk. He exhanged his own desk with the one he was assigned at Chesler, and ended up dragging it down the street to the hotel he was staying at, then to his studio, then finally out to his home in Long Island.   He worked on that desk his entire life.

But it was a twelve page back-up feature that would signal a bigger move.   While also contributing work to Centaur, Guardineer developed Zatara and pitched it to D.C., who were developing a new action-based series of comic books.  That series turned into Action Comics (which also led to work in Adventure Comics, More Fun Comics, Detective Comics, and other superhero/adventure series). Guardineer was a perfect fit for early D.C., utilizing a clean, clear style, and possessing that most important quality of speed. Guardineer was also a self-taught letterer. He had a dorm-mate studying engineering who had an additional printing textbook. Guardineer practiced each exercise diligently until he had the form and technique for filling word-balloons down pat.  He also used photo references relentlessly, and kept a huge clippings file, and remarked that no magazine escaped his house without being stripped clean of every photograph available. Perhaps as a consequence of looking through so many pics, Guardineer often enjoyed putting photographic likenesses of Hollywood stars into his comic book art, including a notable cameo of Clark Gable into an issue of the cowboy comic Durango Kid.   As the covers show below, Guardineer was selected for a wide range of cover assignments at D.C. in addition to his regular twelve page interiors (Pep Morgan and Speed Sanders being regular Guardineer-drawn features along with Zatara),  my favorite cover being a blood-spewing elephant attacking some big game hunters.   It's been also been noted that one of his Zatara stories, in Action Comics #12, might feature the first same sex couple in the history of comic books -- where two kingdoms continually at war settle their differences by having their two queens share the same combined throne and rule the dual lands as "wife and wife."

Guardineer then moved on to Quality Comics, creating characters like the Blue Tracer:

As well as features like this splash page (for the Lev Gleason comic Crime Does NOT Pay):

While at other companies like Quality, Columbia Comics, Marvel, Hillman and ME Publications, Guardineer also found that when a formula works, it might work again somewhere else.   Hence a series of clones of Zatara, including such characters as Merlin the Magician, Tor the Magic Master, Yarko the Great, and Marvelo, tuxedoed and mustachioed to a man. They didn't all start off wielding the superpower of magical backwards-speak like Zatara, but eventually most of them did. Again, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Maybe to stave off the comparisons, Guardineer worked under pseudonyms during this time period, including Lance Blackwood, F.G.B., and Gene Baxter. Additional creations during this time (early to mid-forties) include characters like Moon-Man, Dragon, The Mouthpiece and features like Anchors Aweigh. From 1949 to 1955, Guardineer drew the western feature, The Durango Kid (issues #19-41) for Magazine Enterprises, working for his old Action Comics editor Vin Sullivan.

In 1955, at the age of 42, Guardineer saw the comics companies consolidating, collapsing, and cutting artists left and right. He retired from regular comics drawing to start a career with the U.S. Postal Service, where he worked for the next twenty years. Even while at the post office, he continued to provide drawings and written features for hunting and fishing columns in local newspapers and on the radio, and supplemented his income later in life with cover re-creations of his early Action Comics covers.

As noted by Mark Evanier in his blog here, in 1998 Guardineer attended Comic-Con International to be part of several panels, including one gathering every surviving person who had a hand in the creation of Action Comics #1.  Guardineer also received the Inkpot Award that same year. Reportedly, Guardineer was most flattered, gracious and surprised by all the attention he received at that and other California cons. He passed away on September 13, 2002.

Enjoy the covers!

Golden Age Artist Spotlight -- Joe Maneely

2010-03-22T14:54:00.001-04:00

Joe Maneely was as much a story of "What if?" as he was an example of a prolific, immensely talented golden age artist. He was a relative star for Atlas Comics (Martin Goodman's precursor to Marvel Comics), and handled assignments in every genre. An excellent draftsman, Maneely drew characters and scenes with a distinctive style, yet with almost photo-realistic detail. His cowboys dressed like real cowboys and his soldiers fought with off-the-assembly-line-like gear. His drawing was above all action-oriented. Not as pretty as some other artists, but very vivid. And his inking became stylized over time, resembling fine etching as he reached the apex of his career.

Maneely was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After dropping out of high school his sophomore year, Joe enlisted in the Navy, serving three years as a specialist in visual aids and contributing cartoons to ship newspapers. In 1947, after his discharge, Maneely married his childhood sweetheart. Under the G.I. Bill, Maneely trained at the Hussian School of Art in Philadelphia. His first professional art experience began in the art department at the Philadelphia Bulletin. His first comics work came via freelance for Street & Smith Publications. With several other artists, Maneely formed an arts studio in Philadelphia.

Shortly after the birth of his first daughter (he and his wife Elizabeth would have two more daughters), Maneely would begin working for the outfit that would fully showcase his talents: Atlas Comics. Atlas was in the process of transitioning from the superhero-centric books of Timely to the globe-logoed Atlas books, which moved into a host of different genres, including westerns, horror, crime, science fiction, and humor (following E.C. Comics' lead in most of these area no doubt-- most golden age comic publishers were nothing if not devoted imitators). From 1950 until 1955, Maneely freelanced for Atlas, at which time he went on staff. Until his family moved to Queens in 1953, Maneely actually traveled back and forth from Philadelphia to New York three times a week via train to pick up scripts. In either 1954 or 1955, the Maneely family moved to suburban New Shrewsbury, New Jersey.

Quickly becoming a favorite of writer/editor Stan Lee, Maneely possessed two qualities that would serve him greatly as a comic book artist -- speed and versatility. As the covers below show, Maneely could handle any assignment, in any genre. He could go from drawing Petey the Pest to the Black Knight. In researching this piece, I was amazed to see that in roughly seven years at Atlas, Maneely drew approximately four hundred covers (assuming that the GCD's records are accurate). These were not quick-scribbled, minimalist, hack-jobs either. Most of these covers had an amazing amount of action, detail, and linework. This does not even count his interior pages, which he was estimated to produce at a rate of seven pages a day. Hence the nickname other Atlas contemporaries gave him: "Joe Money."

But by the summer of 1957, work at Atlas was drying up. Shortly afterward, Martin Goodman stopped distributing his own titles, and switched to American News Company, which soon went belly-up, leaving Atlas Comics without a distributor and which prompted Goodman to fire all staff except for Stan Lee, Maneely included. With the loss of his primary income, Maneely had to scramble for a limited number of freelance assignments for DC/National, Charlton Comics, Crestwood Publications, and federal goverment PSA comics. He also continued to draw (with Lee writing) a Chicago Sun Times-syndicated comic strip Mrs. Lyon's Cubs, which debuted on February 10, 1958.

Then came the night of June 7, 1958. After meeting with other laid-off Atlas colleagues in Manhattan, and enjoying dinner and drinks, Maneely boarded a commuter train and headed back to his home in New Jersey. At some point on the ride home, he walked out on the platform between passenger cars and fell between them, and was killed. He was thirty-two years old. It's alleged that he was still clutching his artist's portfolio when his body was found.

How Maneely died is not in debate, why he died is another. There have been accusations from his widow that he fell because of symptoms related to exhaustion brought on by excessive workloads at Atlas, rumors of suicide related to fallout of the Atlas layoff, questions of drunkenness and missing eyeglasses contributing to accidental tragedy. In any case, Maneely left behind a load of bills, a house recently purchased, zero savings, and three young children. It was a tragedy that would not only deprive the world of a huge talent, but devastate a family for years to come.

What compounds the loss is that Atlas was only a short time away from a renaissance as Marvel Comics. Fellow Atlas artists Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby would go on to co-create the Amazing Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, and a host of other familiar characters. There's every reason to believe that Maneely, had he lived, would have been a huge part of the "new" Marvel. Whether Maneely would have substituted for Kirby or Ditko on FF or Spider-man is obviously debateable. Mark Evanier, who worked closely with Kirby, notes here that:

First off, if Maneely had lived, Atlas/Marvel would have been a very different company. Actually, between him and Kirby and Ditko (Stan's other favorite artist), there would have been little room for anyone else to draw for the firm. ... As I wrote in a recent Jack Kirby Collector, 'Would it [Rawhide Kid] have gained readers if Stan had put Maneely on the book? Who knows? Sometimes, it's not a matter of having a good artist but of having the right good artist and the right chemistry.' [Re: Fantastic Four] - The Lee-Maneely team would have come up with a completely different comic. Would it have sold as well and spawned a new Renaissance in super-hero funnybooks? Again, who knows?

My two cents is that Kirby had already been known as an established and well-respected artist for decades prior to co-creating the Fantastic Four with Stan Lee, so no substitution was warranted or likely. Perhaps Kirby never gets hired. I doubt that severely. I think it's more likely that Maneely would have taken the spot that Don Heck and others filled (a Maneely Iron Man perhaps), and he probably would have done the majority of non-super hero work, including westerns, and he might have led to the creation of lots of new titles, superhero or otherwise. Or not. Guessing Maneely's impact is an interesting intellectual exercise, if only to deepen the impact of the tragedy; like Kirby or Ditko is now, Maneely might have been on the short list of the greatest comic book artists of the entire medium, as he was just coming into the prime of his career when it was horrifically cut short.

There are fewer available reprints of Maneely's works than one might expect. There are a list of Marvel reprints on Maneely's wikipedia page and there is a well-regarded Marvel Masterworks hardcover collection of Maneely's Black Knight and Yellow Claw series (containing nice Kirby art as well) available here. It's slightly distressing to see that, despite being part of the larger Marvel legacy, there has been very little in terms of Atlas reprinting on a broad, widely available basis, or a particular emphasis on producing a complete artist's profile. With the reprint market holding steady, one might hope for a Complete Maneely series sometime in the near future. Maneely deserves the retrospection and the respect. His was a bright star that extinguished much too early.

Enjoy the covers, and I welcome your observations and insights.

Golden Age Artist Spotlight -- Irwin Hasen

2010-03-04T14:09:00.003-05:00

Irwin Hasen was born in 1918 on the west side of Manhattan, and lived around 110th Street and Amsterdam Ave. Like many of the other creators profiled on this site, Hasen was always drawing as a child (and then as a teenager). He devoured the Sunday comics, and appreciated the artistic talents of legends like Roy Crane (of Wash Tubbs fame) and Milton Caniff. A graduate of DeWitt Clinton High School, Hasen had the fortunate circumstances of a supportive mom and the National Academy of Design across the street. A class in drawing turned into three years of drawing instruction and attendance at the Art Students League (also in Manhattan).

Hasen started out as a boxing cartoonist, doing caricatures, action poses and blurbs, which were then sold to Madison Square Garden as pre-fight public relations for the weekly fights. This association with boxing probably led to the creation (with the golden age legendary writer Bill Finger) of Wildcat, whose alter ego is Ted Grant (no relation to the anchorman who worked with Mary Tyler Moore, presumably) and whose dayjob was heavyweight boxing champion of the world. Hasen went fully into comic books in 1940, working on such titles as The Green Hornet, The Fox, Secret Agent Z-2, Bob Preston, Explorer, Cat-Man, and The Flash, through the Harry 'A' Chesler shop. While at All American Comics/DC, in addition to Wildcat, Hasen drew stories and covers for Green Lantern, The Flash, Wonder Woman, and All-Star Comics. Under the editorship of Sheldon Mayer (who will get his own spotlight here soon), Hasen contributed many memorable works, including being the only artist who drew a complete 38 page All-Star comic (they were generally divided up among artists to concentrate on individual characters, with another artist doing the wrap-around story as well). He was also able to work as a contemporary with young artists like Alex Toth and Joe Kubert, and noted their incredible talent right off the bat. Unfortunately, with a change in editorial direction, Hasen, like other artists responsible for the birth of the golden age, was unceremoniously let go by D.C. A bachelor in his thirties, Hasen took this opportunity to travel the great cities of Europe and expand his horizons.

It was another trip to Europe, this time Germany, during the Korean War, to draw for the troops as part of a USO contingent, that Hasen encountered another opportunity, after meeting Gus Edson, to be a regular artist on a daily strip, to be named Dondi. An adventure strip about a young boy, the collaboration started in 1955, and lasted until discontinuation in 1986.

Post-Dondi, Hasen went into semi-retirement, but even now, in his early nineties, he continues to create and teach. A long-established senior instructor at the Joe Kubert School, and despite a stroke in the spring of 2007, Hasen has just recently produced an entertaining 128 page graphic novel, semi-autographical, called Loverboy, and available directly from the publisher Vanguard here (and via Amazon here). A regular featured guest at conventions, Hasen continues to provide a living legacy of the golden age. He might be short in stature (topping out at 5'2"), but he stands tall as a creator. It seems appropriate that Hasen is most proud of his tenure as the editor and publisher of the Fort Dix Post, a military base newspaper in New Jersey, during World War II. He virtually handled every single aspect of the publication, from editing, writing, interviewing celebrities, taking to the printers, distribution, to of course, handling the comic page. He worked so hard on the job that he ended up in the hospital. That's dedication to serving others, including his country, before himself.

So, if you see him at a convention, at the Joe Kubert School, or on the street, remember to thank him.

Enjoy the covers!

Golden Age Artist Spotlight -- Mort Meskin

2010-02-22T17:51:00.002-05:00

"Mort Meskin was a consummate professional, dedicated to his work. A great talent." -- Jack Kirby

"Meskin was fabulous, I couldn't believe the ease with which he drew: strong compositions, loose pencils, yet complete; detail without clutter. I loved his stuff" -- Steve Ditko

Morton "Mort" Meskin was another of the true professionals of the Golden Age comics, i.e., the foundation/backbone of an entire industry. Like many others entering comics in the late thirties/forties, Meskin was a scrappy New York kid (Brooklyn-born, in 1916), who grew up reading the pulps, The Shadow being a favorite, and scribbling exciting adventures incessantly. After graduating from high school, Meskin attended the Art Students League of New York and the Pratt Institute. In 1938, he started drawing for the Will Eisner/Jerry Iger shop, with Sheena of the Jungle in Jumbo Comics.

Meskin then went on to do work for MLJ and D.C./National. While at D.C., Mort was given the artistic chores on Vigilante, a back-up feature on Superman's flagship title, Action Comics. After showing his proficiency as a story-teller, he was also handed responsibility for Johnny Quick in More Fun Comics. Meskin also did work on Starman and Wildcat during this time period. A clean line, kinetic, lithe, athletic figures, artistic experimentation, and solid story structure are what differentiated him from the majority of fellow artists. Meskin has commented that Citizen Kane had a positive effect on his storytelling approach, and cinematic techniques in storyboarding appear throughout his output.

After World War II, Meskin left D.C., and with Jerry Robinson (of Batman fame -- creator of the Joker, among other achievements) opened up their own studio. Together they created heroes for Spark Publications (Atoman and Golden Lad), Standard (Fighting Yank and Black Terror) and horror stories for Marvel (working with a young Stan Lee at the time). In 1949, Meskin joined the studio of comics greats Jack Kirby and Joe Simon (creators of Captain America, among a virtual host of other properties), and produced the series Boys' Ranch for Harvey Comics, and Black Magic for Crestwood Publications. In 1956, with the resurgence of new heroes and a comic book renaissance, Meskin returned to D.C. and created hundreds of stories, including war, science fiction, horror and romance until the mid-sixties. During this time, he often inked his own work. Mark Merlin is noted as a successful feature created and cultivated by Meskin. Again, his clutter-free panels and crisp linework define his artwork during this period. There are reports of issues with nerves and a chaotic relationship with editor Mort Weisenger, but Meskin was prolific and dutily handled every assignment, if not directly celebrated through the choice of high profile characters to draw.

In 1965, Mort Meskin left the world of comics behind, and became a successful illustrator and art director at one of the large national advertising firms, doing layouts, storyboards and artwork for major consumer ad campaigns. He continued to paint for the rest of his life, and was by all accounts a loving, generous man devoted to volunteerism and providing for his family. He passed away in April of 1995 at the age of 78.

Sorry these are but covers and not the interior linework. I hope to present more complete stories by artists in the future. Enjoy!

Thanks to my brother, Will, who suggested this artist spotlight.

Jimmy Johnson, Corporate Spokesman

2010-02-19T02:25:00.003-05:00

You've won a national college football championship at the University of Miami, you've won two Superbowls with the Dallas Cowboys, and you've been doing studio work for Fox for god knows how many years. You probably eat in a different high-end steakhouse every night, and keep a bevy of lovely ladies on speed dial. The world is your oyster. You've achieved goals that many people dream about. How do you top it?

I guess by selling boner pills.

Apparently, Bob Dobbs of the Church of the SubGenius lost his Extenze gig. Bob, you'll be missed. What's that? My bad, it's Enzyte. Same difference.

Now, frankly, a couple of things really bothered me about the commercial. Jimmy, why are you talking to me out on the field about penis size during what looks like a series of quick changes in possession during a football game? The coaches and players look seriously stressed behind you (ladies and gentlemen, your Anytown Generics!), so perhaps our private discussion about your increased girth can wait for a more opportune time. Perhaps on a drive to meet your parents, at the coffeeshop, or on your boat down in the Keys. And you seem a bit defensive that you've done all these incredible things and the only topic of conversation that comes up time after time is whether your own little Jimmy the Johnson is bigger now. I wasn't asking, I swear. I just wanted to get the hell off the field before I get tackled by security. I'm happy for you, and best wishes, but your timing kind of sucks.

And why would an offer of a special Dinner with Jimmy Johnson be something to look forward to now? Unfortunately, the whole dick size thing is the proverbial elephant in the room conversation-wise, and besides the inherent awkwardness in that I would be expected to come up with a hugely shameful secret of my own, I'm afraid if Jimmy has a couple of drinks in him, he might feel obligated to show off his "personal growth" to me. And some things just can't be unseen, no matter how many times you wash your eyes with bleach.

Kudos, Extenze. You may not be FDA-approved, and in 2006 you agreed to pay the Orange County, California district attorney’s office $300,000 in civil penalties for unfair business practices and false advertising, because you could not back up your claim that the pills caused users’ penises to grow 27%. You also agreed to cut down on lead content after sick people complained and investigations found that your lead content was beyond the legal limits. You sell snake oil and patent medicine to poor suckers with probable sexual dysfunction and/or deep-seeded insecurities. And you lined up someone who used to have a decent reputation (forget about it now) to take a quick buck in order to establish one of your own. HOW 'BOUT THEM COWBOYS!

Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief -- Movie Review

2010-02-17T16:59:00.001-05:00

Richard Riordan, the writer of the series that the Chris Columbus-helmed picture is loosely based on, realized that the best narratives and storylines are those that have already been around for thousands of years. No need to ransack the pop culture detritus of sixties and seventies sitcoms, action figures, board games, and reboots, when you've got a veritable pantheon of familial conflict, supernatural creatures, sex, and mindless violence. They've probably retold Homer's Odyssey (which is admittedly pretty kickass) at least a couple of dozen times now.

Still, no matter how good the underlying story, it always comes down to the execution. And Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief flails and misses most of the time. There is the increasingly annoying overreliance on CGI, dialogue which can charitably be called expository, and an underlying thematic structure that just moves from set piece to set piece and finally to predictable ending like a connect-the-dots-puzzle. The performances are hardly noteworthy either: Brandon Jackson plays a hoofed Stepin Fetchit offering sad, urban comic relief, Pierce Brosnan appears constantly drowsy from flu medication, and Joe Pantiliano seems to have cornered the actor's market on New York-accented douche (with a noticeably expanded gut to boot). Is Catherine Keener the middle-aged mom in every single coming-of-age movie being produced now? Uma Thurman chews scenery like a pro. And poor, poor Steve Coogan. Channeling Alice Cooper via Alan Partridge as Hades. I'm not sure if he was trying to convey menace, but it came off as bare-chested embarrassment instead. The two leads, who probably should remain nameless, can't do much with what they're given, and so don't. And ala Watchmen, is anybody aware that you don't need to match songs word-for-word with the narrative? I.e., playing "Highway to Hell" driving on the highway to Hades/Hell and playing Lady GaGa's "Poker Face," while walking through a casino? When did music in movies have to be so goddamned literal?

I was intrigued, though, at the idea of a Camp Crystal Lake for the various offspring of god/human couplings. Considering that there were at most a dozen gods on Mt. Olympus (including oddly, a token black Greek god), and since there were what looked like a couple hundred or so teenage warriors-in-training at summer camp, someone needs to find the gods a hobby besides penetration and impregnation. Ease off the throttle, boys and girls. Sudoku, perhaps? How about a cooking class?

"My mom was raped and knocked up by Zeus, who literally came in the form of a swan. I now crave breadcrumbs and poop on the lawn incessantly."

And I don't even want to think about centaurs. Allegory is pretty creepy when it likely involves horse dicks and ultrasound.

Percy Jackson might be worth a rental, depending on how high you are at Blockbuster. And the PG rating might be a little deceptive, as my five year old found a few of the scenes unnecessarily terrifying (thanks for making me feel like a bad parent, MPAA!).

Golden Age Artist Spotlight -- George Evans

2010-02-16T15:12:00.001-05:00

George Evans (Feb. 5, 1920 - June 22, 2001) is widely recognized as one of the comic field's greatest illustrators, with over a half a century of both comic and comic strip art and stories for almost every major publisher. An aviation buff, his airplane covers are easily recognized, and his proficiency for drawing them led to his showcasing in probably the last great aviation comic ever produed, E.C.'s Aces High.

Born in Harwood, Pennsylvania, Evans began a lifelong fascination with aviation after being exposed to aviation pulps at the age of 9. At the age of 15, Evans had his first art (and poem) published in an aviation pulp, Daredevil Aces, and his career as an illustrator was underway. At the onset of World War II, bad eyesight prevented Evans from enlisting as a pilot, but he worked as an aircraft mechanic in South Carolina, which obviously informed his technically accurate drawing. After the war, he entered the comics field with a staff artist position at Fiction House, while there meeting future talents like Frank Frazetta and Al Williamson. At Fiction House, Evans contributed to series like Wings, Jungle Comics, and Planet Comics. From there, he went on to Fawcett, drawing adaptations of When Worlds Collide and Captain Video.

But it was at E.C. Comics, like many others there, where Evans turned in outstanding work that continues to stand the test of time. He contributed underrated stories and covers to the crime genre books Crime SuspenStories and Shock SuspenStories, but it was Harvey Kurtzman's war books where Evans found great success (ironically, Evans bridled a bit under Kurtzman's heavily thumbnailed art layouts -- he described himself as "Kurtzman's hand" in doing the "finishing work"). Frontline Combat and Two-Fisted Tales set the table for Aces High, which focused on aerial combat from the days of World War I. If ever there was a book ideally situated to an artist's interests and strengths, Aces High was it. Evans drew all of the series' covers (as well as coloring them), and the lead story in each of the books. Unfortunately, when the comic censorship hearings and distributor battles sucked the life out of William B. Gaines, it also drained the man of patience and financial risk-taking to allow the New Direction titles much of a run. Gaines' heart wasn't in comics anymore, so the attention was focused solely on the magazines, Mad predominantly. Aces High was discontinued after five memorable issues.

Evans would go on to contribute in numerous titles, including Gilberton's Classics Illustrated line (adaptations of Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and Alexander Dumas' Three Musketeers), Dell (The Frog Men, among others), and Gold Key. Evans joined other great former E.C. artists in Jim Warren's stable, illustrating stories in Blazing Combat, Eerie and Creepy. He would later go on to D.C. and freelance art in books like Weird War, Weird Western and House of Mystery. Some of his notable covers from that period are available below.

Evans' syndicated strip history might be as impressive as his comic output. He ghosted for George Wunder on Terry & The Pirates from the late sixties until the early seventies. In 1980, he took over Secret Agent Corrigan from his old Fiction House friend Al Williamson and continued to draw it until 1996. In the later years of his life, Evans revisited his classic aviation drawings with a series of commissioned paintings, like the one provided here:

By all accounts (and I recommend picking up TwoMorrows' Comic Book Artist #17 for further insights), George Evans was a kind, generous, giving man, who went out of his way to help young artists, aviation art and aviation pulp aficionados, and those who wanted more insight into the artist behind the great drawings. He was reportedly a daily fixture in his small Pennsylvania town, walking his dog, and making the rounds, while simultaneously plotting new adventures for his comic strip secret agent. Although he has passed on, his highly proficient and always enthusiastic stories and art continue to draw attention to a genre which has sadly been eclipsed in ubiquitous superhero mediocrity. Evans' high standards and worksmanship are missed.

Enjoy the cover sampling.

Man Rant: This Week's Exercise -- Snuggling

2010-02-03T16:19:00.002-05:00

Welcome to another edition of the wonderful world of emasculation! I'll be your guide, as we check our nuts at the door, strap on an apron, and just talk about how we've been feeling about things.   Chamomile tea and ginger snaps will be served, so don't be shy.   You're among friends.

First order of business on the agenda.   Snuggling. The act of intimacy without actually being intimate. Sharing space without the moving parts. Cuddling. Spooning.   Post-coital warmth redistribution. Refractory tenderness.   Coyote breakfast (i.e., where you'll bite your arm off before you'll wake up the other person and actually have to talk to them).

Now before this devolves into accusations of misogyny and chauvinism, let it be known that there are some tangible enjoyable advantages to the experience. There is the very obvious benefit of warmth, particularly in a temperate or colder climate, in a house or apartment with inefficient heating (old windows, lack of insulation, frequent cold snaps, etc.). The utility of a warm body on a cold night cannot be understated, particularly if you don't have a dead tauntaun you can crawl into. There are also the long-term practicalities of discussing the varied and sundry aspects of life and love while in a supremely vulnerable position of slightly pajama-ed or straight-up starkers.   The mere act of naked vulnerability lends credence and solidity to any affirmative statement of support or love, because let's face it, there's a very limited palate of body language you can throw out there when you're pinned into the mattress. The fight or flight mechanism is under an arm-bar submission hold. In the absence of actual sleep, you either feign sleep (keep your faux-snoring consistent and light, though, to deter suspicion), or you make a good faith effort to ponder the romantic imponderable, and hope any unachievable or patently false pillow-talk wasn't recorded (by electronic or mental lockbox means) for regurgitation at the next available inopportune instance. So believe what you say and say what you believe when in the upright and locked snuggle position.  Because a betrayal of snuggle conversation is a betrayal of a sacred trust.   That shit will haunt you the entire relationship, for as long as the little time it still lasts.

That's not to say that the snuggle option doesn't have its blatant abusers, though. There are some distinct acts of snuggle malfeasance that deserve recognition and analysis. There is the bedding hog, of course. That guy/gal who agglutinates every square inch of every sheet, blanket, comforter, and pillow on the bed like a black hole of linen.   Which then leads into the tug-of-war throughout the night, where neither party gets full body coverage, and thus frost sets in on the lower extremities.

And this directly impacts another continual complaint.   Feet colder than a well-digger's ass. My girl, hell, all my once and future lovers, have had feet that felt like the surface of Pluto. There's nothing more shocking to the system than settling into bed, nodding off to semi-sleep, and then having Little Miss Cold Miser plant both frigid footpads on the thighs, top of the feet, or on numerous occasions, my flubby ass-cheeks. There's probably no real chemical reaction to speak of, but it certainly resembles from a sensory standpoint to be what would happen if you poured liquid nitrogen into a roaring fireplace.  Good god, woman, have mercy.

That's momentary pain, for the most part, at least. Perhaps worse than the serial bed sheet consolidater is the space shrinker. Currently, my fine lady likes to squeeze me into a strip of real estate on one end of the bed the width of a couple of saltines. Resembling nothing less than a cuddling bulldozer, she pushes me into a  Tempur-Pedic OK Corral and forces me to make a last stand for bed autonomy. But I have simply learned that I cannot win against her nocturnal Manifest Destiny, and have come to accept that spatially, for all intents and purposes, my king-size bed is a twin bed with delusions of grandeur.

It takes a wise person to know they've already been defeated before the game starts. Snuggling is a no-win proposition. If you want the happy and frequent sexytimes, then cuddling is a necessary post-game news conference you have to show up for, answer questions, and face the music. Enjoy it whenever possible. But give no quarter on the side battles involving territoriality, bedding theft and cold fusion of the limbs. Once a snuggling precedent has been set, the die is cast. There's no going back.

Thus endeth the tea party.

Lost: Season 6 Premiere Tonight -- WALLLLLTTTTTTT! GIVE ME BACK MY SON!

2010-02-02T16:53:00.003-05:00

WARNING: If you haven't caught up with Lost through the fifth season finale, you might want to skip this discussion. Spoilers this way be.

Unlike apparently most of the television viewing universe, I've only been a Lost fan for about a month now. Thanks to the good folks at Netflix streaming, and owing to my obvious lack of any semblance of a consistent social life (Divorced and Proud! Say it Loud! No, I'm not a loser! I call it solitude not loneliness! Freebird!), I was able to knock out all five previous seasons in about three weeks. It's easy to say after the fact, but I don't think I could have enjoyed it any other way, particularly with all the hiatuses (hiati?), months between finales and season premieres, writer's strike, etc. That makes some seasons seem a little choppy (or alternatively meandering) when viewed in big blocks. (Season 3 in particular feels rushed and truncated, even though there's a lot of meaningful action and piece-moving going on). But viewing it en masse lends one to see some of the bigger picture narrative themes running through the show. Some more obvious than other. And it will be incredibly interesting seeing how those themes carry all the way to the end, whether they get resolved, or not get resolved in satisfactory ways, and of course, the last thirty seconds or so of the final episode of the series (Will it be ambiguous and without closure ala The Sopranos fade-to-black? Will it be a "what was shall always be" Battlestar Galactica warm-and-fuzzy ending? Will Jack wake up in a bed next to a CGI-rendered Suzanne Pleshette?)

Of course, the most basic conflict running through Lost is the competing concepts of faith (represented by Locke) versus reason (represented by Jack). The elements of faith, as represented by the admonitions declaring "destiny," the healing power of the island, the mystical and mythological components of the temple and four-footed statue (including Jacob, the man in black, and perhaps immortal Richard Alpert), as well as the continuing presence of ghosts and smoke monsters, face off against the structured reality of science (more accurately, science fiction) with time travel, electromagnetic charge-releasing clock timers, medical experiments, sonic disruptors, donkey wheels causing spacial and temporal displacement, hydrogen bombs, and escaped polar bears. Put it simply, it's the Dharma Initiative (science) battling with The Others (faith) over control of the island. Where the future for the passengers of Flight 815 break down depends on whether they put their stock in either faith or science, Locke or Jack. Neither of them has been particularly successful as of late at providing either answers or security to the rest of the survivors and both have questioned whether they were on the right path in Season Five.

So with the hydrogen bomb going off and potentially setting the clock back to before Desmond decided not to press the button in the hatch, we may see what happens when the passengers land in Los Angeles as originally planned. The key is whether they remember their time on the island or not. Particularly those passengers who died the first time around. And what happens with those who already left prior to the reset? Walt? Aaron? Do they get poofed out of existence, or just go back to their assigned seat and amniotic fluid, respectively? Since the actor who played Walt has definitely reached puberty since 2004, I'm wondering how they find an out, story-wise or actor-wise. And how will it tie in with the overarching narrative of faith versus reason? Will Locke still be paralyzed (or dead if Jacob didn't "heal" him after his father tossed him out an 8th floor window)? Will Not-Locke still exist? What about Jack's father? Still dead? Will his casket go missing? Obviously there will be a schism between what can and did occur scientifically and what happens more or less magically due to the island reset. But, obviously, life cannot just go on as if nothing happened when and if they land at LAX in September, 2004. Whether Jack settles on faith, and Locke on science, or neither, could be the deciding factor in how the whole shebang shakes out.

I'm rooting for Vincent the dog to be the key, though.

(Any and all thematic and guessing questions welcome in the comments! I'd love to discuss.)

You Stay Classy, Japan!

2010-02-02T12:39:00.001-05:00

Why even attempt to find a real girl when "enhanced" mouse pads, painted pillows, and computer-generated babes do the trick? Kink's fun, I get it, but there's a pretty well-lit line to cross into "sociopath who probably needs therapy" and it seems that there's a fair amount of this stuff coming from the Land of the Rising Sun.

Golden Age Artist Spotlight -- John Stanley

2010-02-01T16:39:00.001-05:00

Like Carl Barks, John Stanley might not have known the breadth and width of his influence on potentially millions of boys and girls, as well as those who appreciate a perfectly scripted and story-boarded ten-page story (with finished art by Irving Tripp in many cases). Stanley created wonderful stories involving Little Lulu (and Tubby) from 1945 to 1959. Frequently overlooked, but never forgotten, John Stanley leaves a legacy of hundreds of stories and pictures that continue to entertain and amuse.

A native of the New York Hudson Valley, Stanley attended art school in NYC. Afterward he began working at Max Fleischer's studio as an opaquer and eventually in-betweening. He left in 1935 to work for Hal Horne contributing artwork to the then just starting Mickey Mouse Magazine. From there he went to work on Disney merchandise art for Kay Kamen, while selling gag cartoons to various magazines (including the The New Yorker). In this period (1935-37), Stanley attended classes in lithography at the Art Students League of New York. Stanley then started working as a freelancer out of the east coast office of Western Publishing under editor Oskar Lebeck. In this period Stanley did stories for a range of characters, including Bugs Bunny, Raggedy Ann and Andy, Woody Woodpecker and Andy Panda, along with his own creations such as Peterkin Pottle and Jigg & Mooch.

But it was Little Lulu that would more or less define his career. Stanley had one meeting with Lulu creator Marjorie Henderson Buell (known professionally as Marge) before doing the first issue to discuss the background of the character. Stanley drew the initial Lulu Four Color one shots but once a regular series began in 1948, Irving Tripp assumed the job of translating Stanley's sketch scripts into finished art. But Stanley continued to do the covers, several of which are presented below.

Also like Carl Barks, Stanley inherited someone else's character then built a universe around them. Under Marge, Little Lulu was a solitary star, operating in single gag panels in The Saturday Evening Post. Presumably based on Stanley's former residence in Peekskill, N.Y., Stanley instead created a whole town of foils, adversaries and allies for Lulu. Tubby, Iggy, Annie, Alvin, The Spider (Tubby's detective alter ego), Mr. and Mrs. Moppet, Truant Officer McNabbem, Witch Hazel and Little Itch, and many more.

I love Stanley stories for two simple reasons: structure and characterization. Each story had a delineated beginning, middle and end. I.e., Lulu would encounter a problem or issue, attempt to resolve it or alternatively avoid it, and prior to a nifty and often witty resolution, all hell would generally break loose. Wordplay, slapstick, satire, morality tale, and mystery were all incorporated in various ways. But in the end, Stanley's kids talked like kids. The mannerisms and reactions of the children to each other and their situations were remarkably true-to-life, inasmuch a comic strip will allow them to be. In particular, Stanley illuminated gender differences in humorous ways. The boys had their "no girls allowed" club and thumbed their noses at the girls with impunity, but Lulu generally gave them their comeuppance in a pretty humiliating and public way. To Stanley's boys, girls like Little Lulu could be momentarily tricked or defeated, but they were also mysterious, unpredictable and dangerous. Pretty much like real life. Dark Horse has produced an 18 volume set containing John Stanley's stories, and they're very well done.

Drawn & Quarterly is currently producing excellent hard-cover editions of John Stanley's non-Lulu stories, including Nancy & Sluggo, Melvin the Monster and Thirteen "Going on Eighteen." A list of D & Q volumes within the John Stanley Library is available here.

Enjoy the covers!

Man Rant - This Week's Exercise - Memory and Gender

2010-01-28T17:09:00.008-05:00

ME: So, honey, what do you feel like eating?

SHE: Why don't you decide? Be decisive for once.

ME: Hmmm. How about that Chinese place on Route 1?

SHE: How could you even suggest that place? Do you remember how after I ordered the appetizer, the waiter took away my soup, which I had hardly touched, because we were discussing whether to drive to New England or not the following weekend. And the shrimp lo mein only had six shrimps in it. And I recall that you were a little emotionally distant that night. That place has all kinds of negative memories associated with it.

ME: (Trying to recall lunch from earlier in the day, and failing). Right, I forgot. In the mood for Mexican?

SHE: You choose.

ME: Okay, we're going to Rio Bravo.

SHE: (Stares). The same place you got liquored up on margaritas and told me you wanted some "space." Are you going to tell me you want "space" tonight, too? What shoes should I wear to a break-up?

ME: Jesus. I don't remember that AT ALL.

SHE: Of course not. Your feelings weren't smashed against the rocks. I also caught you watching a football game on one of the monitors when you thought I wasn't looking. I bet you didn't know that. Sorry to bring it up now, but do you realize that wasn't very respectful to me?

ME: Honey, I'm sorry. (Brain in crisis mode. Trying to remember romantic dinner. Any romantic dinner. Chuck anything out of the cerebellum that doesn't apply. Bye-bye, mental file cabinet of job-necessary training and entire junior year of college. So long, remnants of Japanese language skills. What's this file? Red Sox-Yankees game in the Bronx in 1983 where Dewey Evans hit a fourth-inning dinger which ended up being the difference-maker in a final score of 3-2? Refile and keep. That could be important some day.)

SHE: You've gotten better since then. Still a long ways to go, though.

ME: (DING! Slot machine hits three cherries.) How about Armando's?

SHE: Oh, that might be nice. We hardly ever go to places like that now. You had two glasses of that Tuscan chianti, and I had a couple sips of the sherry. Do you think they still have the cheese plate appetizer we shared? I remember you said that you were pretty sure that you think you thought that you might be in love with me. You held my hand and looked into my eyes, and at that point I knew that we would be together forever. And the creme brulee. Baked just right, with crinkly caramelized skin, golden brown, and light on the almond extract. A perfect evening from start to finish.

ME: Yeah, I remember lucking out and finding good parking. The matre 'd was kind of a dick, though.

SHE: Okay. Glad you finally picked something. Let's go.

ME: Umm. I can't remember where I left my keys.....

Cue:

Adventures in Parenting: The Nuclear Family

2010-01-26T17:58:00.004-05:00

You never know where your next "teachable moment" is going to come along. My ten-year old daughter and I have been occasionally playing the PC version of the turn-based simulation game Civilization IV, although never head-to-head against each other. For those unfamiliar with the Civilization series, a player starts off in 2500 B.C. or so, as a classic society like the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese, or Indians, and "grow" the civilization by discovering advances like the alphabet, iron-working, drama, etc.; building Wonders of the World like the Pyramids, Stonehenge, Great Wall; exploring new lands; setting up trade routes; and establishing new cities on continents near and far. The game can be won in several different ways, including conquering all the other empires on the planet, Risk-style, winning a diplomatic victory in the United Nations, achieving a specific cultural score on or before the clock runs out in the year 2050, or sending a rocket out into space with the people and supplies to colonize a planet. It's labor-intensive mouse-clicking trying to keep all your cities growing, protected from opposing armies, and ensuring that your populations are happy (which avoids rebellion and increases your GDP). It's a time-burner and pretty engrossing from the get-go.

Of course, the flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants parental part of me is proud that a ten year old girl (or boy, for that matter) is taking an interest in a game with such complexity, history, civics, and inherent responsibility. But it's the last aspect or lack thereof that gave me pause last Sunday morning.

While helping the five year old boy get dressed, I happened to chance a glance over at the computer screen where my daughter was playing the game. I saw a series of mushroom clouds erupt across the screen. Apparently, my kid found a cheat code, god knows where on-line, and was hammering the poor bronze-working Egyptian civilization with ICBMs; just mercilessly raining nuclear death from above without warning.

Now, I was a teenager during the eighties, when the Russians were the Evil Empire and the Cold War was in full icebox mode. Nuclear armageddon was the 800 megaton gorilla in the room. Consequently, popular culture was obsessed with mutually assured destruction. WarGames, Threads, The Day After, The Terminator, the Mad Max films, Testament, One Night Stand, and World War III in cinema and TV, Watchmen, The Postman, Red Storm Rising, Doomsday Plus Twelve, Akira, and When the Wind Blows, in comics and literature, video games like Red Alert and Missile Command, and songs like Nena's "99 Luftballons," Sting's "Russians," and this badly dated gem from Frankie Goes to Hollywood:

Paranoia involving death by immediate disintegration or slow, mutant-inducing radiation is a powerful molding force on a teenage brain. Still, by the end of the decade, the Berlin Wall fell, there was a McDonald's in Moscow, and somehow I'd end up with a full-blooded Russian wife in the '90s (and a scorched earth divorce from the same in the '00s).

But, alas, the damage was done. My liberal sensibilities are forever tied to nuclear disarmament, "peace in our time," and conventional war strategems. In Civilization IV, I usually go heavy on ground troops and only attack when attacked, or more likely, if I'm terribly bored with the current political map or one of the other civilizations' leaders is annoying the shit out of me. My belligerence has limits though, because after the United Nations civilization advance comes along, I finagle my way into the U.N. Secretary-General chair, and bully through a "no-nukes" resolution. Nukes are still too scary for me to conceptualize usage of, even in a video game, particularly when I ostensibly need to drop them on other civilizations' cities indiscriminately.

My kid, on the other hand, has no such reservations. Bombs away. I try to explain to her that pets, grandparents and little children get decimated even in videogame nuclear attacks, but the hard line on armageddon is a little soft without a similar pop culture apocalyptic message immersion that I bathed in throughout in the eighties. We just aren't making our kids paranoid enough about instant death these days.

Golden Age Artist Spotlight -- Lou Fine

2010-01-26T11:27:00.001-05:00

Louis Kenneth Fine was born in New York. He studied at the Grand Central Art School and Pratt Institute. He was partially crippled by childhood polio. Among his major influences were Dean Cornwell, J.C. Leyendecker, and Heinrich Kley.

Lou Fine joined the Eisner-Iger comic shop in 1938 and soon was drawing for the Fiction House and Fox lines on such features as 'Wilton of the West', 'The Count of Monte Cristo', and 'The Flame'. Within a short time he became one of their best artists. He drew parts of the 'Jumbo' and 'Sheena' comics, and he also produced several adventure comics. Between 1939 and 1943, he worked for the Arnold's Quality Comics group. He produced 'Black Condor', 'Stormy Foster' and several issues of 'Uncle Sam'. From early on, Fine's specialty was covers, and he turned out dozens of them.

Lou Fine left the comic book industry in 1944 and moved into drawing Sunday advertising strips for the funnies. On his advertising work, he cooperated extensively with Don Komisarow. Together, they created characters like 'Charlie McCarthy' and 'Mr. Coffee Nerves' for Chase and Sanborn Coffee, and 'Sam Spade' for Wildroot Cream Oil. They also made 'The Thropp Family' for Liberty magazine, using the combined signature of Donlou (scripts by Lawrence Lariar). Next, Fine drew two newspaper strips, 'Adam Ames', and 'Peter Scratch', about a tough private eye who lived with his mother. Fine died in 1971 and according to Will Eisner, he was one of the greatest draftsmen ever.

Fine's excellent technique and abilities are readily apparent from a sampling of his covers (as provided below). Fine was an “artist’s artist”. Superior drawing skills coupled with an uncanny sense of composition, Fine’s work continues to be admired and collected by golden age enthusiasts. He had the unique ability to bring motion to the drawn page. His figures are lithe and dynamic, his backgrounds carefully rendered, and overall, there's very little wasted space.

Enjoy the covers!

Questionable Cover Art #4: Didn't You Die in Vietnam?

2010-01-22T15:18:00.001-05:00

Just too many immature sex jokes to choose from here. Might as well pass a few of them out as one-liners.....

"So, is it a Beaver Wagon or a Pussy Wagon?"
"Camping out with Beaver ... worst female masturbation euphemism ever?"
"A beaver, a pussy, and a wally. A menagerie a trois?"
"Worst episode of Taxicab Confessions ever?"

You too can play at home. Ask a twelve year old boy for help.

NFL Playoffs -- Conference Finals Edition

2010-01-22T12:30:00.001-05:00

Zach Galianakis doing the running man, a jaguar-skin coat, and Popeye's chicken washed down with Jaegermeister? It's kind of crazy but it just might work.

Seeing a homemade Saints Superbowl video, plus this chick,

makes me think that there may be some sort of weird dirtbag karma going on for the Saints. I believe in dirtbag karma, particularly when there's ample sideboob.

I'm picking the Saints over the Vikings. 38-31.

I was sort of "meh" when the Colts won their last Superbowl, and barely recall it, even though it was only four years ago (or was it three?). I think I was finalizing my divorce at that point, so I probably watched the game in a dark room, popping the occasional anti-depressant. But I really don't like the Colts this year for some reason. Maybe it's residual irritation with all the Peyton Manning commercials, maybe it's the piggy, overly earnest Indianapolis fan base, as exemplified by this little midwestern choad:

Maybe it's the Patriots rivalry, maybe it's the Mayflower truck in the middle of the night leaving Baltimore. In any case, I just don't like them, at all. That leaves me rooting for the Jets by default. Good enough.

Jets 20, Colts 17.

Enjoy the games this weekend.

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200

2010-01-21T16:47:00.003-05:00

Interesting to see the Democratic Party continue to pile on Martha Coakley as the primary factor in losing the special Senatorial election up in Massachusetts, and thereby losing the filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate. Sure, she was a bad candidate and didn't campaign well, but there might be a bigger picture here. A larger message about the party in power, and the way Washington governs. First things first, though, the Republicans who are crowing like it's an affirmation of the GOP way of life and a portent for the huge upcoming Republican revolution, well, stop patting each other on the ass, and just shut the hell up and sit down. Noone likes you. Bragging now is like congratulating yourself for not getting wood on your wedding night. You can rationalize it all you want, but all you did was "not lose." Show some dignity and decorum, for once. Please.

But for all the retarded line-dancing the Republicans are doing, the active state of denial the Democrats are in could be worse. Speaking as a card-carrying member of the rapidly shrinking middle class, I can firmly and solemnly aver that the Democrats do not "get it." At all. I like Obama. I earnestly and enthusiastically voted for Obama, and most likely will again, particularly if the GOP puts up the white trash princess from Alaska as opposition. But I'm genuinely disappointed, slightly disinterested, and bordering on disillusioned at this point. President Obama swept into office on a wave of promise and hope, and unfortunately or fortunately based on your perspective, those were intrinsically connected to a firm set of expectations. Few of which have been met. Yes, he inherited a shit storm from the Bush crime syndicate, yes, he's only been in a year, and yes, he has accomplished a bunch of positive policy measures and initiatives that have more or less flown under the radar. But when you elect a rock star, you don't expect the first quarter of the concert to be new experimental material and "B" sides. You expect the executive office equivalent of "Stairway to Heaven" or "Free Bird." If anything, it seems like the best music is being played for private corporate parties. And that stings and burns. At least with Bush, I had diminished expectations to the point of being happy if I wasn't outraged once or twice a week. I don't know what I was expecting with Obama, but it wasn't "well, any watered-down health care legislation is better than none. There's a hiccup there in Boston. Oops, not enough time. Let's pivot back to the economy."

If the Democrats don't understand that the gamemap is changing, by factors on a macroeconomic level, they're obviously not paying attention. Let's look at some basic economic facts (all obtained from non-biased sources):

The median household income in this country is flat as a pancake. We've actually lost earning power over the last decade. The average median earnings for a man in this country is only about $41,000. The average median income for a woman is shockingly only about $31,500. That's pre-tax, of course.
1 in 9 families can't make minimum payments on their credit cards.
120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month.
Families have lost over $5 trillion from pensions and savings over the last five years.
There are 40 million Americans living in poverty.
A quarter of this country is either unemployed, underemployed, or working multiple part-time jobs without benefits.

This is why independents are abandoning Democratic candidates in droves, and why more people of both political parties are going independent in the first place. We're in full-on crisis mode. So if you're in power, and the situation isn't changing one iota, why should anyone vote for you? Everyone has a story to tell in the middle class. I have a girlfriend who isn't my girlfriend because she can't find a job after a year, despite a master's degree, a good skill set, and a willingness to move anywhere on the Eastern seaboard. So she's living with her parents while in her late twenties because she doesn't have a choice. I have two friends in law who got recently laid off, after years and years of big firm experience, who now do low pay commissioned sales and are waiting for temp work. I have relatives who can't afford Christmas and others who pass up going to the doctor for the co-pays. I know friends who have debt that matches or exceeds their annual earnings, and with the credit card companies going for the jugular before the new rules start in February with APRs around 30% and increased fees, they'll be paying that until long past retirement age, if they don't default first. And those are relatively benign. But they're representative of the disconnect between those in power and those who aren't. Frankly, where's the end-game?

The Republicans sure aren't the answer. These are the ass-clowns who want to privatize Social Security. Take money earned over a lifetime, and invest it all in companies that are exporting America's manufacturing and service jobs overseas. There's the Republican cure for the middle class. Eliminate it by effectively funding corporations to whack both the job and the quality of life after the job. That'll leave us with the poor and the ultra-rich, like a banana republic in South America. Less riff-raff at the Nordstrom's, though. It's no wonder why GM or Ford can't compete. Korean and Japanese car companies have governments who pay for the expenses of their middle class workers, including healthcare, child care and their retirement accounts. And the Chinese simply don't pay their manufacturing workers a comparable wage. On a scale of 1-10, the average American worker gets paid the level of a 3 or a 4 (it used to be 5-6 after World War II and in the sixties, adjusted for inflation). The average Chinese worker is a 0 or 1.

Still, it's pretty clear that at this point we can't reanimate the middle class manufacturing sector back in the United States. After World War II, the U.S. manufacturing sector's only main competitor was Canada. Europe and Asia were in ruins. Now, we compete with Europe, Japan, Korea, China, India, and half of the developing world in manufacturing. Our labor costs are intrinsically too high, without government subsidization of the legacy costs of the middle class, as other countries, from Japan to Germany, have accomplished. But that apparently stinks too much like socialism. So shut up and eat your dollar value meal.

So Democrats in power, listen up. Here are a few immediate suggestions for improving your relations with the middle class.

We're spending two and a half billion dollars a DAY in Iraq. Most of us stepped into the ballot boxes in November thinking we'd be out of that shithole within sixteen months or so. Cut off the war profiteers, contractors, and other war-based federal teat-milkers. Take that two and a half billion dollars a day and put it into college grants, urgent medical care centers, job training, and Internet/broadband expansion and installation, and other middle class necessities. Alternatively, lower the federal gas tax, satellite tax, and other hidden "deaths by a thousand cuts."
Freeze the maximum interest rate allowable by credit card companies at 7 or 8 points over prime. Period. The credit card companies don't like it? Fuck them. Their decisions to hand out credit cards to college students without incomes, family pets, and other undesirables shouldn't be given a free pass years after the default rates exploded. These parasites are killing the middle class, suppressing spending, and siphoning off billions of dollars that would otherwise funnel back into the overall economy.
Regulate to make 30 year fixed mortgage rates available in all cases. Available, not mandatory. But leaving the only option to home ownership to spinning the roulette wheel of variable adjustable rates is a recipe for destruction. If you can't qualify, you don't qualify.
Regulate a moratorium on annual non-housing state and local personal property taxes, i.e., lock them in and/or eliminate them over time. Particularly car taxes and taxes on other middle class necessities. Not yachts. We pay enough taxes, and we already pay taxes up-front upon initial purchase. Subsidize state and county budgets until the shortfalls get eliminated over the next few years.

That's a start, it's tangible, and it's immediately effective. Yes, this costs money. Call it a bailout or a TARP fund for the middle class. And it's absolutely necessary.

Man Rant -- This Week's Exercise -- Insomnia

2010-01-20T15:08:00.001-05:00

INT: BEDROOM, MYTOWN, U.S.A.

10:00 PM -- Alright, I've got my gym clothes ready for tomorrow. Starting up the new exercise regimen. Big plans. Going to get into work a little early. Maybe 8:00 AM or so. Should probably plan to get to bed by midnight at the latest. That's a good seven to eight hours of sleep, and that's more than enough. Think I'll hop on-line, check out a few of the usual suspects, play a little on-line poker, and just veg and decompress before bedtime.

11:00 PM -- Hmmm...should I pop in a DVD movie? Double-click on a documentary off of Netflix streaming? Check out a show on Hulu? Start that book I've been putting off? Naw, not enough time. Need to sleep by midnight.

12:00 AM -- Okay, I'm lying in bed. Relaxed. No distractions. Need to sleep. I am tired after all. A good night of sleep will do me good.

12:32 AM -- Dammit, I'm wide awake. Maybe I'll just check my Gmail, the Live Newsfeed on Facebook, a few newsites, and then log off. Some of the people on the West Coast are just updating their blogs and status entries.

12:45 AM -- Turn off computer. Lie in bed. Glance occasionally at clock.

1:15 AM -- Decide that maybe a glass of water would be helpful. Head downstairs, through living room, into kitchen. Grab a glass of water. Pause in front of the TV, and figure that watching the Daily Show and/or Sportscenter will decompress me even more and finally send me into the arms of the Sandman.

2:00 AM -- Sportscenter -- Los Angeles deep into second showing of same previous night's highlights. Infomercials in full blast mode. There are at least six different ways to blast out my abs in ninety days or less for the low low price of $120 a DVD set (payable in 3 installments of $39.90!). I wonder if I went "full insanity" for sixty days if I could sleep better. Self-loathing and body image issues meeting for product discussion summit in back of brain, but rudely interrupted by skeptical, money-conscious teabagger common sense elements. Turn off TV and head back up stairs. Getting into work at 8:00 AM no longer seeming like that attractive an option.

2:35 AM -- I don't want to turn lights on, so I'll just read on the toilet. Kill two birds with one stone. Knock out a chapter with my flannel sweats at my ankles, even though there's no poop at the end of the reading rainbow. No birds, no proverbial stone. Now slightly more awake than ever. Maybe I should lie down and read. Turn lights on. Furtively glance at clock. It's mocking me now.

3:03 AM -- Re-read same paragraph three times. Switch books. Screw the non-fiction history. Go simpler. Maybe a magazine. Perhaps a graphic novel of sorts. Hmmm...... there we go, something indie and autobiographical. Maybe a recounting of one's first sexual experience, rendered with appropriate angst in black-and-white and hand-lettering, with homoerotic subtext and ominous religious overtones. Looks like there's too many to choose from. Choice requires brain activity. We want to be gearing down from that. Four hours before needing to wake up. Five if you go for regular start time. Turn lights off and try again.

3:28 AM -- The clock hates me. Look at it. Glowing green and racing forward in a sprint. That minute was like twenty seconds at most. Okay, personal vow time. I refuse to look at it anymore. Seeing how late it is just creates more anxiety, and anxiety is keeping me awake. Vicious circle becomes vicious parallelogram. Roll over and put pillow over head.

3:52 AM -- Do people like me? Why must love be so difficult? How will I know when I'm really happy? How will I screw it up? Am I a good parent? Do the Red Sox need a new closer? Why am I asking myself rhetorical questions at almost 4 in the morning? I ignored the clock for as long as I could, but it's just a clock. It has no power over me. I stare at you now in defiance.

4:12 AM -- Hmm.....maybe I can just pull an all-nighter like I used to do all the time in college. No biggie. I used to look down the barrel of sleeplessness on a regular basis, plus during that time make up an entire's semester worth of reading, drink a twelve-pack, and eat a half-dozen donuts while banging my girlfriend. Piece of cake. The body doesn't really need sleep. Sleep is for the weak. Fuck the night. The night is my bitch. Maybe I'll start a computer game of Civilization or Risk, just for shits and giggles. Lights back on.

4:53 AM -- What in god's name was I thinking? I need to get at least a couple of hours of rest or I'm going to be a basket case. Remember that all-nighters were devastating to the body, starting with breath that could curl toenails. Greasy hair, dizziness, head nods, involuntary leg twitches. Basically, the appearance of a meth head, but with a less sunny disposition. Pass. I guess I could go in to work a little bit later. Try to sneak by the boss. Better switch from computer Risk to computer Mahjongg. Ah, those tiles are sooo hypnotic.

5:09 AM -- Fall asleep with glasses on face, lights on and computer screensaver in full effect. A picture says a thousand words. In this case, every sentence would include the word "pathetic."

7:30 AM -- First buzzing of alarm clock. You've got to be fucking kidding me. Zombiefied corpse apparently hits snooze; no memory of same.

7:36 AM -- Second buzzing of alarm clock. Someone must die. The hell with this. Alarm gets switched off.

9:27 AM -- Awake in panic. Late already. Considerably late. Do the Japanese game show version of trying to get ready for work. Attempt to brush teeth with razor. Socks may or may not match. Brain weighs close to 328 pounds.

10:00 PM -- Let's try this again, I've got my gym clothes ready for tomorrow. Starting up the new exercise regimen. Big plans. Going to get into work a little early. Maybe 8:00 AM or so. Should probably plan to get to bed by midnight at the latest. That's a good seven to eight hours of sleep, and that's more than enough. Think I'll hop on-line, check out a few of the usual suspects, play a little on-line poker, and just veg and decompress before bedtime.

Golden Age Artist Spotlight -- Bernard Baily

2010-01-19T12:31:00.001-05:00

Bernard Baily co-created both The Spectre and Hourman, as well as creating some of the most bizarre and creepy covers ever. Baily began his comics career under S.M. "Jerry" Iger, who was editor of Wow, What a Magazine!, one of the very first American comic books that reprinted black-and-white newspaper comic strips in color and adding occasional new material as well. For DC Comics precursor National Comics, Baily co-created and drew the adventure feature "Tex Thomson" in Action Comics #1 (March 1938). Most of us know Action Comics #1 for the first appearance of another caped hero. In More Fun Comics #52 (Feb. 1940), Baily and writer Jerry Siegel, Superman's co-creator, introduced the future DC's violent spirit of vengeance, the Spectre. The afterlife alter ego of murdered police detective Jim Corrigan, the character would become of the longest-enduring comic-book creations, revived during the mid-1950s to 1960s Silver Age of Comic Books and continuing into 21st century. Baily as well co-created the frequently revived DC superhero Hourman (dubbed Hour-Man in his earliest appearances), with writer Ken Fitch, in Adventure Comics #48 (April 1940).

But it might be his publishing career where Baily affected the future of comic books the most. His associates and the artists he gave their first start are a virtual who's-who of comics. In 1943, Baily founded the publishing company Baily Publications and, with artist Mac Raboy, the comics packager Bernard Baily Studio. Among the fledgling artists gaining a foothold in the industry at Baily's studio were Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, and Frank Frazetta, who at 16 assisted the established artist John Giunta there. Other personnel included Dan Barry, Dick Briefer, Manny Stallman, and Nina Albright, one of a handful of Golden Age women comic-book artists.

His horror comics in the fifties, a representative sampling provided below, were truly disturbing (particularly those for Key Publications, including the titles Mister Mystery, Weird Chills, Weird Mysteries, and Weird Tales of the Future (where some of Basil Wolverton's best work was also published)). During the fifties, Baily also worked for Fawcett, D.C., St. John Publications and Atlas/Marvel. In addition to comics, he also wrote and drew a syndicated comic strip (Gilda Gay), contributed to Cracked, and teamed with Jack Schiff to produce one-page public service announcements about subjects like bike safety, United Nations Day, and good manners.

He passed away in 1996 at the age of 1979. His last work was the eight-page "His Brother's Keeper", written by Jack Oleck, in DC's House of Mystery #279 (April 1980). Baily was truly one of the Golden Age greats, and his covers showcase his gift for imagery and imagination.

Enjoy!

Compulsory Performance Review -- Cinematic Edition -- Big Fan

2010-01-15T17:05:00.001-05:00

What's the difference between "passion" and "obsession"? Between "devoted fan" and "addiction"? Big Fan takes an introspective look into the self-delusional nature of those who claim to be the former, but weave scarily into the latter. It stars Patton Oswalt, who performs excellently as Paul Aufiero, a mid-thirties parking lot attendant who still lives with his mom in Staten Island, drives her car, and spends large parts of his monotonous day scripting smack-talk for a local New York area sports call-in show. His call-ins are anonymous performance art, and provide the only catharsis and real achievement in his life, although Aufiero seems fine with that. He can't even afford to go to the games, but tailgates in the parking lot anyway. His universe more or less implodes when a chance spotting of his Giants linebacker hero leads into a violent beating, and his loyalty to his team is placed in direct opposition to his family's wishes and his own dignity. When his anonymity (and brother's lawsuit against the player) gets exposed by his nemesis, Philadelphia Phil, on the call-in show, Paul decides to respond with appropriate rage and retribution.

Directed by Robert Siegel, who also wrote The Wrestler, the movie is light on sentimentalism and on portraying Aufiero as a hapless, sympathetic victim. Aufiero never focuses on the violence that was done to him by the Giants player, because his devotion to the team would somehow be in question, if he acted contrary to the best interests of the team. Instead, he focuses his rage on the slights of some unknown asshole on the radio. This projection and acting-out allows him to process his feelings (and manifestations) of impotence, rage, and alienation, without actually changing any of his limited life options in response. The last twenty minutes or so of the movie wallow in the dark, vicious, and often homophobic nature of regional sports rivalries, where rites of manhood get passed along on a barstool in a sports bar, profanely, loudly, and full of free-form bravado. I wish I could say that I didn't grow up in an environment similar to that (albeit on the high school football level), but I can't.

Considering that my last rental movie review on this blog was Anvil: The Story of Anvil, it's interesting how they evoke similar feelings of uncomfortableness for their main characters. You want to shake them by the collar, and say "get your shit together," but they are set on certain paths, and really don't define themselves by typical societal standards, to everyone around them's head-shaking disapproval. Big Fan is interesting from a sociological viewpoint almost as much as an entertainment one. Good performances, minimalist directing, subdued lighting and cinematography, and a story-line that avoids easy payoffs and happy-ending sentimentality -- it's an above average rental or Netflix streaming download.

Questionable Cover Art #3: Whole Lotta Love

2010-01-15T13:27:00.000-05:00

Little Dot and Richie Rich are the worst kind of enablers. You have a friend, with an obvious obesity problem, and even worse impulse control issues. And how do you celebrate her birthday? By assisting her in eating her pain away, probably towards premature death. I mean I can understand giving a grossly overweight fat person a freshly caught forty-pound tuna, in this case weirdly wrapped with a pink ribbon and summarily deposited on a presumably dirty floor. By all indications, it still needs to be scaled, gutted, filleted, and cooked. That should burn off a few calories, or at least stave off the feeding frenzy for about a half hour or so whilst amid food preparation activities.

But I would expect that the fish will simply rot away in a deep freezer, or be thrown in a dumpster once the party ends, because why would you waste time with omega 5 fatty acids, when there's sweet, sweet pies as tall as a small child. Why even give fruit when you also give a ridiculous gravity-defying Jenga sandwich that could feed the entire Teamsters organization? The jar of olives I assume was given in an ironical fashion, i.e., garnish your mammoth roast pig with a toothpick and a pimento, lardass. That's just really, really cruel.

If there's any justice, Lotta, at the end of her days, after having losing most of her left foot to diabetes and becoming completely blind in one eye, will realize that her friends really weren't friends at all. They were laughing at her, not with her. Her gluttony as performance art was applauded by many, but at what cost to her dignity? A shame spiral of eating, where she ate because she was disgusted with herself, and thereafter became more disgusted with herself, which led to more eating.... As she rides off on her heavenly Rascal, to that great Vegas buffet in the sky, I can only hope she spits out a blood curse on that obscenely rich bastard and his obsessive-compulsive friend.

Golden Age Artist Spotlight -- Walt Kelly

2010-01-14T17:11:00.000-05:00

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

Through the internationally recognized comic strip/political and social satire of Pogo, Walt Kelly is arguably one of the greatest and most influential cartoonists in the history of the craft. Kelly combined masterful line and brush-work (learned at the "mouse factory", Disney) with fluent and highly amusing story-telling acted out by an endearing cast of "nature's screechers". He borrowed from various dialectical sources and his own fertile imagination to invent a unique and charming backwoods-patois, heavy on the nonsense, to fit his cartoon swampland. Pogo spoke truth to power when few media outlets would, and for that Kelly is accordingly venerated as an American master.

But unlike the vast majority of comic strip artists, who came to comic books after success and recognition had already been attained, and through their syndicates provided reams of reprint material which filled comics like Magic, Ace, Sparkler, and others (and later ghosted original comic book material as well), Walt Kelly developed both his abilities as a storyteller, and his famous opossum creation, in Dell funny animal and fantasy comics. This early work is often overlooked, but its simplicity, entertainment value, and craftsmanship merit a second (and third, fourth and fifth) look. According to wikipedia:

Kelly began a series of comic books based on fairy tales and nursery rhymes along with annuals celebrating Christmas and Easter for Dell Comics. Kelly seems to have written or co-written much of the material he drew for the comics; his unique touches are easily discernible. He also produced a series of stories based on the Our Gang film series, provided covers for Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, illustrated the aforementioned adaptations of two Disney animated features, drew stories featuring Raggedy Ann and Andy and Uncle Wiggily, wrote and drew a lengthy series of comic books promoting a bread company and featuring a character called "Peter Wheat", and did a series of pantomime (i.e. without dialogue) two-page stories featuring Roald Dahl's Gremlins for Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #34-41. ... So highly regarded was his work that Dell editor Oskar Lebeck in the introduction to Fairy Tale Parade #1 spoke of him as "the artist who drew all the wonderful pictures in this book"...

This period saw the creation of Kelly's most famous character, Pogo, who first saw print in 1943 in Dell's Animal Comics. The initial stories, probably influenced by Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus stories, pitted a boy named Bumbazine against wily Albert the Alligator, with Pogo Possum in a supporting role. Albert eventually supplanted Bumbazine for the lead role, and Pogo supplanted Albert, with the sole human character- whom Kelly joked was less believable being 'merely human'- disappearing from the series altogether. Some cartoon historians have speculated that the removal of the only human (a black one) was done to allow the creation of Kelly's ideal of a Southland with no black or white - just critters.

Pogo was almost unrecognizable in his initial appearance, resembling a real possum more closely than in his classic form. He gradually assumed a rounder and more appealing shape and construction, much like Mickey Mouse's, including a black nose that he would retain until the eve of his transition to the comics page in 1948.

Kelly's work with Dell continued well into the successful run of the newspaper strip in the early fifties, ending after 16 issues of Pogo Possum (each with all new material) in a dispute over the republication of Kelly's early Pogo and Albert stories in a special comic book called The Pogo Parade. Having grown tremendously as an artist and writer, Kelly no longer wished to see his earlier work in print.

Not sure I necessarily agree with the last statement, but since Kelly passed away in 1973, the point is essentially moot. But in the last decade or so, Kelly's Animal Comics, as well as his other fantasy, Our Gang and Disney work, has experienced a variety of reprint attempts, including the elusive New York Star strips (the Star folded up operations less than six months after Kelly started Pogo as a daily). I'm currently reading various Kelly stories in Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly's TOON Treasury of Classic Childrens Comics (an interview about this work is available here). In February 2007 it was announced that Fantagraphics Books would begin publication of The Complete Pogo, a projected 12-volume series collecting the complete chronological run of daily and Sunday strips, to be overseen by Kelly aficionado Jeff Smith. The first volume in the series was scheduled to appear in October 2007, but delays, reportedly resulting from the difficulty in locating early Sunday strips in complete form, have pushed back its release until September 28, 2010. As the quality of Fantagraphics' Peanuts series has been consistently excellent, I look forward to collecting the Pogo books as well. I do hold out hope that a company like Fantagraphics or Dark Horse obtains the rights to Kelly's scattered and sundry other comic book works, and publishes those as a series or set of slipcase editions. They are worth revisiting, particularly as a testament to Kelly's growth as both artist and storyteller.

Tip of the hat to CBR's "Slam Bradley," who suggested this spotlight. Thanks, Tim.

Enjoy the covers.

Best Fails of 2009

2010-01-08T18:47:00.003-05:00

Via College Humor....

This is the kind of "Best of" that I can support every year. One that documents and immortalizes the potential thinning of the herd, i.e., Darwinism in action.

I do hope when I die, though, that it's spectacularly stupid enough and captured on video, so that my children get a large monetary grand prize handed out by Tom Bergeron. (Don't scrimp on the headstone, kids!)

NFL Playoffs -- Wildcard Weekend

2010-01-08T15:49:00.001-05:00

"Playoffs?"

Finally. Seventeen weeks and we're thankfully at one-and-done. This is the time of year where the hair stands up on the back of your neck right before kickoff, knowing that all the hype and conjecture means exactly jack-squat. Every year a team gets hot, like Arizona last year, and win-loss records don't mean much.

I think my Patriots get through the first weekend, but after that I'm not too confident. My Superbowl picks? They're probably the two sexy consensus picks right now, but I'm thinking Green Bay and San Diego meet in the final. Explosive passing offenses with decent running games and so-so defenses. In a field without a dominant defensive team ala Pittsburgh from last year, with most of the quarterbacks in the MVP race still playing, there should be a lot of scoring, and teams that consistently score through the air have an advantage. Still, a team like Arizona or Cincinnati could make it all the way through. That's why the second season is so much fun.

For Saturday's games, I like the Bengals over the Jets at home, and, only going by recent history, the Eagles over the Cowboys in Dallas. On Sunday, the Patriots squeak by the Ravens in Foxboro, while the Packers win in a shootout over the Cardinals in Arizona.

Man Rant -- This Week's Exercise -- Movie Theaters

2010-01-07T16:41:00.004-05:00

With the advent of big screen HD TVs, with 7.1 (fixed) channel speaker subwoofer-enabled surround sound, Blu-Ray DVDs, and streaming hi-definition video, one probably can't blame the large theater chains from attempting to squeeze out every penny of revenue, at the expense of the average movie-going consumer. They're acutely aware that, save for the collective experience involving the groans, cheers, and gasps of a packed house and the size and volume of the presentation (although it should be noted that these are factors that can slide negatively as well as positively), Johnny Q. Public can more or less replicate the entire cinematic experience from the comfort of their own Barcalounger. This technological great leap forward also translates into zero home-based issues with price-gouging, inadequate parking, rude fellow movie-goers, and the non-stop inundation of advertising. When convenience catches up with the previously exclusive sensory experience, that should rightly ring capitalist alarm bells.

It's the pre-movie commercials that irk me the most. I generally don't have a problem with advertising. It IS part of everyday life. Advertising pays for content so I don't have to. That's why the Superbowl isn't on pay-per-view, and it's how the networks, newspapers, magazines, websites, and other content providers continue (or don't continue) to keep the lights on. But the ubiquity of marketing doesn't mean there are not differing degrees of personal interaction. For most people, it comes down to active or passive compliance with advertising. The biggest factor for whether one shows passivity or not may also involve their value of personal time. It may be a by-product of billing time by the hour in law firms for twenty years, but my personal time has intrinsic value to me. I actively resist when the alternative to choice is to be either proselytized to or marketed to. In other words, I don't care what you're selling, be it butter, guns or God, I'd rather check it out on my own based on my pre-determined necessity or desire. If I want or need a car, I'll look around on-line, I'll go to a dealership or three, and let you or your functional equivalents try to sell me a car. But if I don't have to watch a car commercial, because I don't want or need a car, then I will choose whatever means possible to fast-forward through the advert with my DVR, close the pop-up, ignore the billboard, page through the magazine, or most likely on-line, make the advertisement a free-floating part of the background... peripheral, if economically necessary, eye pollution (in lieu of installing an ad-blocker). In any case, I have some semblance of CONTROL over my environment -- perhaps it's illusory, perhaps not -- where I can simply walk (or click) away from an ad. In the theater, that's just not the case. I'm stuck watching fifteen minutes of ads for the National Guard, Coca-Cola, Sprint, and all sorts of non-movie-related hucksterism (I don't have a problem with trailers, per se, as long as there aren't fifteen in a row. I see coming attractions as germane to the reason why I came to the movies in the first place, to see something that interests me). With theater commercials, I'm literally a captive audience, unless I want to show up late, potentially losing a seat or the chance to sit next to someone I want to see the movie with. It's a gambit, where I as the consumer, get to play chicken with a movie's starting time.

This in and of itself isn't the dealbreaker, it's the fact that I'm PAYING FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF BEING SHOWN COMMERCIALS. The theaters are taking the dead air between sitting my ass in a seat and waiting for a movie to start as lucrative revenue generators. If I'm at a free or dirt-cheap concert, and Coca-Cola runs a spot or plasters the place with ads in exchange for making the concert free or dirt-cheap, then fine. But there is NO reciprocity in terms of lowering the price of the movie ticket to offset the revenue generated by the in-seat ads. According to sources such as this Slate article, "some advertisers are paying more than $50,000 per screen annually, especially to theaters willing to pump up the volume to near ear-shattering level so that seated customers will pay attention. Since there are virtually no costs involved in showing ads, the proceeds go directly to the theater chains' bottom lines." I find it hard to believe that theater owners can legitimately make the argument that commercials are being shown to keep DOWN ticket prices. We went to a matinee showing of Avatar, with no 3D (fuck 3D movies by the way, a rant for another time), and the tickets were $8.50 apiece. A matinee showing with 3D would have cost $10.50 each, $14.00 per during evening "prime time" showtimes. This is in the D.C. suburbs, not in the middle of Manhattan, by the way. How far can the price point rise where you can legitimately claim that your expenses cannot be met by actual ticket sales, and commercial advertising is necessary to avoid sinking into the red? I hardly feel jaded and cynical to think that captive-audience commercials reflect a profit center, rather than a "cost of doing business." The lack of choice in whether to participate in the commercialist enterprise is the odious part. How about I pay full price for no commercials, and people who want them or don't care one way or the other pay a dollar less and see it on a different screen, hmmm? Because my other alternative is to skip the theater altogether. That works too, and as noted earlier, is becoming less and less of a qualitative difference viewing-wise. And I also get to skip, bypass, fast-forward, or main-menu my way past any fucking commercials.

And then there's the movie theater food. There's a racket. According to the Slate article linked to earlier:

[Theater owners] are in the fast-food business, selling popcorn, soda, and other snacks. This is an extremely profitable operation in which the theaters do not split the proceeds with the studios (as they do with ticket sales). Popcorn, for example, because of the immense amount of popped bulk produced from a relatively small amount of kernels—the ratio is as high as 60:1—yields more than 90 cents of profit on every dollar of popcorn sold. It also serves to make customers thirsty for sodas, another high-margin product (supplied to most theater chains by Coca-Cola, which makes lucrative deals with theater owners in return for their exclusive "pouring" of its products). One theater chain executive went so far as to describe the cup holder mounted on each seat, which allows customers to park their soda while returning to the concession stand for more popcorn, as "the most important technological innovation since sound." He also credited the extra salt added into the buttery topping on popcorn as the "secret" to extending the popcorn-soda-popcorn cycle throughout the movie. For this type of business, theater owners don't benefit from movies with gripping or complex plots, since that would keep potential popcorn customers in their seats. "We are really in the business of people moving," Thomas W. Stephenson Jr., who then headed Hollywood Theaters, told me. "The more people we move past the popcorn, the more money we make."

Greedy bastards. A large popcorn at the Regal theater we went to went for $8.00. That's equivalent to buying at a Safeway or Giant three, probably four, boxes of microwave popcorn, with four to six bags in each box. I could fill a trashbag with that much popcorn. But I'm okay with paying that much for a salty bucket's worth at the movie theaters. And it's deadly -- here are the dietary specs for 1 large popcorn -- 1640 calories, 1134 calories from fat. There are 126 grams of fat in a Regal Cinema large popcorn, which is 194% of the daily recommended value of fat, and a whopping 73 grams are saturated fat, a coronary-inducing 365% of the daily recommended limits. "Would you like extra butter and salt on that?"

Don't like popcorn, how about an $8 egg roll? $7 nachos? How about the Regal's "Kid's Meal" for $6.75, which includes popcorn, candy, and for $1.50 more, a big cup of Freezie/Slushie. Just like mom used to make. Obesity doesn't come cheap, apparently. And how about that customer service? Rarely, and I mean rarely, have I met a group of individuals who either hated me or hated what they do more than the slugs and misanthropes running the ticket and concession counters at the theater chains. I'd rather deal ten times out of ten with the barely English-speaking Guatemalan refugees running things at your average McDonald's over the surly, zit-faced, indignant, high school-remembering-as-the-best-years-of life, wage-slaves at the movies slinging Twizzlers with attitude.

Clearly, the business plan for big chain theaters appears to be entirely reliant on unskilled labor and disposable income, not unlike most drug dealers. And I'm not so sure I can afford the fix anymore. There is probably a bright side though, as now I'm a lot more interested in investigating independent theaters in the Washington D.C. metro area. Maybe I wait an extra month for a popular movie, maybe not. But after the commercially obnoxious saturation bombing I'm seeing from AMC, Loews, Regal and other chains, it might be the best and only valid alternative, even if it costs an extra buck or two...

Golden Age Artist Spotlight -- Wally Wood

2010-01-06T16:47:00.003-05:00

Wally Wood, for lack of a better term, was a rock star. He became an undisputed star of the medium in his twenties, drawing some of the best and most memorable science fiction ever created. Wood's work habits were always petal to the metal, fueled by booze and cigarettes and all-nighters, but incredibly productive. He pushed for the re-introduction of science fiction into comics, fought for the creative rights of the artist, and pioneered self-publishing through witzend and other publications. His aliens are unique, his women are luscious and alluring. He spent twelve years straight building Mad Magazine into an American institution. And ending up leaving them (and other marquee comic jobs) for little perceived slights. Wally Wood was a true American original. Burned out, bitter, and brittle long before his time. But his legacy continues to grow.

He was also a Connecticut native in the last years of his life. My brother and I were fixtures at a little comic shop in Derby, Connecticut, named Space Traveler's Trading Post. There we learned about Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, Neal Adams, Gil Kane and Wally Wood, among other greats. My first Wood book was definitely a "Plop", the D.C. anthology series, with a disturbing story about a detective that started out as a straight crime noir narrative and ended up increasingly bizarre and full of monsters. But the art was distinctive, clean and full of life. It wasn't until years and years after the fact, but I learned that the poster at the head shop my dad stopped in, full of Disney characters engaging in all types of scandalous and lascivious activities, was a Wood creation. And I remember sneaking at peak at a collection of Sally Forth when the owner wasn't looking (what can I say, I was twelve or thirteen). I later found Wood's Wizard book, reprints of the old Mad comics, and eventually, thanks to Russ Cochran, I was able to get my hands on all of the Weird Science, Piracy, Valor, and other unparalleled Wood E.C. output. But none of them were my most vivid memory of Wood. I remember clear as day, a late afternoon/early evening, in late October, in 1981. The owner of Space Traveler's, a pleasant and generous guy named Dave Armstrong, got a phone call. Wally Wood had killed himself with a gunshot to the head. Armstrong started to weep. Not because it was entirely out of the realm of possibility. Wood was facing dialysis, was blind in one eye, and had been debilitated by a series of small strokes, and his days of productivity were nearly gone. Dave cried because Wood was a formative influence, a person whose art affected an entire generation, a local legend who cared about comics, comics professionals and fans. Wally Wood was a master. And he would create no more.

There are many fan sites and collections of Wood's art around the web, as well as in various books about the era and its great artists. If you're not familiar with his legacy of fine stories and art, I recommend taking a long look. Here is a small sampling to enjoy.

Avatar -- Movie Review -- Attack of the Blue Na-Na

2010-01-05T16:08:00.001-05:00

Avatar presents the interesting juxtaposition where I want desperately to defend something I found deeply hollow and unsatisfying, just because it looked so damn pretty up on the big screen. Since I'm pretty much stuck in the Charlie Brown wishy-washy role, I might as well go pros and cons.

PROs:

Every penny spent making this movie, all $237 million dollars, is all up there to marvel at. The CGI, which appeared to be 4/5th of everything, including characters, sets, backgrounds, foregrounds, incidental scenery, title sequences, lighting, and I'm guessing craft services ("My sandwich is luminescent....."), is spectacular. Everything looks HD-Real. From the noble savage Na'vi to the pterodactyl/dragon things to the glow-in-the-dark jellyfish/seeds to the the military hardware. Disbelief suspended.
Very good 'splosions. James Cameron blows stuff up real good.
The acting was okay, never too hammy, but not particularly compelling either. The lead character seemed to pick up and drop an Australian accent haphazardly. (Or is that an American accent.) Giovanni Ribisi seems to have inherited Paul Reiser's "corporate douchenozzle" mantle, and Cameron has always had a fetish for gung ho marine speak (while simultaneously setting them up as trigger-happy morons who underestimate their opposition).

CONs:

Jesus, was this movie long. Blood had collected in my ankles and my ass was asleep before the third act. I understand a film-maker not wanting to alter their vision one iota, but almost three hours is unbearable, both from a bladder fullness perspective and from a visual energy standpoint. That's what Extended Director's-Cut DVDs are for. So I can hit pause when nature and common sense tells me to. As it was, I left the theater feeling overstimulated, malnourished (movie theater non-popcorn-derived food is horrific -- I continue to pass on the $8 egg rolls, frozen pizzas, and nachos, because god knows what those will feel like sitting in my belly for nearly three hours), and slightly sore.
Noble Savage Formula 401. Cameron hamfistedly took the Dances With Wolves "going native saves the wounded soul" meme to its predictable conclusion -- "The indigenous culture is so wonderfully deep and complex -- and only immersion can expose that. 'Civilized' man is brutish, exploitative, and over-the-top destructive." To know the Na'vi, is to love the Na'vi. If that wasn't enough, there's also a blaring Mother Gaia message (forget about subtext) where the whole sum of biodiversity on the planet is completely symbiotic and inter-connected. Chopping down trees causes physical pain to blue children, animals and other living things. Nice environmental allegory, but it's been done umpteen times before. It really doesn't say much for your narrative if you're blatantly cribbing from the mediocre 1992 cartoon Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (on the other hand, at least there's no Robin Williams appearance or voicework whatsoever in Avatar -- that belongs solidly in the Pro column).
And that leads to the killer criticism of Avatar....you just lose interest and stop caring after awhile. When the ending is so completely forecast from the first ten minutes, when you know who the bad guy is, how he's probably going to go tits-up, what ultimately happens to the main character, and every plot development is foreshadowed and repeated several times, then the movie loses its dramatic bite. In making the movie accessible and facile, Cameron sacrificed substance for form. That doesn't make it any less entertaining from an eye-candy perspective, but story-wise you leave going, "okay, simple fairy tale with simple ending." It's like eating an incredibly delicious puff-pastry, albeit hollowed out with air in the middle. You're left hungry for something less rich, but ultimately more satisfying.

Questionable Cover Art -- #2 In A Series -- Full Metal Jellystone

2009-12-31T15:33:00.001-05:00

Apparently Yogi Bear is suffering some moral misgivings from General Westmoreland's decision to attack the Viet Cong with Africanized killer bees. By the foofy arch of the wrist, one can only assume that Yogi will avoid potential apiarian war crimes by fully exploiting the dishonorable discharge option, commonly enforced these days through "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Definitely broadcasting his sexual preference better than the average bear.

I was a bit surprised, though, by Boo-Boo's two-page drug-induced meltdown where he yells: "I say we waste the whole f---ing village!"

Happy New Year's from Flimsy Rationales! See you in 2010.

Man Rant -- This Week's Exercise -- Vanity Plates

2009-12-31T14:54:00.006-05:00

1 in 6.18.

Those are the odds that a registered vehicle in Virginia has vanity plates. The Old Dominion is the leader in U.S. states by far for vanity plates per capita. Overall, there are an estimated 9.3 million registered vehicles in the United States with vanity plates. Considering that the average cost of a vanity plate is probably about $30 or so, that's at least $270 million dollars spent on a combination of six or seven letters or numbers screwed to the bottom of a car or truck.

Here's hoping that the recession kills off what's left of this stupid little personality emulator. I don't have a problem if somebody wants to trick out their car, put moosehorns on the roof, paints it puke green, or otherwise cancels out the factory warranty because, ultimately it's their possession, they need to look at it, and they need to drive it. The problem with numerous vanity plates, bumper stickers, little metallic fish, and other "read me" car adornments is that they're a facile, moronic form of communication. You buy a vanity plate because you're apparently trying to tell the world a message. You want other drivers, strangers with zero impact on you or your entire life, to decipher the cryptic fragment that you LVTOFU. Hmmm.....either you really dig tofu, or you most probably have self-confidence, performance and intimacy issues. Either way, your global statement to humanity at large is a cursory, randomized statement of nothingness. Own a terrier? Fine. Hate abortion? Rock on, Christian soldier. Want to yell "git 'er done" by superimposing the words on a Confederate flag? Sure. Have a kid getting good grades at the local elementary school? Super. You're quite possibly an unparalleled model of parenthood. But plastering it on a car isn't going to make any fellow member of the human race care, change or become aroused one whit. At all.

Quite the contrary. Your choice to inform me and others like me similarly situated behind a steering wheel of your political leanings, ability to breed and/or raise children or domesticated animals, preference for sexual techniques, religious steadfastness, etc., is secondary to the fact that you used a form of communication that makes tweeting look like a State of the Union address to do so. Contrary to popular delusion, this is not an expression of individuality. There's nothing unique or special about millions of people broadcasting in code language in a six inch square with a mass-produced sticker and/or government-manufactured form of identification. Do you want to LOLCat your driver's license? Have your passport info and photo uploaded to Facebook? Might be neat and cute for about 20 seconds, then realization should hopefully creep in that all that's left over is personal embarrassment and shame. You're not a special little butterfly. You're just attention-seeking in a desperately pathetic way.

Of course, the retort is: "Noone is making you look at or read it." Right. I'm sitting behind you for hours in D.C. metro traffic, sitting bumper-to-bumper, and I should just avert my gaze from your little metallic message in a bottle. Tell me again how I should avoid this:

I've never met you in person, probably will never exchange a word or even a glance, and yet I've made a firm and incontrovertible value judgment about you as a person based on six or seven numeric or alphabetical characters. Most likely, that judgment is that you're an assclown.

Luckily, there are alternatives. Vanity license plates are not like tattoos. They take much less time to deal with than piercings, mohawks, or goth self-hating. In the parlance of vanity plate: 4GET IT.

Terrorist Lottery: You Can't Win if You Don't Play!

2009-12-30T13:58:00.004-05:00

Nate Silver, over at the consistently interesting and informative FiveThirtyEight blog (a daily stop for me during the 2008 presidential election) lays out the realistic by-the-numbers odds of a terrorist attack on a domestic United States flight:

Over the past decade, according to BTS, there have been 99,320,309 commercial airline departures that either originated or landed within the United States. Dividing by six, we get one terrorist incident per 16,553,385 departures.

These departures flew a collective 69,415,786,000 miles. That means there has been one terrorist incident per 11,569,297,667 mles flown. This distance is equivalent to 1,459,664 trips around the diameter of the Earth, 24,218 round trips to the Moon, or two round trips to Neptune.

Assuming an average airborne speed of 425 miles per hour, these airplanes were aloft for a total of 163,331,261 hours. Therefore, there has been one terrorist incident per 27,221,877 hours airborne. This can also be expressed as one incident per 1,134,245 days airborne, or one incident per 3,105 years airborne.

There were a total of 674 passengers, not counting crew or the terrorists themselves, on the flights on which these incidents occurred. By contrast, there have been 7,015,630,000 passenger enplanements over the past decade. Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.

But let's spend additional billions in federal funds to try to catch the idiot extremist with a bomb in his pants. And let's make every plane trip, with the increasingly random and haphazard removal of shoes, liquids, and soon-to-be underwear, the airport community theater version of Midnight Express.

Best Movies and Television of 2009

2009-12-30T11:48:00.000-05:00

Not a bad year for movies overall. Another Pixar film, some excellent scifi, a couple of really great kid's movies. No "There Will Be Blood," but enough entertaining fare across multiple genres to keep me satisfied.

CINEMA

Inglorious Basterds
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Coraline
Star Trek
Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs
Anvil: The Story of Anvil
Zombieland
Up
Ponyo

Haven't seen yet, but want to: Fantastic Mr. Fox, A Serious Man, Big Fan, In the Loop, Hump Day, The Informant!, Drag Me to Hell, Food, Inc.

Overrated: Funny People

Underrated: Watchmen

Worst Movie of the Year: (Tie) Transformers 2, Wolverine

TELEVISION

A fantastic year for TV comedy. After the writer's strike of last year, it's clear that writing staffs came back to work motivated, ambitious and creatively energized, because the dialogue and story concepts were fresh and smart.

Parks & Recreation
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Modern Family
Community
Friday Night Lights
Venture Brothers
Flight of the Conchords
Hung
The Office

Most Consistent Effort: The Daily Show

Most Underrated: American Dad

Most Overrated: 30 Rock

Guilty Pleasures: Kitchen Nightmares, The Soup, NFL Red Zone, Yo Gabba Gabba

Star Wars: Pop Culture Herpes?

2009-12-29T15:38:00.002-05:00

Spike, the basic cable network that specializes in car chases and crashes, mixed martial arts, ninja and armchair jock reality shows, wrestling, and all-ages tits and ass (i.e., what if Maxim magazine was videotaped and broadcast 20 hours a day), ran Star Wars movies all around the Christmas holiday, including all the sequels, prequels, and special editions. With heavy commercial interruption, of course. Having first seen Star Wars (screw the Episode IV nomenclature nonsense) at the impressionable age of ten or so, and probably dozens of times since, there are certain scenes, lines and images that fire up the memory circuits like an old-school Bally pinball machine. There was probably a point in the early eighties when I could have broken down parts of Star Wars like Kevin Costner's character in JFK reviewing the Zapruder film. "See how the lightsaber pops out of frame here, and then comes back in to catch Obi-Wan across the shoulder? Back and to the left. Back and to the left."

Thirty-odd years later, and what I once considered to be sacred script and verse is so weaved into the fabric of our popular culture that the series goes beyond ubiquity into overexposed and deeply irritating, which probably suits George Lucas just fine. Another Family Guy parody? Sure. More Robot Chicken parodies? No problem. New cartoons, video games, fanfic disguised as serious scifi lit, crappy toys, Lego building sets, re-released Blu-Ray DVDs, Halloween costumes, video games based on Lego building sets, new Cartoon Network-based video games, new Cartoon Network cartoons based on previously existing video games, and soon new Lego cartoons on Cartoon Network based on video games adapted from fan fic. The possibilities are endless for the gang up at Skywalker Ranch. Baby boomer nostalgia is serious business.

Sure, sure, George Lucas raped my childhood. Yadda-yadda-yadda. It's not really that, per se. Merchandising happens. It's more of a question to me of trying to think of another person on the planet who completely squandered the Mount Everest-sized amount of loyalty and good will thrown their way like George Lucas did. Maybe George W. after 9/11. After that I'm drawing a blank. What do you push out there, years after you establish a built-in fan base that makes the collective Trekkies look like a Fresno chapter of the Scrappy Do fan club? Jar Jar Binks. A jive-talking, pimp-stepping, frog/iguanodon mix, with zero redeeming features. I mean, you got a pass for the Ewoks in Jedi when it came out, although you seriously didn't deserve it. Upon recent viewing on Spike, the noble savage teddy bears are simply face-plantingly bad. I'd rather watch the horror show that is the Star Wars Holiday Special, with Carrie Fisher screeching her way through the Life Day song on perpetual loop than watch the Ewoks destroy galactic heavy tank armor with sling shots and cuteness.

Fine, George, you wanted to make the little kids connect with the series, and keep the generational money buffet stocked into perpetuity. The Ewoks were a means to an end. But you couldn't leave well enough alone. I had almost forgotten about certain "modifications" made in the "special editions." Greedo shot first. Fine. Sticking in layered-in digital effects, like a Sarlacc beak that looks like a Super Mario Brothers flower, to promote your Industrial Light & Magic capabilities for further projects. Superfluous and unnecessary, but whatever. But digitally inserting Hayden Christensen into the semi-final scene as the redeemed Force-ghost Anakin Skywalker, instead of the character actor Sebastian Shaw who minutes earlier played the dying Darth Vader? Utterly and pathetically retarded. It's ham-fisted, shameless and stubborn to try to link the prequels twenty years after the fact.

I'll spare the time and effort trying to slam the prequels in too much detail. They're mostly harmless, and I'll admit to enjoying Episode III for the most part, but they're chock full of expository and stilted dialogue and wooden readings, with weird bureaucratic meanderings (The Simpsons nailed this), and heaps and heaps of unnecessary CGI. The bar was set unbelievably and admittedly unrealistically high for some reason, probably due to the huge gap in time between the original trilogy and the prequels, but Lucas definitely focused on form over function, providing a pretty snoozer and not much else.   And that's where the real disappointment lies.

The reason Star Wars was so compelling was not that it was technologically superior to other films of the same time.   That helped the overall enjoyment of the film, tremendously. But it ultimately came down to whether you believed in the characters and actually cared what happened to them.   And in Star Wars, and to a slightly lesser extent in Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, you could. Luke Skywalker was never as compelling in the later films as he was in Star Wars. In the first movie, he was a wide-eyed innocent who had a destiny to discover, a completely new universe to explore, and a transformative phase to believe in a higher power and train accordingly. It's a clear narrative structure for a major coming-of-age experience, and the third act is all about his ascension into responsibility and manhood (although the accompaying sexual awakening with sis Leia still reeks as creepy). The next two movies for Luke are just set-ups for big fight scenes with Vader, i.e., Dad.   Sure Han Solo is cooler, but, most pre-teen and teenagers, and specifically pre-teen and teenage Star Wars fans, got the subtext on Luke all right. Get out and do something with your life. Expand your horizons, bro.

And young kids never needed Ewoks, or Jar-Jar, or baby Anakin, or any of the other cutesy Lucas crap. My five year old son, like probably millions of other five year old boys (and numerous girls) since the late seventies, loves R2-D2. Draws him constantly with crayons.   Constantly asks if Artoo is going to be okay in the firefight, and why C-3PO understands the beeps and squeaks.   The little robot connects with him, just like WALL-E does. Neither Artoo or WALL-E speaks, and there's probably something telling about that. Kids at that age are trying to find a voice.   They are trying to determine the best way to tell a story, the best way to ask for things, and the best way to communicate with adults and other little kids.   WALL-E and Artoo have adventures, relationships, and setbacks. Without words or speeches.   And they're metal, boxy, and ugly in some ways. They're not superficially cloying and cute, like the Ewoks. Children don't self-identify with cute and loveable. Adults think they do, and prepare media influences accordingly, but they don't.

And that's where Lucas failed. And continues to fail miserably. The good will and loyalty squandered was not substantially based on the sets and dialogue and music and special effects.  Taken as individual components, they resonate and entertain in their own ways, but they leave no deep meaning.  The underlying subtext and narrative built the foundation to appreciate the characters, sets, dialogue, music and special effects even more. Lucas took the most superficial characteristics of the original series and monetized and merchandised them, which is well within his right, but in doing that also alienated an audience that fell in love with the non-superficial characteristics.   Not sure if he cares one whit at this point, but legacy is important. Destroying a legacy might be worse than never really having had one in the first place....

Hype Without Hypocrisy - Hey, Ladies! by Bret Taylor

2009-12-28T16:52:00.001-05:00

It's always satisfying to see someone make strides creatively, both in short bursts and over the long haul, and to share in the process in a public way no matter what the potential criticism or negative feedback. It's why I've struggled with creative impulses for years and years. Like others, I crave warm and fuzzy validation, but I also want to be taken seriously, and that requires ripping apart old work, acknowledging writing tendencies and consciously navigating a way around them, and, perhaps most importantly, finding a unique "voice," one that reflects who I am, rather than just mimicking others. Most of us don't want to walk that tightrope, and one fall without a net is usually enough to deter efforts for awhile, if not indefinitely. Then there's the conundrum of balancing catharsis and commerce. I've made enough on ad click-throughs here in my first month to buy a sandwich. Not a fancy Grey Poupon-dressed Dagwood either, more like a dollar menu item with fries. I tell myself I don't care if I never make a dime writing creatively, but that's a flat-out lie. I write big-bucks spec movie scripts in my mind in the shower, and plot pulp stories and indie comic scripts in cerebral Notepad while walking to the cafeteria. So, again, it's both satisfying and inspiring to see a friend and contemporary travel on that journey, take risks, and reach for something more. Bret Taylor's Hey, Ladies, is a statement in that regard. Both a new start and the culmination of years of experimentation without major fanfare or exposure.

I initially took an interest in Bret's art because of its iconic nature. Due to his years of experience and training as a graphic designer, he has been forced to focus on intrinsic aspects of ubiquitous items, and market them as part of a sellable package. That creates a limitation where a lowest-common denominator visual viewpoint overrides interpretation and unique presentation. Taylor's art began to deconstruct the usual straight-ahead view, hard angles, and bland backgrounds found in advertising, and explored Hockneyesque color schemes, soft curves, and intense closeups. In that vein, my first commission from him dealt with a set of brand-name bourbon bottles, similar to this work here:

Hey, Ladies! is an extension of that approach, with the common theme being the beauty of the female form, sometimes beckoning, other times standoffish but intriguing. I always thought that drawing pretty girls was always the toughest job for any artist, because there are so many ways to get it wrong, from mismatched eyes, to crooked smiles, to proportionality from the hips to the shoulders. It's an ambitious way to start an art book series. I recommend previewing the book here and purchasing it here. I understand another book, this time showcasing classic cars, is currently in the works. Here's hoping Bret keeps honing his craft and stays hungry in the quest for success. He's off to a good start.

Golden Age Artist Spotlight -- Mac Raboy

2009-12-28T15:21:00.003-05:00

When perusing Golden Age comics listings on Ebay, Mac Raboy covers tend to stand out like the proverbial sore thumb for several reasons. Firstly, they tend to resemble recruiting posters, as they contain some of the most iconic and colorful World War II propaganda ever to grace comic book covers. Secondly, they are artistically superior to the vast majority of other comics also available at the time. Raboy draws his heroes in classic action poses, but particularly in the case of Captain Marvel Jr., de-emphasises bulky musculature and cartoony action in favor of lithe, agile figures and photorealism. While his covers deliver striking detail, careful shading and intricate pencilwork, they also remain paradoxically simple and effective, both in tone and use of background lighting.

Raboy's available history is scarce compared to many others from the Golden Age. Born in New York City in 1914, Raboy began his art career with the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. He started out in comics in 1940, working for the Harry "A" Chesler studio, but his pinnacle as a comic book artist would be working for Fawcett Publications. As exemplified by the various covers provided below, Raboy (and writer/editor Ed Herron) took a character that was a spin-off of a more popular comic book figure, Captain Marvel, and re-introduced Captain Marvel Jr. during the lead-up to wartime World War II (his first appearance was in Whiz Comics #25, dated December 1941) as more of a hero with identifiable humanity and real-life limitations (his alter ego, Freddy Freeman, was actually crippled, destitute and poor, and lived in a hovel). The stories and themes created by Raboy were more serious and darker in tone than Beck and Binder's whimsical Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel Jr. regularly dealt with espionage, organized crime, murder, and Nazis in more-or-less straightforward adventure styles with often somber overtones.

Raboy left Fawcett for Spark Publications in 1944 to create the Green Lama, and did so until 1946. In the spring of 1948, he signed on with King features to illustrate the 'Flash Gordon' Sunday page, and continued drawing the strip until his death in December, 1967.

There's No Business Like Snow Business

2009-12-21T19:28:00.000-05:00

Enough snow here in the D.C. area to maybe have a semi-white, sorta greyish Christmas. We're not used to a foot and a half of snow. It's enough to make a D.C cop pull his gun and celebrate. And of course, the local supermarket shelves were completely cleaned out of bread, water, toilet paper and bottled water, in preparations that probably anticipate bunkering down like it's the siege of Stalingrad.

Corporatism: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend

2009-12-18T14:39:00.004-05:00

Glenn Greenwald over at Salon has an excellent blog post about something that has seemed to creep up in conversations I've had with both conservatives and progressives -- the pernicious and pervasive system of corporatism. "Corporatism" is the perception that the traditionally hostile institutions of business and government are now subjugated in favor of cooperative, entrenched, mutually-beneficial circle-jerks, where our supposed elected representatives pass laws that are written by, and primarily benefit, our largest and richest corporations. Government serves the corporations, and the corporations fund, hire, and coopt government employees. And the health care reform bills circulating Congress are particularly egregious. As Greenwald writes:

The health care bill is one of the most flagrant advancements of this corporatism yet, as it bizarrely forces millions of people to buy extremely inadequate products from the private health insurance industry -- regardless of whether they want it or, worse, whether they can afford it (even with some subsidies). In other words, it uses the power of government, the force of law, to give the greatest gift imaginable to this industry -- tens of millions of coerced customers, many of whom will be truly burdened by having to turn their money over to these corporations -- and is thus a truly extreme advancement of this corporatist model.

On this, both my conservative friends and I agree. Thus, economic populism circumnavigates usual dividing lines of ideology. Again, as noted in the article:

[T]his growing opposition to corporatism -- to the virtually absolute domination of our political process by large corporations -- is one of the many issues that transcend the trite left/right drama endlessly used as a distraction. The anger among both the left and right towards the bank bailout, and towards lobbyist influence in general, illustrates that. ...It's certainly true that health care opponents on the left want more a expansive plan while opponents on the right want the opposite. But the objections over the mandate are largely identical -- it's a coerced gift to the private health insurance industry that underwrites the Democratic Party. The same was true over opposition to the bailout, objections to lobbying influence over Washington, and most of all, the growing anger that Washington serves the interests of financial elites at the expense of the working class.

The banking bailout should, by all rights, have been that Fort Sumter moment of middle class consciousness where a moment of realization and clarity erupt, no matter what the political identification or ideology. In simple terms, the corporate progenitors of the worst economic climate since the Great Depression were deemed "too big to fail," and funneled government money in order to keep business as usual, consolidate their gains by buying medium-size banks and investment firms that failed, and then allowed to pay back their bailout money without further checks on behavior. The final part might be the hardest to swallow. How many banks raised their credit card APRs, their ATM fees, their annual credit card fees, their overdraft fees, and their late payment fees? How many banks slashed credit limits, cancelled credit cards for non-use or credit activity that absolutely nothing to do with the card at issue, and denied small businesses and other revenue-generating activity the loans necessary to make it through this recession? We, the middle class, were royally screwed not once, but twice, and the second time is on-going and continual; the taxpayers bailed out the big banks, and were repaid with higher costs and tightened credit, the proceeds of which were used to pay back the government, and thereby wiggle out of any realistic check on further bad behavior. Why didn't Obama force the banks to slash their credit card APRs and put in a place a ceiling more in line with middle class incomes? Why is it okay to raise someone's APR from 13% to 30% for no legitimate reason? It's been estimated that if the government bought every single subprime mortgage, the cost to the United States would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.4 trillion. As it stands now, the total costs of the bailouts, both directly and indirectly, could be in the range of 14 trillion. The rich get richer....

Now the healthcare giveaways are yet another corporatist slam in the face. By requiring people to purchase coverage from a profit-hungry private insurance system, all the bill does is reinforce and strengthen the already flawed and corrupt insurance model. Again, economic populism may be based in irrational anger at times, but one need merely look at the available evidence to dispute any conspiracy talk. The results of the government/corporate synergy are clearly not in the best interests of the average American. Democrat, Republican, Independent, whatever. My wish from this is that we could somehow acknowledge and learn that this common issue of corporatism trumps the bullshit political theatre, posturing, navel-gazing, and punditry that the networks use to divide people into one side and the other. Social issues ARE important, but we should also meet in the center to reassert the financial best interests and will of the middle class majority. A continued focus on the governance/corporatism issue as it affects all parties is imperative.

Golden Age Artist Spotlight - Carl Barks

2009-12-17T16:21:00.000-05:00

With Carl Barks, it's not too much of a stretch to say that he was the first comic book artist to make me distinguish and self-select comics based on who drew them, even though I had not a clue who did it. For the vast majority of Carl Barks' professional life, he was essentially anonymous. He was only known as "the good Duck artist." Until dogged fans finally dragged the information out of Dell/Western in the seventies, Carl Barks had drawn various ducks and other characters since the early forties without so much as a story credit. By his retirement he had written and drawn over 500 stories. Thankfully, in the last decades of his long life (he lived until the ripe old age of 99 and passed away in the year 2000), he was recognized for his brilliance, and his oil paintings reimagining old duck covers and concepts provided a good post-retirement income stream (one painting selling for over $140,000 among two collectors). He created most of the Duckburg universe, including Uncle Scrooge, Magica De Spell, the Beagle Boys, Gladstone Gander, Gyro Gearloose, the money bin, the Junior Woodchucks, and the number one dime.

I distinctly remember, in third grade, having a massive stack of Gold Keys, Harveys and Charltons to look through. Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Richie Rich, Casper, Woodsy Owl, Super Goof, Moby Duck, Popeye, Beetle Bailey, etc. And I was almost hypnotically possessed to drag out the same Uncle Scrooge comics over and over again. To an eight year old kid, Uncle Scrooge, as written and drawn by Carl Barks, was my introduction to world history, archaeology, mythology, geography, and action-adventure. Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck, and Huey, Dewey and Louie, traveled the globe, from Arabia to Australia to the Yukon to outer space. Those stories were my introduction to comic books, fostered an appreciation and love for them, and remain an influence and inspiration to this day. I continue to attempt to push these books on other unsuspecting readers like crack on a street corner, because they have magical staying power and all-ages appeal. In Europe, Barks continues to be seen as one of the most influential cartoonists in history. In North America, duck collectors continue to spread the word, become Barks completists (easier for the duck books thanks to the Another Rainbow hardcover sets), and analyze and review the multitude of ideas and concepts created by the quiet, humble man from Oregon.

Enjoy these covers, and when given the chance, read the stories inside and share them and others with a kid or two.

Iron Man 2 Trailer Out: Geek Hyperventilation Increases by 38%

2009-12-17T14:58:00.000-05:00

Yup, this looks cool. Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johannsen, Don Cheadle, Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson, and Garry Shandling in a cameo as a Senator? And written by Justin Theroux, who also co-wrote Tropic Thunder, one of the best and darkest comedies in years. Good (if excessively quick) cutting on the trailer, and smart to stick with AC/DC and Black Sabbath if only to refresh the associations.

Questionable Cover Art -- #1 In A Series -- Unfurgettable

2009-12-17T14:28:00.000-05:00

Disregard for the moment that Wilma has some weird mutated ferret/panther/anaconda hybrid wrapped dangerously around her neck, and that said animal appears agitated and/or rabid. I'm a bit more concerned that Fred Flintstone has to deal with the medical uncertainties and possible social ramifications of being born without an asscrack. He has apparently been aware of this condition for some time, as evidenced by the Exorcist-like neck rotation. I'm left to ponder whether Fred evacuates his bowels via some sentient animal colostomy bag, perhaps a wise-cracking pelican. Perhaps, the evolution of the rectum to its current fissured placement and structure is a little farther down the line for human bodily development, and massive racks of ribs, enough to topple a car, were digested in toto, i.e., without resultant waste products.

Man Rant -- This Week's Exercise -- Blockbuster Video

2009-12-16T16:17:00.002-05:00

I really wanted to do one on banks this week, since it's timely, I'm various degrees of pissed-off at various banks, and I don't even use Blockbuster anymore. But just doing the research on the rant involving banking consumes beaucoup amounts of time, and it's not a subject I want to just haphazardly skim over. I doubt that the banking industry will be acting any more responsibly in the next few weeks, so it's a healthy scratch, but on-deck for the near-future. Oh, and if anyone actually reads this, suggestions on "man rants" are always welcome, and need not be gender-specific. Anyway, on to the incompetence parade showcased this week.

Blockbuster should just die already. I know it's hardly breaking news. In terms of reacting to trends in the home video and gaming market, they appear to resemble some aquatic leviathan air-dropped onto a glacier and asked to run windsprints. First they get their ass kicked on-line/mail order by Netflix, who started off like the little engine that could, and now is in danger of bloat themselves. Then, that tacky little ragamuffin Redbox started popping up outside of Seven-Elevens and grocery stores, like bored skateboard kids, offering movies six months away from steady TBS rotation, at the low, low price of a buck. Meanwhile, Blockbuster, who undercut and overstocked and devoured its competition since the days of VHS, tries to confuse its customers, imitate its competitors, and nickel-and-dime the shit out of everybody, including its employees.

For those ignomious achievements, as well as countless others, they deserve to have squandered any and all goodwill they might have garnered due to the efforts of the people who work there, sorry, worked there, who actually care. My last, and final, experience with them is probably no different than a lot of people's. I picked out a couple of recent movies, was willing to pay $4.00 to $6.00 apiece for them for a week, and stood in line. And stood. And stood some more. For the same interminable fifteen to twenty minutes, I'd say no less than six employees clustered around two terminals doing precisely jack-shit, joking with each other, acting like the customers were an inconvenience, and kissing the ass of their equally incompetent store manager. Now my time isn't that valuable, I don't bill by the hour, and I understand that sometimes waiting in line is necessary, even in this world of instant downloads and content-on-demand. But when your business is on the way down, playing grab-ass and then displaying attitude about it may make the day go by faster, but it's not going to make word-of-mouth marketing any better. Act like a professional. And by the way, wasting my time through blatant inefficiency, and then immediately trying to upsell me on some money-grubbing monthly rental plan once I hit the cash register isn't going to improve my mood. I know you're supposed to say your sales pitch, and the corporate taskmasters send in spies to monitor, but you're there to take my money for whatever mass-produced schlock looked remotely interesting to me today, so save the sales pitch for smarmy assholes I don't have to deal with if I don't want to. The fact that I'm a trapped audience because I HAVE to interact with you in order to rent some crappy game, doesn't mean I want to listen to your pimply-faced Blockbuster infomercial. Fuck off, and take your line-of-sight candy and popcorn whoremongering with you.

Still that pales compared to their bait-and-switch "late fees" tactics. "No late fees forever." That was their massive ad campaign of a few years back. No, they don't charge late fees. They simply convert a rental into a purchase after a couple of weeks. So, we don't charge you if it's late, we debit your bank or charge your credit card $25.00 for a used DVD copy of "Paul Blart, Mall Cop" that you didn't bring back after a week, and if you give it back, we'll credit you back, less a "restocking" fee. Sure, you might have been able to get a used copy of the same dreck for $3.00 or less on Amazon, or brand new at Best Buy for $15.00, but Blockbuster needn't concern itself with market comparisons or even pretend to charge you what they actually paid for it in bulk wholesale. And when is a late fee not a late fee? When it's called a "restocking" fee, apparently. "Late" has such negative connotations. Let's call it "restocking," which brings to mind happy workers spending time putting back each individual DVD box onto its place on a shelf. So, to recap, "no late fees forever" equals a system where late means purchasing a used copy at full inflated retail price until Blockbuster hopefully remembers to remove the charge, and yet still charges you a fee for the experience. Little surprise then, that attorneys generals from forty-eight states and the District of Columbia found Blockbuster guilty of false advertising and settled out for over $600,000 and court costs.

I'm also a veteran of their on-line competition with Netflix. Talk about a dismal failure. Here's a short history of my experience -- $19.99 for four movies at any time, mailed to you, and then returnable for an in-store movie. Took full advantage of that deal. Watched movies I never thought I would, because I had plenty of trade-ins. A couple of months later, let's make that $24.99. Okay, I'm still ahead, I can live with that. Another couple of months later, it's now $32.99. The last straw, $35.99 for four mailed movies at one time, tradeable for up to four in-store movies PER MONTH. See ya. You had me and you lost me. I'm dumb, and frequently lazy, but really now, that's pushing it.

I could talk about other issues, like the annoying robo-calls from Blockbuster, the mysterious credits and debits seemingly unrelated to rentals, the e-mail spam even after I ended my membership, and the inability to stock any movie that doesn't feature Adam Sandler, but even I'm getting tired of hearing me bitch. Suffice to say, when the last Blockbuster store sells its last copy of Transformers 2 and shutters up its doors forever, I'll go and stand somewhere by myself with my hands in my pockets and my wallet open, for a good twenty minutes in memoriam. The sooner the better.

1 in 7 U.S. Teens Apparently Get Better Use Out of Their Phones Than I Do

2009-12-15T15:22:00.002-05:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/15/AR2009121502321.html?hpid=topnews

The Washington Post continues its rapid and strange descent into a paper equivalent of the six o'clock news (now with more conservative columnists per square inch!). It's almost comical to see an outmoded form of technology ring the clarion alarm bells about another newer form of technology. The cloistered monks from The Name of the Rose were dead-on about how much trouble that scurrilous Johannes Gutenberg was going to be. Mass-produced writing? Why even the little boil-ridden plague children will be able to read, and then who wants to blindingly listen to the church for all matters great and small? Not knowing that the fat lady has sung, WaPo continues to try to pump its daily and Sunday subscriptions by sending multiple mailers to me offering Saturdays and Sundays free. Here's a thought. How about I read for seven days a week free, and occasionally click on an ad, so I indirectly pay for content? Since you layer in so many pop-up ads like a struggling porn site, it's almost unavoidable without an adblocker anyway. Any business plan where you horribly cannibalize your own distribution model probably deserves to fail. I know people in the newspaper biz, smart and hard-working folks without a doubt, none of whom deserve to get canned, but the obvious problem lies in the ad-generated Internet newspaper monetization model. As this blog and a million other ones like it attest, content is cheap and ubiquitous, if not (in my case in particular) remotely as professionally rendered. There are lots of interesting funding ideas for on-line newspapers, some of which I'll cover at a later date. In the meantime, scaring parents and clucking about the scary "digital unknown" seems desperate and weak.

On to the article, which breathlessly states that "about 1 in 7 American teens with cellphones say they have received nude or nearly nude photos by text message, according to a new survey on the phenomenon known as 'sexting.'" Older teens were more likely to report sexting, with 30 percent of 17-year-olds saying they had received such photos, compared with 4 percent of 12-year-olds. 4 percent? I can live with those odds. And then there's the "Oh Noes! Who Will Think of the Children" moment:

"It's a part of teens' lives. It's something they deal with, they grapple with, they talk about," says Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist at Pew. "Even though the numbers are quite low, I think it is an important issue to be talking about."

   Sure. Okay. Thanks, Amanda. I look forward to that conversation with my ten year old daughter.

ME: "Honey, sit down over here for a minute. Bring your phone."

HER: "What. Why. No. Dad, you're embarrassing me."

ME: "I haven't even told you what we're going to talk about yet."

HER: "You're still embarrassing. Totally. Do you ever look in the mirror? We'll talk after this Wizards of Waverly Place marathon finishes. I promise."

ME: "Five minutes. It's something we need to talk about, father to daughter."

HER: "I saw this episode before anyway. What's the problem? Something I should tell Mom?"

ME: "Jesus Christ, no. Sweetie, sometimes when two people like each other, they electronically transmit unclothed or nearly unclothed pictures of themselves or others for immediate download, file transfer, and forwarding. The images can be associated with abbreviated text messages, usually containing truncated words and phrases which might be considered suggestive.   Do you ever think about this?"

HER: "We're done here."

The final line of the article really shows the depth of the research: "Among other findings, the report said teens with unlimited texting plans were more likely to receive nude photos or videos." In other news, kids standing in water are more likely to get wet than kids that are not.

Really, at the end of the day, all you can hope as a parent is that you imbued some common sense and self-awareness into your kids. I'd rather my seventeen year old "sexts" over some of the horrendous, reprehensible shit I pulled at the same age. Humbly speaking, I do my best to keep track of what's going on viz-a-viz external kid stimuli, but at a certain point, you need to place faith in a melange of trust, understanding, blind ignorance and accountable deniability.  And that's because technology, and those who benefit financially from its wide dissemination, are going to consider the Washington Post, helicopter parents, and anyone else in full-frontal "I must destroy that which I don't understand" Puritan mode as speed-bumps, not realistic obstacles. Combine that with hormonal urges, teenage rebellion and angst, and natural surreptitious behavior, mix well, and try to relax.

The Flimsy Rationales Christmas Buying Guide

2009-12-15T12:05:00.005-05:00

Hey, now! It's that time of year again. Tired of wracking your brain trying to pick out the perfect gift for that special someone? Are you lazy, depressed and slovenly? Do you see each day as another slog through the mud in the interminable march towards death? Well, worry no more. We're here to help!

The first item up for bid on The Price is Right is something no respectable kitchen can do without. A graham cracker microwave-powered hydraulic press. Because folks apparently want s'mores more than four or five times in a lifetime, and those times were usually because you're humoring an aunt at a campground who thinks making s'mores will distract from the obvious fact that Uncle Joe has a serious drinking problem. But, seriously, adding gummy bears is cheap and whorish. Don't be that guy. Keep it classy.

The next item in the Flimsy Rationales Christmas cornucopia is the always handy portable pizza oven. It plugs right into your dashboard! Who among us hasn't been driving for hours and hours and wishes that they could cook a melty, greasy, piping hot pizza right on the front seat? "Sorry, officer, I'm guilty. Guilty of spectacular pizza in the second degree." Only $36! Oven mitts and dignity sold separately.

http://www.stupidiotic.com/product_info.php?cPath=9_15&products_id=193

Now this little beauty is a long time in the making. Got problems with pesky varmints? Immigrants? The alarm clock? Is the significant other coming to bed with just a wee bit too much attitude, and not enough tender loving care? Problem solved.

Back to the kitchen for our next item. I've lost track of how many times I've gone to the grocery store, bought a metric ton shitload of testicles, and then let them go bad in the fridge. With this handy-dandy cookbook, you'll never go nuts with too many balls in the air at one time, and end up being sacked by your testy family for a loss (I'm so, so sorry). Stovetop Testicle Goulash? I'm staying! Nom-nom-nom.

http://www.yudu.com/item/details/13884/Sample-Version---The-Testicle-Cookbook

And our final item in this installment of the buying guide, the CHRIST-mas tree. I speak for the majority when I say that I'm simply sick and tired of my secular humanist atheistic socialist liberal friends and their religion-bashing new-age Christmas trees. Sure, the sight of a large cross representing where the Lord and Savior was tortured and killed formidably looming over the kids' Tickle Me Elmo and Fun-Time Barbie might present some confusion and uncomfortability, but let's not ever forget what the season is all about. NEVER, EVER, EVER!

http://bosscreations.net/index.html

Random Acts of Innuendo

2009-12-11T16:33:00.000-05:00

Okay, this made me giggle like a little school girl.

Golden Age Artist Spotlight - Frank Frazetta

2009-12-11T13:20:00.004-05:00

Frazetta came to mind today for all the wrong reasons. His son actually used a backhoe to bust into the museum holding Frank's artwork and made off with $20 million dollars worth of original paintings. More information about the break-in here. It's always sad to see family squabbling about inheritances make it into the public forum, even worse when it involves felonies. As covered in the excellent documentary, Frank Frazetta: Painting With Fire, trailer provided below, Frazetta had a very close relationship with his wife (and business manager), and with her passing due to cancer in July of this year, the glue that held the family together might have dissipated beyond easy repair.

The fact that there are paintings worth tens of millions of dollars reveals a lot of Frazetta's mainstream success. Comic books were just an early part of his success, his breaking-in phase. Frazetta went on to become one of the most well-known fantasy artists of the twentieth century, illustrating beautiful painted book covers (famously for Robert E. Howard's "Conan" and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan and John Carter), album covers (for bands like Molly Hatchet and Nazareth), movie posters (including What's New, Pussycat, Mad Max, The Guantlet, and his cinematic collaboration with Ralph Bakshi, Fire and Ice), and comic strips, including Al Capp's Lil' Abner, Dan Barry's Flash Gordon, and Harvey Kurtzman's Little Annie Fanny in Playboy magazine.

Again, as heavily covered in the documentary, Frazetta was bigger than life. He was, and still is, tough as nails. This is a man, who after suffering a stroke and losing the ability to draw with his right hand, taught himself to draw with his left and continued to produce world-class art work. His kinetic, photo-realistic drawings of the human form grounded the often-far-flung fantasy genre, which in combination with the heightened availability of mass market paperbacks featuring his artwork, paved the way for an entire subgenre of art, allowing artists like Simon Bisley, Boris Vallejo, Jeff Jones and others to find success. Frazetta is a true American original, in a way that the simple, overused label cannot understate.

The trailer from Frank Frazetta: Painting with Fire, which plays occasionally on the movie channel IFC and is available on DVD:

"Frazetta: Painting With Fire" Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

While his comic book cover art isn't voluminous, it is memorable. I remember buying my first Famous Funnies Frazetta book, and spending time looking at every time I set up at a comic convention. I have tried, and often failed, to purchase Frazetta-covered magazines from Jim Warren's stable of seventies classics, including Creepy and Eerie. In attempting this exercise, it's amazing to note how few "so-so" covers there are. I could put up virtually his entire comic book cover catalogue....

Enjoy!

UPDATE: 5/11/10

The news regarding Frazetta's death hit the wires yesterday. Frazetta passed away at the age of 82. I was never very good at obituary-writing, but suffice to say that Frazetta was an artistic influence that cannot be overestimated. His work redefined several genres, including comics, paperbacks, and sword-and-sorcery, among others.

Here is a re-published interview with Gary Groth at The Comics Journal (originally conducted in 1994). It shows great insights into the man: Frank Frazetta Interview.

R.I.P.

The Buhdoosh Files: New Jersey Edition

2009-12-10T14:52:00.001-05:00

Pow, Right in the Kisser

Ah, the wonderful pageantry of the human condition played out in the fine dining establishments of the Jersey Shore. I certainly do not condone the striking of a female, but there is something strangely compelling and hypnotic about this .gif. Thank you, MTV, for continuing to focus on the most vapid, narcissistic, and functionally retarded among us, so that we may learn from their drunken, demeaning, displays of crass stupidity and gene pool-poisoning. And a big shout-out to the Jersey Shore. It's not just high hair, orange spray-on-tans, and Axe Body spray. There's a whole vast subterranean level of cringeworthy behavior that defies superficial jokes and humorous website/Facebook pictures. Eat, drink and be merry, fellow travelers.

Man Rant -- This Week's Exercise -- Dieting

2009-12-09T21:30:00.002-05:00

Fuck it. I've just about had it with dieting. There once was a day, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, when I could eat the caloric equivalent of an overturned ice cream truck in one sitting, go outside and play kickball for twenty minutes, come back in and polish off half a barnyard. And there was always room for jello. Always. Now, I'm in my early forties, deep into self-loathing on a bite-by-bite basis. Pasta and I had such wild times in the eighties. Now we can't even look at each other.

I remember the day when I convinced myself that I needed to lose weight. I was with the kids at the Air & Space Museum, admiring the days when Americans shot phallic symbols into space with amazing regularity. In the Geico "15 Minutes Can Save You a Lot of Money on Car Insurance" Hall of Planets, or whatever they call it, there is a scale that lets you know how much you weigh on the moon and other planets. The kids weighed about as much as a box of Kleenex on most of our solar system's heavenly bodies. I got on and was surprised at how much I massively weighed on Jupiter. Except it was Earth. My reading comprehension abilities apparently had deteriorated as much as my metabolism. I waddled off the scale, determined to make some changes, no matter how much I had come to appreciate and treasure food as a comforting, understanding booty call, who always answered the phone no matter how late or drunk I was. I don't know if it's having kids or getting divorced, but at some point, food became something more than just mere sustenance. Eating food and a good bowel movement are now prime directives. They define the entire day. I can see why people become "foodies" as they get older. Watching PBS cooking shows is like softcore porn now. I used to eat macaroni & cheese mixed with whatever condiment was available, tabasco, ketchup, relish, mustard, graham crackers, whatever, out of the pan, over the sink, washed down with beer that kills plant life. Now, I'm wondering if sesame oil or olive oil would make the risotto taste better. Just start hammering me with the anal sex already.

So I go to the doctor, and complain about my persistent and consistent lardosity. He puts me on the Atkins Diet. The sales pitch sounds great. Meat. I like meat. Eggs. Sure. Cheese. Bring it on. Nuts. I turn my head and cough. Lots of leafy vegetables. Eh. I'll drown them in cheese. Everything's going great for the first couple of weeks, and then my body starts to go, "Dude, I think I'm going to start looking for a new roommate." Turns out the Atkins plan is to scheme your body and brain into thinking it's starving. Since there are no carbohydrates coming in, the body goes into the auxiliary supplies, i.e., the rest of your ass, to keep the lights on. Corpulent fat gets converted into energy. And it works. If you have the discipline to push away bread, pasta, potatoes, cereal, most fruit, any and all sugars, orange juice, and generally everything that isn't either found in an animal or an animal's stomach, you're golden. Remember, though, you're playing Three Card Monte with your brain. I used to treat my brain like a red-headed step-child. If it could be smoked, drank, chewed, and occasionally sniffed, well, the night is young. As I've gotten older, my brain is now a feared and respected adversary. I need my sanity a lot more than I used to. I really would be so appreciative if I didn't get a panic attack during this job interview. I will so make it up to you, brain. So dicking around with my cerebral cortex by convincing itself that it was starving is an interesting career move. I had wonderful lustful dreams of pizza. I would see a friend or two in my dream, and they turned into pizza slices and bowls of pasta like a desert isle-based Bugs Bunny cartoon.

A year and a couple months of pretend-starvation later, and I've gone from fat to less fat. But I've eaten pasta again. And donuts. And pizza. And they tasted like they were baked in the Holy Ovens of Heaven. Brain like. Belly like. So now it's a waiting game because I'm back on Atkins again. We'll see how long I can last this time around. Because despite the joy that eating brings me, I still like the opposite sex. And at my age, I'm that old crusty lion on Animal Planet who gets his ass kicked by the younger lions and has to slink out of the pride to hang with the hyenas. Yes, women love guys for their sense of humor, personality, kindness, blah, blah, blah, but if you look like Marlon Brando in The Island of Dr. Moreau your options are going to be limited to the fetish crowd, the blind, the equally or exceedingly more fat, and occasionally the horrifically drunk. Men were cursed with body issues from birth. We may not stress and binge and purge like the feminine persuasion, thank god, but very few of us look good naked. That's just a fact. There's hair in weird places, in patches like a hirsute archipelago on our backs, shoulders, arms, and legs, and as we get older our hair purchases timeshares in places like the ear and nose. Our balls droop, our chins sag, and for some reason our asses get flatter, so we end up hiking up our pants to our armpits. The supposed ideal of mankind, Michealangelo's David, is hung like he just swam out of a glacier. Add fat to the mix, and the results are rarely pretty. It's a wonder we ever get laid. I think women feel sorry for us.

So bring on the bacon and the Stairmaster. I'll keep dieting even if it kills me.

Charles Montgomery Burns Wins Write-In Vote in New York City

2009-12-09T16:11:00.002-05:00

CNN Political Ticker

"Charles Montgomery Burns, better known as Mr. Burns in the hit animated TV series "The Simpsons", got the most votes of any write-in candidate during last month's mayoral election in New York City. According to records released by the New York City Board of Elections, the cartoon billionaire received 27 write-in votes out of the 299 that were cast.

Burns wasn't the only fictional character to get votes in the race. Mad Magazine icon Alfred E. Newman, Fantastic Four arch-villain Victor Von Doom, Mickey Mouse, and Sleeping Beauty also received write-in votes."

Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

Ray's Romper Room - "Helicopter Parenting" versus "Slow Parenting"

2009-12-09T15:12:00.002-05:00

Every parent wonders if they're doing the right thing in raising their children. There tends to be alternating mood swings behind "my way or the highway" and "I'm preparing them for future lifelong therapy" for most folks. In the end, though, I think kids find their own way. It might be right out of the gate, it might be later in life, but one hopes that a bell goes off when they need to take care of their own lives, start their own families, and otherwise attempt to get their cumulative shit together. When they leave the nest, you'll have hopefully given them tools, varying levels of instruction, and an always-available emergency contact number.

According to Wikipedia, "helicopter parenting" is:

so named because, like helicopters, they hover closely overhead, rarely out of reach, whether their children need them or not. In Scandinavia, this phenomenon is known as curling parenthood and describes parents who attempt to sweep all obstacles out of the paths of their children. It is also called "overparenting". Parents try to resolve their child's problems, and try to stop them coming to harm by keeping them out of dangerous situations ... Some college professors and administrators are now referring to "Lawnmower parents" to describe mothers and fathers who attempt to smooth out and mow down all obstacles, to the extent that they may even attempt to interfere at their children's workplaces, regarding salaries and promotions, after they have graduated from college and are supposedly living on their own. As the children of "helicopter parents" graduate and move into the job market, personnel and human resources departments are becoming acquainted with the phenomenon as well. Some have reported that parents have even begun intruding on salary negotiations. An extension of the term, "Black Hawk parents," has been coined for those who cross the line from a mere excess of zeal to unethical behavior, such as writing their children's college admission essays.

"Slow parenting" on the other hand is:

a parenting style in which few activities are organised for children. Instead, they are allowed them to explore the world at their own pace. It is a response to Concerted cultivation and the widespread trend for parents to schedule activities and classes after school; to solve problems on behalf of the children, and to buy services from commercial suppliers rather than letting nature take its course.

The philosophy, part of the Slow Movement, makes recommendations in play, toys, access to nature, watching television, and scheduled activities. The opposing view is that such children are disadvantaged because their parents do not provide as many learning opportunities.

How many parents admit to being helicopter parents? How many want to consider themselves as slow movement followers? Myself, I'm a pretty firm believer in unstructured play. My two kids get more than enough structured activities day-to-day, so every other weekend with daddy can be free-range, free-form jazz compared to mommy's marching band practice. The issue, though, is whether the laissez-faire, let-them-fail-occasionally, and figure out their own boundaries, approach works in the long run.

How much risk is good? How much failure and disappointment is too much for a kid? Obviously there is a middle ground between the helicopter parenting approach and total hands-off. I wonder, though, whether my approach is more of a response to the ex-wife's stage mother manipulation, and less a true belief system. Curious. Wondering if any readers have opinions on this.

Golden Age Artist Spotlight - Basil Wolverton

2009-12-08T15:19:00.000-05:00

Basil Wolverton was, if nothing else, one of comicdom's originals. His art was in turns, organic, cartoony, grotesque, surreal, absurd, and workmanlike, and always idiosyncratic. Wolverton's art influenced a whole generation of Underground artists, including Robert Crumb. His images, in places like The Bible Story continue to amaze and entertain new generations. He was one of the very first artists to create new material for submission to the newly formed comic book market, and unlike the vast majority of creators, he eschewed the studios and workshops of New York City, instead operating entirely by mail out of Vancouver, Washington. Perhaps due to this arrangement, his work is scattered across various companies and mediums. Wolverton handled comic projects for Timely/Marvel, Centaur, Novelty, E.C., Fawcett, Gleason, and D.C. (My personal favorites being the alliterative, zany, pun-filled Powerhouse Pepper and scifi serialesque Spacehawk). He created posters and trading cards for Topps, greeting cards, caricatures, advertising, drawings for various magazines and periodicals, and starting in 1958, illustrated what many consider his magnum opus, The Bible Story. In six volumes from Genesis to Samuel, Wolverton adapted the text of the Bible and provided hundreds of b&w illustrations for the work. These six volumes were published from 1961-68 by Ambassador College. In the early 80s they were reprinted and rest of the Old Testament was added with newer illustrations by Wolverton. Wolverton was also a minister in Herbert Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God, so his assignment was also an expression of faith. The church itself was of the evangelical, prophetic, end-times-are-coming variety, which is vividly (and at times disturbingly) rendered by Wolverton in his interpretation of the Old Testament, in particular the chapter covering the Book of Revelations. You want to put the fear of God in kids, show them Basil Wolverton's Book of Revelations. He's probably the closest thing to Hieronymus Bosch since the Middle Ages. But there are beautiful, powerful, illustrations as well as the jarring. Using pointillism and woodcut techniques, Wolverton moved beyond the tools of ink and posterboard, and created art that reflected his entire career by standing breathtakingly unique. Wolverton was elected to the Will Eisner Hall of Fame at the San Diego Comic-Con International Convention in July of 2000, in recognition of his lifelong contributions to to the industry. He was also inducted into the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1991. He's one of my personal favorites, as I was intrigued from the first "Plop!" cover I saw with his art. Collecting his work has been a challenge, but a fruitful and satisfying one.

Here's a complete comic index provided by Basil Wolverton's son, Monte (an excellent artist as well): http://www.wolvertoon.com/basilindex.html

Enjoy!

Three to One Odds He Doesn't Last in Gamblers Anonymous

2009-12-08T12:47:00.000-05:00

Wall Street Journal Article - Guy Loses $127 Million

"Whales."  These high rollers are the gamblers that get the REAL comps. The ones the casino personnel fall all over each other trying to keep happy. The key question here is where does the responsibility for one's own personal behavior end, and where does potential liability begin.   Terrance Watanabe is claiming that he lost money, millions upon millions in fact, because of diminished faculties caused by pain pills and booze provided by the casino. Like a bartender giving a guy drinks after he's clearly hammered, and then the dude goes out and drives drunk and kills somebody.

As the article intimates, Watanabe has a tough road to hoe to prove that point, and the precedent is pretty much not in his favor.   He's trying to fight off a criminal conviction, and if I'm his attorney, I throw everything out there and let the judge decide. Clearly, some of the casino employee activities are a bit questionable, at best.   But they are standard operating procedure nonetheless. Watanabe busted out, Vegas moves on to the next victim.

Gambling is, in my opinion, becoming as common and easy as writing a grocery list. There used to be the time when there were only a few places you could bet, and most of the places were irredeemably sleazy and scummy. I remember when I was a kid, my dad took my brother and I to the Milford, Connecticut, fronton for afternoon jai-alai. We originally started our lifelong betting habits by picking colors for the winners, then later going with three-number combinations, then a couple of years later by reviewing the program, analyzing winning patterns and having our dad place bets for us, usually boxing the three best players. Per usual for gambling, the player who was clearly hands-down more talented than the rest dropped the pelota at random times and screwed up our tickets.   It was like Michael Jordan missing a lay-up once or twice a quarter.   We yelled "fix," and were probably right, who knows if the management and/or the mob kept things interesting. But when we did win, maybe $25 bucks on a rare occasion, there was euphoria, triumph, and validation for making the right picks, despite the fact that the place was more depressing most of the time than a shanty town.

Therein lies the trap. And why impulse control is key. I feel sorry for Watanabe. Sure he lived like a king while he was in Vegas, and probably ate strawberries off ridiculously hot stripper asses in suites that make my house look like an efficiency, but he fell so far down. So far.  He kept chasing the thrill, savoring the attention, feeding the ego in huge bites, but ultimately he felt regret, recrimination, and soon, perhaps, judicial punishment.   It's a classic Faustian contract.  And the devil took his due.

But I'm not sure where the Watanabe life lesson works for other people.   Most casual gamers never end up as compulsive gamblers.   I couldn't imagine losing five grand in a week in Vegas, let alone $5 million in one night. But I could certainly practice if I wanted to.   Like probably hundreds of thousands of Facebook users, I play Zynga's poker application. Over a year, I've built up around 2 million chips. My brother is over 2.5 million. I've got friends over $15 and $20 million chips. If I wanted to, I could spend money and buy more chips, and gamble for real. Nominal amounts involved, maybe $10 - $20, which is the table minimum for a blackjack game in Atlantic City, but it's a start. And I don't have to leave my couch to do it. It's the sheer ubiquity of gambling that became a realization for me.

As states find it harder and harder to fund budgets, the easiest way to find money is by introducing legalized gambling.   When I moved to Virginia in 1990, the only places to gamble were Atlantic City, Nevada, Foxwoods, jai alai, OTB, greyhound and horsetracks, and cruise ships.   There is now legalized gambling in most of the states surrounding me: West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware. There are 19 states (and one US Territory) that allow commercial casinos in some form: California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, Washington, and West Virginia. The only states where gambling is completely illegal are Utah and Hawaii (Utah, I can understand, but Hawaii?). There are multiple lotteries and scratch-offs in every state. I can go on-line, open an account in the Cayman Islands with a credit card, and start gambling in about five minutes.

Now, I'm of the school that says that individuals should do what's best for consenting adult individuals. You want to gamble, fine. You want to visit a whorehouse, do bong hits beforehand, and smoke in a restaurant afterward?  It's cool. I just wonder whether we're all just kidding ourselves about gambling.   I'm not sure if it was always part of our American cultural make-up, and now we're just peeling back or ignoring the rationales for why we considered it wrong in the first place.  There are political factors at work, of course, but if you just look at supply and demand, the supply has exploded over the last twenty years, in an order of magnitude. Gambling, with play money and real money, is truly available to anyone, at any time, anywhere.  Talk about playing craps with impulse control.

I'm betting the farm that more Watanabe stories get played out, with less media coverage, but similar results.

Compulsory Performance Review - Cinema Division - Anvil, The Story of Anvil

2009-12-07T16:44:00.005-05:00

I never really got into metal. In the late seventies/early eighties, growing up, it was the music form with the most cachet in our small New England factory town. Iron Maiden, AC/DC, The Scorpions, Judas Priest, etc., were all very popular (although hip hop/rap moved in and took over by the mid-eighties). I understood and appreciated the anti-establishment, anti-religious, rebel without a cause mentality of metal, but got tripped up when it came to the trappings, be it black concert shirts, satanic poster imagery, and the sometimes almost cliquish knowledge and devotion of the local fan base. In addition, the screeching vocals, long thrashing guitar solos, and often silly faux-evil lyrics combined with the violent head bobbing just left me perplexed, if not apathetic most of the time. This Is Spinal Tap!, released in 1984, ushered in the mockumentary format with a fantastic parody of the heavy metal lifestyle, but the excesses and mythology of the genre were well-documented enough that the satire worked best by just playing it straight for the most part. David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel, and Derek Smalls could have really existed (and probably did as pastiches of real-life metal artists), so the suspension of disbelief about the characters was minimized down to willful acceptance, which made the comedy that much more biting and connecting to the audience.

Anvil, The Story of Anvil, starts off as an almost scene-by-scene remake of Spinal Tap!. The Canadian band had a coming out of sorts in the mid-eighties, and were considered formulative influences for bands like Metallica, Motorhead, Anthrax, and Guns & Roses. But they never really made it big. Singer/guitarist Steve “Lips” Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner started out as childhood friends outside of Toronto, and twenty years later, they still play off each other's strengths and weaknesses, particularly when times are tough for the band. And boy do they start off on a downswing. A haphazard European tour is almost painful to watch, with scenes of pathos that made me question whether the movie was in fact a mockumentary or the real thing, since it become comicly Tap-like in its arduous descent into the pitifully cringe-worthy.

Upon returning to North America, the movie slides into an introspective analysis that changes emotional gears for the viewer entirely. The director, Sacha Gervasi, a former Anvil roadie, really captures the sense of frustration, loss and perhaps blatant delusion, both in the musicians and their families. The family scenes and interviews form the foundation for the "will they succeed, or won't they" third act. They return to Japan, site of their initial brush with stardom, launching a large metal music festival at 11:30 in the morning. Will anyone even show up?

By the time the conclusion rolls around, you really feel for the band members and can share in their disappointment or joy. Anvil is a well-crafted and deeply satisfying documentary, providing emotional resonance, insights into the lure and fickle whims of fame, and touching personal interactions between bandmates and those close who haven't stopped believing in them.

8.0 out of 10.

World of Warcraft "Beaten": Doomsday Clock Starts to Blink

2009-12-04T14:42:00.004-05:00

Got the Power-Up!

Some ladies' man in Taiwan did the seemingly impossible. He beat World of Warcraft. Not a player of the MMORPG myself, although I have been known to occasionally dabble in a game or two involving pixelated images (I swear I meant to stay up three nights in a row to finish "Nobunaga's Ambition" on the SNES!). In any case, let's look at the body count:

"Little Gray" on the Wrathbringer server managed to kill 390,895 creatures and completed 5,906 quests in total, according to the WoW Armory website. As you would expect, however, there is one slight problem that should be noted.

The player has yet to earn the holiday achievement 'BB King' but due to a bug with an old PvP achievement, he managed to earn two points, giving him 986/986.

I was curious about the time you'd need to invest on an undertaking like this, so I turned to my regular font of pop culture information, my friends at CBR (Comic Book Resources). Dreadstar (Paul), a WoW player of some regularity, laid it out thusly:

Let's put it this way, in regards to time on WoW. WoW has been around for 5 years. If you spent 2 hours every day playing WoW, and 3 or 4 hours each day on the weekend since inception, you have logged a solid 6 months of game time. That's 6 months continuous.

If this guy was hard core, and it sounds like he was, I'd bet he'd have logged over a full year of continuous time. That means he played for one-fifth of all available hours since inception. And that really wouldn't surprise me. But to get the achievements? Hard to say to get the achievements. He might have done half that. He might have done DOUBLE that.

Holy shit. That's insane. Possibly two years out of the last five playing WoW. That's 24 hours a day, seven days a week, times twenty-four months, with no sleep, food, daylight, work, or other "normal" activities. I don't know whether to be impressed or depressed.

Prenups and Tiger Woods -- Mo Money, Mo Money, Mo

2009-12-04T14:09:00.005-05:00

Exclusive footage of new playable characters in Tiger Woods PGA '11 has come out. I hear that downloadable content will include different 2:30 AM costumes, a dozen cars to crash besides the Escalade, and a minigame where you have to text a certain number of booty calls before Elin finds your Blackberry. Fun for the whole family.

I'm thinking I'm not the only one suffering from extreme Tiger fatigue. It's tiresome, and I don't plan to blog about it anymore. But the long and short of it is that Tiger is an arrogant moron. As we were preparing for a conference yesterday, I talked to a couple of co-workers about Tiger. These were middle-aged African-American women, smart and opinionated, but based in a certain level of reality that sheltered golf icons seldom experience. "Tiger doesn't know how to cheat." "You let someone else set up your hook-up, you don't send 300 sex texts, cuz you're going to get caught sooner or later." True enough. Tiger's probably got an entourage with enough people to fill an amphitheatre. You'd think one guy could be "Trim Coordinator." Give him one of those Secret Service earpieces, a clipboard, and a strong pimp hand to keep the bitches in line, and send him on his way.

Since the question of whether he cheated has been answered, the next phase of discovery is with whom, where, and with what frequency. Sadly, we'll probably hear whether Tiger's mini-tiger fades to the left, hooks to the right, or needs a ball-washer. Bill Clinton set the celebrity genitalia description bar pretty damn low. Apparently Vivid Video, the gold standard of porno producers, are offering a million dollars for any of Woods' real life part-time paramours to "re-enact" episodes with a Tiger look-a-like. "I'm Tiger Woods," indeed.

Now what got my attention was the disclosure of the haggling over revising the 2005 prenup. According to Gerald Posner at The Daily Beast:

But in light of a string of women coming forward to say they had affairs with Tiger since his marriage, Elin has demanded that the prenup be rewritten, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Bill Zwecker reported Wednesday. “The links legend’s spouse is reportedly being paid a hefty seven-figure amount—immediately transferred [sic] into an account she alone controls—to stick with her husband,” Zwecker wrote. “At this point, the couple needed to remain married for 10 years in order for Woods’ wife to collect a splitsville settlement of $20 million. I’m being told that time frame has been shortened—and the dollar amount increased ‘substantially.’”

The lawyer familiar with the couple’s negotiations told The Daily Beast that Tiger also has agreed to shorten the original prenup to seven years from the date of marriage, meaning it will vest in another two. And the revised agreement provides for a staggered schedule of payments spread out over five years that could be worth upward of $75 million. So for Elin to collect $80 million, she’ll need to stay with Tiger another seven years, be a dutiful wife in showing up with him at social events and in public as if they were still the perfect couple, and sign a nondisclosure form that will prevent her from ever telling her story. Even if she lasts only two more years, she’ll still walk away with nearly twice what she was entitled to under the original prenup.

Cha-ching. So basically, it's come down to this for Elin. You can take what's in the Price is Right showcase right now, or wait seven years for the humongous prize behind door number two, or opt out in two years. It's like a minor league baseball contract. In the meantime, smile, shut up, and stay with the kids. Many years back American women took their significant other or each other to that horrible Demi Moore/Woody Harrelson/Robert Redford movie, "Indecent Proposal," where Demi and Woody lost their house, went to Vegas to try to win enough to get it back, didn't, and Robert Redford, the billionaire, offers the two of them a deal: Demi sleeps with Robert, and they get a million bucks. Done and done, with sentimental moralizing, recriminations, and tearful reunions designed to soften up the whorish implications with chick flick estrogen. Cultural garbage, but not unlike the situation here. The marital taxi fare is running, and the longer Elin stays with a lying philanderer who cheated on her while she was eight months pregnant, the more she gets paid. I wonder if the prenup can itemize things like the occasional blowjob. "Subpart 3; subsection 2: Oral to genital contact provided to Mr. Woods, after mutual exchange and signature to a change order form 1014, is entitled to additional recompense for services rendered, the full schedule of sexual services may be referred to in Table 7A." We're all aware of what she's ultimately being paid for, to paraphrase the old witticism, we're simply negotiating the price.

To climb onto the soapbox for a minute, it's exactly these types of situations that make me scratch my head and wonder why there are so many close-minded homophobic douchebags and douchettes who oppose same-sex marriage. This Swedish girl is basically being offered a ton of money to stay in what may become, if it isn't already is, a loveless, miserable, separately lived, gag-ordered sham, and yet, we deny consenting adults who have been in loving relationships, for decades in some cases, a chance to enter into a contractual legal relationship one-millionth as complicated and one-sided as this one. Ridiculous.

Unfortunately, even as most people tire of this, the white hot spotlights will continue to burn brightly. I expect that every skank who even so much as smiled at Tiger will look for a payout, either in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement or from some slimy producer from TMZ, E! or some other media bottom feeder. And who knows if Tiger will learn from this. Will he continue to need to get his ego (and other Tiger-parts) stroked, because his image is irreparably changed in the minds of most, so why not enjoy it at this point? And I think he's probably looking to hit the links sooner than later, because simpering golf sycophants like Jim Nantz will whitewash his wrong-doing, marvel at his ability to fight through adversity, and otherwise tongue-wash him because Wood is a ratings necessity, not an option. A long sordid path awaits....

Golden Age Artist Spotlight - Matt Baker

2009-12-03T17:19:00.002-05:00

Matt Baker (Clarence Matt Baker) is famously known as one the Golden Age's most provocative artists, primarily for his "headlights" covers on Phantom Girl. "Good girl" art, as it's commonly known, is one area of comic book collecting where you can get more or less what you ask for dollar-wise on eBay and at conventions (well-drawn chicks appeal to nerdy dudes -- who'da thunk it?). What's less known about Baker is that he is commonly considered as the first major African-American artist in comics. He also died far before his time, passing away from a heart attack at age 37, in 1959. Who knows how much stellar art (and personal fame) he could have achieved had he been able to draw any of the major superheroines of the time (say Wonder Woman, Supergirl, or Mary Marvel, for example), because there are few artists with a better command of the female form. And as related in several books about that period in comics, Baker knew women, because he KNEW women. A snappy dresser, he was reported to have said: “Why make one woman miserable when I can make many women happy?” Don't hate the playa, hate the game. A collection of great covers after the jump.

Enjoy!