John & Belle Have A Blog

More Cartoon Plato Than You Probably Want

Belle lacks internet access. I'm way too busy to blog. But I thought I'd share a few more Plato illustrations. I made a flickr set. See if you can guess what the philosophical point of each illustration might be. (These are all for a book I'm working on. I've also been gradually moving towards a lecture style for my intro course in which all the PPT slides are just pictures, with only a few words.) I did a few more Flora-style ones. I'm now a confirmed addict of this new style. Here's one I did that I really like, which is doubtfully philosophically applicable. But I'll try to think of something. It's Jim Flora head meets Tim Biskup arms meets Italian Scaramouchizmo with a touch of Greek vase painting. I'm rather proud.

Origin Story

In the wake of the Spitzer debacle I've come up with a great idea for an origin story (partly inspired by unfogged commenter Cala). Mutant powers usually express themselves during one's teens, but the rigidly self-controlled woman in question has kept them under wraps for 42 years. Having given up her promising career to support her husband, she is forced to literally stand by him while he offers a half-assed apology for destroying his political life in the most idiotic and humiliating way conceivable . Cameras are running, and so photographers capture very moment when laser beams of white-hot rage emerge from the woman's eyes and melt the governor's head so fast that his body, topped with a steaming froth of bone fragments and brains, sways briefly in his Bruno Magli shoes, before collapsing onto the dais, looking for all the world like that Barbie your little brother got hold of. She's an attractive blonde, looks good in spandex--surely Nick Fury has room for her in his organization, right? She may need some Cyclops-style eye protection, preferably a kind that can double as expensive sunglasses. I think there's a lot of potential here.

I Take Parenting Very Seriously

You are never too young to start learning about the truly important things in life:

Funny Animals

I would just like to say that an odd Google search has taught me that Frank Frazetta - before he drew all those Conan covers we know and love from days of yore - drew Funny Animals. And he was pretty good. In a Walt Kelly-ish and quite distinctive sort of way. Who knew? Apparently there's even a book - Small Wonders [amazon].

 

But I think my favorite from that page is:

Skrullapalooza

While Belle and I were working on this, Zoë was getting into the act. Look out, Sue - there's a Skrull!

I love the groovy Mr. Natural 'keep-on-truckin' laid-backness of how Sue's uniform is cut. Or maybe those are PJ's. Plus the hair.

Zoë Art: Cosmic Hunger Edition

So we got these Human Torch figurines at KFC and, naturally, Zoë wanted a few things explained. So she ended up coming up with her own story about how Superzoë and Super Mei Mei met the Fantastic Four and fought Galactus together. What they did - this was Zoë's idea - was find a boulder as big as Earth, paint it to look like Earth, then build a machine to magnify the Invisible Girl's power, so she could make the whole Earth invisible, while Galactus ate the fake 'Other Earth'.

Advantage: Awesomeness! (Click for larger awesomeness.)

Sunday Random Metropolisdickery Panel

Sometimes it is suggested that Superman is the only guilty party. The truth is: he only moved to Metropolis because there's something subtly twisted about the whole town.

LOLVILLAINS

Man, am I tired. This is the best I can come up with.

Mental Organism Designed Only For Tasting!

 

Fodder via the ISB, as you might have suspected.

Jimmy Olsen, Timon of Athens' Pal

OK, over at the Valve I've been dutifully linking to various illustrations of famous Shakespeare plays. It's an interesting fact that lots of those plays started out as comics, early in Shakespeare's career, when he was working at DC in the late 60's. Scholars are only beginning to study the ways in which Shakespeare's genius adapted the sequential visual art medium to the so-called 'stage'. (At first, many famous plays - Hamlet and King Lear - were billed to the dull masses as 'graphic novels for the stage'.)

Example: here is a page from the (admittedly only semi-successful) title, "Jimmy Olsen, Timon of Athen's Pal". Click for larger image.

Saturday Random Legion Panel(s)

Because nothing grabs you by the tiara and screams 'normal' like ... well, honestly, I'm not sure what the hell he's wearing or what he did to his hair.

Twisty Faster In Thirty Seconds

Tabbed browsing has created new forms of confusion and internet unheimlichkeit, such as that created by reading I Blame The Patriarchy and Chris's Invincible Super-Blog at the same time. Clown car? Also, dear god look what they did to Power Girl. She's, like, actually very powerful, and stuff. No, really.

Everything's Coming Up MODOK!

So it looks like this issue of Avengers might be pretty good (thanks, Jacob!)

And Tim Burke actually hauled off and sent me an actual MODOK action figure. (thanks, Tim!)

Here are pictures of the girls admiring it. Mei-Mei instantly declared it to be her wobot. 'Mei-Mei's wobot is vewy wonderful. Mei-Mei's wobot is vewy amazing."

Zoë likes it, too.

Zoë proceeded to make a fine drawing. "MODOK goes for a walk". (Click for larger image.)

The whole cult MODOK thing started way back in 2003 or so when I snapped this pic of Zoë apparently trying to squeeze her head into rather a small space:

How's That?

Chris Sims always brings the professional-quality funny to the task of comics-blogging. Now he's decided to take us back to a bold era in X-Men history: the early nineties. Many chances to remember why you hate Cyclops so much, plus Sims offers us an indelibly accurate (if mildly unsafe for a family blog) description of everyone's favorite telepathic ninja assassin: "Psylocke leaps vagina-first into the fray!" Um, I know, but just go look at the picture. It's funny, because it's true!

I'm destined to live the dream for all my peeps who never made it

From the department of inappropriately used slang, used - oddly - appropriately - this panel from Osamu Tezuka's Kapilavastu (Buddha vol. 1) [Amazon].

That Astro Boy-lookin' young feller there with the central casting Disney animals loitering about him is Tatta, a pariah. Volume 1 ends with the birth of Siddhartha and Tatta stalking into the wilderness, swearing terrible vengeance. "You've killed my family and all my friends already! But I ain't gonna go down so easy, not me!" And then, when an angle presents itself with regard to the pursuing soldiery: "check out my pariah piss, you bastards!"

Well, anyway. I wasn't sure whether I was really going to enjoy Buddha. I'm not really such a manga fan. (Some folks will complain it's been mirrored for left-right reading, with all that entails. What do I care? I'm left-handed myself. More power to my left-handed peeps!) But it's out in a lovely edition, and everyone has been saying and saying it's great. And Osamu Tezuka is a little bit famous, I should say. (I mean: no one complains that your characters look like Astro Boy when, like, you invented Astro Boy.) And I really really enjoyed it, and it's really really great, and I am now going to read the next 7 volumes or however many there are.

We'll fight together, or separately if need be!

I'm reading "The Avengers" and the trouble with the Avengers is - it's boring. They have too many meetings, trying out new members and stuff. (It's like they think they're the Legion of Super Heroes.) Anyway, I had an idea.

Iron Man, always updating to the latest version of Word Press. Hulk triple-posting. HULK BLOG! The Vision turns out to be a libertarian and posts Rush lyrics every Sunday. Thor is vexed by trolls and starts sock-puppeting (but everyone knows it's him because there are dots in the middle of the O's.)

And the Delurker is this Watcher-like character who shows up to help them out.

Anyway, that's always been the great battle-cry in comics history: "Well fight together, or separately if need be!"

Sympathy For the Devil

From The Kirby Collector, vol. 3. Some or other person wrote the following:

It seems to me that the least respected title Jack ever worked on has to be Devil Dinosaur. Readers must have gotten so spoiled with Kirby's action-packed superhero titles that many could not take a story about a red dinosaur seriously. It's really a shame because Devil Dinosair was an epic story about survival, honor, love, and friendship. This title is really worth searching for. Many of the issues can be found in the three-for-a-dollar boxes at your local comics store or at comic conventions. It has often saddened me to see Kirby's work in these boxes, but at the same time it gives many of us the chance to enjoy and own these great treasures.

Devil Dinosaur #1 is cover-dated April 1978. It is the amazing story of a tyrannosaurus and his companion, a young pre-dawn-of-time human called Moon-Boy who saves Devil from certain death. Upon reading the first issue I think you'll agree that it has to be one of the most endearing origins Kirby ever wrote. At first glance, Devil Dinosaur looks like a kiddie book, but upon further reading you begin to see how much thought and creativity Kirby put into this story. The relationship between Moon-Boy and Devil is similar to that of a boy and his dog. Moon-Boy calls Devil his brother and when he talks to him, Devil understands. They love and protect each other as only true friends can. One special scene in the book has to be in #6, page 30 when Moon-Boy is separated from Devil. He is afraid and lost, and as he sits in a small cave tired and hungry, Moon-Boy fears that Devil may be dead. He starts to reminisce about happier times with Devil. The images seem so real that Moon-Boy reaches out to touch them. Only the truly jaded comic reader would not find this scene touching.

This reminds me that I haven't yet praised one of the finest graphic novels things I've read this year: Wimbledon Green, by the artist known as 'Seth'. (According to this interview, Seth isn't his real name, but some rock n' roll thing the kids are into these days. His real name is Gregory Gallant - after he changed it from Glorious Godfrey, I suppose.)

The artist has a good look, I'll say.

You can download a PDF sample from Drawn & Quarterly. But I feel that the sample doesn't really do justice to the originality and freshness of the production. (I know, you're thinking 'yeah yeah, another graphic novel about how, oddly, liking comics is sort of cool - the fanboy as wise-fool. Well, yes. But this is good stuff.)

James Thurber's Etrigan

A fine afternoon. I'm translating Nietzsche and Zoë is sprawled on the floor in a mess of colored pencils ... copying Jack Kirby art off the back of The Kirby Collector vol. 3. Here's her initial sketch for Etrigan, the Demon.

Click for a larger image. Clearly, he is too James Thurber with that comb-over. (Is he trying to cover his horns?)

Then she got it RIGHT:

You've Got to Start Somewhere - Batman and Zoë editions

I'm reading Batman, vol. 1, which contains the first ever Batman comic - Detective Comics #27, from 1939.

Fun facts:

1. Our hero's name is, at this stage of his career, not just hyphenated but permanently encased in scare-quotes.He is the 'Bat-Man'.

2. All panels contain a verbal description of the action the panel depicts, presumably so that blind people - who can't see the pictures - can read them.

3. The first really serious scrape of Batman's career turns out to be with Jennings, who performs chemical experiments on enormous batches of dead guinea pigs. Well, I don't know how else to interpret the situation. (His enormous bell-jar for gerbil-gassing is about 6 feet tall and 6 feet in diameter. That's a lot of small mammal.)

Look, It's Sooo Cute! A Baby Nerd!

Zoë, though she rocks the fine motor skillz like dolemite, is something of a klutz otherwise. Three-year-olds can run rings around her. So, at my mom's suggestion, I've been looking for a class for her where she could learn to be more physically confident. I meant to do it earlier this summer, but hey, tomorrow is another day. And next month: totally another month, too. Zoë hates the idea. Yesterday I was looking at the Little Gym in the Forum, where she had been to a birthday party long ago and had a great time.
Me: Hm, maybe you could take gymnastics here. It would be easy stuff and you could learn to do somersaults and stuff.
Zoë, exasperated and indignant: Mooommm! I'm going to be a comic book artist when I grow up! I don't need to learn gymnastics!
Me: Too bad.
It'll give her some Chris Ware-type dysphoria to write about later, if nothing else. Relatedly, we watched The Squid and The Whale last night and it was excellent, though it had many scenes of embarassment so painful that John and I were writhing around on the floor going "noooooo! Make it stop!". Also, there was an Improving Moral: Never Get Divorced. (Or maybe, don't marry this incredible jerk?)

Deep Thoughts

The Joker is a very mysterious character, of course. But I've been thinking. What if he's actually some sort of whale?

Froggy Blog

Jim Woodring has a blog! Did you guys know that? A creepy, disturbing blog. Typical entry:

On a recent day trip to Rosario Beach we were told that the reason the tidepools there are so scantily inhabited by sea-life is that five or six years ago a freak convergence of 1200 schoolchildren all arrived at once and were let loose on the rocks without supervision, whereupon they proceded to kill, maim and destroy every living thing they could reach.

Violet really likes Pupshaw and Pushpaw, which she calls "Puppush a Pishput."

Damn You Chris Ware!

Is it really fair to put Chris Ware in the "comics" section? Anyway, I was reading this monograph by Daniel Raeburn, Chris Ware, the other night. It's a good little book, and the pictures of Ware's assemblages (or whatever you want to call them--weird built things) are amazing. But Mr. Raeburn needs to learn about something art books often have, which is the DETAIL. If ever, ever there were a topic which could benefit from a little judicious enlargement, it is F%^$%%G Chris Ware drawings!!! Instead, many of the full pages are reproduced at less than actual size. Needless to say I wanted to read the words anyway, since that's kind of a big part of the whole art form and all. The result was that when John came in to say that Zoë was asleep and ask if I wanted to watch a Buffy episode, I had to say no. No, because I was queasy with a .5 migrane and had to lie down in the dark with a damp washcloth on my eyes.

In other comics-related news, I think I have a crush on the Maleev drawings of Daredevil. It's my favorite style right now; I especially love the detail in the NCY street backgrounds. I can't think when I've ever had a crush on a drawing before, though. Hm, probably some Pini Elfquest characters when I was in middle school.

Wonder Woman

I have commenced a new family tradition. On Sundays, Zoë and I ride the bus to our local library and she gets to check out four books. On our last visit, she came running up to me and announced, 'They've got books for daddies!' Of course she had discovered ... the quite extensive comic book section. So naturally I got myself a library card. This time I checked out out a nice, fat Peanuts Omnibus (1953-1956), a volume of Plastic Man, a Bendis Daredevil and ... Belle told me to check out a complete Sherlock Holmes with my fourth pick. So, for number four, I settled on Wonder Woman, the Complete History. When she pointed out there was no Sherlock in it, I refuted her thusly: it was designed by Chip Kidd. (Today I checked her out a nice Sherlock with original Strand Illustrations from the school library.)

Somehow before reading this book I was completely unaware that the creator of Wonder Woman was a very strange and interesting fellow. Read the wikipedia entry on William Marston. Harvard Ph.D., inventor of the lie detector, lived with his wife and lover for decades, fathering children with both. The two women named their children after each other and continued to live together after Marston's death.

Here he is responding to criticism of the pervasive bondage imagery in his book:

The Weird Inferences About Statues Years

I've been reading one of these el-cheapo volumes DC has started churning out. Specifically,Superman Showcase - or, as I like to call it: 'Superman: the Weird Inferences About Statues Years'.

Yes, there's no chance that the Atlanteans collected action figures.

But you might object: surely Superman is in fact drawing his conclusion from the statue AND the solid gold spaceship. Fair enough. Then riddle me this?

So what's the premise here? 'For all x, where x is a person who owns a life-sized wax statue of y, y is not equal to x'? That's probably not true for, like, Michael Jackson (I'm just guessing.)

Also, Superman turns into a lion and a bunch of other stuff. And here's a sentence: "Intrepidly, the girl reporter arranges for a deep descent into the watery unknown ..." Good stuff.

The Weird Inferences About Statues Years

I've been reading one of these el-cheapo volumes DC has started churning out. Specifically,Superman Showcase - or, as I like to call it: 'Superman: the Weird Inferences About Statues Years'.

Yes, there's no chance that the Atlanteans collected action figures.

But you might object: surely Superman is in fact drawing his conclusion from the statue AND the solid gold spaceship. Fair enough. Then riddle me this?

So what's the premise here? 'For all x, where x is a person who owns a life-sized wax statue of y, y is not equal to x'? That's probably not true for, like, Michael Jackson (I'm just guessing.)

Also, Superman turns into a lion and a bunch of other stuff. And here's a sentence: "Intrepidly, the girl reporter arranges for a deep descent into the watery unknown ..." Good stuff.

Brainiac 5 would have to do chores! - or - the Feminist Mistake!

So I'm reading Legion of Super-Heroes, vol. 8. As a result, this post is going out to all the ladies - I mean lasses. But boys and kids of all ages will like it, too. I tell you the tale of ... issue #368, May 1968!

Legion comics suffer from a tendency toward the 3-panel disaster story. (A building is falling over. Oh no, Karate Kid's karate is not strong enough to catch a building. Mon-El catches the building.) So nothing seems out of place when the visiting ambassador's ship just blows up for no reason. What stuns our boys is the figure who emerges from the burning craft. Superboy: "*GASP* The ambassador ... a woman!" The ambassador is equally shocked. "You're in charge? A male?" "Of course." "You mean earth still has a primitive patriarchal society ... ruled by men?" Invisible Kid: "We have a patriarchal background - but we believe in equality of the sexes." (Chew on that.)

Later, back in Legion headquarters ... when the boys are away, talk turns to curtain rods. "What do you think of this color, Vi?" "File that pattern into the robo-sewing machine, Phantom Girl, while I get the curtain rods!"" "Aren't these color-changing chameleoid rugs just fab, Shadow Lass?"

Yet thoughts of the strange events of the morning obtrude into this idyll of domesticity. Nothing about the giant explosion, of course. Princess Projectra: "What did you think of that woman ambassador, Irma? She sounded as if she believed girls should dominate the universe." Saturn Girl: "That's pretty hard to imagine with guys like Superboy and Mon-El around." "Oh, I don't know! Supergirl's every bit as strong a they are!" Supergirl: "Not really! Though our strength has never been accurately measured, theoretically, Superboy is stronger than I, just as a normal boy is stronger than a normal girl!" I think the exclamation points really add excitement to the dialogue! And now we are seeing our theme! It would really be a problem if women were as strong as men!

The splash page already foretold as much. Shrinking Violet is chirping about how she is now the biggest legionnairre, blah blah blah and Invisible Kid, Lightning Lad and Superboy sing a mournful chorus: "And we boys are the saddest legionnaires ... since the girls' powers got beefed up .. and we became victims of 'The Mutiny of the Super-Heroines!'" Anyway, it turns out the ambassador has a plan for a feminist revolution, and the key is giving the girls more power. She does this thing with some statues. Now the girls are powerful, they make the boys look like schmucks. Invisible Kid tries to order them all into quarantine on the theory that they must have some sort of space disease, but the girls bust out to save the guys, who have screwed up again in stopping a jail break. The boys claim to have had some brilliant plan for stopping the break ... and you girls get back to quarantine! Fight! Now the girls are mad! The boys are getting kicked. "We've decided you're too weak to be in the Legion, so we're taking over and you're out!"  "Why don't you guys form a Loser's Legion of your own? Ha, ha!" The poor boys. Supergirl is feeling vaguely sorry for them, but a twist of the ambassador's bracelet fixes that. "They'll think completely as I do! Then they'll turn earth into a matriarchy!" See under the fold for a few scans.

Black Liquorwitch

I think maybe Cuticle Bomb and (now that I recollect properly) Mint Condition could team up with another lame super-heroine: Black Licorwitch! She can make things taste like black licorice! But, not good black licorice, which I like, such as jelly beans, and even those long bars at the hippie co-op with the panda bears on the label. No, she can make things taste like those weird Dutch black licorice gumdrops which are a) hard, like you're eating an old pencil eraser b) really licorice-y (ordinarily not such a liability, but just wait for..) c) SALTY AS A M^%&^%&*CKER!!!! Now that I think about it, though, if she also had the power to give people the hangover they would have if, the night before, they had drunk an entire bottle of ouzo, then she might be a formidible opponent indeed. Ooh, or what if she could turn any substance cloudy by adding water to it, and then disappear in a jet of liquorish ink! Quick, to the Pernomobile!

UPDATE: Damn, I now see Doc Slack's comment in the thread below to the effect that someone already did the licorice thing. Sort of. What are the odds?!

League of Super-Lamers

What? No, I'm not talking about 60's era Legion of Superheroes, probably The Worst Comics ever. Last night John and I thought up two realllly lame superheroes. One, Cuticle Bomb, had a mishap with a radioactive tin of Burt's Bees cuticle balm. Now, whenever she uses her power, people's cuticles become all raggedy--even if they just had a manicure!!! And people are overcome with an urge to pull off a tiny protruding scrap of skin from their cuticles "just to neaten it up", but then they keep pulling and it deepens into a hideous raw area which bleeds. I guess she's mainly hired by the mob to enforce against Korean nail salons in NYC.

Then there's Near Mint--who can make things really minty! "Aaauggh, the freshness--can't hold on..." Strangely there's a Korean connection here too: my friend Kara once brought some eyedrops back from Korea that you put in and then your whole head tasted minty on the inside. It went down into your sinsuses. Probably the least appealing personal care product of all time; it's synastheserriffic!!

Who's Right?

Lenin: "Persons who think of politics as small tricks which at times border on deceit must be decisively refuted. Classes cannot be deceived."

Herodotus: "It seems indeed easier to deceive a multitude than one man."

Who's right, do you think?

Also, this is funny:

This failure to register any sphere of activity between junior high one-upsmanship and triggering apocalypse puts me in mind of an idea for an entire issue of Avengers in which they do nothing but play bridge. 'Hulk bid two no trump.' But that's another story ...

 

Fanboy Monday

I can't believe they held a Photoshop contest, and no one stole my damn Botero idea! (via boingboing)

Also, there's this (via Gary Farber). Funny.

WHEDON: But I am a little removed from all of the larger stuff, because I planned my stuff out at the beginning, and of course, the Universe is quaking at all times, so I kind of have to get through, and then when I need to walk into the world, I call somebody, usually Mike Marts, and say, “Who’s alive? Who can be in this? Who’s in the Fantastic Four? There are six of them now? And they’re sinister? Okay.” But I just try and get up to speed when I need to. It’s hard for me – this is my first time at Marvel.

Insane Clown Cross-Eye

Tired of that rhino picture. Zoe likes to draw clowns as well. The eyes have it.

Also, this was a very funny thing in Slate yesterday - pulpifications of classic lit. And it contains a link to this site, which I'd never seen - poulpe pulps - though I guess it's been linked all over (women and cephalopods in compromising situations, but totally work-safe). This seems like the ultimate PZ Myers/Tom Franks mash-up, in terms of preoccupations.

W.A.N.T. Not, Waist Not

OK, I'm not going to take out the Photoshop for this and embarrass myself, but it really would be funny to do superhero outfits on Boteros (per this post.) Because it occurs to me they really do have Liefeld features, but in reverse. Obverse. Converse. Convex. Whatever. Even less waist, I'm trying to say. Not SNAP and SWAY. Rather, WANT (Waists are not there.) Consider:

Infinite Parallax Crisis - Weekend Pectoral Edition

Man cannot live by Zizek alone. I see that Feminist Law profs are getting themselves all in a lather about something we noticed ourselves.

Now the FIRST thing I would note is that it, if there is one thing Rob Liefeld has proved, it is that some form of blue energy makes it possible to be HALF a feminist law prof - or at least to dress like a hot lady lawyer - and HALF Lady Supreme, with Little Orphan Annie eyeballs.

For it is all the wealth that he hath left, to be known a reasonable creature ...

I'm reading Batman in the Sixties. I like this frame.

And the little girl who fed it apples

Speaking of ponies we rode in on, this is very funny. Leading to this. And, with terrible inevitability: this. (via Kip Manley.)

[RE that third link: the goggles, they do nothing.]

Words fail me, pictures slightly better

Hugh Hewitt:

The left has become disfigured because the excess that dominates the lefty blogs is absorbed by rank-and-file activists and encouraged by the Democratic Party leadership, which embraces, posts at and praises the blogs that are among the angriest and most vulgar/profane/hate-filled.

The collapse of the left's ability to engage in politics will continue and in fact accelerate unless and until the leaders of the Democratic Party rebuke the party's activist base and its spokesmen, which is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

The best thing the GOP has going for it in November, 2006 and in the presidential campaign to follow is the fury of the unhinged left. The vast majority of Americans reject politics of this sort, but there's no hiding what the left has become or the Democrats' endorsement of it.

The ISB provides the best advice, as always.

Do you think Hewitt is actually trying to engage the other side in reasonable discourse, but just doesn't know how to say it? Discuss.

Free Comics, Kids!

Free bits of comics you can read online! I think I like The Lost Colony best. Link via Chris' Invincible Super Blog Vulnerable Emo Blog. He seems to like A.L.I.E.E.E.N. best. I can see that. He says it's basically "Owly with eye-gouging". I have to say I think it's Jim Woodring with a touch of, I dunno, Hello Kitty.

It's funny that I'm so attracted to The Lost Colony because, frankly, the art is like that cartoonist - what's his name - the guy who does the the batty women, and codgers, and the dog. And they're usually in a ramshackle room with an exposed 40 watt bulb. And they say something quirky. I don't really like that guy. His stuff is in The New Yorker. That guy. Noses like potatos. But I like the look of the The Lost Colony.

Bork

A couple months ago I was going to analyze the rhetoric of this Kate O'Beirne interview at Frontpage. "I don’t think you could bork Robert Bork in 2006. The courts are increasingly a matter of interest to rank-and-file Americans." But the many things subtly off about the questions and answers hardly merit cataloguing. I was going to say something like what David Bernstein would clearly say: you are still regretting the result that he didn't get the job? (Who still thinks Bork would be a good justice? I guess you could maintain the pressure of the hearings drove him permanently insane. But who wants a Supreme so easily driven insane?) But mostly I've made this post because the ISB provides everything you need for everything. Example: a brainscan of Kate O'Beirne imagining about what it would be like if Bork came back for round two in 2006. (With the MSM as Flash, and Kennedy as Batman.)

The Phenomenology of Grading 80 Papers

Formidable

Just to complete the thought ...

I nicked it from here. Man, that blog is invincible. In the roll it goes.

He is special! He is ready!

I just delivered a short paper on Zizek at the MLA. You can read the text of the talk at the Valve. It's a nice little piece. Tragically, the panel didn't turn into a full-scale brawl with Zizekheads the way I would have liked. Speaking of which, I just found a scan of one of my favorite comic covers evar.

Crime and Punishment

For some reason there's a single issue of "The Punisher" in the room Belle and I are sleeping in at her mom's house. I sort of feel there are probably enough Punisher stories in the world. I think there need to be heroes who advocate alternative conceptions of justice. Have a hero of rehabilitation: the Penitentiary - sort of a Centurion-type straight arrow-type. Or possibly, The High Penitentiary. He fights The Punisher; they engage in impassioned soliliquizing on behalf of their respective philosophical conceptions. Howsabout: The Distributive Justice League of America. Who should be in it?

Merry X-Mas!

Image via Invincible Super-Blog.

Just because our computers died, doesn't mean our blog has to ...

So I got the iBook back. Nothing on it. Sigh. Sad, sad. The emptiness.

Anyhoo. You don't just want me to boohoo on your shoulder.

Actually, it's been quite good discipline not having a computer in the house in the evenings, with the wife and kids gone. I haven't really been focused on my beer drinking lately. (Ba-DUM. Thanks for coming out tonight.) No, seriously. I've been reading books and taking notes for projects on paper. And, basically, there's a lot of intellectual work I do best not on a computer. And I've been neglecting it. And now it's getting done. So that's good. I really feel very productive. (Plus I've been drinking some beer, yes. In moderation.)

Partly it's good to go without a computer because of blog addiction. It's good to not check the blogs every five minutes when I'm home alone.

I've been goofing around contently with Adobe InDesign (30-day free trial!) on my school machine. Basically I've been seeing whether it's worth the money. Lemme tell you: there's lots of palettes. And it's really not that expensive, if you can get the educational rate for the whole CS2 suite. Dunno what it costs in the states, but I can get it for $750 Sing, which is less than $500 US. That's good for Photoshop plus GoLive, Illustator, Acrobat. The works.

So anyway, I have this idea for a superhero comic. There's a mad scientist. Very much kicking it old school "they literally threw me out of medical school" school of Silver Age monologuery. But this one has been kicked out of Adobe labs for his dangerous and heretic 'electro-organic' approach to graphic design and professional publishing software. He's trying to combine Photoshop and InDesign into a single organism - more power! I need more power! But suddenly there's some sort of overload and, to make a long origin story short, the experimental hybrid organism breaks down into two piles representing its original components, now reduced to organic sludge, out of which emerge - a pair of twin heroes and a pair of twin villians. Dodge and Burn are the heroes. They have the powers of, um, making things light and dark. Firing light bolts and making the place dark. The blond, sunny one is Burn, and the paradox is that although he is apparently lighter, he makes things darker - fires dark bolts. Whatever. Dodge is the dark one. Brooding. Yet he shoots light. Anyhoo. Bleed and Slug are the villains left over from the desktop publishing half of the failed experiment. Bleed is some sort of a sinister, inky monstrosity who envelops you. Slug has the ability to ... to ... sort of extra-dimensional shift. (Yeah.) There is a 'slug' area outside of our three-dimensional space. (Like the Negative Zone.) And he darts in and out of it. I think. Furthermore, this extra-dimensional space holds information about the space we inhabit. So slug can sort of manipulate our world from this other dimension.

Say it with frogs

DRE: When you look at a frog, do you see it as the way you later draw would draw it? Or is it later when you go, “It’s time for me to draw” that the frogs come out that way?

JW: Well, if you notice there are no human beings in that book. I tend to use frogs as stand-ins for human beings, because when it comes drawing people for symbolic pictures, I never quite know how to go about doing it. If you draw them so that they’re like portraits, then the picture becomes about that personality. But if you just draw placeholders the figures tend to be very minimalist. They don’t have a lot of personality. It’s hard for me to know how to draw people, so I draw frogs because to me they’re kind of stripped-down versions of human beings.

DRE: What do you see in frogs that others don’t?

JW: I’ve always been fascinated by frogs and I’ve always loved to look at them. They’re good food for thought. I guess in France they’re just good food. They have a lot of interesting attributes. If you have a spiritual event; they’re amazing because they’ll just sit still as if they’re meditating for a long period of time, but they’re never out of it. They always notice when a shadow approaches and then they move like greased lightning. They live on the land and in the water. That amphibious quality is something you can compare to the way people live in both the animal and the spiritual world. They’re strangely anthropomorphic. They almost seem to have hands. They have faces you can read expressions in more readily than you can read them on the faces of other animals. I don’t know what it is but they’re easier to figure out than people. I guess the reason why I don’t draw people very much is because I don’t understand them. I don’t understand us so I never quite know what to show. It’s easy for me to draw people in deplorable circumstances doing terrible things subject to abominable forces. But I don’t want to just do that all the time; I don’t want to heap another log onto the fire of “Here’s what’s wrong with the human race.” So I sidestep it by doing it with frogs.

Link. (via boingboing, which has a fine frogpic.)

Do you think it's wrong to introduce Violet to Jim Woodring before the age of 2? (Click for a larger image.) She's reading Pupshaw and Pushpaw, not that new book. That's her in the background. Mirrors.

Infinite Crisis Chat

Sort of funny.

BUG: Well, there was SuperOldie, from an alternate earth where everyone has greying temples. There's Red Afro Lex from Earth Disco. There's SuperSlim from Lo-Carb Earth. And Purple Dress Lass from a land where everyone must wear a purple dress, or as I like to call it, Uncle Phil's place; where as I child, I was not allowed to visit.

VROOM: Wait a second. You're telling me that was Lex Fucking Luthor?!? Uh-uh. No way. What kind of twisted-ass reality has a Lex Luthor that looks like a Ren-Fair version of Napoleon Dynamite? I feel sorry for that world. "Otis, I need you to bring my red Kryptonite to school. Gosh!"

That's Off The Chain!

Sorry about the flaky blogging around here lately...But you have to check this out: the lamest comic book EVAR. It's a christian anti-Harry Potter story done in a sub-manga style, and littered with the "hip" expressions and slang terms the youth are "into" these days:

Minnie urges Ari to use his magic to free her, and Ari wonders, "How did it ever come to this: how did I end up here in this wack world of wizards? I never imagined such a thing could be for real ...."

The scene is the teaser for Hairy Polarity and the Sinister Sorcery Satire, a 32-page, full-color comic book that takes its characters on a dangerous adventure through the world of the occult. The story incorporates a number of themes that will resonate with youth -- peer pressure, rebellion against parental authority and witchcraft.

Yup, those are the themes that resonate with the youth, all right. My favorite line, from this page, "No diggity! It's some sort of library about magic!" Read this World O'Crap post for much, much more.

Robin and the Boomtube of Apokolips

So Belle and I have worked up something rather amusing. I came up with the concept, characters and story, with input from Belle. Belle can draw. I do Photoshop.

This is what we've got for starters. (All the links below are wikipedia.)

At the risk of killing the joke, the idea is to mash-up The Castafiore Emerald and Tintin and the Picaros with DC's Legends miniseries - with extra liberties taken. Cuthbert Calculus becomes the original Doctor Mid-Nite, forever punctuating the atmosphere at Waynespike Manor with cough-inducing dark bombs. (He loses his infrared goggles and can only see by filling the place with smoke.) As our story opens he has just performed a bold operation, in a smokefilled laboratory, splitting the schizophrenic Firestorm into Firestorm and Pfirestorm and causing Captain Batman to call the fire department. Bianca Castafiore becomes Amanda Waller, and a subplot of the first part of the story revolves around Captain Batman - after he is bitten by the Parrademon - determined to get away from Waynespike Manor, because Waller has sent a letter announcing she is coming to visit. She always brings the Suicide Squad. (I figure we need Dr. Light in here somewhere.)

The Parrademon Robin and Captain Batman encounter at the start has, of course, been sent through a Boomtube from Apokolips. Much Darkseid and deSaad hijinks. Glorious Godfrey writes irritating articles in the paper, denouncing Robin and Captain Batman. Possibly our heroes will journey to Apokolips, where they will meet Scott Free. (This gets a bit hazy.)

Green Lantern

Joe O tell us of his pain. Coincidentally, Zoë drew Green Lantern today. Being traditionalist when it comes to such things, I'm relieved it's clearly Hal Jordan, not some other Lantern.

Cosmic Ponywatch, over coffee edition

Our meme has arrived.

In other news, this is a great comics blog. I particularly appreciated the sidebar tale of the 9-year old's band name idea: the definition of awesome. That is indeed the best band name ever. Also, check out the gentleman's 'best of' stuff. Also, this is a great comics parody site.

Zoë wants me to dress as a superhero for Halloween, so I got to thinking? Maybe Cosmic Boy, from that awkward Grell period of his costume's evolution? Ah! Here we go. Also, I find this site sort of strange. (Reminds me of a song.) And this was funny.

Cowboy Bebop & etc.

I am often frustrated by the video selection I get on this island. But there are compensations. It is possible to buy compilations of anime series very inexpensively on VCD. Today I bought 13 episodes of Cowboy Bebop for $20. I've never watched it before but am not so immune to cultural osmosis as to be unaware it's, like, classic or something. But really I'm almost dead ignorant of anime. I look at the shelves. Witch Hunter Robin? Any good? How would I know. Lots of cute schoolgirls out to save the universe. Yesyes. But I only want the best. Who will advise me?

Jinx

I just bought and read the first half of Jinx, the big fat Image trade paperback edition. This book is quite good, and 500 pages long, so I guess I should be happy. But I was a bit disappointed that all the pages immediately fell out. No. It would be more accurate to say that the contents fired out as thought the cover were a gun, the paper bullets. The thing was apparently bound using some sort of yellow superchemical that repels paper. I suppose I could find some old-timey bookbinder. Do you think Bendis' work deserves morocco or calf? And a quick google finds this learned disquisition:

It is a disputed question, among book-lovers of taste, whether the whole of a small collection should be bound in the same material and of the same colour, or whether diversity should prevail. There are valid reasons for either plan. A library where both morocco and calf bindings are adopted, in the various hues which are given to each leather, has a pleasant and lively appearance. If glaring contrasts in hues be avoided in neighbouring volumes, as they stand upon the shelves, an air of lightness and vivacity will characterise the apartment. But the contrast must by no means be too pronounced. Dr. Diblin, a great authority on all such matters, warns us especially against the employment of either white vellum or scarlet morocco as a material for the jackets of our volumes. Both are too decided in appearance, and impart a ‘spotty’ look to the shelves. Of course this objection applies only to single volumes or small sets in libraries of limited extent. If for instance, a whole press, or set of shelves, could be appropriated to vellum-clad volumes of the Fathers and patristic theology, the effect would be good. The decision on the general question of uniformity versus variety must be left in great measure to individual taste.

Where the collection is small, say, sufficient to fill two ordinary bookcases (about 500 volumes), an excellent plan is to reserve one case for standard English authors, and bestow in the other, works on science, art, travel, foreign books, etc. Let all the bindings be of morocco, either ‘whole’ binding or ‘half’’ binding according to the value and importance of the book. If maroon morocco be chosen for the books in the first press, an olive green for those in the second, the effect will be chaste and massive. Both these leathers ‘throw up’ the gilding of the back splendidly. Where expense is not a primary consideration, the back should not be scrimped in this matter of gilding, or, as it is technically termed, ‘finishing’. A morocco-bound book should bear a good amount of gold on the back; but the patterns of the tools should be carefully selected.

You know, the whole bookbinding thing is effectively just paleo-case mod. Did the Victorians ever do wacky things like send their pages to the binder and say: screw Dr. Diblin! make my shelf of patristic theology look like a Tie Fighter? (Conversely has anyone ever bound computer guts in morocco, with 'intel inside' gilded on the spine?)

UPDATE: Then the next thing you know, I see this. So that's what I need to do. I guess.

 

Straight Outa Smallville

I haven't exactly been holding up my half of the blog, yes. No thick posts. None of that characteristic lengthiness. Hey, we all got issues. Back issues.

So I'm reading Jimmy Olsen, Superman's Pal, vol. 2 - because it's Jack Kirby. Plus the Newsboy Legion! Best dialogue lines: "Come on, Superman! Don't cop out on your reputation as an activist! Follow the music's beat - And me!"

Or maybe:

Jimmy: "And you guys!! I can see that you're jiving too!! Okay! Let's poll the fish bait!! Is it "yea - or nay"?

Flippa Dippa: "This ghetto guppie says "yea and men!"

Lots of Flippa Dippa action.

The Authentic Face of the Left?

Do you think Firebrand symbolizes everything that has gone wrong with the Democratic party post-9/11, especially now that Dean is party chair and Kennedy and Boxer are speaking up on foreign policy? Discuss. (I'm still bothered by that Glenn Reynolds post. Can you tell? Oh, and this Brooks column isn't so good either.)

UPDATE: direct link doesn't work [so I've removed it]. Go to this page. Then scroll down to: 2005-07-30_Sub-Mariner_1st_series_No25_Timely.jpg. I've included a (reduced size) version below the fold. (Damn. Big file. No wonder the guy has bandwidth issues.)