DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]

“You can call me an “innovator”… You can call me a “child prodigy”… But I don’t really know what those words mean.” Franklin Richards, Franklin Richards, Franklin Richards: Spring Break.

Aaaaaaaaand…. CAUGHT UP!!! YEAH, BABY, YEAH!!! This is the column for the books published on 03/19, which means that I’m back on schedule. I’ve gotten such a workout from this catch-up series of columns, that I can make them faster than ever, but still, I’ll slow down in future columns and take the time to rant more extensively when things bother me. The Dissect This! for last column was solved (only in part) by Snakebyte, who saw that the map in the UN seal was any but Earth’s. Marvel’s Earths have a few extra islands, and of course, Atlantis underwater; but the regular continents’ shapes are still the same. Also, the general design of the seal was screwed up, apart from the map. But… this was a double DT, and nobody got the second one (I know, I’m not letting you guys breathe between columns), which was that the two seals in the picture… were not the same. The maps were different, for starters.
(more…)

Combating bad 80’s with good 80’s…one rotten YouTube Rick Astley video at a time!

Have a good day.
Eks

When he was 19, my father was shipped off to Vietnam. He served two tours of duty, totaling about a year and a half in country. He’s never really talked about his time over there. All I’ve ever known was that he was a chopper pilot, and he was awarded a handful of medals, including a Purple Heart from when his chopper was shot down. I never asked him why he never talked about the war; I just assumed it was a miserable experience that he didn’t want to talk about. But today I had a couple of questions about the war, so I gave him a call.

It turns out that the reason my dad never talked about Vietnam is because back in the seventies, soldiers who returned home from the war weren’t warmly received by the general public. So rather than deal with idiot hippies calling him a “baby-killer,” he just hid the fact that he was a veteran.

When my parents separated when I was a kid, my dad gave me a couple of his medals to hold onto. I didn’t know it at the time, but I recently realized that one of the medals was a Bronze Star Medal. I asked him what he did to earn it, figuring it was something pretty impressive, but he said that back then the Army pretty much handed them out to anyone who showed up for the war.

But then he told me an interesting story about another medal he earned. One day he was on patrol with a couple of other choppers when they noticed a platoon of about 14 American soldiers on the ground who were about to be ambushed by at least 100 North Vietnamese soldiers. My dad called for reinforcements, and then he and the other pilots swooped down into the middle of the ensuing firefight and started airlifting soldiers out of the fracas. They saved a lot of lives that day.

As a result of his heroism, and because he was the one who called in the reinforcements, the Army decided to award my father the Silver Star, which is the third highest award given for valor in the face of the enemy. But for some reason, they weren’t planning to give Silver Stars to the other pilots who accompanied him. My dad didn’t think that was fair, so he turned it down. (Actually, he says he told them to “shove it,” which may be a bit of creative license on his part. But knowing my dad and his feelings towards authority figures, I can easily imagine him flipping off a commanding officer and telling him to “shove it.”)

How cool is that?

Hey, kids; our own Brian Andersen shared this exciting news . . .

Vote for So Super Duper for Best Queer Indie Comic Book!

Haha!
Somehow I managed to snag a nomination for the 2008 Queeries! Put on by the wonderfully droll Comic Book Queers, www.comicbookqueers.com, podcast, I am one among many other terrific professional and indie comic book creators. Yay!

If you feel so inclinded, please vote for me here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=qi1MY7LEnvd_2fEqMHRKHGzg_3d_3d

Yay! This is so fun! I can’t believe I am on the list! Hah!
Brian

So hey, let’s get out and vote for our boy, shall we?

“My ass is the origin of all spare time.”

–Our own Barbara Hallock, from the following conversation

Barb: (suggests topic to cover)

Troy: Great, Barb; you should do that.

Barb: Sure, I’ll just pull some spare time out of my ass.

Troy: Isn’t that where we all get it? Not your ass in particular, but I’m saying . . .

Barb: “My ass is the origin of all spare time.”

One of my fave comic writers Brian Michael Bendis is featured in a nice interview on Entertainment Weekly’s website, which just so happens to also be my most fave magazine ever. Along with the interveiw there is also a 10 page preview of the upcoming mega-event, Secret Invasion, on the EW site.

So, I have to wonder, will this mini-series gain more mainstream press as it streams along? Is it “death of Captain

America” level interesting and newsworthy? I am not sure. But having EW in its corner certainly doesn’t hurt -this comic is well on it’s way to gaining some much needed street cred amongst non-comic readers.

Will Secrect Invasion be able to defeat DC’s upcoming Final Crisisi the battle for non-comic supported PR? That remains to be seen. Either way, the coming months are going to be very exciting, so let the games begin! Check out the interview here:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20186361,00.html

Check out the preview pages here:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20185202,00.html

That’s right, boys and girls. Finally more games to play! I’ve been playing along since it started in July. I’m also one of the holders of the mysterious “cake phones”, and today I got a shiny new message.

“Hey clown! Long time, no crime spree! Well, put on your floppy shoes and answer this question: are you ready to get to work?”

So I replied “yes” and held my breath. Seconds later there was a reply: “Glad to see you’re still alive and kicking. I’ll be in touch before Poisson d’Avril.”

Now…wait a minute. April Fish? 5th? Laughing fish? Nah, my middle school French tells me that’s “April Fool’s Day”. It’s interesting to note that the pages of the new Gotham Times are now on SHH, and they talk about the booming fish market in Gotham. Also, about mysterious cakes causing delirium.

I am in fanboy Heaven right about now. July needs to hurry the hell up.

Some friends and I were talking about War the other day (we’re men, therefore it’s pretty much just another contact sport to us) and it got me thinking just why we seem to like it so much. I’m talking about human-kind in general here and not just the English, although to be fair we seem to really like a nice bit of war, and we’re pretty good at it too.

We’ve been doing it for years after all, and usually give a good account of ourselves. OK so the whole English Empire thing was a bit cheeky and caused the odd bit of global suffering, poverty, starvation and murder, but I reckon we kind of redeemed ourselves in WWII with the whole “standing firm against tyranny” thing we had going on.

To be honest I think we should have got a medal for “standing firm against tyranny” with a straight face, considering we’d spent the last few hundred years subjugating any culture we could get our hands on. We are English though so I’m sure we were very polite about it, and all those funny little tribesmen got a cup of tea with the Vicar before we stole their children.

Perhaps that was Hitler’s fatal mistake? Too many screaming speeches and not enough tea and cake? I’m sure if he’d have just asked nicely if it was OK to invade Poland and annexe half of Eastern Europe we wouldn’t have had such a problem with it. But no, naughty Adolf just piled on in there without so much as a by-your-leave, and as for the whole Holocaust thing? Well that was just rude wasn’t it?

(more…)

Say it with me now… “WHOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

(more…)

It’s the RICKROLL EDITION!

The funny thing about the whole Rickroll bit is that I see people often refer to Rick Astley as a one-hit wonder. Actually, while “Never Gonna Give You Up” was a HUGE worldwide hit (#1 in the UK, Canada, and on the US Hot 100, US Adult Contemporary, and US Dance charts), Astley also scored significant sucess with further singles. His follow-up, “Together Forever”, was #1 in the UK, on the US Hot 100, and #2 in Canada.

(more…)

 www.definitivejux.net  — $$$

Though his solo-releases have been scattered throughout the years, its a rarity for Del to “guest-spit” flows with even liked-minded emcees. More hiatus, than hibernation as he’s kept himself busy with the alt-rock-rap-anime group Gorillaz, his presence on the mic has been certainly missed.

Making somewhat of a head-turning return with Eleventh Hour, Del joins forces with indie elite label DefJux. The pairing of Heiro and Jux (in theory) is a match-maid in hip-hop heaven as artistically both institution’s think more LEFT than Mainstream, and in today’s single-driven Ipod generation of music listeners a “dream-team” pairing such as this is exactly what’s called for.

Still very much an oddity, Del continues with a nonconformist approach to music making. With a “definitive” flare, artistically few emcees flow with as much diction, vocabulary and scholarly banter. It’s hard to believe that Del once wrecked mics and laid musical foundations with the likes of gangsta-rap pioneer Ice Cube. Not that, that’s a terrible thing to envision, however in the ever-changing world of hip-hop music–unlike his former partner in rhyme very little has changed with Del. It’s not like he’s on some new ‘tree-hugger’ shit or rappin’ off beat strictly for the purpose of being different, with Del its all about pushing the parameters of originality.

And with “originality” in mind, that might be why Eleventh Hour comes off a little uneven. Before Andre3000 rocked a pink wig, it was Del that had the monopoly on ‘peculilarness’ in hip-hop. He and company (Ladybug Mecca on guest rap and J-Zone on boards) tease, but don’t quite deliver the full-monty. Throughout Eleventh Hour’s play the listener is besieged by quirky beats and automatic flows that sound as if they all might be from out of this world. Nothing new when it comes to Del, right? And the topics Del verbally chops threw aren’t really anything new as well–the state of music (Bubble-Pop), his stake in hip-hop (Funkyhomosapien) and other personal perspectives (Situations).

However, it would appear as if Del has outgrown his own eccentricness a bit. Not to be mistaken, Del not by a long-shot is comin’ off whack here. The rhymes are still crisp, just not blistering. The sonic-background provided is an eclectic bag-of-funk that caters towards Del’s style; but Del The Funkyhomosapien is not a New Jack, and some moments on Eleventh Hour just don’t live up to the potential. Real talk, there’s not one collab on here with El-P or any other Juxes for that matter. So instead of a colossal meeting on the minds, in the mold of King Kong meets Godzilla, we’re treated to a featurette in the same vein as Freddy vs. Jason.

My latest piece for WIRED Magazine is now on the site; you can check it out here, if you’re so inclined.

It remains to be seen if I shall receive near-immediate hate mail as I did with the Sidekicks piece. Remember, gentle readers, it’s all in good humor. Enjoy!

Animal rights activists are endangering us all. First they tried to stop the necessary slaughter of elephants in South Africa, and now they are throwing a fit about the culling of bison in Yellowstone. We cannot have these giant mammals roaming unchecked, breeding at will–they will destroy us. How can these activists in good conscience promote the growth of an enemy animal terrorist army? Evidence of the animal conspiracy is all around us.

Though this bit of hilariousness is by no means a new Internet item, I thought I would share it with other readers, like myself, who discover these phenomenon a little later than everyone else does.

If you can think of it, this man has probably destroyed it. Check out the other videos here.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]

“That’s my name! And when you write it, don’t forget the hyphen! You wouldn’t believe how many Google searches that screws up!” Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man V1 #553.

Almost there, almost there!!! This is the column for comics published on 03/12, which means that I’m now only one column behind!!! The Dissect This! from last column was correctly spotted by Snakebyte (and ShadZ), as Wolverine’s claws making a “snikt” sound, a sound they only make when coated in adamantium; something that hadn’t happened yet by WWII. Before we get on with the rest of the column, I want to invite all of my readers to join the Independent Comics Site forums, to comment on the reviews and articles from the site, and engage in interesting discussions about our hobby. There are a few Dissector fans there, too, so you won’t feel alone.
(more…)