'Best of TBH Politoons'
Cory!! Strode
Godland
Every so often, when I look around the house for a different graphic novel to review for the site, I put stuff aside and say, "Oh, that's just for comics fans" and try to find something a little more mainstream. However, there is a graphic novel I keep putting aside for reviews that I pick up and read a few pages of as I do so. So, this week, I don't care if it's not mainstream, I don't care if the ideas in it are strange, or that it will take a bit of work to find.
My favorite comic graphic novel series right now is "Godland." While it may not be the best, it takes all of the things that I loved about comics as a kid and marries them to adult sensibilities and modern science to give it a wonderful strangeness that is hard to find in any other kind of entertainment. The opening pages are a mix of Stan Lee's "Face Front, True Believer" hucksterism and an invitation to put aside expectations as you start reading, which sets the tone perfectly for what is to come.
Much like the 60's and 70's comics that drew readers into serialized fiction, the story flows from one plot to another, basically having the reader follow Adam Archer as he stumbles from one adventure to the next. Archer was once an astronaut, but after crash landing on Mars, he was given "A deeper understanding of the known and unknown universe" by a group of aliens, and has returned to Earth as strange things start happening. In the stories, he faces off with a man whose skull floats in a vat, kept alive by sheer mental will, an alien that is horribly disappointed in how humanity is turning out, and a woman who is using an empty universe to torture people. On the surface, the ideas are strange, and writer Joe Casey doesn't use the normal technique of having the lead character be our normal human guide to it, but simply presents it as concepts that either stand or fall on their own.
Along the way, there is social commentary, political satire, and an indictment of the mundane that rings true and works for the story. Too often, creators try to hammer their agenda into a story whether it fits or not, but in Godland, it can be read as a surface action adventure story filled with wonderfully strange things if one wants. However, the core of the book is a pair of creators who want comics (and other mediums) to tell Big stories filled with ideas that may or may not connect with an audience. As I reread the book last week, the story is just a cover for the idea that we need to get back to a sense of wonder about Big Ideas and Big Concepts.
As great as Joe Casey's story is, it wouldn't work without the art of Tom Scioli. One of the reasons I didn't pick this book up until recently was that Scioli's art seems like a rip-off of the late Jack Kirby's style, and I dismissed it as another hack trying to make a living off of Kirby's work. However, after reading the book, Scioli used Kirby's visual language of blocky figures and signature visual tricks because the story is itself about the fact that Kirby was one of the last people who would pour tons of ideas into the work, not caring if anyone completely grasped what he was trying to communicate. Scioli's art makes the strange concepts come to life and make visual sense in a way that no other art style could capture.
Godland Volume One: Hello Cosmic looks like the kind of comic that was on the shelf in the 60's and 70's, and also looks like it is made just for comics fans, but I believe that if a casual reader givers themselves over to it's reality, they'll enjoy the roller coaster action and start to feel the same way I do: The book may not fire on all cylinders, but it is fun to see people trying to break out of the standard "world outside your window" style of storytelling is exciting and worth following. Godland Volume 1 gets a four out of five.
Cory!! Strode (The Best Dressed Man In Comics) has written comic books, novels, jokes for comedians, Op Ed columns,
and has all kinds of things on his website, www.solitairerose.com
Currently, for the fifth straight year,
Cory is participating in National Novel Writing Month, where he will attempt to write a 50,000-word novel during November.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Pressure builds on U.S. business to outsource: study (Reuters)
Pressure on the U.S. labor market from the The study estimates that increased use of cheaper overseas labor could affect up to 1.47 million back-office jobs, or nearly 3,000 at a typical Fortune 500 company.
Ben Adler and Dana Goldstein: Five Minutes With: Katrina vanden Heuvel (campusprogress.org)
Whether battling right-wingers on television programs or advancing essential causes on her blog, Nation editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel has long been an unapologetically aggressive progressive voice. She got her start in journalism as a Nation intern, and today is one of the few women to have reached the top in the world of opinion journalism. An outspoken antiwar and feminist advocate, vanden Heuvel's success in increasing The Nation's circulation proves that unabashed liberalism can sell.
Gabor Steingart: How Globalization Is Creating a New European Underclass (spiegel.de)
"White trash" has an American ring to it. Yet today, it is a European fact: the drinking, abuse of welfare, days wasted before the TV, the total contempt for education...
Gabor Steingart: Consumers Are Killing the Welfare State (spiegel.de)
The average shopper at Karstadt, Metro and Lidl is a downright globalization fanatic. He compares price and service and always goes for what's cheapest. In doing so, he destroys massive numbers of jobs in Europe -- including, eventually, his own.
Molly Ivins: GOP Ineptitude and Advice for Dems
Victory looks likely; prepare for not gloating.
Cameron Scott: Revenge of the Gay Voters (AlterNet.org)
Forget the "security moms" and "values voters." New analysis suggests that gay and lesbian turnout increases when gay marriage is on the ballot and that queer Americans may cast the deciding votes in many contested races this year.
Bruce Reed: What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor? (slate.com)
With this election sinking fast, Republicans debate how not to lose the next one.
John Dickerson: Kean Enough (slate.com)
In Newark with the Republican Senate candidate.
Mrs. Betty Bowers' Halloween / Election Newsletter 2006 (bettybowers.com)
... what makes me laugh is that congressmen who are throwing $200,000,000 each and every day down that insatiable drain called Iraq, money that could be spent on schools and health, have the temerity to ask us questions that start with "Can we really afford to ..."
Leaders of the pack (guardian.co.uk)
All-girl bands were invented in the 1950s, but their success was largely due to male Svengalis. Now a new generation - from the Sugababes to the Puppini Sisters - are storming the UK charts. Have things changed behind the scenes? Laura Barton reports.
War on Christmas Propaganda Posters (atheism.about.com)
The posters in this collection satirize the perceived War on Christmas by creating images of the rhetorical excess used by evangelicals.
Hacking Democracy (HBO)
Is American democracy safe in the age of computers? This cautionary film looks at the very real risk of hackers altering vote counts in public elections--and exposes the vulnerability of computers which count approximately 80% of America's votes in county, state and federal elections.
blogActive parody of Ford ad and Ken Mehlman (youtube.com)
The Last Rant!
Avery Ant
The Purple Gene Diet
WINE...WINE...WINE
The Wall St. Poet
Gay Marriage
With the election just days away, Republicans' thoughts naturally turn to gay marriage...
The Gay Marriage Poem
There's something sacred 'bout the union
Of a married man and wife,
Which is doubtless why such bondings
Rarely lead to household strife;
Were we ever to acknowledge
Other pairings with no cavil,
Then our present social order
Would most certainly unravel.
Everything would then unravel,
There would be wild dissolution;
There is only one solution,
To amend the constitution!
Nothing's wrong with gay relations
If they're hidden in a closet,
Then its kind of like a secret
And we needn't go dislodge it;
But when they get conventional
And want a lawful wedding,
And speak of loving openly,
Where is this country heading?
A loving, open, gay relation
Requires prosecution;
There is only one solution,
To amend the constitution!
I'm not saying that the government
Play at discrimination,
Except in cases where the issue
In-volves fornication,
Or a woman's ovulation,
Or preferred cohabitation,
Or on other matters sexual
On which I've a fixation.
In matters clearly sexual
We need a Fed intrusion;
There is only one solution,
To amend the constitution!
*******
©2006For more satirical verse:
www.wallstreetpoet.com
Reader Suggestion
"skilled trades" humor
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Some sun, still cool.
HBO Defends Diebold Documentary
'Hacking Democracy'
HBO has rejected a call from a security technology firm to pull the documentary "Hacking Democracy" from its schedule or to air disclaimers questioning the accuracy of the film.
In a letter to HBO chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht, Diebold Election Systems said previews of the documentary contained serious "material errors" that make the film inaccurate. HBO spokesman Jeff Cusson said the company "stands by our film and has no intention of withdrawing the film from its schedule."
While Diebold spokesman David Bear said company officials had yet to see the film, he said the firm was never contacted by the filmmakers when they were making the documentary.
Diebold also writes that the film is "directed by the directors of 'VoterGate' and contains much of the same material. 'VoterGate' was produced with special thanks to Susan Sarandon and the Streisand Foundation."
'Hacking Democracy'
Portrait Purchased
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert is about to be hung. A portrait of the TV satirist, that is.
Chad Walldorf's chain of barbecue restaurants paid $50,605 for the portrait, which "The Colbert Report" sold on e-Bay, with the money going to charity.
Walldorf and his business partners, who oversee 17 Sticky Fingers restaurants throughout the South, intend to mount the portrait in their restaurant in Charleston, S.C., which is Colbert's hometown.
Stephen Colbert
AIDS Documentary
Maggie Rizer
Supermodel Maggie Rizer returned to her hometown this week to begin working on an AIDS documentary being directed by Alexandra Kerry, the daughter of U.S. Sen. John Kerry.
The film, titled "Maggie and Me," is being produced by AIDS activist Suzanne Engo, whose father is a former ambassador to the United Nations from the African country of Cameroon.
Rizer's father died of AIDS in 1992 at age 38.
Maggie Rizer
Brings The World Home
Link TV
Television can peddle soap, cars and political candidates like nobody's business. But in one contrary corner there's a network selling viewers on an idea: Looking outward to understand the world and how to live in it.
Noncommercial, 24-hour Link TV, with a budget that might cover a broadcast network's executive bonuses, offers international newscasts, documentaries and music shows aimed at helping Americans assess the global picture, big and small.
"Our goal is to engage Americans and give them the information they need to make smart choices as citizens ... and to get involved," said Link TV co-founder and president Kim Spencer, a former ABC News producer and documentary filmmaker.
Link TV
Says Gibson Helped Her Get Sober
Courtney Love
Courtney Love, who has been sober for 15 months, says Mel "Sugar Tits" Gibson helped her on the road to recovery. Love, the former leader of the band Hole and widow of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, said Gibson had showed up at a Beverly Hills, Calif., hotel room while she was doing drugs with several men.
"Mel kept coming to the door with this cheesy grin going, `Hi!'" Love said in an interview with Diane Sawyer that aired Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America."
It wasn't clear when Gibson had intervened. Alan Nierob, publicist for both Love and Gibson, declined comment, in an e-mail to The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Courtney Love
Selling Capote Memorabilia
Joanne Carson
A handwritten manuscript by Truman Capote, written for a friend a day before Capote died, is among more than 300 of his personal effects to be auctioned next week.
The Capote memorabilia is being offered for sale by Joanne Carson - the late Johnny Carson's second wife - on Nov. 9 at the Bonhams & Butterfields auction house in Manhattan. It will be simulcast at Bonhams' offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Among the other 337 lots is the tuxedo Capote wore to his famous Black and White Ball ($4,000 to $6,000), a 7.05-carat fancy colored diamond and emerald ring Joanne Carson received from Capote ($20,000 to $30,000); Capote's passport ($1,000 to $1,500); a signed Richard Avedon portrait of Capote ($800 to $1,200) and a Courreges windbreaker he wore to Studio 54 with a "VIP complimentary drinks" ticket still in the pocket ($300 to $500).
Joanne Carson
Seeks Gag Order
Maury Povich
A lawyer for TV talk-show host Maury Povich (R-Tool) has asked an arbitrator hearing a sexual-harassment complaint against him to issue a gag order, a request opposed by the lawyer for the female employee who made the charge.
Povich's lawyer, Kathleen McKenna, requested the confidentiality order in a letter Tuesday to the arbitration case manager. McKenna said Bruce Baron, lawyer for the woman, was attempting to try the case in the news media.
Baron, who made McKenna's letter public Wednesday, said he objected to a person who made his living by getting people to embarrass themselves on TV requesting a gag order and trying to hide his own embarrassment.
Maury Povich
Negroponte's Wikipedia
Intellipedia
The U.S. intelligence community on Tuesday unveiled its own secretive version of Wikipedia, saying the popular online encyclopedia format known for its openness is key to the future of American espionage.
The office of U.S. intelligence czar John Negroponte announced Intellipedia, which allows intelligence analysts and other officials to collaboratively add and edit content on the government's classified Intelink Web much like its more famous namesake on the World Wide Web.
A "top secret" Intellipedia system, currently available to the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, has grown to more than 28,000 pages and 3,600 registered users since its introduction on April 17. Less restrictive versions exist for "secret" and "sensitive but unclassified" material.
Intellipedia
Matrix Connection
'Speed Racer'
After years of idling, the big-screen, live-action version of "Speed Racer" is ready to zoom, this time with the creators of "The Matrix" at the wheel.
Brothers Siblings Larry and Andy Wachowski are writing and will direct the Warner Bros. movie, their first directorial outing since completing the "Matrix" trilogy in 2003.
Based on the classic 1960s series created by anime pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida that later was retooled for North American audiences, the big-screen "Speed" will follow the adventures of the young race car driver Speed in his quest for glory in his thundering gadget-laden vehicle, Mach 5. The movie will feature other characters from the show, including Speed's family and his mysterious archrival, Racer X.
'Speed Racer'
Found In Sweden
Viking Riches
Swedish experts have confirmed the finding of over 1,000 Viking-era silver coins after their chance discovery by two brothers on the Swedish island of Gotland.
The treasure was believed to have been buried in the 10th century and weighed about 3 kilos (7 pounds), local curator Majvor Ostergren told the TT news agency.
Edvin Sandborg, 20, and his 17-year-old brother Arvid dug up more than 100 coins on Monday last week, while helping their neighbour with his garden.
Viking Riches
Oil City Letter Carrier
Squirrel Attack
Letter carriers occasionally have to deal with angry dogs or maybe even a spider's nest in a mailbox, but a mean squirrel? Barb Dougherty, a 30-year Postal Service employee, said she was attacked and bitten Monday by a squirrel while delivering mail in Oil City, about 75 miles north of Pittsburgh.
"It was a freak thing. It was traumatic," Dougherty told The Derrick in Oil City. "I saw it there on the porch, put the mail in the box and turned to walk away and it jumped on me."
"I eventually got a hold of the tail and pulled it off me," Dougherty said. "No one was home at the house where I was delivering the mail, but the neighbor lady heard me screaming and came over."
An ambulance took Dougherty to the hospital, where she was treated for cuts and scratches. The squirrel was killed with a BB gun and sent to a lab to be tested for rabies. Dougherty was given the first series of rabies shots as a precaution.
Squirrel Attack
In Memory
Nigel Kneale
QPioneering screenwriter Nigel Kneale, best known for the Quatermass TV serials and films that began in the 1950s, has died at the age of 84.
Kneale's The Quatermass Experiment in 1953 was the UK's first sci-fi serial and created its first TV hero, the alien-battling Bernard Quatermass. The writer, from the Isle of Man, has been cited as an influence by Stephen King and film-maker John Carpenter. The Quatermass Experiment told the story of an alien monster brought back to Earth by a British space rocket. Robert Simpson, on Hammer Films' official website, said it was "event television, emptying the streets and pubs for the six weeks of its duration". Last year BBC Four broadcast a live remake starring David Tennant and Jason Flemyng. Channel controller Janice Hadlow described the original as "one of the first 'must watch' TV experiences that inspired the water cooler chat of its day". It was followed by two further serials in the 1950s, Quatermass II and Quatermass and the Pit, with all three dramas later turned into films. A fourth serial, Quatermass, was made in 1979. Shocking Kneale also scripted TV dramas including 1984, The Year of the Sex Olympics and The Stone Tape, which are regarded as modern classics. His 1954 adaptation of George Orwell's 1984 was so shocking that questions were asked in the House of Commons about the suitability of such material for television.
Kneale earned two Bafta best screenplay nominations for his film adaptations of John Osborne's plays Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer.
Nigel Kneale
In Memory
William Styron
William Styron, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist whose explorations of the darkest corners of the human mind and experience were charged by his own near-suicidal demons, died Wednesday in Martha's Vineyard, Mass. He was 81.
A handsome, muscular man, with a strong chin and wavy dark hair that turned an elegant white, Styron was a Virginia native whose obsessions with race, class and personal guilt led to such tormented narratives as "Lie Down In Darkness" and "The Confessions of Nat Turner," which won the Pulitzer despite protests that the book was racist and inaccurate.
His other works included "Sophie's Choice," the award-winning novel about a Holocaust survivor from Poland, and "A Tidewater Morning," a collection of fiction pieces. He also published a book of essays, "This Quiet Dust," and the best-selling memoir "Darkness Visible," in which Styron recalled nearly taking his own life.
Styron was a liberal long involved in public causes, from supporting a Connecticut teacher suspended for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance to advocating for human rights for Jews in the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, Styron was among a group of authors and historians who successfully opposed plans for a Disney theme park near the Manassas National Battlefield in northern Virginia.
Although he was often cited along with Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer as a leading writer of his generation, he produced little over the past 15 years. Styron was reportedly working on a military novel, yet published no full-length work of fiction after "Sophie's Choice," which came out in 1979. He did remain well connected, whether socializing with President Clinton on Martha's Vineyard or joining Arthur Miller and Gabriel Garcia Marquez on a delegation that met with Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 2000.
William Styron
In Memory
Daniel Garcia
Daniel Garcia, who starred as Huracan (Hurricane) Ramirez during the golden age of Mexican wrestling films in the 1960s, has died of a heart attack, family members said on Wednesday.
"Huracan (Hurricane) Ramirez"
Garcia, who died on Tuesday at the age of 80, wore a blue-and-white mask in matches in Asia, South America and the Caribbean. He also played leading roles in several movies during his three-decade-long career.
His identity was not revealed until he retired in 1987.
Garcia's on-screen persona, Huracan Ramirez, and other masked wrestlers fought vampires, international crime organizations and Martians in low-budget, but extremely imaginative movies treasured by cult-film collectors worldwide.
Daniel Garcia
In Memory
Buddy Killen
Buddy Killen, who built the biggest country music publishing business in the world before selling it in 1989, died on Wednesday at his home, an aide said. He was 73.
Killen's Tree International built a 38,000-song catalog, starting with Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel," written by the late Mae Boren Axton and Tommy Durden.
A former Grand Ole Opry bass player, Killen was hired in 1951 to listen to new songs and sing demonstration tapes for $35 a week for a fledgling part-time business founded by Grand Ole Opry manager Jack Stapp. When Stapp died in 1980, Killen became sole owner of what grew into the Tree International empire.
An Alabama native, Killen's eye for talent brought in songwriters like Dolly Parton, Bill Anderson, Roger Miller and Harlan Howard and others.
Buddy Killen
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