Tagged: wrong

The Other Adrienne Colan

The Other Adrienne Colan

We are saddened to report the passing of Adrienne Colan, wife of Gene Colan, over this past weekend. Clifford Meth, pictured here at right with the Colans, adds this personal note for his friend.

The news hasn’t been great in the Colan home these last few months. If you’ve followed it, and if you’ve read between the lines, you’ve weeded out a kernel of truth and likely a whole cob of mistruths. And none of that really matters, now. It was all rubber-necking anyway.

But there are truths I’d like to share about Adrienne Colan, and chief among them was her and Gene’s love for each other. It read like an epic poem. The hardships and tragedies and obstacles were too numerous to count, but for half a century they remained at the center of each other’s universes. For richer or for poorer. In sickness and in health. For better or worse.

The Adrienne Colan you met at conventions was the real McCoy. She was tough and funny and uncompromising; warm and intelligent and spiritual. And her sense of humor was splendid. I think that’s where we met—at that dark crossroads where everything was tragic-comic. Our friendship existed outside of my friendship with Gene; we corresponded for decades, sharing dreams and fears.

And I guess I loved Adrienne. Now that the end has come amidst ashes and tears, I owe myself that honesty. I loved her attention, loved sending her a new story and when she got something I’d written and dissected it (and me with it); loved that she was intellectually curious about everything I shared and painfully honest with me…and with herself.

“Something I find fascinating about you is how you came to give yourself permission to live by your own standards without alienating those that love you and
you love,” she wrote to me last December, following a personal tragedy. “How and where does one go inside to know they have that right to live by their own truth?  I’m so interested in this because I’ve always had a POV about how I need to live my life but continued to allow myself to be crushed by [others]… I’ve allowed their version of right and wrong choices to annihilate my world view. That’s what the weight is about. And I can’t begin to tell you dear Clifford how awful it is [for] one’s psyche to still be crawling my way out of that at the age of 67. At this age I feel I acquiesced to letting myself ‘die’… But I’m responsible, so I eat.”

And there it was—that dark humor inside the sadness. So I eat. You could hear her say it.

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Webcomics You Should Be Reading: Lackadaisy

Webcomics You Should Be Reading: Lackadaisy

Hear ye, hear ye! WYSBR is now in session! I hope everyone has been keeping up with their webcomic reading. There are many webcomics to explore and rave about, so lets not waste any time. We’ll start this segment with a personal favorite of mine: Lackadaisy.

Created by Tracy J. Butler, this webcomic takes place in St. Louis during the 1920’s Prohibition. Lackadaisy focuses on the adventures that ensue when running a speakeasy, an establishment that illegally serves alcohol. The stakes are high as characters risk everything to save their cherished speakeasy from being crushed by the competition.

You may be wondering why the characters are a bit on the furry side. Butler’s characters are all anthropomorphic cats, but don’t let that give you the wrong impression. These aren’t the type of furries that make you wonder what the heck “yiffing” is. You can’t help but be charmed by these fluffy cats. Each character has a unique personality that is projected through smart, snappy dialogue and wonderfully detailed expressions.

Speaking of details, Butler never holds back when it comes to detailing every aspect of Lackadaisy. Clothes, furniture, vehicles, and architecture are exquisitely designed to capture an American 1920’s atmosphere. The talented Ms. Butler sucks readers into Lackadaisy‘s lively St. Louis, which is fine with me because it’s an exciting, dramatic place full of colorful characters.

For the past few years, Lackadaisy has gained attention, praise, and thousands of fans. Butler’s webcomic won her the 2007 Webcartoonists’ Choice Awards for Outstanding Newcomer, Artist, Character Rendering, and Anthropomorphic Comic. More trophies were added to Butler’s cabinet after winning the 2008 Webcartoonists’ Choice Awards for Outstanding Artist, Black and White Art, Character Rendering, and Website Design. Many people would agree: Lackadaisy is full of win.

If you like the roaring 20’s, cool cats, or impressive webcomics in general, then give Lackadaisy a read. Chances are you’ll find something you love about it.

ComicMix Six: Vampires That Don’t Suck (Human Blood)

ComicMix Six: Vampires That Don’t Suck (Human Blood)

Vampires are everywhere these days. But long before we had Team Edward and the litany of prissy emo vampires that sparkle in the G-D sun… we had real vampires. They were in popular books, TV Shows, comic books, movies made from popular books, adaptations of comic books turned into movies, and even a comic book series adapted from a popular TV show based on characters from a movie! You get the drift. And throughout all of these various sucktastic productions, the tent poles of vampirism always held true (You getting this, Eddy?). Vampires are generally more pale than the Irish, and hate the sun more then old Jews. And furthermore, they have a thirst for blood worse than the republicans. But we kid, Edward. It seems some popular Vampires (like yourself) don’t stick to traditions. Some don’t even suck blood to survive! Don’t believe us? We didn’t either, until we came up with this list:

Count Duckula – Spinning off from the popular Danger Mouse series created in the U.K., came a vampire with who’d rather toast with a tomato than nibble on a neck. In the series, Igor whilst incanting the resurrection spell of his deceased master, was accidentaly provided ketchup in place of the ceremonial blood. Thus Count Duckula was born! Far more concerned with fame, fortune, and feasting on fennel, fava beans and fresh fiddlehead ferns, Count Duckula was known more for his fondness of broccoli sandwiches than being a creature of the night. And hey, even if he decided to switch menus? Fat chance! The poor duck didn’t even have fangs.

Angel & Spike – Joss Whedon took his video store lump of coal, and coaxed it into a diamond of a TV series. He did so first by fleshing out Buffy to be more than just “Pert. Wholesome. Way Lethal”. Better than that though, he introduced a pair of tragic vamps. Smokey-eyed, bleach-blond Spike and always-afflicted sorrow-souled Angel were both introduced into the Buffy show but eventually outgrew their roles there and turned into breakout anti-heros with a new show, and multiple comics. And what of their diet de-jour? Well, Spike (in the fourth season of the series) was implanted with a chip rendering his bloody biting habit incapacitated. And Angel? Well, cursed with a soul, he’s the vampire forced to pay the world back for the sins he committed earlier in life. Sure both these babe-magnets had their anti-hero appeal, but in the end, Angel ended up solving mysteries with some chick with a thing for bones, and Spike was revealed to be a rather poor version of Brainiac.

Blade – We could get into the comic backstory here…  how the brainchild of Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan in the early 70’s was Eric Brooks. Brooks’ mother was ravaged by vampire Deacon Frost during his birth, thus granting him a swatch of vampiric powers. Of course, this rambles on, as most comic backstories do… But allow us to switch to the recent movie-marvel-verse version we’re all a bit more familiar with. Similar to his comic counterpart, Blade’s mother was attacked by a vampire prior to his birth, and due to it, was imbued with all the vampires powers, and none of their weaknesses; Save for the worst one around, the lust for human blood. But Wesley Snipe’s Blade is a tragic hero, choosing to exist off a concocted “formula” made by his mentor (Stick, aka the dude who opened for Johnny Cash back in the day…) rather than suck the blood from humans. The pros? Well, Blade looks super cool in his trench-coat as he lays waste to vampires ranging from the prissy Steven Dorff to the steroidal Triple H, all while having that “Gritty Hero with the Heart of Gold™” look abouts him. The cons? Well, three decent movies down, and Blade hasn’t really found his audience in the funny books just yet. Sucks, don’t it?

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Can you pass this supervillian test?

Can you pass this supervillian test?

Came across this brainteaser on BoingBoing from [wu:riddles]

You’re a super-villain and you want to prepare a
transparency (the kind that goes on an overhead projector) with the key
points of your plan for world domination so you can present them to the
hero/superagent before you attempt to kill him in some ridiculously
novel way. You don’t want this information to fall into the wrong hands
before you’re ready. Smart villain that you are, you know you can share
the information across several slides so that if the enemy agents
capture any two of your slides, they won’t learn even the tiniest bit of
information about your plan. How?

Super-villain transparencies

Give us your answers in comments. Note that your plan should be strong enough to thwart the accursed Richards.

Superman supports health care and welfare!

Superman supports health care and welfare!

From back in the day when Superman used his moral force to say we should do this because it’s the right thing to do for our neighbors, never mind if it cost us some tax dollars.

Of course, today he’d be attacked for his position because, after all, he’s an illegal immigrant.

And like so many other illegals, we just want him to clean up our messes and do the jobs we can’t do for ourselves for non-existent pay, but that doesn’t mean we have to acknowledge when he might have a point.

But I could be mistaken. Is there someone out there who can explain why Superman is wrong?

(Hat tip to Kevin H and Wesley Osam.)

ComicMix Quick Picks – July 20, 2009

http://www.comicmix.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/09/jerseywarriors.jpgClosing down a lot of windows before the really crazy rush of SDCC coverage begins…

Superman Creator’s Secret S&M Story Heads to Film – ComicsAlliance.com

Miley Cyrus Grows Wings – ComingSoon.net

The 50 Greatest Film Trailers of All Time from IFC.com: What, no Superman Returns or the banned trailer for Spider-Man?

Tolkein Film Trilogy Rings False for His Heirs: You’d think a franchise that grossed over six billion dollars would
be making royalties, wouldn’t you? And you would be wrong. And because
New Line is playing cute with accounting (again), they’re threatening
the making of The Hobbit.

The return of the 90’s from SpaceBooger.com

Goldman Superheroes: Superheroes Rescue Plan “Out of this World!”

And the picture above is from ViewAskew, Clerks meets Warriors.

Anything else? Consider this an open thread.

Webcomics You Should Be Reading: ‘Cyanide and Happiness’

Webcomics You Should Be Reading: ‘Cyanide and Happiness’

Yup. I’m sick. Twisted. Perverse. Warped. Dare I even say (dare… dare….) a little insane in the membrane. Why you ask? Simply put… someone sent me a link to this crudely drawn little webcomic, and after a single strip, I knew I must share this with the six or seven of you who haven’t heard of it. What lay ahead in this article will make some of you angry. Others will throw their hands up in disgust and curse loudly at the screen. But there will be those who see this as a new beacon of hope. Yes my friends, I bring to you something so wrong it must be right. A webcomic that appears to challenge xkcd in artistic merit, and tickle the nethers of the Parking Lot is Full for content. Look quickly beneath this velvet drape and behold the evil hilariousnesstitude of… Cyanide and Happiness!

The strip starting humbly by a young Kris Wilson, who was then suffering from strep throat (seriously folks, if Wikipedia didn’t exist, I might not know anything.). Kris caught the eye of web hosts Matt Melvin, Rob DenBleyker and Dave McElfatrick. Soon thereafter, the strip was given a home on what is now Explosm.net. While Wilson was the originator of the comic, over time, Matt, Rob, and Dave joined the fray, helping to add strips since it’s inception in 2005. But seriously, enough with the “information”… I know those who didn’t heed my warning above want to know why I’m giggling like priest in an elementary school over this ugly ugly strip.

Cyanide and Happiness by definition is described as “dark, cynical, often offensive, and exceedingly irreverent. Frequent topics of humor include disabilities, rape, cancer, murder, suicide, necrophilia, pedophilia, sexual deviancy, sexually transmitted diseases, self-mutilation, nihilism, and violence. The comic does not always have a definite punchline in each strip, or may have several panels of “awkward silence” after (or instead of) the punchline, with characters simply staring at each other.” (again, kudos to those wikipedia writers… where do they get the time?!). If that description doesn’t make you foam at the mouth for examples, well, you’re probably more normal than I am.

As one cycles through Cyanide and Happiness, it’s obvious there’s a good sense of timing, and a deliberate storytelling ability, despite the art being all but non-existent. Yes, it’s essentially stick figure humor, much like the aforementioned xkcd, but for all of dumb people who find strips like these far funnier than these. And yes, I know I’ve already waxed poetic on xkcd, and now you loyal FOMAFers (again, if you DON’T know, well, look it up.) are getting your panties in a bunch. Did Marc just go back on his word? Is he saying Cyanide and Happiness is somehow superior to xkcd? Is he trying to start a flame war? Yes. I am. I want all of you to get riled up and start a crazy posting war. Tell your friends… get them involved. Tweet about it on your dingleberries, and update your mybooks with your facespace messages. I want to see vile comments lambasting my parents for even giving birth to me, which leads (eventually) to you having to read this article, and now you’re so angry you just have to…. AAAAHHHH!!!

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Review: Action Philosophers

Review: Action Philosophers

In a popular and academic marketplace where everyone wants and needs to learn better, smarter, faster, we have series upon series of
things that have titles that are playfully self-deprecating in the hopes of our being brave enough to channel our inner superhero and dive in and learn something that might have seemed a bit daunting, such as [[[Philosophy for Dummies]]] and [[[The Idiot’s Guide to Philosophy]]]. We have Sparks Charts and Cliff Notes. And we have the [[[HarperCollins College Outline of Philosophy]]], Ethics, and other subjects. All worthy aids for the harried and hopeful. But something’s missing. It has been proven in multiple studies that we learn in multi-valent ways, using all the senses, so that the more senses that are engaged in learning and the more playful it is, the better we learn and the better we retain things, no matter what our age or inclination.

Now, I’m a Philosophy Geek and I absolutely love this stuff, but I know it’s not for everyone, can be a hard read and a hard sell, and yet it is still foundationally useful – most headhunters and HR people say that they see a background in Philosophy as a plus for new applicants, as it helps them to be better analytical thinkers, better writers, better communicators, better problem solvers (both the NY Times and Wall Street Journal ran articles on this in the past year). Many of our beloved superheroes are very philosophical (look at [[[Watchmen]]]!). I heartily agree, there, and it’s why the term “classical education,” starting since Plato’s time (4th C. BCE), is still looked upon as something good and useful and the model upon which most modern education is built. After all, can 2500 years be totally wrong? But how to engage more of the senses and assimilate this vast quantity of knowledge in a manageable amount of time and even have fun doing it?

Their three volumes cover everything from the most obscure pre-Socratics to 20th C. America. The series, like Philosophy, itself (save for the 20th-21st Cs.) has a dearth of women – two to be exact: Ayn Rand and Mary Wollstonecraft. And only one native-born American, Joseph Campbell (Rand was an émigré and Jung only came here later in life to teach). The rest are Classical, Continental, and Eastern Philosophers of all the major schools of thought and they read totally like a who’s who. It’s not clear to me, from volume to volume, how the various names were picked and why they were grouped together in these omnibus editions, though within each volume they are chronologically presented. Van Lente’s great talent is to be able to distill down, quite accurately and admirably (I had few quibbles with him, mostly on his takes on the various Christian philosophies, in minor details), the main points of some very complex and mind-bending worldviews, from metaphysics to political science, all with quite the sense of humor, albeit sometimes gallows or black humor. And some of the things aren’t even funny ‘til you look at Dunlavey’s illustrations, which remind me of a cross between Hanna-Barbera and [[[Beavis and Butthead]]], if they’d been done in line drawings, and then you just laugh at the conjunctions.

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Webcomics You Should Be Reading: “Least I Could Do”

Webcomics You Should Be Reading: “Least I Could Do”

Truth time, FOMAFers*, I found this webcomic a couple years late. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s still going… but I know out there in cyberspace, someone will snicker when they see this week’s choice. I can see them now, sipping a Brandy Alexander, puffing away on a grape cigarello. I can see them, and frankly, I hate them. Anyways, back to the topic at hand. On a recent tour of the internet (which seems to get bigger every day, I tell h’yew h’whut, I came across a comic that made me chuckle. I skimmed back across a few more strips, and more laughs fell from my mouth. Two hours later, I’d realized I forgot about addressing my save-the-dates with my fiance, and was promptly put in the dog house. Because I was in the dog house anyways, I cracked open a browser, and continued laughing until the wee hours of the morning. What made me laugh you ask? Why don’t I tell you… it’s the “Least I Could Do”. Get it? See what I did there? Yeah, I’m that awesome, and that’s why you’re a FOMAFer**.

“Least I Could Do” is a wonderfully humorous tale of a would be casanova, Rayne Summers. In another world, Rayne might be just like most of us… a bit of nerd, a pinch of geek, a jot of immaturity, and a dash of twenty-something sex maniac. The misadventures of Rayne have been dutifully written by Ryan Sohmer, and drawn first by Trevor Adams, then Chad WM. Porter, and now Lar deSouza. The strip has been going on since February 10th, 2003. Presently, it’s boasting daily updates. Kudos to them. But enough with the wikipedia crap, right? Let’s get into why this strip is heavy on the yuck-yucks.

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