Like all good things in life, humor in this blog comes in twos. Yesterday I found something weird in an Amazon ad, today I find something weird in a banner ad. Sometimes this world just makes no sense, and sometimes the creative decisions that go into our advertising just defy explanation. Take, for instance, this banner ad that I saw across my email this morning:
Apples are cute! (but not as cute as Bouncy Bee) They can be used to describe careers! This one’s a nurse! That one’s a teacher! O ho, that one’s even a clown! And then there’s a…
So…when you become a cop you get bizarre facial hair? A Fu Manchu mustache and a goatee? That’s what being a cop means to this artist? Do you automatically get this cheesy hairstyle when you join the force? Unless…
No, it can’t be that. It just can’t. You don’t need to go to school for that.
It’s about a month away from “back to school” time (I’ll be in Disney World the week all the kiddies get back to school – NO LINES!!!!), and the nation’s friend Amazon.com has sent out a nice reminder email to all their fans about their back to school deals.
It’s chock fulla good stuff, like dorm furniture, Microsoft products, Kraft Mac & Cheese, toothbrushes and…
…ABBA Gold?
Since when is ABBA Gold a back to school necessity? Will my kid succeed now that we’ve bought her ABBA Gold? I don’t think that the super-Aryan Swedes will improve scholastic performance, and I challenge someone to present studies that say otherwise. ABBA Gold isn’t even the best college CD, They Might Be Giants “Flood” is. What are you trying to say, Amazon.scam? That our nation’s youth are best served by importing our pop music from overseas? For shame, Amazon.wrong. For shame.
Every week, the DVD-through-the-mail site Netflix announces new DVDs for rental. Most are films that never got a theatrical release. Ethan Kaye brings you This Week In Netflix, the most inexplicable actual description of an actual film actually posted by the Netflix staff.
This week?
Superbadazz
In an effort to up their cash flow, desperate friends Rodney and Leon open an illegal strip club in Rodney’s parents’ basement. But the boys’ business venture gets off to a shaky start when the girls they hire turn out to be less than perfect. Of course, the fact that Rodney’s parents have no idea that their home is doubling as a house of ill repute only adds to the shenanigans. Shaun May, Randy Clark and Michael Harris co-star.
That’s…not a bad plot. I’m man enough to admit, that’s not a bad plot for a movie. I dislike the use of the word “shenanigans,” but a secret strip club in a basement doesn’t seem to be tremendously awful.
However, the trailer for “Superbadazz” (not to be confused with “Superbad”, a movie that got a theatrical release) is available on the ol’ internets. I give it to you here:
Or here, if your browser doesn’t pop a youtube window up.
From the trailer, it looks less like a strip club and more like, well, sex slavery. If someone invited me to this club I would assume that I would:
a) have my skin end up as someone’s coat
b) get to kill one of the girls as a souvenir
c) be roped into dog fighting
d) contract three different staph infections
e) encounter a foster kid in a cage
The “less than perfect” girls are supposed to be the big laugh attraction, but come off as rather mean-spirited. One’s blind. One’s deaf. One has to talk with a voicebox because she has a hole in her throat. I didn’t laugh at them, I just felt bad. And this was just from the trailer, I haven’t seen the film. And if there is a God, I never will.
But hey, thumbs on the idea of having an unlicensed, illegal strip club full of desperate handicapped people in your filthy basement. That’s comedy gold.
This is another Dan Jurgens cover of Superman. Now, I happen to like a lot of Dan’s work. I thought the death and return of Superman was a great story, I liked some of the tales that came after, I like his work on Booster Gold now, and I really dug his art when I was a kid. When I didn’t have a critical mind that questioned things. Like Superboy’s legs.
Now is time to ask the question. What happened to Superboy’s legs?
Sure, he’s a teenager, proportions might not always be 100% when you’re dealing with teens, but this is just goony. Those things are so tiny! He’s got these little Yogi Bear-style legs!
He looks like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Anyhoodles, this is the kind of thing an editor should catch. I’ve seen editorial comments on art before and they mark down even the most minor of things, like “move hand off of table” or “eyes should be closed”. These baby legs don’t warrant a post-it?
Come to think of it, all the characters have shortened legs, and Steel’s feet are way too tiny. Those officially qualify as “booties”, not boots. Really unwieldy booties, but still, not boots. Don’t ask where his shoulders are, seriously. Also, I want to draw your attention to Eradicator’s legs and package in the back there. Oh, and his arm is all squished up. Can he feed himself?
Ladies and gentlemen, this was the 90’s. Everyone had tiny legs, everyone stood on their tip-toes, and everyone wore a big, metal, non-functional codpiece. Yes, those were the days. The days where I stopped reading comic books for 13 years.
I’ve been giving ol’ Supes a ribbing the last few days, what with the Louis Silk post a few days back and the busted-ass kid on the cover of his comic, but I figure if you’ve got a good thing going, why stop it? Why deny yourself when you’re on a roll? What I mean to say is that I’ve been reading a lot of Superman (check out the great Geoff Johns run on Action Comics and the new James Robinson run on Superman) and watching his animated show, so I keep running into weird Superman phenomenon.
For instance, here are some screen shots in order of Superman using his x-ray vision in an animated episode called “The Main Man”.
Again, these are presented in order. Notice anything?
That’s right. In order to use his x-ray vision, Clark Kent had to first lower his glasses. The hell? Much like the Hulk’s pants, glasses must be another one of those nuisances that cannot be conquered. The whole point of x-ray vision is to see through objects you normally can’t see through, yet Clark is evidently having some trouble seeing through the thing that’s actually transparent.
Please, someone who worked on the TV show, tell me that there was some debate in the animation room about this and it came down to a close vote.
Hey! Guess what! Toyman killed Cat Grant’s kid! Like, a million years ago, but still, it’s in continuity. I didn’t used to read Superman comics, I was more of a Batman guy, so I missed this issue. Today, sadly, I finally saw the cover.
What the hell is wrong with that kid? Aside from everything?
First off, the head’s insane. The human body is about 7x the length of the head, meaning it would take seven of your heads to equal the size of your body. A helpful guide:
This boy’s body is about 5 head lengths tall, making him a dwarf. I don’t believe that Cat Grant’s son being a dwarf was ever brought up in Superman comics, especially since every dwarf in comics either has magic powers (Mr. Mxyzptlk, Bat-mite) or smokes cigars (Oberon, Lord Emp). But that ain’t all, Superman’s hand is larger than the kid’s head is (he could palm it like a basketball, easy). My hands are about average size, 7 inches tip to wrist, which is about the size of a child’s head, give or take a few centimeters. Superman’s thumb is roughly the same size as the distance from the kid’s eye to his ear. This kid may have a big head for his body, but he’s got a tiny head to begin with.
There’s also loads wrong with the kid’s arms. Call it foreshortening all you want, it’s really just bad, Liefeld-esque art. Despite his shoulders being mostly even, he’s missing a few inches of his right arm. They might have something to do with the child’s missing wrists, I’m not sure. The left arm is just a mess. Normally, a person’s arm and hand extend to the top of the thigh. This boy is a major exception, his wrist beginning where a normal person’s hand would end. His right, baby arm is actually more in line with anatomy than his left. Elephant Man time!
The torso and the butt are disasters of Katrina-proportions (although I hesitate to use the word “proportions”, since they’re not really being used in this drawing). The boy has his torso and head drastically facing the left while his hips are pointing to the right (as evidenced by his knees bending that way). This is not a normal way for a person to turn, as the body would probably snap back to center, especially if being held aloft by someone else. The butt is either lumpy (big wallet for a small kid), or just uneven. If there was foreshortening on the left left, indicating it was bent, there would actually be less butt shown since that would have been extended forward. Say nothing of the fact that the boy’s wearing pink pants with cuffs and a red belt.
The legs are their own separate Dresden of ink and paint. The calfs are of equal length or longer than the thighs, or in the case of the one on the left, smaller than the kid’s forearm. Whereas a normal leg is 4 heads high (see the diagram again), Cat Grant’s son’s are only 2, maybe 2.5 if you’re being nice with the right one. the foot is as long as the calf. And the icing on the cake is that the kid has two right feet. Look at the curve of the shoes and tell me that he doesn’t. I dare you.
The less said about Supes the better. Of more interest is the way that Toyman is holding the knife. The thumb position is all off, the thumb only runs that perpendicular to the fingers when making a fist, not when holding a cylindrical object. If it’s holding anything In fact, the knife handle is so large that he’s only holding it with the tips of his fingers. He very well could drop it if he swung his arm around with any force. Oh, and the face on the handle doesn’t match the perspective of the blade. This might have been the way the knife was produced, as the face doesn’t have to line up with the blade at all, but it would make for a nicer knife.
So I ask again. What the hell happened? The kid got stabbed, not carved apart and sewn back together again in the dark. Who let this cover go through? It’s so many disasters, I wouldn’t even begin to know which was the worst offender.
(For the purposes of this blog post, I will begin with a blues number)
There was this show.
ba-BA-bum-ba-bum
Theatrical show.
ba-BA-bum-ba-bum
30 plays in 60 minutes
ba-BA-bum-ba-bum
And it was a damn good show.
ba-BA-bum-ba-bum
I didn’t say it was going to be a good blues song. But it’s true and it’s from the heart. Last night I got the chance to check out a show by a NY theater troupe called the Neo-Futurists. The name of the show is Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind which is a great title, almost as good as The Red White and Blue Confederate Blues Band, Medicine Show, Compound and Family Reunion, the folk rock project I never got together.
The show is 60 minutes of the best theater I’ve seen since I got to the city two years ago. The most fun, the most humor, the best experience I could hope to have while sitting in a theater seat. I strongly, strongly urge you, my nine readers, to check this show out if you are ever in NYC.
Last night’s show, like every show, is different than the one that preceded it, and different from the show that follows it the next night. “How?” you may ask. The secret is volume. Each show is timed at 60 minutes, with 30 short plays or sketches on tap for the night. In fact, every sketch is listed in that night’s menu, numbered 1 through 30. The audience chooses the order of the plays by shouting out the number of their favorite, loudest shouter wins.
The plays are all-around awesome. Each one has its own theme, lighting, soundtrack, each one can go from as small as a monologue to as large as an 80’s style prom with streamers, balloons, punch, and audience members picking cast members for slow dances. All interesting, all perfect for short attention spans, all original.
And every night there’s new plays! 9 new plays debuted last night, more plays tonight, totally new plays next week. So many hilarious moments, I will definitely going back to see what else what they cook up.
Check them out on the web at their web site. Two shows a week, 10:30 at the Kraine Theater/Red Room Bar. Admission, well, that’s the thing. $10 base, plus the roll of a die. As little as $11, as much as $16. And that’s creative theater, baby.
Gah, this totally makes up for all that awful improv I’ve seen over the last 2 years.
Every week, the DVD-through-the-mail site Netflix announces new DVDs for rental. Most are films that never got a theatrical release. Ethan Kaye brings you This Week In Netflix, the most inexplicable actual description of an actual film actually posted by the Netflix staff.
This week?
Poison Sweethearts
Pushed to the limit by their abusers, six young women turn the tables on the vile men who destroyed their lives in this anthology of blood-splattered vignettes. Vengeance-seekers include a sweet girl forced to care for her depraved father, a beautiful hooker and a lonely teen who falls prey to a pair of sleazy breakdancers. Ashleigh Holeman, Roza Haidet, Laura Robbins, Jen Meissner and Raymond Turturro star.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good revenge tale (unless it stars Ashley Judd who has the acting chops of a stapler). If a woman gets “done wrong” by her man, to quote the blues, watching her bring the hammer down makes for a good movie. Thematically, it doesn’t involve a kooky best friend, a dope deal with gangsters gone bad, or cleaning up a house before parents get home.
However, the antagonists are sleazy breakdancers.
SLEAZY BREAKDANCERS. I suspect this droll description was the part of a Netflix staffer who was struggling to come up with a hook for Poison Sweethearts, since there is no nudity in it. When the best your movie has to offer is sleazy breakdancers, you better sell that new car, cause you ain’t keeping up with the payments.
I would like to play a game with you, readers. Can you come up with antagonists for a revenge movie that are goofier than “sleazy breakdancers?” If you read this entry, please post a comment with your thoughts, ideally in the “adjective occupation” format. Here are a few to get your started:
I’d also like to point out that these six tales of revenge take place in a 70 minute movie. It’s one of those movies if you like revenge but don’t really like things like set-up or exposition. “None of this talking or explanation nonsense for me,” says the moviegoer, “just give me revenge after revenge!” Assuming that the opening and closing credits take 10 minutes total (that’s also assuming that enough people were involved with this to stretch the credits out that far), each vignette is allowed 10 minutes to get from the set-up to the (assumed) gory punchline. That means that these tales of revenge are shorter than the average episode of Yu-Gi-Oh by about 12 minutes. Hell, they’re shorter than an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
So this is a film that will not be added to my queue. Especially after the lone reviewer on Netflix wished ebola on the cast and crew. Sorry, makers of Poison Sweethearts, but the odds are against you on this one.
So I was out in Washington DC this weekend, doing some sightseeing, checking out the new Jim Henson exhibit at the Smithsonian (I’d give it a 6 out of 10 – since Disney owns the rights to the later stuff AND a lot of the popular Muppets stuff, they declined to allow permission for any of it. Lots of good early stuff, but it kind of ended with the advent of the Muppet Show), and checking out some historical documents at the Archives. It’s been a busy weekend with little time for blogging, but I wanted to post this little thing.
In DC there’s the gorgeous WWII memorial.
Every little part is symbolic, and it looks amazing at night. But like all the statues and monuments in DC, it’s stuffy. Patriotic, classy, tasteful (which I think is a synonym of classy), but usually kinda sad. Luckily, the artists decided to throw in a little bit of humor with this memorial. Hidden in the back, behind one of the walkways, is this little bit, carved in on purpose.
The memorial has been tagged with a “Kilroy Was Here”. THAT is classy, DC.
Oh, and I got a kitten! Her name is Science.
Like I said, I’ve been sans internet access, but hopefully we’ll be back on track with the updates soon!
Folks who read this site and who know me personally are aware that I have a very, very unhealthy obsession with DC’s Mad Hatter. It’s not pleasant to visit my home (unless you’re me), as there are numerous Hatter memorabilia hanging up and around and under things and whatnot. It’s definitely unhealthy.
Still, it’s fun to keep adding to it. Most recently, I purchased some of the original art for my favorite comic series, The Secret Six. The Gail Simone one from 2006. The one where the Hatter was one of the lead characters. I had been looking at art pages online for a while and gauging prices, so I decided that, since I couldn’t find any of Brad Walker’s art on sale on any dealer sites, I should try and contact him directly about getting a few pages. Luckily, Brad’s super nice and let me know what pages he still had in his possession.
In the end I purchased three of the original hand-drawn and inked pages from the six-issue mini, all of which are framed and mounted behind the futon in the living room. I’ll try and get some photos up before too long, but I wanted to post a picture of the highlight of the whole purchase for me, the page that I had really hoped Brad hung on to. It’s possibly my favorite comic page ever, and now I have the original hand-drawn and inked page in my collection. It’s this one:
The one where the Mad Hatter boinks his hats.
And it’s mine.
And it’s on display in my home. Where my parents come to visit.
