Dear Hollywood

Please stop basing an entire movie about how funny it is that a black man is dressed like a fat woman.

It may have been funny once, but now it’s turning into an odd genre thing, and honestly? It’s just kinda weird at this point. I’m not pointing out films where an actor just wears a fat suit (Austin Powers, Get Smart), because the movie is not dependent on “oh lord, they are so a man as a woman!” for it to work. Mrs. Doubtfire is also part of the offending genre.

Friday’s Great Irony

I don’t know if you’ve noticed yet, but for a limited time this site is showing off a great irony. Remember last week how I put up the pictures of superboobie fan art? Well, those pictures are still up on my site (thanks, Flickr!), and if you scroll down you can see them.

Now, Wizard Universe hosts more than a few banner ads around my blog, and that’s fine, it pays the bills. There’s an ad right now for a Freshmen T-shirt offer from Top Cow. If you haven’t read Freshmen, do so, it’s a fantastic book. So what do I see when I read through my blog today? One of the chesty girls I posted last week next to the Top Cow model.

Wow. Life just got weird again. Sadly, just by posting this fact, I’ve screwed up the chance of you seeing this phenomenon for yourself on my site. But that’s progress for ya.

Mad Spanish

I was doing an eBay search today for, what else, The Mad Hatter, and I came across this gem from South of the Border:

Now, I already have two copies of this issue, so I don’t think I’ll buy the third, but what caught my eye was that it was in Spanish. And that “The Mad Hatter” in Spanish is simply, “El Sombrerero Loco.” That’s…pretty much what I would have come up with on my own if you had told me, “YOU! Using your limited knowledge of Spanish, gleaned from one semester of Spanish 1 in high school, Speedy Gonzales cartoons, and Spanish ads on the subway, WHAT IS THE MAD HATTER’S NAME IN SPANISH!?!”

El Sombrerero Loco. It still has a little flavor to it, but just doesn’t do it for me.

Another anatomy lesson

I wish I could draw. Seriously, I wish I could put pen to paper and come up with an amazing figure drawing right off the top of my head. That way I could whip out my sketchpad, run through a couple of sketches, and then throw them up on eBay (and yes, I mean “throw up” in many different ways) for cash.

See, I collect original comic art, whether it be original pages or artist sketches, and eBay is a pretty good place to see what’s available. But for every great page from Action Comics, there’s going to be numerous sketch cards of big breasted women drawn by someone who just like drawing big breasted women. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, they wear a costume, so it then becomes fetishizing a comic character into a comic character who possesses insane anatomy. Just today, in fact, I ran across a couple.

WARNING!

There’s going to be girls here with big boobies and I may have to talk frankly about them. It’s a family blog, but I figure I should warn you that I’m going to be talking about something that 50% of the population of the world has, but we’re not supposed to discuss in the US.

Let’s start out with someone simple. Power Girl. She’s a character who’s actually known for having large breasts, and that’s fine. It just takes that little extra effort to show her holding them, naked, while still wearing a cape. It’s what people want to see, the artist assumes. It’s going that extra mile to do a mediocre sketch of it then selling a print of it on eBay that makes it that much sexier.

Supergirl is…well, I’d have to be convinced that this is Supergirl, and not some underwear model that the artist sketched and then put a T-shirt on. You’d need a pretty long PowerPoint slide deck to convince me that the artist thought of Supergirl first, before he saw the underwear model.

White Queen? Really? This is the White Queen from X-Men and not a fantasy blonde from an artist with mommy issues? If you had asked me who this was, just by first look, I guarantee you that “White Queen” would not have been in my first 40 answers. Now that I look closer, she’s got the “X” logo, which I can almost guarantee is an afterthought. And not to be a continuity nerd, but when did White Queen ever look like this? When did she have boobs that you’d need a crane to lift? Oh, this is also a print, so more than 1 of them exist. For $8.50. If I was going to spend money on art, I’d make sure the eyes match up. It’s the little things that make a difference.

Remember that scene where Carrie-Anne Moss walked around topless in the Matrix sequels? You probably don’t, because you only saw those films once, in the theater, because you felt like you had to complete the series, even though you knew they wouldn’t be as good as the first one. I understand, I don’t remember a lot from those films either, since I just saw them that once, all those years ago. But I guarantee you she spent half the movie dressed like this, whichever one it was.

Wait, a quick google search says that I’m lying. This scene never happened.

Oh I get it now, the artists and the purchasers wish they could have sex with imaginary people, but they can’t, so they do these! Duh! I guess “sexy” means different things to different people, and I tend to like my women with correct anatomical proportions. This is supposed to be Mary Jane from the Spider-Man comics. How can you tell? She’s wearing a Spider-Man shirt. Like Mary Jane did so many times in the books. I assume that Kyra Sedgewick wears Kevin Bacon shirts all the time too. What cracks me up is that the seller claims that he has to sell some of his art and ” it breaks my heart to part with this piece.” Dude, any number of high school kids could draw this again for you.

This is supposed to be Jessica Rabbit. You know, from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.” Strangely, but trying to make her more sexy, he’s succeeded in making her absolutely hideous.

Phantom Lady, in the hands of an expert penciller, has the ability to look amazing. Sadly, that’s not what happened here, with her lopsided chest and strange insect eyes. The buy it now price is $10, but since it’s anonymous bidding, you get to keep a little of your pride.

So please, gentle readers, don’t go down this path and look for the 100’s of Wonder Women and Vampirellas that exist on the wilds of eBay. I did the looking so you didn’t have to. And artists? You wonder why you’re not hired to do more comic books? Just step back and reevaluate a bit. That’s all I’m sayin’.

Book of the year!

My vote for book of the year:

Believe it, the title is BIRTH CONTROL IS SINFUL IN THE CHRISTIAN MARRIAGES and also ROBBING GOD OF PRIESTHOOD CHILDREN!!” (note the two exclamation points in the title)

Have I read it? Nope. Never will either. It’s 648 pages, weighs close to 4 lbs, and it written by a completely crazy woman.How crazy? The title doesn’t say it all for you? Or even the subtitle, which is hard to read, “MANY FALSE CHRIST MARRIAGES ARE LIVING ON BIRTH CONTROL AND NOW LEADING THE AMERICAN CHURCH WEALTH!”? Well, her Amazon page contains some delightful gems from deep inside the crevasse which is her insane mind.

THIS IS A HOLYSPIRIT MANUSCRIPT BOOK: WHEN YOU BUY THIS BOOK YOU WILL BE READING A HOLYSPIRIT DIRECTED BOOK FROM GOD; & *CHRIST JESUS. THIS BOOK IS GODS HOLYSPIRIT VOICE: THE CALL FOR ALL CHRISTIANS & CHURCHES TO REPENT FROM ALL THEIR SINS: EVEN FROM FALSE CHRIST TEACHINGS. BIRTH CONTROL SINS HAVE CURSE THE CHURCH WITH SPIRITUAL WHOREDOM & FALSE WORSHIP.

Please note that the Holy Spirit [sic] and Christ Jesus think everything is important, so it must be in all caps. That, and a colon makes the perfect transition between one lost thought and another. I may revisit my declaration never to read this book, because it’s probably chock full of insane, but not in an easily copy and paste format that I can put on the internet. And no, it’s not on Kindle.

Eliyzabeth Yanne Strong-Anderson is a strong woman who feels the need to yell stuff, but she’s not without her critics.

BECAUSE OF COMPUTER DICTATORS: MANY WORDS IN THIS BOOK: MADE HAVE BEEN CHANGED: TO>>DISCREDIT: THE AUTHOR. BUT IN TRUTH: I AM A HOLYSPIRIT CHOSEN ANOINTED DISCIPLE FOR GOD & CHRIST JESUS. EVEN FOR JEWS, MUSLIMS & GENTILE SINNERS.

MS. ELIYZABETH YANNE STRONG-ANDERSON: ALSO PETITION FOR THE MAYOR SEAT IN TUCSON ARIZONA IN 1998. BECAUSE OF ORGANIZED CRIMES, POLICTICAL RACISM AND CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION AGAINST ELIYZABETH: HOLYSPIRIT EVANGELIST LIFE:

Lizzy, I can guarantee you that none of those things was the reason you didn’t get the mayoral seat. At least, I assume she didn’t, she doesn’t say anything else on the subject except that cryptic sentence.

You can get a good idea of her life story just by reading her ramblings on her Amazon page, the page that’s supposed to entice you to buy the book. She wanders off-topic occasionally, although it’s safe to say that selling her book is not the main goal of getting on Amazon.

GOD TOLD ME TO TEACH THE GOSPEL ON CABLE TELEVISION IN TUCSON ARIZONA. *CONCERNING THE SINS OF THE CHURCHES: & CONCERNING THE>LACK OF GIVING TO THE POOR & ORPHANS: CHRISTIAN CHURCHES SHOULD: BUILD MORE:> WATER WELLS: & BUILD LOW INCOME HOUSINGS: MATTHEW 25 & ISAIAH 61

But wait, there’s more! If writing 700-page books in broken English about not havin’ babies because they might become priests one day doesn’t keep the men charging away from your door (and the photo doesn’t either), Miss Crazy Cleo is also a black belt in karate!

MS. ELIYZABETH YANNE STRONG: ALSO HAS A 1ST DEGREE BLACK BELT IN TAEJUKENPO KARATE: SHE STARTED A KIDS & TEEN: KARATE MEMBERSHIP & TV CLUB: CALLED: KARATE PLAY: IN 1996-2000: SHE IS NOW: STARTING: RECREATION CITY KARATE CLASSES IN TUCSON ARIZONA: WITH GOALS TO OFFER PRIVATE MEMBERSHIP KARATE CLUB CLASSES.

Want more fun? “Taejukenpo karate” doesn’t exist. A google search turned up one (1) result which was…Eliyzabeth Yanne Strong-Anderson’s Amazon page. Same one where she’s selling the book. Either she’s making the karate thing up, or she went through enough karate training to become a black belt but neglected to ever notice how her discipline was spelled.

THIS IS WHY YOU DO NOT SELF-PUBLISH, PEOPLE.

Want another reason why this is insanity? She’s priced her book at $150.00.

Oh God, why have you made your biggest supporters complete and utter loons?

The best a man can get

Something from a previous DragonCon that a friend stumbled across:

What’s sad about this picture is that I don’t think mankind can create a better Juggernaut costume. We all saw what happened with the X3 Juggernaut, he was soccer star Vinnie Jones in an ill-fitting muscle suit. Not as bad as this:

but bad enough. This has all the proper elements of Juggernaut, color included, which one-ups Vinnie’s costume. I can’t imagine how they would have done a realistic maroon costume for X3, but I assume it would look something like this. Minus the sweatpants.

And trust me, you want to stay out of this guy’s way, once he charges, there’s no escaping his deadly onslaught! Especially if he’s charging towards a table full of cheap comics and Buffy outtake DVDs. I’m (mostly) the Juggernaut, bitch!

Hatter, en Espanol

The Spanish Invasion came to New York! Five comic artists from Spain visited Midtown Comics in Manhattan this weekend and Mad Hatter sketches were procured! Sorry about the photo quality, I’m looking into getting a scanner but New York City seems to be sold out (even Circuit City, surprise).

Here’s Pere Perez’s (Army of Darkness) take on the Hatter.

This is Manuel Garcia’s (Checkmate, Mystique) version.

This is Fernando Dagnino’s (Batman and the Outsiders, Teen Titans) almost Disney-esque take on the Hatter.

Carlos Rodriguez (Batman and the Outsiders, Shadowhawk) takes a shot at the Hatter in a classic pose!

And Bit’s (Batman and the Outsiders, Nightwing) version looks…like him, oddly enough.

My cat, Science, however, did not much care about art and jumped on the Dagnino piece while I was photographing it. She’s not much of an art fan.

Where’s Ethan?

Hello, people of Earth who read my blog.

So you’re going to ask, where the hell has Ethan been, and why hasn’t he blogged lately? Well, there are two reasons for this.

One, I was on jury duty. The case ended in a conviction, but I was in there for a couple days. Yup, I sat on a jury. If you every have the opportunity to do this, DO IT. It is fun. You end up catching up on your reading and listening to your iPod a lot while the court takes recesses. I think we spent 2 hours in the courtroom and the rest of the time being escorted in and out by bailiffs. In the end the drug dealer was convicted so justice was served.

Two, I was in the hospital. The other day I had a pain in my gutty works and it got worse over time. My doctor thought it might be appendicitis, so instead of chancing it, I went to the emergency room where they gave me pain killers. Here is me on pain killers.

It wasn’t a bad experience, but it took a loooong time to get through and it left me dead tired for an entire day. Turns out it wasn’t appendicitis at all, but a very painful pulled muscle. If you get one of these, I’m sorry, because they really, really hurt. And hospital food ain’t grand.

Funny story though, as I was leaving the nurse told me that she wished I could have stayed. “All my patients are so old, it’s like a retirement home.” I told her that for her sake I wished I was staying, but for my own I was glad to be getting out.

Next week is another week though, and hopefully I’ll have a scanner soon so I can scan photos of the awesome Christian Archie comics I just got sent to me from Australia. That’s right, all of the Archie characters are Christians. And they all witness for Christ. It’s mind-blowing.

Until next time, hopefully I don’t get sick or have crime happen!