I just love Arlo and Janis:
Arlo and Janis parallels our lives. Our sons have grown up together; both Arlo and I want to run away to the Caribbean and buy a sailboat; and both our wives are incredibly sexy.
Great Stuff.
~~JD~~
A genius that man. Such a shame. Click the strip for a clearer image.
~~JD~~
Just to Prove my theory that "There's no such thing as a Criminal Genius", here comes proof from the Associated Press, via the Northwest Indiana Vidette-Times:
Holy hooligans! Phony 'Joker' arrested in Michigan
Tuesday, July 29, 2008THREE RIVERS, Mich. - Police in Michigan have arrested a man who they say tried to steal posters and other items related to the new Batman movie from a cinema lobby while dressed up as the Joker.
Detective Mike Mohney said Monday 20-year-old Spencer Taylor of Three Rivers has been booked for investigation of larceny and malicious destruction of property.
Taylor is scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 5 in St. Joseph County District Court.
There is no telephone listing under his name in the Three Rivers area.
Mohney says officers who were dispatched early Sunday to the theater arrived to find employees restraining a man wearing a purple suit, a green wig and face paint in the style of Batman's nemesis in "The Dark Knight."
Heh.
~~JD~~
A sad note, indeed -- "Mom" Keane was always one of my favorites. From the Northwest Indiana Vidette-Times:
Inspiration for 'Family Circus' Mommy dies at 82
By AMANDA LEE MYERS | Sunday, May 25, 2008
"I gotta be careful this week.There's only so many statues of half-naked flying women I can have in the house before my wife objects."
~~JD~~
For those of you out there who do NOT read comic books, just skip this post. There are plenty of other posts to read where I won't geek out over a silly little comic book -- just scroll down. I promise. G'wan -- shoo, shoo!
They gone?
Okay, good.
Blue Beetle #24 from DC comics may be the best comic book you'll read this year. I don't care if you've been reading this one or not; you need to go get it now.
It'd got humor, action, pathos, suspense, relatability -- and the best payoff of any comic book buildup I've read in a long, looonnng time. Not to mention one-liners that are so fast and so furious you miss half of the the first read-through.
I've read this book five times in the last four days -- it's that good. Plus it's written by two relative unknowns -- that right there is reason enough to support the book.
Go. Buy. Read already!
~~JD~~
The date was 1985; the place was DC Comics. DC had the largest comics library ever through the acquisition of several competitors (the Marvel Family, Charlton Comics, etc.) and for convenience's sake had constructed this elaborate series of "parallel Earths" where each set of heroes resided. Even the original versions of Superman, Batman, et al had their own "Earth-2" where they were grown, had children of their own, and had (mostly) retired.
Unfortunately, it was awkward as hell. It took me five minutes just to write the paragraph above on general sweep of the concept. Try explaining how Black Canary was actually originally from Earth-2 but had "emigrated" to Earth-1 while possessed by the spirit of her dead mother.
Just-too-Freaky!
The most-remembered (and most-parodied as well) cover of the CRISIS is #7's "Death of Supergirl".
However, most people don't recall that the CRISIS was industry wide, and many more comics were affected than just DC comics properties. The Comic Buyer's Guide did a series of cartoons by Johnny Lowe in the fall of 1985 that aptly illustrated the fring-effects of the CRISIS. Oft remembered (but rarely collected), these comics are cute, even priceless -- but worth the effort to scan them in for posterity.
So, without further ado . . . . (Click the comics for an enlarged view)
With Ziggy here, I think Lowe has completely captured the spirit of the character.
And The Far Side, as well (man, how I miss The Far Side!)
This Bloom County strip always cracks me up. Note the picture over the boy's bed of Christopher Reeve as Superman (whom I originally mistook for Jim Shooter, whom many blame for the "parallel worlds" concept):
This final comic shows the aforementioned Peanuts, Bloom County, Cathy, & Hagar the Horrible casts assembled together, along with Garfield, Shoe, (possibly) Krazy Kat, and the snake from B.C. in the penultimate scene -- which is itself a riff from a controversy of the day; how editors in newspapers were shrinking the size of comic strips. )Doonesbury was particularly loud on the subject -- even negotiating for his strips to stay the original size -- which is why Doonesbury to this day is 50% bigger than most comic strips in newspapers.)
And I don't know about you -- but that potential hook-up between Cathy and Steve Dallas just has "Rape Charges" written all over it . . . . 
These next two appeared during CRISIS in Calvin and Hobbes by comics fan Bill Watterson. While they do not tie into the previous "Cross-Over" exactly, they do reflect nicely the zeitgeist of the times . . . .
Or, this:
And this actual "Far Side" appeared during the cross-over as well; showing an "alternate version" of Marvel Comics Thor:
Finally, these last two show some possible variants of DC's Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30th Century. First, how Doctor Who REALLY got his start:
And finally, this one, where apparently one too many Earths got merged . . .
~~JD~~
Something of a hoary old cliche in Batman comics is the "abandoned amusement park" concept. Every few years the Joker will break out of Arkham Asylum and hide out in an "abandoned amusement park." 
Like "Abandoned Amusement Parks" pepper the landscape offering reluctant refuge to scurrilous psychopaths. (Note to Jonathan Gertsmeier: there's your alliteration fix for the month. Enjoy.)
Eventually, Batman finds the Joker -- I would guess because (a) Abandoned Amusement Parks are pretty rare commodities, and (b) Batman knows where they are -- and head for the nearest one to Arkham Asylum as soon as he hears the Joker has broken out . . . again.
Imagine my surprise to find one less than a quarter mile from my home!
"The Roaring Twenties" was an amusement park (now abandoned) here in San Antonio popular in the late 1930's to 1950's timeframe. Originally built almost 12 miles north of San Antonio proper, it now sits surrounded by the suburbs of north San Antonio. Situated by a dry river (that floods like hell every time it rains), it was difficult to reach during rainy season and appears to have suffered several instances of flood damage. (Fortunately, it doesn't rain that often here.)
As you can see here the grounds are pretty extensive. I'm unable to locate any on-line references to "The Roaring Twenties", but in talking to a couple of residents at a Nursing Home I recently worked at, apparently it was an amusement park of some kind during the day with a Dance Hall building (the only part that still remains) at night.
It's an odd feeling watching History crumble before your eyes.
~~JD~~
Jimmy Olsen was not just a cub reporter and photographer in the Pre-Crisis DC Universe. He also knew the identities of every teen-aged superhero in the DCU. If you were ever a "Robin" to somebody's Batman, he knew who you were. He also knew the identities of Batgirl, Bat-Girl (all three versions), and the name of the vet who "fixed" Ace the Bat-Hound, Krypto, and Streaky the Super-cat. He was a close personal friend of both Mr. Mxyzptlk and drinking buddy to Bat-Mite, and had all the Teen Titans on Speed-Dial. He was also his own super-hero, possessing powers as Elastic Lad, Turtle, Boy, and god knows how many others. It's a small wonder he wasn't a member of the X-Men, with his mutant ability to display bizarre and terrifying superpowers at the drop of a hat. According to Wikipedia his super-identities included:
* Giant Turtle Boy (Jimmy Olsen #53 -1961)
* Elastic Lad (Jimmy Olsen #37 -1959)
* Flamebird (in the shrunken Kryptonian city of Kandor)
* Speed Demon (1956)
* Radioactive Boy
* Gorilla Boy (Jimmy Olsen #24)
* Monstrous beard growth Lad (I am not making that up)
* Telepathic Jovian Boy. (Aliens transformed him, of course, but they were apparently very stupid aliens -- any reader of the Legion knows that natives of Saturn's moon Titan are Telepathic, NOT Jovians.)
* Teenaged Wolf-Man (Jimmy Olsen #44 -1960).
* Hippie - Jimmy grew a beard and joined a Superman-hating band of hippies (Jimmy Olsen #118 -1969)
* Teen-aged Viking - Jimmy put on Viking armor and mistakenly thought he'd been transported 1000 years backward in time. (And great evidence of the brain-damage all these transformations caused, I think.)
* Doomsday (All Star Superman #4 -- Jimmy takes a serum and becomes a version of Superman's foe Doomsday. Apparently an April Fool's Prank on Superman gone horribly awry.)
* A Teen-Aged Genie
* A six-armed teenager (Teen-Aged "Spider"-Man)
* A fire-breather (Why does "Teen-Aged Circus Freak" not surprise me here?)
* A water-breather (Teen-Aged Aquaman)
* A Human Porcupine (Jimmy Olsen #65 -1962)
* A gorilla's husband (Gorilla-Boy gets married, apparently)
* Superman (On another planet, but he got upset because the civilians knew who he was. Durned temperamental super-heroes!)
His "Elastic Lad" identity earned him an Honorary membership in the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30th Century; Even though he had more powers and identities than most of the Legion put together. This just makes my cerebellum ache thinking about the Time Paradoxes that might have resulted. In fact, there's a decent chance we can pin the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, and the Infinite Crisis on the Time Paradoxes resulting from a red-haired cub reporter bouncing back and forth between the twentieth and thirtieth centuries on a regular basis.
And to make matters worse, one of his Honorary Legionnaire "buddies" was Insect Queen -- Lana Lang, one of Superman's crushes from Smallville. I have always personally thought that Jimmy Olsen has a high probability of being the Love Child of Lana and Superboy after a passionate night at the prom and put up for adoption in the big city of Metropolis. So if that's true, that means the whole Legion thing meant that Jimmy was hanging with his Mom; both of them in skintight suits, which put me off the Legion until post-Crisis Continuity erased this creepy time-paradox nightmare.
Jimmy Olsen; Teen-aged Renaissance Man.
~~JD~~
Mike Sawin, I know you're out there! I can see you peeking in from the "St. Cloud MN" notes on the sidebar, buddy. I know your blog hasn't been decently updated since August, and barely touched since October.
You've got friends who are worried about you, Mike. Call me -- let me know how things are going. If you need anything let me know, buddy. I'm worried.
(For those of you whom are not Mike Sawin, his blog is to be found on the right sidebar under the LEGENDS! area.
~~JD~~
I got some disturbing news on my health this week. So while I'm processing the news and waiting for more information, I'm going to indulge in an old human tradition of ignoring the elephant in the living room and focusing on something entirely irrelevant.
Human beings with wings.
No, really.
(When I have something more definitive, I'll let you all know. The good news is I do NOT have AIDS or any known form of hepatitis. More when I know it, okay?)
So, anyway . . . .
I have this small collection of human figures with wings on the wall of my bedroom which has grown over the years. As a psychiatric nurse I tend to skew towards a grounding with a Jungian bent. (For those who don't know, Carl Jung was one of Sigmund Freud's first adherents and greatest advocates. Freud and Jung differed, however, on the idea that all humanity is connected by a vast "colllective unconcious" through which we all share ideas, dreams, and universal representations, called "iconic themes.")
One of the most common "iconic themes" is the dream of flying, which Jung said represented the idea or desire for escape, for freedom. Almost everyone in all cultures has at one time dreamed of flight or flying, and almost all cutures have art forms representing this icon.
This statue above is of the bride of the Egyptian sun-god Ra. She has wings to carry Ra through the heavens and traverse their kingdom. (Ra is that nifty little golden circle on her head surrounded by the bulls' horns.) While not the earliest artistic representation of a human with wings, it's the earliest I could find to purchase for my collection
.
A representation of the Egyptian Hawk-god Horus, via DC Comics. Their character "Northwind" is a member of a race of bird-people associated with Hawkman. (By-the-bye, he really does have a head like a hawks' -- making polite conversation problematic at best.)
The classic judeo/christian/muslim representation of an angelic figure (i.e., "Angels".). Although scripture refers to angels as being masculine with male names (Gabriel, Michael, Lucifer, etc.) most modern representations are shown as female.
An early American folk art version of the traditional angel figure is also seen here. Note the finer detail available through painting versus the next figure, which was whittled.
A very primitive version of the angel motif is seen here, whittled from hardwood and colored with basic white and red. No detail is seen due to the primitiveness of the media. Such representations were common on the American frontier and are still found in third world countries today. This particular version has wire wings which are difficult to see against the darker background.
A modern ceramic representation of an angel, which almost always deals in colors of whites and pastels. This angel was sold during Easter season, so the reddish/maroon cloth is symbolic of Christ's blood being shed for mankind.
This modern concrete copy is of a medieval grotesque from a Parisian building. The cherub (second cousin to an angel) sits on top of the building warding off evil spirits. (A "grotesque" differs from a gargoyle in that gargoyles are waterspouts, while grotesques are statuary.)
This clay figurine of modern Mexican design showing a handless angel figurine. (The figure lost his hands due to the fragility of the clay medium; the hands loss was not intentional nor meant to signify anything.) The fine detail shows the feathered texture of the wings which are distinctly bird-like.
This is a traditional example of meso-american clay figurine art. The figure depicted is of a Peruvian Andes piper boy playing a pan flute. Whether the wings were present before the influence of Spanish Christian missionaries is debatable, but interesting nonetheless. The feathers are also those of an eagle, which is a native american symbol of power, strenght, and authority.
This is a representation (again via comic books, of course) of a Norse Valkyrie. As the Guardians of the Dead and Valhalla (the Norse version of the Afterlife), the are alternately shown as either winged or riding winged horses. Go figure. Either way, the wings as an analogy of supernatural swiftness works.
Here is an early Victorian sculpture of a fairy. While the ideas of fairies (which have wings) and pixies (which do not) predate Victorian England even to druid times, they enjoyed a brief resurgence of popularity during the late 1880's in England with the advent of the camera, as many citizens of the crown attempted to photograph these proto-humanoid forms. While fairies have humanoid figures, they are smaller than humans and often have insects wings (this young lady has a butterfly's or bees' wings.)
A more traditional representation of the pixie is shown here, with her garlands and belts of vines and dress made of petals. Her wings are more pointed and insectoid than most other representations of fairies, which almost always use more rounded wings.
The post-modern era fairy starts and (pretty much) ends with the world's most famous fairy, Tinkerbell (Clochette to my European relatives.) Seen here as a McDonald's give-away from a few years ago locked in Captain Hook's lantern, she glows in the dark, imparting a warm glow to our bedroom nightly.
Moving rapidly into the modern era, winged human forms are very much evident in both animation as well as graphic sequential literature forms, such as comic books. And in Europe, everybody loves a Smurf (thats Stroumpghs to my European relatives), and apparently Smurfs/Stroumpghs are fond of lighting out into the wild blue yonder as well. That we don't see many Smurfs flitting past our windows in probably a testament to the vicousness of the local purple martin population, I would guess. (Poor Smurfs!)
This one's the "Angel" character from Marvel comics' X-Men franchise. Although not seen in the first two movies, I have it on good authority he'll be in the third movie for sure. That should be quite a sight for the CGI guys to have nervous breakdowns working on.
Marvel comics also publishes a character called "The Falcon", a former partner/sidekick to Captain America who has these nifty little glider wings with which to fight crime. Not exactly wings per se, but still a form of winged human figure.
This is the "Hawkman" character currently published by DC Comics. Hawkman believes himself to be the reincarnation of an Egyptian pharaoh and wears wings and a mask mimicking Horus, the Hawk-god. (And flies, of course.)
This is a "ringer"; actually a second version of the Hawkman character as he first appeared in DC Comics in 1940. I just include him to show off the look; and to wonder aloud how he ever fought crime with pastel blue wings. (Perhaps the criminals laughed until they got stitches in their sides and were incapacitated?)
If you have kids that watch Cartoon Network or just love comics, you'll recognize the "Hawkgirl" character from Justice League Unlimited, currently seen there weekends. In the comics Hawkgirl is the paramour of Hawkman, and the deadlier of the species, certainly.
This is one of the characters from Kevin Smith's "Clerks" universe, who (I'm told) appeared in the movie "Dogma". He's a tough little nut; and representative of the disdain in which modern angels are held. And, yes, that's blood on his breastplate.
And finally, we come to Sparky the Dog; who, for some reason, has wings on this button. (Sparky is a cartoon character published by Pam Bliss of Valparaiso IN.)
And that is pretty much my collection, such as it is. I have my eye on a replica Mesopotamian piece I saw in the mall a month ago, and continue to search for a figure of Icarus and/or Daedalus. Yet strangely absent from my collection (and not for want of searching) are any kind of figures representing Africa or Asia. Apparently Africa and Asia (and possibly Australian aborigines as well) have no mythos of flying men. China is replete with legends of flying dragons, but no human flying forms.
Or maybe I just haven't looked hard enough. Anyway, now you know what to get me for Christmas.
~~~JD~~~
