News of the Right

Two stories via Joe.My.God:

Amazon.com’s Kindle takes the weight of college students’ backs.

Tippi Hedren is reincarnated as a Barbie doll:

from Jesus’ General, via Pam’s House Blend, posters of two men who are pushing a new Marriage Protection Amendment forward: Larry Craig and David Vitter:

I’ve been away from “That’s My Bag” for a few weeks for two reasons: I was trying to get my review of Justin Hall and Dave Davenport’s Hard to Swallow #3 for Prism Comics (which turned out to be much better as an interview (can I say how much these guys crack me up?)), and for two weeks when I went to ABC there wasn’t anything I couldn’t live without or I would buy one book and not want to talk about it on its own. Finally this week I have five books to review.

Grendel: Behold the Devil #8: Whu..? But she said… And then he… Why did…? Fail. F

1985 #2: The first of my ambivalent reviews. I like it, but the build-up is a bit slow, like the story is being parsed out so it can support six issues instead of four. Of course, it could be that the plot is so awesome that it requires this much groundwork to be laid before said awesomeness can be revealed. Here’s hoping. B

Final Crisis #2: I didn’t hate this issue, but at the same time I didn’t see any reason to love it. I still don’t know how Final Crisis can be going on at the same time as Trinity, but there’s no reference to one in the other. Also, didn’t Turpin meet Darkseid’s new body last issue? So, why is he now being referenced as “the father of Kalibak”? Have the gods of Apokalypse gone viral? I’m intrigued if only because the information presented so far is too sparse to see the Big Picture, but far-ranging enough to know there is a Big (if not Supremely Large) Picture to be seen. But, really, what does a barroom brawl between metas in Tokyo have to do with anything and will it be worth the 8 out of 30 pages spent on it (I’m actually hoping Sonny Sumo will turn out to be Barda and with Mister Miracle being a mysterious black man, well… go, gay gods, go!). B

Madame Xanadu #1: I’ve been hurt by you before, Matt Wagner, and you know what it is you’ve done to me. Yes, I’ve seen you become unnecessarily intent on your choice of cold cuts at the supermarket when you see me pass through produce. It’s your guilt, Matt. You can’t bring yourself to look at me and with good reason. You should feel bad about what you’ve done, and if you lead me astray again with Madame Xanadu, I’ll give up all pretense of us trying to “just be friends.” (a cautious) A

Wonder Woman #21: I know Gail has a plan for this story arc, but I wish she’d clue the rest of us in. Also, I’ve seen Diana’s red talon before; I just can’t remember where. B

quisling

The White House Office of Youth Purity has established two websites extolling the virtues of abstinence-only lifestyles: the first of which is for the boys – Sex is for FAGS!.

With Gibraltar-strong testimonials such as these:





how can i even think about engaging in pre-martial sex again? I even took their vow:

I, [MY NAME], hereby pledge:

1. To stay massively cool by not having sex. Because only major losers have sex – which everyone knows is only for fags.

2. To never let any slutty girls peer pressure me into touching their vaginas – because vaginas are totally gay.

3. To ignore my raging hormones and burning drive to fondle, suckle, and thrust furiously into a hot gooey pit of creamy-soft fleshy ecstasy.

4. To keep my groinal giblets inside my GAP khakis, and to punch those sweaty bits into submission whenever they percolate with desire.

5. To never spill my sacred “dude milk” – unless it is inside of some hot babe who already married me and took my last name.

I understand that abstaining from sex protects me from:

The regret and guilt caused by the disgusting, squishy act of stupid sex, which is basically like going to the toilet from the front side.

Making retard babies out of wedlock, then having to blow my whole allowance on diapers and a stroller instead of XBox games and Snickers.

Catching a brain-rotting STD like “Finger Herpes” from “feeling up” any nasty dirty girlie holes.

There is also Iron Hymen for vagino-Americans of a certain age.

While they have pledges and t-shorts, too, they also have TEN THINGS EVERY GIRL SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BOYS AND THEIR VILE PRIVATE PARTS, in which First Lady Mrs. George W. Bush proves how totally fair and accurate in reporting she can be. For example:

1.) Unlike your girly privates, which are internal, boy privates are external. God knew that nobody wanted to see all our lady mess, so He pushed everything up inside you. What in tarnation He was thinking when he came up with that nasty, dangling, squishy flesh on boys beats the heck out of me, but I suspect it was so it would be easier for Him to keep an eye on what they’re up to. Because trust me: that grotesque grab bag of horror and disappointment is always up to something, gals.

Flawless.

Hie to the appropriate site and get yourself something pretty.

via Joe.My.God

Last Thursday

per se

I used to have the basic boxed set of Villains & Vigilantes (plus three modules – Crisis at Crusader Citadel, Death Duel with the Destroyers and The Island of Doctor Apocalypse – but gave it to my cousins after staying at their house one summer. I have no idea why I did that, nor why I want it all back so badly.

An aside: that was also the summer I discovered Star Blazers. I wonder if there’s a connection.

Prism Comics: Your LGBT Guide to Comics 2008 has finally arrived in stores! As ever, the Guide looks back on the GLBTQ (or whatever order/nature of the acronym you prefer) comic events/characters of 2007 as well as offers some original articles and comics. Edited by the oh-so-adorable Jonathan Riggs with a wrap-around cover by a man I’ve never heard of before but am terribly taken by, Jackademus

My contribution is called “Gods and Gays”, which Jonathan was able to focus into a survey of “how gay readers view the theology of comics”, rather than the daunting “compleat history of God in comics and what the gays think of Him” I had originally envisioned. The article, redacted and superbly accessorized with appropriate comic panels, looks better than I had imagined (and I imagined it being great to start with), but, sadly, is shorter than the 10,000+ word monster I handed in. So, for those who are interested, I’ve put the uncut version here. Other articles to check out are PKA’s “A Queer Comic Report Card”, MK Czerwiec’s “Night Nurse”, Andrea Speed’s “Gay, Straight or Drawn That Way?”, Mike Buzzelli’s “A Tale of Two Gay X-Men, Briefly”, Brian Andersen’s “High School Dance Confidential” and “The Insidious Dr. Gray Matter Answers your Stupid Questions”. There’re also over 100 pages of comic book art which should give readers months and months’ worth of reading material once they track the full books down.

Good news aside, more than any other year, there’s something a little “off” about the Guide this year. Nothing horrible, mind you, but there seems to be within its pages a call for something more than what the Guide has been up so far. The two articles that exemplify this are “Love & Literature” by Edward Beekman-Myers and “Transgender Day of Remembrance” by Jenn Dolari. In the former, there is the briefest mention of Cyclops and J. K. Rowling (since when has she been doing comics?), but overall, the article homilizes about attaining true love and literary success by being a trooper and making lemonade out of lemons. I was hard-pressed to figure out (and actually never did) why this was included because, as far as I know, Prism isn’t in the advice-to-the-lovelorn business. In the latter, there is less made of the comics project Dolari created to expand awareness of transgendered issues than the issues themselves. Again, neither of these were horrible, but their tangentialness to comics leaves me to believe that there is a desire to look at the broader picture of “the lives of gays who read comics” rather than just “gays in comics” – something I’ve taken to calling “the Prism/PK dichotomy”. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in next year’s Guide.

Strangeness from eBay via my friend Scully. What really gets me is that people bid on it and won (for $1.02). This guy actually had a loss of profit on this as the shipping will cost more than the bid earned him. No Love Boat cruise to Acapulco for their honeymoon, I guess.

I created the PRAXIS team during my freshman year at Mercyhurst College while taking a class called “The Religious Person” under Mary Hembrow Snyder. She taught us that “praxis” was the word for “action”, the “thing to do”, which for me meant it could be a great comic book team name (an aside: Dr. Snyder really was the one who taught me to get my writing under control). I probably created 50 characters that year but never got around to writing a story nor actually doing anything with the characters.

Until now.

From the pen of the frighteningly talented Juan Romera (and soon to be a full-tilt boogie book in a comic store somewhere in the world) here’s PRAXIS!

fellow traveler

Ten year old knows more about saving taxpayers’ money than this government.

Iraq says fish and the US stink after five years.

Why not Vincent D’Onofrio again? Please?

The right’s obsession with mushroom cloud imagery continues.

The Doomsday Vault. Now that’s thinking ahead. Fatalistically.

Louisiana governor and erstwhile exorcist Jindal says I.D. is a science.

Bambi Wiccan

Yeas ago, I saw the Lloyd Webber oddity Aspects of Love when it first opened on Broadway. Yes, I saw it with the hot-but-then-fat-but-then-back-to-human-proportions Michael Ball, for those of you who are as in love with his voice as I am you’ll know what I mean. The show was a delight if not weighted down by themes of incest and statutory rape. The essentail story is about Alex who falls in love with Rose who falls in love with Alex’ Uncle George who loves Giulietta who begins and affair with Rose and George before Rose becomes pregnant with George’s daughter who, as a 15 year-old, falls in love with he substantially older first cousin Alex who reciprocates, killing George and driving Alex to screw Giulietta at the funeral before all three women press him for his eternal devotion. All the salaciousness is whimsically shown in this video to the theme tune “Love Changes Everything”:

Today I found a recording by Forbidden Broadway this is supposed to be a parody of the song (and the show), but is more of a reiteration of the plot. Of course, good parody is supposed to be opaque.

Poiesis

Manhunter #31: YAY!!!! Manhunter is back!!! I’ve been waiting for this issue since last summer when DC announced the the title’s non-non-non-cancellation, and Marc Andreyko doesn’t disappoint (I can’t say “it was worth the wait” because nothing is worth waiting a year for. I’m impatient by nature. Penelope was a rube.). He’s managed to jump back into the storyline and not lose a word of style. Big plus: Obsidian makes an appearance! Bigger plus: Special guest appearance!! A+

House of Mystery #2: I still don’t know how I feel about House of Mystery. I like the centerpiece stories, but the “plot” doesn’t do much for me. The characters are interesting, but they don’t do anything interesting except act confused, which isn’t all that interesting. B

Kick Ass #3: This kid doesn’t learn. And that is the appeal of the story. Dave is either out for the fame of being a hero or he’s really trying to make a difference in the world, but either way, he rushes blithely into danger knowing he doesn’t have the power to back-up his advances. This issue is more of a bloody mess than the previous ones with no upper limit in sight. A+

Secret Invasion #3 SPOILER: So, Tony Stark is a Skrull. Did anyone NOT see that coming???? And the spaceship Captain America is the real deal???? And if Cap-who’s-dead is really a Skrull, can be believe a Skrull would die so nobly for Myspace? Is this like one of those Battlestar Galactica Final Five sleeper Cylons who never knew they were Cylons until a switch was flipped? I can’t wait for someone to explain when all these exchanges happened, but, honestly, do I even care anymore? Uh… no. No, I don’t. And the tie-ins? One time my students were talking about how much they loved the Kelly Clarkson song “Because of You”, and I said I really didn’t get what being afraid to stand on the sidewalk had to do with anything else in the song. One student said, “Oh well, that’s covered in the music video. You have to see the video to really understand.” and for a second – a very rare second in my teaching life – I completely camped out and drawled like Edwina Monsoon, “WATCH THE VIDEO? It’s a Kelly Clarkson song and you’re telling me there are SUPPLEMENTARY materials that enhance the listening experience, darling? Is THAT what you’re telling me?” Which applies to SI tie-ins, too. D

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight #15: I was wrong. “Wolves at the Gate” managed to close off in a satisfactory way in only one issue, even though the Rule of Joss was in full force for the hapless Xander. Really, is Mrs. Whedon under any kind of security detail because if I were her, I’d worry. And not sign any huge life insurance policies. Also, it was good to see Willow and Buffy share a friendly moment, even if the Dark Waters of Magic threaten to drown Willow at every turn. A+

Could I love Spacedog’s Helen Killer any more?

Actually, yes, I could, but first the good news. I have to give Kreisberg and Rice their due for avoiding the “second issue slump”, the annoying tendency of mini-series’ quality dropping off after a heady first issue. Helen Killer #2 pumps out the action from page one and brings Helene face-to-face with her arch nemesis, then unfortunately ends before they can exchange names. Hands down, this is the strangest and borderline tackiest para-history I’ve ever read, but, being a teacher of the deaf by day, I get no small thrill out of a comic book challenging the sacrosanct image of Hellen Keller. No doubt she was the original poster girl for “Deaf can do anything…”, but to see her do all these dirty deeds as a sighted- and hearing-person has raised more than a few eyebrows with my students.

The bad news is not all that bad: I want to see more of Helen’s character develop. The times that truly thrill me are when she has an interior monologue. I’d like to know what she’s thinking when the Omnicle is off. I mean, all that rage has got to come from somewhere. Helen can’t be a saint or a sinner with the flip of a switch alone. I want to know about Helen-in-the-dark.

If you haven’t picked up an issue yet, do it today! A

A warning from the grave or a final “nyah nyah”?

Transformers is “offensive“.

“Iraqi protesters” ray-gunned down.

Once again, the gays move in and make things better in the ‘hood.

Church welcomes everyone.. oh, except this kid.

Google maps told to take a detour.