News of the Right

shm-reduplication

Orthocomics is pleased to announce the release of our first ever NSFW comic by Sean McGrath and Jo Beth “Jesus” March, “Infinitesimal Situation at the Ultimate Wiggle Piggly”. While Jo Beth was unavailable for comment because she was dragged back to her Carmelite monastery by Mother Superior Vicious Claws of Jesus’ Undying Love, Sean was available to say, “Screw you, beret-wearing post-modernists!”

Early reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, saying “Yes, it IS totally NSFW, but it is also damn f-ing funny. What a great way
to start my day. LOL!!! Great work!”

“I had a ‘WTF moment.’”

“Please remember that while I love your work–you know I do–my sensibilities are a little different than yours. Some kind of rating code would be helpful, just so I know what to expect … ‘Adult themes’ are one thing; exaggerated full-frontal graphics are…another.”

“BRILLIANCE!!!”

“So deep…”

“[NSFW] or humourless sods – brilliant stuff. I love the Living Tribunal as a Norma Desmond draggie.”

and from Mishiko Kakasomething of the New York Times Book Reviewz we got “A joyous slap in the face by the giant schlong of satire!”

The entire comic book is available for download. It’s TOTALLY FREE and TOTALLY NSFW!!! Click on the the lordly graphic by Scott McGrath below to get your copy!

Via Facebook, a new Photoshop meme (well, new to me; according to my friend Jenni, it’s actually about a year old): create your band album cover from the amazing randomness Wikipedia, Quotations Page and Flickr.

1. For your BAND NAME, go to Wikipedia. Hit “random article”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random. The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2. For your ALBUM TITLE, go to “Random quotations” on Quotations Page
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3. The last one to five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3. For your COVER ART Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7daysThe third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Use Photoshop or a similar program to put it all together.

5. Send it to me and I’ll post it here!

Easy, right!

Up first is my album:

Then my brother’s:





Lisa Ann also sent in hers:





As did Jenni from Above:





It’s like being Sonny Malone, right?? Send in your cover creations!

UPDATE I: Joveth sends us his russian death metal album cover:

litotes

tonsilloliths

This past Friday’s BSG almost collapsed under the weight of its multiple revelations. My more hardcore fan friends have watched the episode several times trying to figure out exactly what was said and how it fits into what we already know.

From Kris, we have an update BSG Flowchart:

I think this is a good chart, but I have a few questions. I thought that Sam said by traveling at subluminal speeds, the Final Five were able to arrive at Caprica during the First Human-Cylon War and bring it to an end; however, they traveled BACK in time to do so (at sub-light speeds time slows and goes backwards, right?). Now, if Galactica has been traveling at “faster than light” speeds, they would be moving forward in time as well as space, and when they arrived at Earth, they were actually in “the future”, making the destruction of Caprica and Earth simultaneous events (relatively speaking). Also, Ellen said that the terran Cylons re-discovered resurrection. Where had it come from before then?

I expect The Doctor to show up next week and explain it all. Anything anyone wants to add?

tmesis

According to a recent interview, Neil Gaiman wanted Henry Selick to do a stop-motion adaptation of Coraline even before the book was released to the public. Gaiman said that Selick’s first draft of the screenplay was “too much like the book and we needed to expand it.” And my question to that is “WHY???”

At its heart, Coraline is a fairy tale, and to have watched Selick’s meticulous work in driving a stake into that heart was at times more than I could bear. Maybe I’m being a purist, not only for the book itself but for fairy tales in general. As metaphors for growing up or lessons on leading a good like, fairy tales need only the hero to get their point across, mostly that life is a solitary adventure and that one is totally responsible for one’s own actions. They may not always start out capable, but by the end of their stories, fairy tale heroes (usually) accomplish their aims and have become clever and apt. If this is so, then why did Coraline herself have to be less capable in the movie than she was in the book? Why did she need Wybie to help her execute her less-than-clever plan at the end? I really disliked Coraline’s coming into her own being shoved aside like that for… what? The sake of having a sidekick-cum-knight? The boys in the audience who think girls need a boy’s help? For girls who thought they didn’t need a boy’s help? For a man who makes his living by writing good stories, it’s amazing to me that Gaiman willingly lets others treat them this way.

This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the movie. I did. Seeing the puppets move, their hair ruffle, their bodies jump and twist, and knowing the time and effort the stop-motion animation process requires was stunning (even moreso in 3-D). If I had a complaint at all (beyond the above), it was that Teri Hatcher was Madea levels of mad as the real mother. So much so that I thought the movie was going to be some kind of reversal of the book, much the way Gaiman took on Snow White in his Snow, Glass, Apples. Sadly, I was instead forced to watch an intolerable (and at times violently uncomfortable) mother-daughter dynamic that begged for court-ordered emancipation. Why Hatcher went to this extreme and why she was permitted to do so is a question I hope someone will answer one day.

All in all, had I not read the book, the movie of Coraline would have been satisfactory, but like so many adaptations of popular books, the movie doesn’t live up to Gaiman’s written words. And it’s his own fault.

I’ve become an indiscriminate reader of personal ads on craigslist, which means that while I used to read only the M4M ads for my own pornographic enjoyment, I’ve branched out to all the other x4x variations (including the sadly desperate “missed connections“), though I get less, let’s call it “enjoyment” out of the pictures and ad text than I do in M4M. One thing I’ve come to notice is that gay men (and a few “straight” guys) are way more willing to show window shoppers the goods up front along with detailed descriptions of what they want to do/have done to them, but will not show face pics, whereas straight men and women will show you their faces and give just as lurid descriptions of sexual desires as the gay folk, but won’t show their junk. What this means really is that if there’s an ad with a “pic” graphic next to it, I’m more likely to find what I want to see/read about in the M4M section than in any of the others, but in the final analysis I’m probably just rationalizing my enjoyment of porn.

Every once in a while, I get surprised by pictures like this:

more behind the wrinkle

Batman #686: I only managed to read Batman the first night after comics shopping because I was busy with play practice and dating interests. I also chose this to read because it
was written by Gaiman, whom I adore, but whom I’m also beginning to see wane a bit. I like the set up, but of late Gaiman’s set up hasn’t been the problem with his work; the problem has been the
pay-off (seriously, I still can’t believe The Graveyard Book won the Newbery). I’ll wait ’til next issue (apparently the last Batman comic) before I decide how successful the story was or wasn’t, but for now, I’m intrigued by the dream-like presentation (of course. How else would Gaiman write a DC story?) and Andy Kubert’s expressive art. A

Action Comics #874: One of the most striking scenes in this issue was Superman in the Fortress of Solitude looking at pictures of a long-dead and somewhat idyllic Krypton. He laments that for years he had an idea of how his home planet must have been – maybe mostly through wishful thinking – but now facing the reality of being descended from a race of militant jerks he feels lost. I share that feeling with him. The Kryptonian race may have let itself be destroyed, but their darker side was never hinted at. A close runner-up is Mon-El telling his BFF Kal-El that he would prefer to die with him that be voided in the collapsing Phantom Zone. Awwh! Pablo Raimondi’s lines are wonderfully expressive and fun. Light bodies fly through the air, topped by dark, heavy faces. A

X-Infernus #3: With the conformation that there will be a new New Mutants series (how it will fit into general continuity remains to be seen), the return of Illyana Magik wasn’t too unexpected in this issue, but it was still welcome. And, dammit, she’s all these years older and still the head-strong and brash teenager from her days in the New Mutants. Still, I can’t help but love her. Of all the X-Men (aside from the original, non-resurrected, self-sacrificing Phoenix), she ranks as a true tragic heroine. Sadly, with one issue left, I fear she may go the way of all tragic figures. A-

Thor #600: I could have done without the backup stories, mostly because I’ve seen them all before (I think they were in a one-shot called Tales of Asgard from back when I was in high school) and they did nothing to add to the 600thness of this issue. I’m torn on how I feel about this issue. I like how JMS keeps up the characterization of the Asgardian and Kansasian folk (which must be incredibly difficult in the former’s case; it would be so easy to drift into (no offense) Lee-Kirby staunch declarations riddled with “thees” and “thous” and turn some pretty speeches into vaudeville), but that seems to be going away with Thor’s banishment from Asgard. And wasn’t he banished before (like, 1950’s “before”)? My fear is that the imaginative gold JMS has put into the story – Asgard in Kansas, the transsexual Loki/Sif, Thor as a diplomat (now outlaw?) – will be lost if Thor goes his own way. By the way, why does Thor have an uruz rune on his belt? B+

Secret Six #6: WTF?!?!? The MAD HATTER?!??!?!?!??!?! He’s the one behind all this? I’m pretty disappointed by this, mostly because I only remember the Mad Hatter at the guy from the Batman TV series who had a hypnotic eye pop jack-in-the-box-like from his top hat. He seemed more goofy than mad. Maybe it was my attitude this week, but this was my first of the two “meh” titles I picked up. Normally, I like everything Gail Simone does, but too much time was spent on Deathlock, the least interesting of all the characters, Yeah, he gets to betray his friends and all, but the “I’m just being the scorpion” line rang so false, the way Catman told Batman that they were going to kill each other one day, weren’t they? For being such C-list characters, the Secret Six don’t lack in ego. C

Legion of Three Worlds #3: This issue has a HUGE cast that is almost impossible to follow unless one has been a fan of The Legion for the last two decades. But who cares?? Geoff Johns and George Perez have all the nuances down for long time Legion lovers to debate and spar over, while for the rest of us, they deliver an issue with no less than three goosebump-raising moments (especially the last on on the last page). Superboy-Prime, get ready to be spanked! A

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight #22: The “meh” continues strongly in this issue, ironically called “Swell”. Don’t get me wrong – the banter between Kennedy and Satsu is right on the mark (especially, “Your eval’s SO getting a smiley face!”) but the main point of season eight is getting lost in all these side stories. The stories are great in and of themselves (the cartoon episode TOTALLY not included), but they don’t contribute to the tension I should be feeling by now. C+

Last week, Ben and I watched with chilly gooseflesh the BSG preview in which Laura Roslin, cancer-ridden and decked out in her stern wig of justice, threatened mutineers aboard the Battlestar Galactica with her now famous line, “I’M COMING FOR ALL OF YOUyouyouyouyou!!!”. So, yesterday, Ben and his dog Muppet came over to watch BSG again, and he gave me this:

I think everyone in a three block radius heard my heart go “boom!“.

Runaways #6: This may be my last issue of Runaways. Not that there’s anything wrong with it per se, but there’s nothing all that exciting about it either. The pay-off at the end of this arc just didn’t move me the way it should have. C-

Final Crisis: Revelations #5: If I came away with anything from this series, it’s that God cares, but is a firm believer in tough love. I also came away thinking that Rucka believes God to be a right bastard for putting people in impossible situations and expecting them to find their own way home again. One need only look at Radiant (somehow doing well here, yet not doing so well in FC #7) and her dwindling faith in God’s Infinite Mercy (which would be herself) to see this. As she prays for God to intervene and save everyone, there is no response. Nothing. Just Cain and Anti-life. Then the Huntress, The Question and Radiant’s rapist/murderers call her back from the brink by their selfless actions. Rucka seems to be saying that we find faith in God by the actions of others, which is a bit weak sauce for me (and Rucka, too, I imagine) because there are days when I want my immanenet and loving God to give me physical evidence that He loves me (and not in a “raped by a swan” kind of way). Still my favorite title in the whole Final Crisis crisis. A

Final Crisis #7:I sat down today and gave it my best shot to get through the last issue with maybe a glimmer of understanding with what was happening. And what I came away with was a hot, sticky pearl necklace that Grant Morrison blew all over me when he was done jerking himself off. But let me be specific:

1.) I’ll misquote someone from the GLA who said that there’s a difference between being spoon-fed a story and having to read the writer’s mind. I’ve read his Doom Patrol, his All-Star Superman, his WE3 and his run on the x-men, and have enjoyed them all. he has a talent for bringing new depth to characters and revitalizing tired stories. that being said FC was a just his next exercise in “how far can I go with the comic medium?” (and after empowering six billion people with super-powers, it was shocking to see that he COULD go further). I think this will be his Ulysses, and fanatics all over the world will begin writing their dissertations on this miniseries in relatively short order AND congratulating themselves on being so damn clever to understand Morrison. And part of me thinks it was his plan all along to be this divisive.

2.) Final Crisis was done in a vacuum. Whatever transpired here – people seeking temporary refuge on an alternate earth, a magic ward that repels evil on a planetary scale, Superman singing the multiverse back into existence (i think; he never really go around to doing it the second time, did he?), Wonder Woman somehow breaking out of the anti-life spell, Darkseid dying, the New Gods returning, Batman pulling a Spock-on-Planet-Genesis, universe vampires and the end of the Monitors – who cares? it doesn’t connect to anything that has been done or is being done or will be done. for that alone, Dan Didio should be horse-whipped for promoting FC as “the be all end all of DC crises.” As clever as it was supposed to be, it did nothing to change the status quo of the DC universe and remint it, shiny and worth some kind of currency.

3.) And before someone pulls out all the “metafiction makes stories better and causes your junk to smell like cotton candy and is better than regular literature” crapfest, I’d like to say that metafiction is
NOT a new phenomena. It goes back at least to the ancient Greeks. Authors have metafictional devices in their works whether they know that word or not, so please just stop with the “Morrison is too profound for you to understand.” He’s not. Saying “metafiction” just makes you feel better about yourself.

OMG! I just thought of what this was REALLY all about! It wasn’t DC’s final crisis, it was GMo’s MIDLIFE crisis!! I’m totally serious here. What better thing to achieve immortality by then to create a story that was supposed to be so impacting, so far-reaching (well… kinda; it was never referenced in any of the mainstream books), and the LITERAL last word in DC crises and then write it so that readers would argue about what was being done, how deep the meaning was, how revolutionary for comics to do something this PoMo (meh), write dissertations on it and speculate on what wasn’t in the text but what could be drawn into the story inter-textually! I honestly think that this was Grant Morrison coming to the end of his shelf life and then recreating himself with hair transplants, a sexy trophy wife and a penis-shaped car that goes from 0 to 120 in 10 seconds. Metaphorically speaking. Discuss. D-

Wonder Woman #28: And speaking of changing the status quo, the Olympians finally come to life in the DCU! Zeus creates a new island for his new race of men (dead men, but no one is perfect) with a mission to bring peace to the world by beating all warring countries into submission. Zeus… really doesn’t get it, does he? And, bless his heart, he’s so earnest about his Olympians and thinks that he’s going about this the right way, but it reminds me of the time he wanted to reward Diana by offering to penetrate her then got upset when she said “Dude, WTF?!?!?” I was hoping that Tom would be the Olympian (apparently that will be Jason’s “son”), but after this issue I see he’s 100% Amazon. And probably gay. A+

Superman #684: Superman is so damn trusting that he’s starting to look simple-minded. No wonder Batman makes fun of him. I was honestly hoping that after New Krypton entered a binary orbit around the sun that writers would take time to let tensions stew and come to a head again in a year or so, but writers are chasing it like my dog chases the ice cream truck. I love that this book has, like Wonder Woman, changed the face of the DCU in a way that if it’s nurtured and allowed to grow in an organic way (I’m giving you the hairy eyeball, Didio!) New Krypton could become a permanent fixture worth hundreds of stories. *fingers crossed* B

How I wish this graph from GraphJam weren’t as true as it is:

If I had a criticism, it’s that the creator was too generous with the “time spend doing legitimate research.” As a teacher I rely on my also being a tutor to know when my students show up at the Learning Lab to start typing their homework (sadly ranging from twenty minutes to an hour before the paper is due). Not that I wouldn’t be able to divine it even if I couldn’t see it every day with my own eyes. At the beginning of the semester, I do diagnostic essays with all my students to get a baseline on their skills and weaknesses. If in a matter of hours their English-aptness suddenly includes words like “frissible” or sentences like “It has been said that Derrida was the Camilla Paglia of his time but with a better haircut” I’m pretty sure that the work has been “wiki-enhanced”. Yet, for some reason, my students think I won’t notice or, worse, that I’ll let it slide, which is why I find find this graph to be more true and therefore more disturbing:





Let me tell you a story.

I hate plagiarism. I find it unnecessary, lazy and, quite frankly, insulting (see “baseline skills” above). At the beginning of every semester when I review my syllabus, I spend a good 10 – 15 minutes explaining what I think of plagiarism and cheating (see previous sentence) and what will happen if I catch a student engaging in this behavior (“I will make it my mission to be sure you are kicked out of school and not allowed back in. Don’t believe me? Try it. You’ll see what happens. Still don’t believe me? I’ll bet you know at least two students I’ve had expelled. Ask them if I’m serious.”). And yet every semester someone (sometimes “someones“) tries to pass off a Google-bite as their own. Worse, when I tell them they’re out of my class they argue with me even after I show them the print out of the page they copy-and-pasted.

Last semester, a student – I can’t remember her name so we’ll call her “Twyla McLesbianish” – was absent when we did in-class peer-editing, so it was up to me to give feedback on her rough draft. Which I did. Which wasn’t her work. Transparently. Obviously. Not. Her. Work. Twelve seconds on Google got me the article her intro was taken from. Twelve. So, I decided to do… nothing. If this student was honest, she would recognize her work as a fraud and change it to reflect her own abilities; however, if she were out for a “fast A”, then I’d let her hang herself.

She decided to hang herself in the final draft.

So, I did what I said I was going to do: I wrote a note on Twyla’s paper explaining why she was be withdrawn from my class, stapled the Google page to “her” paper, copied all of it and submitted it to the Dean, then deleted her from my class and gradebook. And just because I’m a swell guy, I emailed her as well, just so she wouldn’t show up to class unnecessarily.

The next day, Twyla came up to me in the tutoring center to ask me about a homework assignment that was due in an hour *sigh* I was somewhat taken aback because I knew she had a Sidekick and was forever checking her email, texting friends and writing Odes to Kristy McNichol on her blog. Nevertheless, I asked her if she had received my email from the previous day. She said she hadn’t. I switched into emotional neutral and explained my withdrawing her.

Normally, when I speak to students – anyone, really – I try to keep things light and jovial. However in situations like this, I remove all traces of my personality from the equation, just so no one gets the impression that I think what they did is funny or “no big deal” or that I in some way approve. I’ve recently been told this gives me a bulldoggish appearance, and I look more aggressive than passive. Students later complain that i was “mean” to them, when really I was trying to not be mean. Next time it happens (and it will) I’ll have to make a run for a mirror and see for myself how fearsome I become.

Twyla denied any wrongdoing even when I showed her her paper and the printed page from where she had lifted the text. No, I wrote that myself. What an odd coincidence! I maintained that such “coincidences” were still frowned upon, and that I had already withdrawn her from class. This was notification, not bargaining. But I didn’t cheat!

I’m sorry you think that, but I’m holding the proof here in my hands that you did.

Twyla then tried anger:

You hate Deaf people! (This goat-song has got to be the worst meme invented (personally I point to Toxic Bitch and Alleged Rapist as the flashpoint for all this chest-pounding and bleating), yet I hear it every semester with the regularity of my dog farting. If I really hated Deaf people would I have stayed in the Deaf Ed Biz for 15 years? Probably not.)

No. I hate cheating.

And because no argument is complete without triangulation, Twyla announced, I’m telling P. about this! (P. works in the registrars office as a counselor and, as much as I love her, she is really the wrong person to complain to. My boss’ name is M. She’s the appropriate person to complain to, but she has the nose of a bloodhound when it comes to smelling bullshit at 50 paces, which, of course, is not what my students want. Honestly, P. has the same kind of nose, but she comes off as more sympathetic to the students than M. does, even if the end result is the same.)

Well, have fun with that. You’re still out of my class.

The events of the next few days leading up to the meeting with P. included a pre-meeting meeting with Patti (adults only), scheduling and re-scheduling said meeting, fending off ridiculous statements from my colleague Donika like I have a student crying in my office about being withdrawn from your class. Why don’t we try to solve this misunderstanding?, and enduring watching Twyla tell all the Deaf students within eyeshot of me how unfair I am and how much I hate Deaf people (see above) and how there should be a petition going around to get me fired blah blah blah. And when it came down to it, the whole kerfuffle felt just like “blah blah blah“:

Meeting with P. blah blah blah.

Further denial of wrongdoing blah blah blah.

My producing evidence to the contrary blah blah blah blah.

Student claiming she didn’t do it (it seems it was her girlfriend who typed the paper, which doesn’t help her case at all as it’s still an expulsive offense (“unauthorized collaboration”); which makes me wonder how said girlfriend would feel about being thrown under the bus that way) blah blah blah.

My expressing no sympathy blah blah blah.

Student threatening to call her parents (even though FERPA laws prevent me from discussing any student’s grade with any person in the world except said student) blah blah blah.

My explaining FERPA to student blah blah blah.

Student deciding to escalate to my boss, M. blah blah blah.

Huffy departure from P.’s office blah blah blah.

My wondering why I still do this blah blah blah.

By this time, I had spent almost three hours explaining a policy I had already taken 15 minutes to explain on the first day of class, compared to the 75 seconds it took me to identify the cheating and fill out the withdrawal paperwork. My ray of hope was that M. would look at the student and say, “Get out of my office.” Which she did. Metaphorically speaking (M.’s too classy a dame to be that dismissive).

So, long story short: I have no sympathy for people who cheat and waste my time. I have even less time and sympathy for liars who want to avoid the consequences of their actions. So, if any of my students are reading this, be warned. Again.