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Tag: Comics

The Curse of the Actor

After months of silence and the relative quiet of a Summer without Laughs, the Joker reappeared in Gotham with a crime that shocked the Theater Community to the Core. The Whole of Gotham’s Stage Actors Guild found itself without work and off stage in September when The Batman released a statement implicating “The Joker” in the deaths of Daliah Von Seraph and Timothy Risseraud, leads from “All Greeks And Crooks” which had just started it’s run in Gotham.

The two leads had been making headlines as masked clowns who fell in love while taking part in a Greek Tragedy revival, a Chorus, within a play. On that fateful night the pair had been deep in the show-stopping “We’re only clowns for money, we’re lovers forever” song when they both lost the tune and laughed until they bled from their eyes.

In the Audience that night was socialite Patron Bruce Wayne (Wayne Industries); approached for comment he suggested that this was murder and not just a simple mishap on stage. Dark Thoughts, but readers will remember that Mister Wayne’s life has been tied up in tragic deaths. Also present was Selina Kyle, who said she never missed seeing Daliah on stage, and was shaken after such a ‘vulgar, painful passing’.

It was less than 12 hours later that The Batman had reached out to the Gotham Community and asked them to please forego makeup and masks, or even close down production altogether.

Braver or More Foolish players went forth and The Joker’s second “trick” was played, and the whole cast of “The Tragedy of Isolade and Tristan” found their faces turned a death-pale white, their hair a deep, luminous green, their lips a lustrous red and their bodies a bloated, and rotting, dead.

GCPD took charge at this point and shut down every On and Off the street production, even going so far as to shut down every makeup house and fashion outlet. Soon Enough, the whole Entertainment Industry was closed, save for Stand-up joints, which were seeing a boom.

Hallowe’en came and the only Live entertainment in Gotham was someone standing with a mic and telling jokes. The city was full of Laughs.

The Joker appeared in a web video to say “You’re welcome, Laughingist City on Earth!” and he took a bow.

The Batman had him in hand by the next day, but you can’t help but wonder if the Joker just let himself be caught, since he’d had his Punchline.

Weeks of Reading

Over the last few weeks the local Dollarama (a Walmart Company?) has been stocking massive piles of Trade Paper Backs (TPB) so much so that I’ve already overrun my bookshelves and storage. I have a pile of Books on my bedside table FOR STORAGE. Not for reading. I’ve also got a stack in the Bathroom and a bunch that have just sort of found a home in one of my short bookshelves.

Usually, I would just read through them. Start on “book X” and read all the ones that are in the same series until done.

I’ve been keeping myself slow on these, mostly to string them out as long as possible. I wouldn’t normally buy (for example) a series of Thor books, but because they were so cheap I bought a big stack of them. I read Thor off an on, because the writing for Thor can get a bit “much”

All of that aside, I have weeks of reading ahead of me. Months of stories and years of memories. The problem with all that being the stack of straight novels piling up and the years of movies and TV shows I’ve avoided.

I finished “Destroy all Humans” last night.

I have too much Passive Media around I think. Also, I just turned 45, you should see my Collection of Transformers!

We're Doomed

RIP Dwayne McDuffie

Imagine if Stan Lee had been exposed to Public Enemy and the Nation of Islam and if Siegel and Schuster had spent some time absorbing the wild life in Detroit.

Now imagine the comics they would create.

That’s kind of how I experienced the Milestone line of comics.  Icon was a slave, Spider-man was a nerdy kid who got his powers trying to shoot his bully on the sly.

[Yup, Static got his powers when he went to a massive gang battle and was going to shoot his bully]

Static was so great that Static’s arm (the only part of him I could draw) covers a comic box in my basement today.  I am a Dwayne McDuffie fan of such depth and adoration that I am completely gutted at the news that he has passed on.

You liked “Batman Beyond” That was Dwayne McDuffies touch.

Static Shock? Yup.

Justice League Unlimited (okay, these pulled from the comics)

That said; I loved Milestone and the line were among the last comics that I followed as a monthly (picking them up on Wednesdays at a comic shop) before I moved in with my wife and stopped buying comics (for a while).

I can picture the DAY I drew that arm.  Chris and I were talking about Static (which we had picked up in Port Elgin in that comic shop that ended up being in a basement) going on and on about how much we dug it and how awesome it was to have comics that went along with our love of Public Enemy and conscious rap, which really mattered to teenage us.

This  guy  gave us “OUR” Spider-man; an adolescent who was REALLY dealing with the problems we dealt with; not the problems of a “teenager” from before that mattered.

(Yeah, Static Shock had none of the “real” that the Comic had for the majority of the inital run)

I felt connected to the characters; but Static.  That was all for me as far as I was concerned.  Thanks Mr. McDuffie; you made my teenage years a bit better; and the world a little better place.

How driving past a Chick-fil-A got me back into Comics

Notorious Homophobes and Christian Values expounders Chick-fil-A were an unknown quantity to me when I first visited Virginia in 1999.  I had never seen their “Eet mor Chikin” signs nor even ventured inside one of them; and I may never ever if things continue on path.  I’ll remember Virginia for it’s temperate November, it’s hard to find liquor store and sinking me back into the morass of comics that I had abandoned not 2 years earlier.

Not an action figure but a real photo of Thor…. now what?