And yes, he’s very visually stylish–not just the rendering, which is the American superhero style distilled down to its essentials, but also a strong awareness of the page and how a story unfolds in pictures.

In short, I think that Jack Staff a triumph of craft rather than novelty.

I think part of Jack Staff’s rave reviews is the fact that it isn’t Marvel or DC. That always seems to earn a comic more cred than it’d get if were from Big Two.

I think “Beta Ray Bill” is one of the dumbest characters in comics.

And I even have the issues where he first appeared in a long box somewhere. As a Thor-alien, I guess he looks kinda cool (like a giant, muscled space-shrew in a Norse god costume), but that friggin’ name. It means nothing, and other than use in an ironic sense like, “Bill, the Galactic Hero,” “Bill” just doesn’t work for me as one’s superhero moniker. It sounds like the name a ten-year-old Star Trek fan would give to his Terrier, having grown out of naming pets “doggie” and “fishie.”

And Thor’s costume was always borderline dippy for me, anyway, with those circle-things all over his torso (what viking wore an outfit like that, anyway?), but slapping it on an alien…

It just didn’t work for me, and still doesn’t, and I don’t get why he rocks the world for some folks. And that’s just me, I don’t think less of anyone who likes it, I just can’t figure out the appeal.

Or virtually the entire world wide web. (This was 1994, so it was close.)

More like both Snopes and Paradox Press pillaged the works of Jan Harald Brunvand (actually, Brunvand may have been an editor/compiler for the BBofUL).

As Caduceus said, I’ve found a ziplock bag for each color, and another for points works pretty well.

If I were to have the urban legends book today for the first time I think I wouldn’t think that much of it. Like BitterCupofjoe said this was long before Snopes and fuck, Snopes totally raped this book for source material.

Being a music nerd myself, i always find it entertaining how people tend to go to their opposite hemisphere when looking for cool stuff. Me im totally into north american/canadian/european artists while being bombarded by stuff like Orishas all day long down here.

In any case, Orishas is, in fact, great. Ever listened to Calle 13? the original stuff, not the feat. Nelly Furtado that, while not bad at all, is everywhere, and not really among their best stuff. Give em a try. They lean a bit more towards Reggae, Reggaeton and their derivatives, but in a good way (No Wisin & Yandel bullcrap).