So a few people emailed me asking me to say something about Warner Todd Huston’s screed about the issue of Captain America where the tea partiers are shown in a less than sympathetic light. Individuals unfamiliar with Warner Todd Huston may need to know that this instance probably represents the apex of his influence as a professional complainant, as Warner Todd has previously complained about all sorts of other things and nobody has ever taken him seriously. However, Marvel Comics is now owned by Disney, which means that Joe Quesada – never exactly one to court the dislike of anybody other than the dedicated fanboys who will buy comics regardless of how many times he makes Spider-Man sell his soul to save an old lady – apologized immediately, because maybe Disney would fire him or something.

(I jest, of course. Let’s be honest: it makes sense for Marvel to apologize because it’s not worth the hassle of Sean Hannity crusading against them. It likewise makes sense for Ed Brubaker to apologize, because regardless of his personal beliefs he’s got a family to feed and there are more important things to go to bat over than a page out of a licensed character comic book that got some cretins’ undies up in a twist.)

This is a multipart saga, so let us begin.

1.) Warner Todd Huston Is Angry About Captain America #602

Warner Todd was very angry about this issue, and the reason he is angry is this:

In it the current Captain (there have been a few of them, apparently) is on the trail of a faux Captain America that is mentally deranged and getting chummy with some white supremacist, anti-government, survivalists types going by the name of “the Watchdogs.”

That “white supremacist” thing is a sticking point for Warner Todd, and it’s part of the reason he’s an idiot. Here are all the quotes from Captain America #602 wherein the Watchdogs are referred to as white supremacists:

(sound of tumbleweed drifting through empty town)

…oh wait, there aren’t any. Now, granted, the Watchdogs were introduced in 1987, a year after Warner “I Know All About Comics, Dammit” Todd says he quit reading them, so maybe he’s not aware that the Watchdogs, while always overtly right-wing and “traditional values”-y, were never actually portrayed as racists. (Mark Gruenwald, as I recall, wasn’t comfortable portraying them as such.) Similarly, in this issue, there is not one mention of the Watchdogs’ attitudes towards race.

Werner Todd is inferring motivation, plain and simple. He sees a mythical organization of baddies modeled after right-wing extremist militias and assumes they must be racist. There is literally not one thing in the entire comic where you can assume anything about the Watchdogs’ or protestors’ racial beliefs based on their actions. You have to want to see it.¹

But there is more:

The Captain tells him, “no it’s perfect… this all fits right into my plan.” After this we find that the Captain’s plan is to send the black man into a redneck bar to pretend to be a black man working for the IRS and to get everyone all mad… because… well, you know that every white person is a racist that hates black civil servants, right?

It feels a bit oversimplistic to point out that Bucky’s plan is actually to draw the attention of traveling Watchdog recruiters by pretending to beat up a civil servant and be all “I hate the gubmint” while they’re watching – because the Watchdogs hate the federal government, you see – but amazingly, Warner Todd was unable to figure out this actually pretty simple bit of plot. Now, granted, Ed Brubaker didn’t write in some expository thought balloons saying things like “Must make this look good… so the Watchdogs notice me and ask me to join them!” but then again I guess he made the mistake of writing above a sixth-grade reading level.

So, there you have it, America. Tea Party protesters just “hate the government,” they are racists, they are all white folks, they are angry, and they associate with secretive white supremacist groups that want to over throw the U.S. government.

My word, why would anybody ever associate tea partiers with racism? Why would anybody dare suggest that extremists might try to infiltrate the tea party movement for the purposes of recruitment? (I’m not even gonna bother collecting hyperlinks about tea partiers being “angry” or mostly white, because seriously now, come on.)

2.) Carla Hoffman Decides To Be Reasonable With A Jackass

In response to Marvel’s nigh-immediate capitulation to Warner Todd’s offense that a portrayal of a tea party rally would even dare hint at tea partiers being slightly racist rather than upstanding moral whatevers, Carla Hoffman wrote a response, to which Warner Todd immediately wrote both a patronizing comment wherein he was offended that Carla hadn’t heard of him and he did too know about these here comical books, and then, not satisfied with that, an additional blog entry, because he decided that Carla was a stupidhead.

This is mostly Carla’s fault for treating Warner Todd as someone interested in discourse. She made this mistake because Carla, at root, is a nice person who wants to get along with everybody. I, however, am not a nice person and I do not give a tinker’s cuss if I get along with Warner Todd or not. The man is a pustule on public discourse and should be treated as such.²

3.) Warner Todd Escalates

Anyway. After Warner Todd complains about how liberals are stupid and self-righteous and don’t understand complex concepts – and how come they don’t just talk politely to old Warner Todd anyhow? – for a few paragraphs, he gets into the meat of his diatribe.

I should start this discussion by saying that there isn’t anything wrong with enjoying comic books, even as an adult. They can be fun, for sure. But to imagine that comic books offer anything other than lowgrade entertainment is laughable. Comics are not high art (in fact, most of them are horrible even as graphic art) and they most certainly do not equal anything of the sort of deep, consequential literature. Comics are a childish, formulaic, lowest common denominator form of entertainment. It doesn’t make them evil or useless or bad necessarily. It just makes them low-end, fun. They are nothing to be taken seriously. If you are someone that lives for your next comic, or you want to claim that comic books are “art” worthy of serious consideration… you need to get out of your parent’s basement a little more often.

First off, the incidence of a “parents’ basement” joke (with improper use of an apostrophe, way to go you professional writer you!) should be the first and most obvious sign that Warner Todd is a hack of the first degree and that this moment of accidental relevance is indeed the pinnacle of his professional life, and that should make you feel sad if you are a good person. I am not an especially good person, so it makes me feel dark and demonic glee.

Secondly, the fact that Warner Todd declaims comics as “horrible even as graphic art” just goes to show you that he’s an ignoramus who doesn’t know anything about the form generally. But maybe you want specific proof that he’s an idiot in this regard? Here you go:

Let’s start with the visual. Graphically, it isn’t very well drafted. It does have the benefit of being created in the semi-realist style that began to be popular in the 1980s, though, which instantly makes it better than today’s comics drawn in that horrible Japanese Anime/Manga style that has so pervaded the comic book industry of late.

Overcapitalized and barely coherent attack on manga aside, this is excerpted from Warner Todd’s very very long and very very stupid review of Watchmen. Yes, folks. You got that right. Warner Todd thinks that Dave Gibbons’ art on Watchmen “isn’t very well drafted.”

This is the point where you have to just kind of stare. It’s like somebody professing to know a lot about literature and saying something like “Dostoyevsky, he wasn’t really much of a writer” or how they’re very knowledgeable about classical music and saying “Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony? Nothing really special about it.” It’s not that they’re advancing a contrarian opinion, because there are a number of very reasonable critiques one can make of Watchmen – it relies too heavily on a knowledge of the form and is self-referential, Alan Moore is sometimes too self-indulgent in his asides, the pirate story as allegory is forced – but saying that Dave Gibbons’ art and layouts are bad is just so fucking ignorant of the form itself that you have to immediately disqualify the speaker as knowing a damn thing about comics generally, no matter how many comics he collected back before 1986 when he quit collecting.³

(ASIDE: Other things Warner Todd does not like about Watchmen include: Nite Owl not being able to get it up initially for Silk Spectre, Ozymandias winning, the comic’s underlying belief that in order to be a superhero there has to be something more or less wrong with you, and the two Bernies being “unlikeable characters” because they’re Americans being written by an Englishman. No, really. He says all of this. Really, if you want to see the most trite, lazy comics “analysis” I’ve read in quite some time, do yourself a favour and click the link. We could totally have a contest! “Stupidest Thing Warner Todd Huston Says About Watchmen.“)

Anyway. Enough about Warner Todd and Watchmen, the point of which is merely to illustrate the depths of his know-nothingness. Let us continue. After Warner Todd complains at length about Carla saying “welcome to comics” and how he had tons and tons of comics back in the day (which was twenty-five years ago)

The “letter” was written by one Carla Hoffman and is replete with uninformed assumptions, hackneyed pop psychology, all wrapped up in a total failure to observe the first tenet in journalism: contact your subject before you write anything.

I can’t think of anything I’d want to do more than contact an over-ripe douchebag like this guy!

Again, Warner Todd is taking offense that Carla didn’t bother to do her research and find out that he used to read comic books twenty-five years ago so of course he knows everything there is to know about comics. Instead, Carla merely assumed that Warner Todd’s inability to actually discuss the comic in question, combined with his show of naivete over there being multiple Captain Americas, meant that he was unfamiliar with the current state of comics and comic storytelling. I wonder why she thought such a thing!

Of course, this uninformed assumption shows her arrogance. You see, because I criticized the comic book she assumed that I couldn’t possibly have ever liked comics.

No, Warner Todd. She wrote that because she’s polite, and because your argument was whining bullshit with little to no basis in reality dependent on your projection. Carla, being nice, made the assumption that you were ignorant rather than stupid and/or intellectually dishonest.

Unintentionally funny was her prosaic proclamation that the Internet spawns “strong opinion” as if my piece was merely that, yet her’s isn’t.

DEAR “PROFESSIONAL WRITER” WARNER TODD HUSTON: Please learn how to use a fucking apostrophe.

Also, Carla’s piece might be opinion – sure it is – but “strong?” She used very mild language. She didn’t use any invective or make a single personal attack – you finding ways to be insulted by her essay doesn’t count, Warner Todd – or indeed do anything other than say “you took it one way, but isn’t it also possible to read it this way?” That’s not “strong.” That’s mild. You know how I know it’s mild? Because she didn’t start making fun of your name and calling you “Weiner Todd,” which I am certain happened to you in high school in between vigorous masturbation sessions over a copy of Vampirella, wherein you had two, count ‘em TWO, letters to the editor published.

Or, in other words: stop being a whiny-ass titty-baby, Warner Todd.

Apparently someone forgot to alert little Miss Hoffman that there haven’t been any “Pro-Bush rallies” since about 2003 when he last ran for president. Further, Miss Hoffman obviously has no clue that the Tea Party movement is just as mad at Bush as they are Clinton and Obama.

They were so mad at him that they sat on their asses for eight years until President Blacky McBlackerton got elected! That sure showed him. Of course, Carla wasn’t attempting to suggest that Tea Party rallies were explicitly pro-Bush rallies – why would anybody think that – but instead that the Tea Partiers, rather than being apolitical as per their claim, were merely an extension of Republican activism. Of course, reading that would require the ability to understand subtlety and nuance, which Weiner Todd isn’t good at except for when he’s trying to find proof that Ed Brubaker thinks tea partiers are racists.

Uh, no. Sam Wilson is not his “real name.” Sam Wilson is a character’s name. It isn’t a real person we’re talking about here. This poor young lady cannot tell reality from fiction, apparently.

Weiner Todd here feels the need to take a cheap shot at Carla, who was honestly nothing but pleasant to him. “Real name,” in this instance, of course refers to “Sam Wilson’s personal name, as opposed to calling him ‘the Falcon.’” I assume that Weiner Todd knows this, and had to sit back and have a good giggle in his study – fondly remembering his erotic adventures with Vampirella, who whispered in his ear that he was a true comics fan.

Anyway, there’s an awful lot more in this poor girl’s “open letter” that puts her in a pretty bad light for logic, intelligence, and delusion.

“…which I’m not gonna get into. No reason!”

Since right after her letter to me I replied. (You can see my reply here, too), let’s get to the unhinged, hatemongers that chose to reply to my posting after Hoffman’s.

DEAR “PROFESSIONAL WRITER” WERNER TODD HUSTON: Learn how to not splice a fucking comma.

But anyway, the rest of his article is just Weiner Todd whining endlessly about how commenters at Robot 6 weren’t nice to him after he shat copious and unearned condescension on Carla:

There were, of course, all sorts of distempered name calling and obscene language, the sort we’ve come to expect from the left. There was the ever common “asshole,” the varied spellings of “douche bag,” an occasional “jerk,” and “Nazi.” Even at least one “fucking clown” was thrown in for good measure. But remember, each and every one of these poor youngsters assumed that they were more open minded, nicer, more tolerant than that mean old Warner Todd Huston.

This is one of my least favorite tactics: the “barbarians at the gate” argument, ever beloved of conservative writers on the internet. “Oh my heavens! You have said a swear! That completely invalidates every single one of your points because you are clearly no gentleman, sir! Good day! I must exit before I come down with a case of the vapours!”

For the sake of illumination, let me present how Weiner Todd opened his essay attacking Carla:

These emails and replies to my comic book analysis really brought it home that to be a liberal you must make assumptions of your enemy so that they fit neatly into your preconceived notions of the world and you must never try to ask them any questions to determine if they really do fit into the box you’ve constructed for them. You must assume you are more grown up than those you attack. You must assume that you are more intelligent. You also must assume that people that like the same sort of things that you like must think just like you do. In other words, to be a liberal you must begin every discussion, every consideration of ideological premises, with the base assumption that all good people are just like you. Everyone else is venal, mean, stupid or low. Not just wrong, but evil.

I’m not sure what’s more impressive here: the sheer volume of projection on Weiner Todd’s part, or the fact that this is just a long series of personal attacks largely unjustified by the rest of his column where he then complains about other people’s personal attacks. For people like Warner Todd, “civility” isn’t anything to do with attitude or manners; it’s to do with specific words. It’s a set of rules – don’t say this, don’t say that, but this and the other are permissible – rather than a sense of respecting other people. When you understand that attitude, you understand a lot about Weiner Todd.⁴

1. Now, granted, the Falcon is leery of hanging out with the tea partiers in the book. But guess what: Sam Wilson is a black liberal. Do you think black liberals want to hang out with tea partiers generally? I’m sorry, but when did we get so, ahem, politically correct as to demand that tea partiers be perceived equally by citizens of all colours and creeds as upstanding and moral figures in a work of fiction, and even so by fictional figures who would reasonably be leery of them were they real people? Warner Todd, you big ol’ Tolerance Bear, you. [↩]
2. Also, he is the only guy I have ever seen who manages to look worse both with facial hair and without. If he is going to learn anything from comic books, it is the value of a mask. [↩]
3. ”Hey, guys! I know a lot about music! I stopped buying albums back in 1986 but I still know lots about them! Do you guys like Duran Duran? They’re pretty awesome, right?” [↩]
4. And, one hopes, why I completely abandoned any attempt at civility after the first paragraph of this entry. [↩]

- The way that Green Arrow somehow shoots an entire flight of dagger-icicles with a single arrow

- When Hawkman is in his armor he totally has an armor potbelly

- The way that Stargirl was the most annoying character ever

- The fact that Geoff Johns’ dialogue is, what, maybe two steps above George Lucas’ dialogue when the former tries to get all Meaningful and Important and the orchestra rises up in the background

- The way Dr. Fate sounds kind of like a Muppet

- How the members of the JSA constantly refer to those not there by their full names, which makes one wonder if, when they have a barbecue, they say things like “Sorry I’m late – Al Pratt forgot to pick me up. Did we get the hamburger buns?” “No, Alan Scott is getting the buns, and Wesley Dodds is getting the beer”

- Actual line spoken by Hawkman: “Why what, Green Punching Bag?” No really somebody paid Geoff Johns to write that

- Being reminded of the fact that the Golden Age Flash and Green Lantern would look incredibly dorky in real life

- How everybody’s attitude towards Clark is about one degree shy of actual outright cocksucking

- The constant carping by Hawkman (played by an actor who is 38) about how he and the Justice Society were fighting crime when Clark (played by an actor who is 31) and Oliver (played by an actor who is 33) were little kids, like having three days’ worth of stubble suddenly makes you super-old

- HEY EVERYBODY J’ONN SAID HOW HE LIKES COOKIES AND THEY NAMECHECKED MICHAEL HOLT SO THIS IS THE BEST SUPERHERO TV MOVIE THING EVER

- Hinting of “the coming apocalypse” by Amanda Waller to give hope to Smallville fans that maybe the Fourth World will be the one major story arc Smallville does not completely fuck up

- That I knew it was going to be this shitty in advance and I still watched it

Paul Giamatti voicing Asterix in the English-language version of Asterix and the Vikings.

Brad Garrett as Obelix works quite well, but every time I see Asterix open his mouth I now expect him to say “dubbayooENNNNNNNNbeesee!”

The year is 1958. The month is June. The teenagers of small-town America are filled with a nebulous sense of rebellion against repressive sexuality and social convention. It was inevitable that some business genius would make money off their forbidden longings. A proto-beatnik named Forsythe P. Jones opens his own “escort service,” which involves not only renting himself out to all the women of Riverdale, but wearing any disguise that suits their kinky fantasies. He even tries to expand the business by taking on Reginald Mantle as a sort of junior gigolo, to take up with women who are too scary for the boss to handle himself.

I’ve once again done the embeddable YouTube video thing, but some of the panels are hard to read in this format, so you can also click here to see the story with the original page layouts. (For those who care about such things, Archie comics had a lot more panels in the late ’50s and early ’60s than they had before or after. Sometime in the ’60s most of their artists switched to a rule whereby there couldn’t be more than six panels per page.)

Also, an important principle that Dan DeCarlo followed in his ’50s prime was that girls’ skirts must be flowing in the breeze whenever possible. Riverdale must have been some windy town.

One thing I’ve been wondering for years is whether “It sounds creamy!” was actually a slang phrase of the time or if it’s just a vaguely dirty-sounding substitute for “dreamy.”

Has there ever been a news story as anticlimatic as the revelation that prisoner “suicides” at Guantanamo Bay were probably actually murders? Seriously, is anybody surprised by the idea that Guantanamo Bay had torturing going on at this point? The BBC had a guard tearfully request forgiveness from his former captives just last week, for crissake. All this story does is confirm what most people already knew; you can practically hear Fox News anchors practicing their “you have to torture a few eggs to make an omelet” speeches already, maybe with a side of “and if it’s so bad why hasn’t Obama shut it down yet?”

Of course, this puts that whole “committing suicide was an act of war” rhetoric that was flying around at the time in proper context. At the time I thought it was just stupid. I should have recognized overcompensation when I saw it.

I don’t think any comic book of the ’70s had as much insane shit in it as Archie at Riverdale High. And that’s saying a lot, because we are talking about the ’70s here. But this title, launched in the early ’70s as a home for “serious” stories focusing on academic or athletic issues, packed an impressive number of WTF moments into its bi-monthly issues. You could pick up an issue at random and find: Archie beats up the members of a rival school when they “touch his body with a Central High towel”; a famous painter agrees to paint Mr. Weatherbee on condition that Archie will pose for him in the nude (which he does); Archie infiltrates another rival high school in drag; Archie uses special-effects technology to convince everyone that a kid is actually a superpowered alien named “Nazda.” Many of these stories were also full of floridly melodramatic captions, a possible throwback to Frank Doyle’s early days writing and drawing “Space Rangers” and “Wambi, the Jungle Boy”.

You can make an argument for the higher weirdness quotient of Life With Archie, where Archie spent the ’70s battling Satanic, child-murdering teddy bears, but that title always had fantasy/alternate-universe stuff. But what happens to a kid’s brain when he picks up a comic about high school adventures and is treated to a story like this one, where Betty loses her memory, wanders off and becomes a mud wrestler? And then the only way for Archie and Jughead to save her is for Jughead to disguise himself as a woman, and what is it with this title and men in drag, anyway?

I turned this into an embeddable YouTube video because it’s just easier to post that way. The Hector Berlioz music is just meant to speed the story along and the choice is not of any significance, though I take pride in the fact that the big cymbal crash coincides with the key moment in the whole story: Jughead’s realization that Archie wants him to make The Supreme Sacrifice. Which, as I mentioned, involves drag.

That story pretty much speaks for itself. I do want to point out one thing that has haunted me since young me encountered this in a digest. Understand, I don’t believe in nit-picking the plot holes in anything, let alone comic books. Pointing out every plot hole as if each one is some kind of crippling flaw is almost as bad as pointing out every continuity goof in a movie. All that said:

This previously-unknown kid who goes to the carnival — he has to be a new kid because they couldn’t let any of their regulars willingly go to such a “sleazy outfit” — sees a girl from his school who has been missing for days, maybe weeks. His first statement after recognizing her is “I’ve got to call Archie.” I’m just saying, if this guy thinks he should call Archie before notifying the police… or her parents… or even the principal… then he is so dumb that he probably walked into an open manhole as soon as this story was over. And that explains why we never saw him again.

The other important lesson from this comic is that you can learn a lot about characters from what they say when Jughead throws them Helluva Far™. Betty says “EEP!” like all good-hearted people. Stan Snavely exclaims “AIEEE!,” like some Jonny Quest villain. That’s how we know he’s evil.

For those interested, Yank and Doodle are the kid sidekicks of the Black Owl, a superhero who wears blue and red and therefore makes no sense. The Black Owl is a suburban family man and Yank and Doodle are his sons, but Yank and Doodle are not aware that the Black Owl is their father for some reason the Black Owl never adequately explains. This also makes no sense. In fact, the Black Owl is so concerned with keeping his identity a secret from his sons that he actually makes them meet him on the other side of town from their home in an abandoned lot. This continues to make no sense. Also, the Black Owl has a supercar that can transform into a plane, and is not somehow a millionaire of any type but instead basically Ward Cleaver in spandex, which makes the least sense of all.

Ah, Golden Age comics! Thank god Alex Ross was born so that you could be dug out of justifiable obscurity!

The remains of Underground New Beijing.

(from Personal Love #1)

People talk about Golden Age Wonder Woman panels being disturbing, but really, those are nothing. This just makes me feel unclean.

(from Dixie Dugan #2)

Okay, so Santa Claus is a trucker, and he asked Spidey for help. This is because Trucker Santa wants to make sure that kids everywhere get the chance to buy a fishing rod (and it has to be the right fishing rod, so the kids need their dad’s help, because no way would Mom know anything about fishing because she’s a girl) so they can have a chance at winning a million dollars. And the reason Trucker Santa needs Spidey’s help is because… maybe robbers will try to steal the million dollars! And nobody’s better at stopping robbers than your friendy neighborhood Spider-Man! Because the last time he didn’t stop a robber, his Uncle Ben got shot. God only knows whose uncle would get shot if Spidey didn’t stop the robbers this time!

That’s my best shot at explaining this, unless there’s some early Lee/Ditko issue of Amazing Spider-Man I’m not aware of where Spidey goes into extended detail about how much he loves fishing.

Once again, Sarah Palin writes a column saying that the secret to American energy independence is drilling for oil.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the fact that Palin claims energy issues as her particular sphere of expertise just amazes me, and similarly it amazes me that nobody important bothers to point out that, on her professed area of expertise, she is a goddamned idiot.

To be fair, for quite possibly the first time ever, Palin actually includes a few numbers in her screed: specifically, domestic American petroleum consumption. Unfortunately, this does not get her a cookie, because if you’re going to talk numbers about consumption and then say “well we gots to drill more of them wells you betcha,” you need to link it to that other number, which is production.

The United States has an estimated 21 billion barrels of remaining uncollected oil reserves.¹ Were it all to become suddenly available tomorrow, the USA’s consumption rate of 19.5 million barrels per day wouldn’t allow it to last long. This is because a consumption rate of 19.5 million barrels per day is also a consumption rate of 7.1 billion barrels per year. So basically, the United States has nearly three years’ worth of oil reserves handy at its current consumption rate.

Of course, that figure isn’t really that meaningful either, because there is still no magic straw given to us by a friendly genie² that gets all the oil out. Oil wells do not show up overnight. Even if the United States government expedited the leasing process, the oil companies still have to drill exploratory wells, develop a production plan from that exploration, and then install production wells. That’s a six-to-nine-year process to reach basic production.

And even when you reach basic production, you don’t reach peak production that quickly any more, because all the easily drilled oil deposits are now empty. Oil is sometimes in the ground in a big single pool; the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia, for example, was mostly a big-ass single pool. But the big-pool deposits are mostly gone, so you can’t just stick a well into the ground and get all the oil from a single field. What’s left in the ground at this point is the harder-to-reach stuff: far-offshore fields (which take more than six to nine years to successfully explore and drill, one might add) and land-based fields which are kind of like Styrofoam except instead of air pockets there are oil pockets. These do not produce oil at “traditional” production rates. It will be in the neighborhood of fifteen years before anybody sees more than a relative dribble.

And finally, unless Sarah Palin plans to nationalize the oil industry like some sort of socialist or something, that oil is just going to go onto the free market anyway, where all the other countries in the world – like, say, India and China – will compete for its purchase. And frankly, at this point they can more easily afford it than the United States can.

So to sum up: Sarah Palin’s “drill” plan involves ignoring how much oil is actually in the ground, how quickly it can be drilled, how easily it can be accessed, and the basic reality of the global oil market. And this is where she thinks she is an expert.

Dear Rachel Maddow: please, just take all of this, put your Rachel Maddow style on it, and do a five-minute segment. You can’t tell me you don’t want to make fun of Sarah Palin again. You would be lying if you said that.

1. CIA World Factbook, following from World Oil and Oil and Gas Journal. British Petroleum’s most recent publicly available statistical analysis – in 2007 – puts it at 30 billion, but most consider that an outlier. [↩]
2. Genies hate the Middle East for bottling them, so clearly they would be on America’s side. Well, if they existed, anyway. [↩]

(cover of Justice Traps the Guilty #50)

I am pretty comfortable with whatever people might think of me in most circumstances, but I am still compelled to make this perfectly bloody clear: I did not purchase a copy of Glamour with my own money. My wife and I have moved into a new apartment, and whoever lived here before us apparently did not forward his or her (I do not make assumptions) subscription. At one point we were basically camping at our new place, and there was a period of time where that Glamour was the only reading material in the house apart from the ingredients on the Special K. So I read it, and I will fight to the death any man, woman, or child who derides me for doing so.

Now, you may have never read a copy of Glamour, so you might think of me as a sort of explorer; the guy who went into the uncharted Amazon so you didn’t have to and reported back what he found (answer: small, delicious frogs).

I am here to tell you that Glamour Magazine is weird.

First off, the cover copy says “Finally! Answers to All Your Questions About Sex and Love.” For realsies, Glamour? It took 70 years of continuous, monthly publication, but as of the November 2009 issue, they have finally answered those last, nagging questions on the subject; with nothing more to be said, I am sure this final issue will become a collector’s item.

No, look, whoever decides what the big, bold, main cover copy will say for Glamour decided to simply mention that they will be answering questions about sex and dating. I would be quite fascinated to see what else is in that copywriter’s portfolio. The June 2005 issue of Playboy: “Photos of Naked Women Inside!” Consumer Reports, August ’07: “Reviews and Comparisons of Various Products Available for Purchase!” The award-winning February 2004 Newsweek: No images, just bold white text on a black field stating “CURRENT EVENTS.”

Anyway.  Moving on. So, Scarlett Johansson is on the cover, right? And there’s a little “About the Cover” blurb near the front of the magazine as you’d expect, but they do not tell you who this person is and why you should read about her. No, they just assume you already know. Instead, they tell you what kind of makeup she’s wearing, how much it cost, and who did it for her. It’s like twenty lines of small type! And in the back there is an entire page dedicated to approximate prices of the clothes everybody is wearing. But I’m not sure that the young single mum who buys Glamour in the supermarket can afford a $75 T-shirt (no matter how many fuzzy pompoms it’s covered in), and wouldn’t rich people have a more exclusive source? Isn’t there, like, a special, platinum-level internet for the wealthy and famous? (Fun fact: Platinum Internet actually is a system of tubes.)

And then there’s the celebrity fragrances. Man, I don’t understand this either. Reese Witherspoon has a fragrance. All of a sudden that price page at the back seems almost sane to me.  Because I guess you could see something Reese Witherspoon is wearing and want to buy it too, or think her makeup and hair are really done well and look up who did them. Maybe you could even find out where she learned how to act and do that too, if you really admired her or something. But here’s the thing – I have no idea what Reese Witherspoon smells like, and you probably do not either. None of the media through which you experience Reese Witherspoon includes aroma capabilities. What about watching Election makes you think, “Gosh, I bet she is a fantastic perfumer”?

But the most odious thing about this magazine was the feature on plus-size models, featuring a nude (but strategically covered) photo spread. Let’s leave aside the condescending-sounding copy accompanying the photos (“Oh. Wow. These Bodies Are Beautiful” is actually how the title of article is punctuated. Jeez guys, try not to sound too excited or anything). Let’s even leave out that none of these women are really even all that plus-sized. No, what I want to call Glamour out on is the self-congratulatory tone they seem to feel entitled to for daring to showcase *gasp* size 12 models. They devoted six pages or so to women of a so-called “average” body type … with the other two hundred and forty devoted to the same kind of superthin models as usual, and acted as though they just tore down the Berlin Wall. This does not impress me, Glamour. This is the fashion and body equivalent of “Um, actually, I’ve got a co-worker who’s black and I’m very friendly with him…”

And the real kicker about this whole thing? And the reason why the guy who usually writes about mainstream superhero comics is bringing it up?

This magazine costs $3.99.

Do you see? I have spent this blog post tearing down this magazine that is totally not even marketed to me, but even chock full of 246 pages of crap and ads that I cannot distinguish from the articles, it is probably still a better value than 22 plus ads pages of Dark Avengers of Cry for Justice at the same price. I understand Glamour going for $3.99; like I said, they have an itemized list on how much all the dresses and makeup cost.

I just hope they’ve got Brian Michael Bendis decked out in Louis Vuitton for all that.

Animals with Lightsabers.

I really need to learn whatever scripting language I need to learn so I can make a single-idea-website generator and then make a billion dollars from it somehow.

I’m not sure how I make the billion dollars precisely, but I know it involves Richard Branson, a jar of Vicks VapoRub, a blender, and a pair of antelope.

…that fishermen have discovered a parasite that eats its host fish’s tongue and then lives in its mouth, living off the food the fish consumes?

Gross, huh?

I offer this interesting piece of trivia as evidence there are worse things you can put into peoples’ mouths than words.

Having said that, can YOU tell who didn’t actually say the following? Answers in the footnotes¹.

-“Best show some humility when talkin’ to Congress there, boy.” ²

-“I haven’t been arrested for a hit and run all year, therefore that dead guy in the street is totally unrelated to the dead guy-shaped dent in my hood.”³

-“ABC News said more than one and a half million people attended the 9/12 rally. That’s a whole lot of people ABC News says are totally real and I do not have a small penis.”⁴

-“Kanye West made a mockery of the VMAs, utterly destroying the long-standing tradition of solemn contemplation and celebration of the achievements of the best the popular performing arts have to offer.”⁵

-“Kanye West is a total dick.”⁶

-“I just want to say we need to collectively take a breath. This whole thing’s gotten out of hand and we all just need to calm down people before it al”⁷

-“We never said More than a million people attended the 9/12 project. Fuck no, that’s crazy talk, whoever said that is a pathetic liar with penis issues.”⁸

-“I can’t say comment on the Disney/Marvel merger but that’s no reason for me not to give a lengthy, uninformative interview on the subject this one time.”⁹

-”Shit, I should really post something on MGK today…”¹⁰

1. SPOILER WARNING! [↩]
2. “I think [President Obama]’s going to have to express some humility based on what we’ve seen around the country during August, and that’s not his inclination.” – Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss [↩]
3. “All year, I’ve never been foot-faulted and then suddenly in this tournament they keep calling foot faults” – Serena Williams [↩]
4. Freedom Works President Matt Kibbe [↩]
5. Absolutely no one. [↩]
6. Almost everyone. [↩]
7. Someone who is A) probably right and B) doesn’t understand how to use Twitter. [↩]
8. “At no time did ABC News, or its affiliates, report a number anywhere near as large.” – ABC News [↩]
9. “Certain statements in this communication may constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements relate to a variety of matters, including but not limited to: the operations of the businesses of The Walt Disney Company (“Disney”) and Marvel Entertainment, Inc. (“Marvel”) separately and as a combined entity; the timing and consummation of the proposed merger transaction; the expected benefits of the integration of the two companies; the combined company’s plans, objectives, expectations and intentions and other statements that are not historical fact. These statements are made on the basis of the current beliefs, expectations and assumptions of the management of Disney and Marvel regarding future events and are subject to significant risks and uncertainty. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. Neither Disney nor Marvel undertakes any obligation to update or revise these statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

   “Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. Such differences may result from a variety of factors, including but not limited to:

   * legal or regulatory proceedings or other matters that affect the timing or ability to complete the transactions as contemplated;
   * the possibility that the expected synergies from the proposed merger will not be realized, or will not be realized within the anticipated time period or that the businesses will not be integrated successfully;
   * the possibility of disruption from the merger making it more difficult to maintain business and operational relationships;
   * the possibility that the merger does not close, including but not limited to, due to the failure to satisfy the closing conditions;
   * any actions taken by either of the companies, including but not limited to, restructuring or strategic initiatives (including capital investments or asset acquisitions or dispositions);
   * and developments beyond the companies’ control, including but not limited to: changes in domestic or global economic conditions, competitive conditions and consumer preferences;
   * adverse weather conditions or natural disasters; health concerns; international, political or military developments; and technological developments.

   “Additional factors that may cause results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements are set forth in the Annual Report on Form 10-K of Disney for the year ended September 27, 2008, which was filed with the SEC on November 20, 2008, under the heading “Item 1A—Risk Factors” and in the Annual Report on Form 10-K of Marvel for the year ended December 31, 2008, which was filed with the SEC on February 27, 2009, under the heading “Item 1A—Risk Factors,” and in subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K and other filings made with the SEC by each of Marvel and Disney.” -Marvel Comics Editor in Chief  Joe Quesada [↩]

10. -Foley [↩]

Deep-fried butter.