Movie Mondays!

Fantastic Four 2, not a great movie but an entertaining popcorn fest. On the ten scale it would log in at a 6 or a 7 falling solidly into the upper end of the spectrum. The biggest problems these movies have (films based on beloved Marvel franchises) are the expectations of fans, movies will never mirror a comic precisely. Film is a different medium and the quality can vary widely from a high water mark as in the Dark Knight to the ultimate of stinkers exemplified by the Dolph Lundgren Punisher. Fantastic Four 2 has enough to enjoy. The performances are decent enough and stay true to the original characters, the story has some touches that may be off-putting to true fans but are there to make it accessible to a wider audience and the effects are exceptional well done. It’s a bit of a mindless diversion, not great art but still entertaining.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

And now, for something completely different...

A Woman’s Perspective on Younger Men

With the thought that as a man, it’s always good to hear a woman’s viewpoint if only to try and understand them better.

I’m glad this f***er is dead!

Nothing is as twisted or as self indulgent as this story:

While Trouble hit the jackpot, Helmsley also unceremoniously cut two of her grandchildren out of her will. They sued, arguing that their grandmother wasn’t of sound mind when she signed the document in 2005. Disgruntled grown grandchildren Craig Panzirer and Meegan Panzirer Wesolko each received several million in the ensuing deal, and a judge knocked $10 million off Trouble’s inheritance, putting the sum back in the $8 billion Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.

And anyone who thinks the statement above is about cruelty to animals should unscrew their head from their *ss, this is about moronic ***holes, vindictive people who reach out with their last breath to hurt the people closest to them. There is a special place in hell for someone like Leona Helmsley, known as The queen of Mean during the course of her lifetime one can only hope she burns in hell for an eternity.

An afternoon at the gallery.

Impulse_i52_p19_EVS-Rollins

Some of Ethan Van Sciver's earliest work for DC as this beautiful splash shows Bart and friends confronting a monster.

Now we’re getting into some meat here!

Again, the theme of “Buying What You Like” comes to the fore. Here, a page from Impulse. As I said earlier, Impulse was a favorite of mine (although given the circulation numbers for the book, I was in a minority). I believe I have the complete run of the book, I never missed an issue. When Ethan Van Sciver came onto the title, I liked his work a great deal. At the time, it was some of Van Sciver’s first work for DC and he was nowhere near as popular or had even remotely the fan following that he has today.

I can remember championing his work to friends who were (or at one time had been) comic’s pros and I clearly remember them being a bit dismissive of Van Sciver’s work deeming it to be both too cartoony and having too much of a manga influence. So, Van Sciver’s later success while something of a hollow vindication, is still quite a pleasing turn of events.

I’ve met EVS and truthfully, he was a bit standoffish. I used to follow the blogs he and Rags Morales had over at ComicBloc but they stopped posting over there years ago. His work though is simply amazing to look at as this page readily proves.

Check out my Comic Art Fans Galleries! © All scans copyright PJ Mungiole 2011 - may not be reproduced, reused, reposted without permission.

Movie Mondays!

I’m still trying to figure out why NBC gave up on this series. While there are a plethora of procedural police shows (CSI, NCIS) and innumerable Wolfe productions (L&O franchises), BOOMTOWN was unique in the way it told stories – each show gave viewers several different vantage points into the episode’s story. It was one of the most well-acted and well-written shows of the season (’02). There are only 24 episodes in total of the series but they are some of the best television of the last decade. If Boomtown had been on USA or TBS it more than likely would have been had a longer run but the skewed standards of network broadcast television killed a very good series on the vine.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

And now, for something completely different...

A Woman’s Perspective on Chick Flicks

With the thought that as a man, it’s always good to hear a woman’s viewpoint if only to try and understand them better.

An afternoon at the gallery.

Hulk_v01_a18_p26_Maguire-Vancata

A writer named Lucien Aster has published a book entitled “Spelling Made Easy.” Inside are actual mystical incantations. Whosoever reads the incantations is transformed into a demon. Aster is holding a book signing at a mall outlet in Reno, Nevada. Rick Jones and Marlo Chandler are present.Suddenly a demon appears and begins wreaking havoc. Although nobody realizes it, the demon is actually Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner (as well as a human woman named Jill Walker). The demon instinctively dives into a fountain in order to get some water. Rick Jones throws an electric guitar into the fountain. The electric jolt shocks Namor’s essence from the demon’s consciousness, and it is forced to merge with Rick Jones’ body. The demon turns back into Jill Walker. Hulk finds the Namor possessed Jones and takes him to New York to see Doctor Strange. Strange is concerned about this new book as it is placing great mystic power into the hands of the general public.

More Maguire work from the same job (see last week).

You know when I was first doing the research on who had worked on this job, Joe Rubinstein was listed as an inker on it and it turned out the website listing him was in fact wrong. And I found out because Joe tracked me down to let me know it wasn’t a job her worked on!

Great stuff and also you got to love how Maguire’s Hulk has the bowl cut haircut and looks more like the Kirby Hulk, no?

Check out my Comic Art Fans Galleries! © All scans copyright PJ Mungiole 2011 - may not be reproduced, reused, reposted without permission.

Movie Mondays!

As the years pass, I find myself rediscovering some of the great loves of my youth, returning to them with fresh eyes and basking in enjoyment of them all over again. This documentary about Wings is as much about the band and the music as it is about Paul McCartney's life in the decade after the breakup of the Beatles. Wings for a period in the 70’s enjoyed a great deal of success and plenty of airplay on radio - for good reason, a lot of Wings music was (and still is) terrific. Old fans will enjoy the nostalgia of reliving the Wings catalog chronologically and finding out the backstory of the group. New fans will find it an entry into some of the best music the seventies has to offer. Through it all, viewers are treated to the intimate portrait of the romance between Paul and Linda McCartney. It turns out to be a very touching story too and one I find at times moved me to tears. It’s really one of the best music documentaries I’ve seen in quite some time, just excellent.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

And now, for something completely different...

A Woman’s Perspective on Penis Size Part 2

With the thought that as a man, it’s always good to hear a woman’s viewpoint if only to try and understand them better.

An afternoon at the gallery.

Hulk_v01_a18_p22_Maguire-Vancata

A writer named Lucien Aster has published a book entitled “Spelling Made Easy.” Inside are actual mystical incantations. Whosoever reads the incantations is transformed into a demon. Aster is holding a book signing at a mall outlet in Reno, Nevada. Rick Jones and Marlo Chandler are present.Suddenly a demon appears and begins wreaking havoc. Although nobody realizes it, the demon is actually Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner (as well as a human woman named Jill Walker). The demon instinctively dives into a fountain in order to get some water. Rick Jones throws an electric guitar into the fountain. The electric jolt shocks Namor’s essence from the demon’s consciousness, and it is forced to merge with Rick Jones’ body. The demon turns back into Jill Walker. Hulk finds the Namor possessed Jones and takes him to New York to see Doctor Strange. Strange is concerned about this new book as it is placing great mystic power into the hands of the general public.

I love Kevin Maguire, really! Well, not so much the guy (who I’ve met and who actually is a pretty nice guy) but I really do go gaga over his work.

Kevin Maguire to me will forever be associated with well drawn characters who always seem to have the most expressive and fitting facial expression of just about any artist out there. Maguire’s characters are actor’s in their own right as they can really sell a writer’s story in a way other artists can’t manage to pull off.

I first found Maguire’s art in Justice League and Justice League of the time was one of my favorite books. It was funny and exciting all at the same time and every single character in the book had their own distinctive and unique personality. Maguire is one of those guys whose work would make me buy a book.

Also, a friend of mine used to draw in the exact same style (it’s really too bad he gave up drawing).

Check out my Comic Art Fans Galleries! © All scans copyright PJ Mungiole 2011 - may not be reproduced, reused, reposted without permission.

Movie Mondays!

Caprica is different, very different from BSG and consequently fans of the reimaged series will find themselves loving Caprica or hating it, there is no middle ground. While I liked it, it is dramatically different in tone from BSG and there's the rub. The creators made a conscious effort to go in another direction. The result is a bit of a hybrid in the focus being more on the younger characters than I would like. Caprica seems more like one of those WB shows, you know the ones populated by a bunch of younger actors living very dramatic lives. It’s very hard not to draw comparisons, especially since a love of BSG will drive most people to check out Caprica. Eric Stoltz and Esai Morales are actually quite good and their performances are one of the saving graces of the film. However, most of Caprica is too laden with obvious clichés to be considered gound-breaking. Unless it finds its center fast, I don’t think it is the kind of show that will garner the level of interest of its parent, it really plays to a very specific and limited audience as a result.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

And now, for something completely different...

A Woman’s Perspective on Penis Size

With the thought that as a man, it’s always good to hear a woman’s viewpoint if only to try and understand them better.

An afternoon at the gallery.

Gen13_i47_pg09_Benes-Sibal

Ever wonder what really happens in the day-to-day lives of GEN13? Roxy takes it upon herself to videotape the whole gang in action (or is that inaction?)! With Caitlin, Grunge, Bobby, and Sarah giving the camera's eye a slice of life, they almost miss a terrible new threat in the streets of New York! Luckily our super-team can spring into motion at a moment's notice, and this time Roxy gets it all on tape! Shown from the video camera's point of view, this offbeat adventure is sure to be remembered as one of the benchmark tales from GEN13's new creative team.

Ed Benes is one of those guys who I can never quite figure out. There are times when I really love what he does but there are also times when it appears he’s just phoning it in. Then there is the whole pinup thing, Benes known (maybe notoriously so) for the many pinup (or chessecake) shots he had done through the years.

Still, Benes has matured as an artist a great deal over the last couple of years to the point where I think he garners a lot more respect and fan adoration than he ever did before. His work is good too, I mean he can draw but I always think he is someone Jim Shooter would’ve loved because it seems as if he breaks down pages into very restrictive six or four panel blocks.

Check out my Comic Art Fans Galleries! © All scans copyright PJ Mungiole 2011 - may not be reproduced, reused, reposted without permission.

I came late to this party...

Nonetheless it is still quite a cutting sendup of the recent events surrounding the US execution of Bin Laden:

The compound, only about 50 miles from the base of operations for the Imperial Storm Squadron, is at the end of a narrow dirt road and is roughly eight times larger than other homes in the area, which were largely occupied by Tusken Raiders. When Imperial operatives converged on the planet on Saturday, following up on recent intelligence, two local moisture farmers “resisted the assault force” and were killed in the middle of an intense gun battle, a senior Stormtrooper said, but details were still sketchy early Monday morning.

Movie Mondays!

This movie bears the rare distinction of being one of a very few movies I saw in a theater that lulled me to sleep. I actually went to see it during its original theatrical run (at the behest of my date) and while the theater may have been slightly on the warm side it didn’t do the trick the way this flick did. All I know is it was so ponderous, plodding and mind-numbing, I woke up very close to the end. If you’re an insomniac this may well do the trick, otherwise you’ll be better served watching paint dry.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

And now, for something completely different...

A Woman’s Perspective on Having Sex With a Guy With a Mustache

With the thought that as a man, it’s always good to hear a woman’s viewpoint if only to try and understand them better.

These are home runs.

Not a lot of times that I see commercials that I actually enjoy watching, as a matter of fact they’re pretty rare, so when I do see something well thought out and/or funny it stands out. Here are two examples:

An afternoon at the gallery.

Gen_13_i34_p18_Frank-Friend

Freefall and Rainmaker run off to find Roxy's step-mother, Lynch sends Alex out to bring them in; Warblade and Grifter are visiting Isaiah when a huge monster breaks through the wall and capturing their friend; Alex shows up at Ms. Spaulding's house to bring in the girls when, much to Roxy's surprise, her step-mother seems to know him; Their reunion is cut short, however, when they are attacked by Warhawks; Ivana shows up to take over I.O. operations.


A great moment when Ivana Baiul shows up to take over IO, superb bad girl art drawn only as Gary Frank can.

I embrace my pigdom, while I really have loved Gary Frank’s work over the years the big selling point on this page is a prominent panel featuring Ivana sporting a plunging neckline showing off excessive amounts of cleavage as well as flashing leg and displaying frilly stockings.

The numbers on my comic art fans gallery prove I am not alone because this is a page that generates quite a number of views. Currently the page is the fourth highest in number of views in my gallery although it has not been up as long as some other pieces.

Gary Frank has gotten lots more popular of late but I can fondly recall when he was doing a wonderful run on Supergirl (the Linda Danvers/Matrix version) with Cam Smith. I’ve always loved his work.

Check out my Comic Art Fans Galleries! © All scans copyright PJ Mungiole 2011 - may not be reproduced, reused, reposted without permission.

Movie Mondays!

I have the benefit of being familiar with the original series and as such I enjoyed the movie a great deal because it was a strikingly loyal translation of the original work over to film. However, to someone coming in “cold” it may prove to be a bit jarring. While the movie is considered a “super hero” film, it really conveys something of the sensibilities of its time more than anything else. Set in the early eighties, Watchmen captures the mood of that era as superpowers faced off against each other behind a wall of nuclear weapons capable of destroying the planet many times over. While it seems less important today, it was an all-consuming concern of people during that time and the basic premise of the film is: What if super heroes existed during the arms race? How would it affect the planet and the relationships between nations? In the world the film is set in, we see just how darkly an influence “heroes” would prove to be. The movie is not at all for children, it is not something of the bright and garish colors one would expect from the genre. Instead this does the second Batman film (The Dark Knight) one or two better by delving into a world where people putting on costumes and beating up criminals is more an expression of the costume wearer’s personality defects than anything at all heroic. I enjoyed it but you may not.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

And now, for something completely different...

A Woman’s Perspective on Getting Laid

With the thought that as a man, it’s always good to hear a woman’s viewpoint if only to try and understand them better.

An afternoon at the gallery.

Flash_v2_i157_p20_Pelletier-Marzan

With Wally and Linda supposedly out of the picture, the Replicant and Abra Kadabra team up to solidify their plans for destroying the Dark Flash and his fellow speedsters. Jay Garrick, meanwhile, is putting his team together with a secret plan for defeating their enemies. The whole situation does an about-face with the sudden and unexpected appearance of Professor Zoom, the Reverse Flash. He wants in on the action and a hand in destroying the Flash legacy forever!

Here Abra Kadabra turns Bart (Impulse) into a puppet.

These are two of my favorite characters. I’m a huge fan of Bart Allen/Impulse and I really like Max Mercury as well.

A big reason for that is the dynamic between the two characters and the way the Impulse title was being written at the time. Comics today generally doesn’t do such a good job with ‘young’ characters anymore. Too often, writers are caught up in two things: 1. Writing a younger character’s voice way, way older than they should (wise cracking wordly-wise youngster) 2. Writing the book way too dark in tone and removing fun and wonder from the equation.

Impulse wasn’t like that, Impulse hit a home run because it still managed to take the character and make him a real teenager with friends, school, a home life and all these other little nuances that rounded out the character and made him real. Peter David never managed to do it right in Young Justice and certainly when Geoff Johns came along and DC relaunched the characters as the new incarnation of the Teen Titans everything ran off the rails.

It is probably the single most deciding factor in why the Bart Allen Flash book never really did that well. You’d have a lot of trouble getting people to admit to that though. Robin for the most part was written really well, so was the run of the Blue Beetle from a few years back (although again, I stopped reading.buying so Lord only knows where they’ve gone with the characters since).

Check out my Comic Art Fans Galleries! © All scans copyright PJ Mungiole 2011 - may not be reproduced, reused, reposted without permission.

Movie Mondays!

It starts with a simple phrase from a computer game: “The terrible troll raises his sword.” After that, Chuck Bartowski’s life will never be the same again. I LOVE CHUCK! One of the few, great new shows on NBC of the last few years. The casting is perfect with Zachary Levi in the lead role as the underachieving Stamford dropout idling away his days working as a member of the “Nerd Herd” (the perfect capture of retail hell in a long time). Suddenly he is thrown into a world of spies and espionage with minders Adam Baldwin (in a role written specifically for him) and Yvonne Strahovski (destined for stardom) there to keep him safe. There’s a wonderful balance of comedy, action and romance here making the show true family entertainment. Plus to top it all off it’s got great music (as evidenced by the choice of a CAKE tune for the show’s opening theme). Lots of fun!

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

And now, for something completely different...

A Woman’s Perspective on Snakes

With the thought that as a man, it’s always good to hear a woman’s viewpoint if only to try and understand them better.

An afternoon at the gallery.

Flash_v2_i155_p16_Pelletier_Marzan

Wally West wakes up with Angela Margolin and helps her make breakfast. He is talking with Angela when Bart speeds in and asks him where Linda Park is. Wally tells Bart to never ask him about Linda. So Angela asks him who Linda is.In another time, two Flashes fight each other in a cemetery as a vexed Linda Park watches.Back in the present, Pied Piper uses ultrasonics to shatter the lightning obelisk outside the Flash museum to get Flash's attention. Flash arrives and Piper tells him that a villain called Replicant has absorbed all the powers of Rogues Gallery and is after Flash. Replicant arrives and begins fighting Piper and Flash.In another time, the two Flashes are fighting and are separated when they each are contained in magical jars. Linda tells them that this is the man who kidnapped her. Abra Kadabra reveals himself and magically binds and gags Linda.

Again, more Flash original art. Paul Pelletier was never a big name in comics but his work on the Flash was really quite good. It fit the title well and he did a good job with the characters. I got this page from Jose Marzan and I have to say I’ve never been upset or regretted getting it. Falls well under the heading of ‘Buy What You Like.’

Check out my Comic Art Fans Galleries! © All scans copyright PJ Mungiole 2011 - may not be reproduced, reused, reposted without permission.

The United States’ new resource for export.

There seems to be one thing we don’t have a shortage of in this country and when you think about it any instance where a nation has a surplus of something, it makes sense for that country to export its resource and certainly we could address our trade imbalance if we did just that.

Simultaneously, we could do something about reducing Federal Spending as well not just in servicing the debt either but in delivery of services.

This resource?

Stupid people.

The one thing our country has no seeming shortage of is idiots. As evidenced by yesterday’s post on the whole ‘birther’ controversy and now today this came to my attention. Can anybody say: Crass attempt to exploit your children for publicity and monetary gain? While the guy’s suite should go forward, social services should be investigating the parents because having the kids at a press conference and exploiting them in such a manner is shameless makes me question the parenting skills of the individual involved.

Atlanta pitching coach Roger McDowell apologized Wednesday in response to a fan’s complaint that McDowell spewed homophobic comments, made crude sexual gestures and threatened to knock out his teeth with a bat before the Braves played the San Francisco Giants over the weekend.

“I am deeply sorry that I responded to the heckling fans in San Francisco on Saturday,” McDowell said in a statement. “I apologize to everyone for my actions.”

Justin Quinn, 33, of Fresno said he was in the stands at AT&T Park in San Francisco during pregame batting practice with his wife and 9-year-old twin daughters when he noticed McDowell hectoring three men and asking them, “Are you guys a homo couple or a threesome?” Quinn said he proceeded to make crude sexual gestures with his hips and a bat.

Wow! A ballplayer cursing and using foul language, NOW THAT’S JUST SHOCKING!

To satisfy the truly moronic.

To all the dummies who are eating up the nice, warm crap sandwich ‘The Donald’ has been dishing these past few weeks:

The certificate, released Wednesday, says Obama was born in Hawaii, which makes him eligible to hold the office of president. Obama had earlier released a standard short form, but requested copies of his original birth certificate from Hawaii officials this week in hopes of quieting the controversy.

So, now you have it.

Of course for the people out there who want to achieve the zen-like, pinnacle of stupidity–the ones whose best retort is to stick their fingers in their ears and loudly shout, “blah, blah, blah, blah, I can’t hear you!” Even this won’t be enough.

Then again these are the same people who might actually vote for Trump were he to run, not giving any weight to the fact that ‘The Donald’ has repeatedly driven companies he’s run into bankruptcy leaving his partners holding the bag.

Movie Mondays!

LOST continues to thrill, amaze and please viewers! If you haven’t watched LOST yet, start with Season 1 and build your way to Season 5. If you start at the time of this writing (June ’09), you should be caught up right about the time the final Season (6) begins. Though many fans and the public at large have taken the series title quite literally to mean a group of survivors stranded on an island after a plane crash, LOST proves to be something more. Each of the lead characters are indeed lost in they are trying to find either a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging or simply their place in the world around them. What’s fascinating is how their lives crisscross each other’s and the question of if it is part of some grand design or merely chance and fate working their wiles. LOST is not firmly entrenched in a specific genre, taking elements liberally from sci-fi, horror, suspense, action, romance and drama. There is something in this series for just about everyone (one of the reasons it has proved so popular). Season 5 provided some great answers to questions fans had been pondering about since the series began and the 17 hours of Season 5 lived up and exceeded the standards set by the four seasons preceding it. Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Juliet, Hurley and Sayid are all prominent in Season 5 as well as holdovers from Season 4: Miles, Ben, Daniel and Charlotte. Ben is up to his old tricks and interesting connections between Charles Widmore, Ms. Hawking, Desmond and Penny (and one other) are also revealed. We get to see more of the ill fated Dharma Initiative and find out what happened to them. Along the way there are plenty of surprising twists and turns as even seemingly minor details can be integral to the story over time. If you've stopped watching Season 5 is a good reason to start watching LOST again and if you haven’t seen it at all you really don't know what you’ve been missing. LOST proves to be (in the words of another network) Must-See TV!

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

And now, for something completely different...

A Woman’s Perspective on Obscene Gestures

With the thought that as a man, it’s always good to hear a woman’s viewpoint if only to try and understand them better.

Setting the bar low.

On the dating site, there is one woman whose journal I read quite frequently because all she really does is post short questions after which a slew of members will usually chime in on.

It can be interesting sometime to see those answers, sometimes it’s just observing stupidity.

So, she recently put up the following question:

standing ovation

What is the most recent thing that you deserve a standing ovation for?

And one woman responded thusly:

Giving birth. Every woman should be given a round of applause for that feat. 

Really?

Really?!?!

I’m sorry but you’re going to have to take your head out of your ass on that one. Dogs give birth, so do cows, so do cats, so do rats... should we applaud them all? Is it no less difficult for any other female member of the animal kingdom?

I can honestly say I wouldn’t relish the prospect of passing a bowling ball through my a-hole – a description I used when talking to a former flame in the hours after she gave birth to her first child, one which she acknowledged being fairly accurate.

It sounds... painful.

Well that’s an understatement, it sounds REALLY F#@%*N’ PAINFUL!

But back to the matter at hand.

Giving birth means at some point the woman in question got porked (and I am purposefully using harsh language throughout) and not much else. It’s all the stuff that goes on after giving birth that is the important thing. All that stuff that goes into being a parent and a mother that makes the difference. Giving birth alone... well, that’s just fulfilling a biological urge and as animals we’re a bit hard-wired for these things.

I can applaud all the hard work and effort a woman puts into raising a kid (or several kids). Most of the women I know with kids would throw themselves in front of a bus before letting something happen to their kid (but again, there is some of that hard-wired stuff going on there too). And no doubt, moms are way, waaaayyyy different from dads on a whole bunch of levels.

That’s something I can applaud but the other stuff? The act of giving birth? That simply has more to do with biology than anything else.

An afternoon at the gallery.

Flash_v2_i147_p15_Pelletier-Russell

In the 25th century, Flash learns that Professor Zoom is working with the police to take down the Cobalt Blue of the time period, Chardaq Allen.In another time period, Iris West and Jay Garrick find themselves confronted by the Cobalt Blue of that time. They defeat him and Jay sends Iris on a mission of warning through time.Back in the 25th century, Flash and Zoom defeat Cobalt Blue of that time period. Then Zoom zooms off to the Flash museum where he uses the time treadmill to run into the future. Flash follows.In another century, Max Mercury and Sela Allen defeat Cobalt Blue of that time period. Max tells Sela about the problem with the Blue Flame and leaves for another time period.In another century, Bart Allen and Thondor Allen defeat ten villains. Another Flash arrives from another time period and Bart leaves for the 30th century.Back in the present, Malcolm Thawne is about to overtake Angela Margolin with his Blue Flame, when Jay Garrick arrives and takes the brunt of the blast. He hits the vibrational containment block holding Thawne.Meanwhile, Flash has followed Zoom to the year 2980 where a cult is worshiping a Thawne. Thawne announces that the Tornado twins are dead. Flash sees Zoom on the other side of the room, preparing to jump forward and grab the Blue Cobalt Gem.

This page is the encounter between Max Mercury and Sela Allen explaining Sela’s story.

Just as an aside, I’ve really stopped the whole buying comics things although I keep finding myself checking out things from the library. I was always a big Flash fan and I’m trying to figure out right at this moment how to put that into words.

There was something very appealing about the character and I can’t really say I became a big fan until the end of the Barry Allen run in the early 80’s when Carmine Infantino returned to the book and the Flash was on trial for the murder of Professor Zoom.

So, it’s not early in the character‘s history and before that while I had an interest in the character it wasn’t as big as it later became. At the time, reading the book and watching Carmine Infantino’s work with the Rouge’s appealed to me a great deal. Then Mike Baron came along right after Crisis and the book was rebooted with Wally West (I have ever been a big Nexus fan so when Baron came on as the writer I was pleased indeed).

Overall there was quite a good run on the title for a very, very long time.

Check out my Comic Art Fans Galleries! © All scans copyright PJ Mungiole 2011 - may not be reproduced, reused, reposted without permission.

Have I told you?

F*@k you... lately?

Oh... people just have no sense of humor sometimes.

While I’m writing this I hear that song in my head. Maybe I’ve been listening to WCBS FM a little bit too much and I am thoroughly sick of the fact that this old Rod Stewart song is heavy in their rotation. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I just finished that book about National Lampoon. It’s probably a bit of a combination of both.

I just envision this song parody along those lines that is fairly raunchy but sums up all the venom that occurs at the demise of a relationship. Someone I know is walking around playing ‘bitter, angry guy’ as the divorce becomes final and I think it would be the song of choice for him.

Reading corner.

I’m spending a lot of time reading lately.

Reading, reading and more reading. It’s as if I rediscovered it. Last year, I was doing field work where I was required to meet up with my group leader every couple of days and the place we would meet up at is the local library.

I never really set foot in the library much before and it’s a bit funny because the library is fairly new too.

It’s a beautiful building with plenty of light and commanding views and it even has a cafe in the bottom. So, it was something of a revelation to me that there was this very cool place I could go to and not only that libraries are much more modern now. Not at all as I remember them.

So, I’m a reader again which is a lot better than being a book buyer (and I’ve spent far too much money over the years on books).

So, what have I been reading?

Maybe that‘s something I can make a bit of a regular feature out of because truly it’s an eclectic list. The hard part is going to be remembering what I have checked out from the library over the last few months because I’ve checked out so very much!

This week though, let‘s talk about the book I just finished the other day.

It’s a book on a topic I found fascinating and if you are around my age you’ll probably find it fascinating too. Even if you’re not a peer in terms of age, if you have any love of comedy or the history of it, it’s a book worth checking out.

You can click through and listen to an interview with the author here as well as read an excerpt from the book. Or if you’re lazy just click on the window below: